Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Action/ Martial Arts/ Drama/ Suspense/ Bullet Ballet
Director: Michael Mak
Year: 1989

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars


TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE

I have to admit, when I sat down to watch Long Arm Of The Law III, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot. The third entry in the series is fairly obscure, unlike it’s more famous predecessors, which I thought was most likely a good indicator of quality. Also, star Andy Lau wasn’t the best actor at this point in his career. This is one of those times when I was really grateful to be wrong.

If you’ve watched a fair number of Hong Kong flicks, you’ll have noticed that for a refugee from Mainland China in Hong Kong, being threatened with repatriation is about as welcome as being boiled in oil. Long Arm Of The Law III goes a long way towards explaining that.

As the movie starts out, some friends of Li Cheung Kong (Andy Lau) seek shelter in his home. They’re on the run from the police, and Li Cheung Kong reluctantly helps. The cops find Li Cheung Kong’s friends and in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Li Cheung Kong is sentenced to immediate execution for his trouble. Communist China doesn’t fool around.

I trust that it’s not much of a spoiler to say that Li Cheung Kong manages to escape and makes his way to Hong Kong. Along the way, he meets Seung Mun (Elizabeth Lee) and the two hit it off.

Once they get to Hong Kong, Seung Mun is sold into sexual slavery and Li Cheung Kong ends up in a gang headed by Master Leung (Kirk Wong). Li Cheung Kong agrees to do jobs for Master Leung if he will help Kong rescue Seung Mun. In reality, Master Leung is just stringing Li Cheung Kong along because Kong is an extraordinary fighter and extremely brave and capable.

All of this is not exactly original but it’s a sturdy enough premise. What makes or breaks a movie like this is execution.

Let’s start with the acting. Andy Lau is excellent as Mainland innocent Li Cheung Kong, who is nonetheless not stupid and highly capable. Elizabeth Lee is quite sympathetic as Seung Mun. But the real star here is Kirk Wong, oozing depravity as one of the nastiest villains I’ve ever seen in a Hong Kong flick, and that’s saying a lot. Max Mok and Elvis Tsui also make strong impressions as Li Cheung Kong’s best buddy and the Mainland cop relentlessly pursuing Li Cheung Kong, respectively. The casting is deep, too — Long Arm Of The Law III is littered with tremendous character actors. I’d especially like to single out Chow Shing-Boh as a brothel keeper. This guy is so slimy he makes your skin itch.

Then there’s the script (Johnny Mak and Stephen Shiu) and direction (Michael Mak). The pace never slackens. Our heroes constantly go from the frying pan into the fire. The filmmakers almost never let our heroes off the hook. Whenever there’s a coincidence, it works in favor of the villains. The only exception to this rule involves a cell phone with a poor connection. Given the constant unbearable jeopardy, that was something of a relief.

But how about the action? The Action Director is Tony Leung Siu-Hung, if that tells you anything. The fighting is of the hard-hitting realistic, brutal Golden Age of Hong Kong variety. Characters are flung into walls, through glass, onto furniture and so on. Whenever someone is kicked or struck, you wince from the impact.

The gunfights, especially the final one, are just blistering in their intensity.

The only minor bone I have to pick with Tony Leung Siu-Hung is that he stints on the incredible stunts that we’ve come to expect from Hong Kong movies. Whenever someone jumps or falls from a high place, he cheats the action, making a cut between the fall and impact. We never see a continuous stunt. On the one hand, Tony Leung Siu-Hung was being responsible. He didn’t want any of his stuntmen to make a trip to the hospital. On the other hand, that sort of recklessness is part of what is so indispensible about Hong Kong movies from that period.

In spite of this minor caveat, Long Arm Of The Law III earns its stripes as one of the most balls out intense action films from the Golden Age (1985-1995). By all means, check it out.

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Country: United States
Genre: Action/ Comedy/ Suspense
Director: Tom Gries
Year: 1975

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars


TRASH CINEMA HIGHLY RECOMMENDED MOVIE

Many times, revisiting genre movies from the past can be dispiriting. The violence is no longer jarring, the pace seems lethargic, the acting is from an extinct style. On the other hand, Breakout is better than I remembered, and I enjoyed it the first time.

The plot is simple enough, a mere McGuffin. Jay Wagner (Robert Duvall), who owns a hacienda in Mexico, is in a position to embarrass the CIA and compromise North American business interests (that’s about as specific as it gets). Normally, that would make him a dead man, but his grandfather, Harris Wagner (John Huston) happens to be allied with those business interests. Harris doesn’t want the blood of a relative on his hands, so he arranges for his grandson to be railroaded for a crime he didn’t commit and sentenced to life in a Mexican prison. How merciful.

Anyway, Jay’s wife Ann (Jill Ireland, better than usual here) confides in Harris about her plans to help Jay escape and somehow, each time the Mexican police are miraculously well-informed and waiting to foil the plot.

Into this mess walks border rat Nick Colton (Charles Bronson). Initially, his motivation in rescuing Jay is purely mercenary, but he develops feelings for Ann. Colton, in the classic Bronson tradition, may not be terribly bright, but he is street smart, so he suspects fairly early on that someone close to Ann doesn’t want her husband to be rescued.

Doesn’t sound like anything special, does it?

Well, it’s all in the execution. Writers Howard B. Kreitsek, Marc Norman, and Elliott Baker create lived in, likeable, and believable characters. This creates a strong rooting interest. No one is superhumanly intelligent, strong or anything else. All of the events are plausible. This creates a great deal of suspense because we know that our heroes aren’t going to be rescued by a ridiculous coincidence or John Wayne heroics.

Director Tom Gries, who I am completely unfamiliar with, does a great job with the actors. In less sure hands, Charles Bronson can strike false notes. Here, not only is he believable, he’s quite funny. Jill Ireland is usually a terrible actress, but Gries protects her so that she comes off as brittle but kind of sweet. Randy Quaid and Robert Duvall are their usual dependable selves. Sheree North is a riot as Myrna, a good time girl who used to run with Nick, now married to a possessive and jealous cop.

But what about the action? Well, there isn’t much, really. A few shootings, a couple of chases, one beating, and a delightfully tossed off collision of a pedestrian with an airplane. What makes the action work is that we perceive that it’s happening to real people we care about instead of the standard action mannequins.

Surprisingly, Breakout works both as a comedy and as a suspense thriller. It’s modest in it’s scope, but with characters this engaging, who cares?

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Country: United States
Genre: Action/ Drama/ Martial Arts
Director: Billy Chan
Year: 1987

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars


TRASH CINEMA HIGHLY RECOMMENDED MOVIE

Before we get started on Code Of Honor, I’d like to vent a little bit.

The state of Hong Kong film preservation is simply deplorable. For example, the best print Tai Seng could get for Code Of Honor was an old Ocean Shores dupe, which itself was a fullscreen copy of a videotape. This is for one of the better titles from the Golden Age of Hong Kong (1985-1995), and this situation is not at all uncommon.

End of rant.

Code Of Honor begins during the late 70s, in a Vietnamese refugee camp in Hong Kong. Triad bigwig Ho Chen Tung (O Chun-Hung), is being pursued by dozens of chopper wielding thugs through the crowded halls of the camp. It looks like his goose is cooked, until he has the good fortune to run into good Samaritan Han (Lam Wai). Ho Chen Tung is so grateful that he fronts the funds to Han to start a business and later gives him a blank check — literally.

After Ho Chen Tung’s brush with death, he decides to retire from active participation in the daily activities of the triad, moving into a supervisory role, where he watches over the activities of his lieutenants, Mad Piao (Shing Fui-On), Pao (Sunny Fang), and Yukuda (Yihara Shinichi).

But external pressures disturb this fragile equlibrium. The first factor is Ho Chen Tung’s son, Fai (Chow Yun-Fat), who has never quite forgiven his father for the death of his sister at the hands of chopper-wielding thugs. Fai seems ready to believe that his father has truly retired, and asks him to come live with him in Australia. The second force at work is Mak Sir (Dick Wei), whose father was murdered by Ho Chen Tung many years before. Mak is determined to avenge his father, even if it means breaking the law and causing considerable collateral damage.

Ho Chen Tung’s lieutenants, contrary to his advice, have been involved in high-risk, high-profit ventures like drugs and gun-running, which has left them open to prosecution. When Mak has them arrested, will they remain loyal to their boss?

Code Of Honor methodically shows how, when self-interest is sufficiently threatened, airy-fairy concepts like honor are the first to get tossed overboard.

Director Billy Chan supports the grittiness of the scenario with run and gun handheld camera work, blunt editing, and brutal fight choreography (directed by King Lee King-Chue) that is practically indistinguishable from the real thing. This is not the Fred Astaire influenced fight choreography of Jackie Chan. There is little grace here, just animals fighting for survival.

There are several standout scenes of this type. In one, Wai (Shum Wai), one of the triad members, tries to rape Du Siu Lai (Chui Sau-Lai). Although Shum Wai’s leering is funny, as usual, the simulated rape attempt is hardly a laugh riot — it’s a barely stylized version of the real thing. I would be surprised if the actors weren’t black and blue the next day.

There are two or three fight scenes involving Lam Wai that take place in close quarters that are marvels of construction. The actors slam each other into walls and furniture and down staircases, all the while parrying blows.

Another highlight of Code Of Honor is a lengthy chase scene involving Lam Wai being chased by Dick Wei and dozens of cops through what looks like row-rent housing. High jumps, swift fights, and full out running are captured by hyper-alert cinematographer Cheung Tak-Wai. The chase sequence is beautifully structured, with numerous dramatic reversals, ending with a capper that made me laugh out loud. The only minor flaw is a bit of over-enthusiastic undercranking.

One of the most unusual things about Code of Honor is the lack of conventional heroes and villains. I guess you could say that Ho Chen Tung is depicted as being honorable, but you’re continually reminded that he did kill a policeman in the old days. Mak Sir may be a policeman, but he tortures suspects and is motivated by vengeance rather than justice. Even Han, who is loyal to Ho Chen Tung, is a cold-blooded murderer.

The rooting interest is uncertain. Do you want Mak Sir to catch up with Ho Chen Tung? It’s not clear cut. Director Billy Chan plays with your sympathies from one moment to the next. I didn’t want anyone to lose, really. That does wonders for increasing interest and suspense.

In keeping with the heightened documentary realism of Code Of Honor, the violence is raw, especially a scene in which Mad Piao metes out payback to a snitch.

The only thing that keeps Code Of Honor from being an absolute classic is a certain lumpy quality to the pacing, which keeps you aware that you are watching a movie. As great as individual scenes are, you are never drawn into the fictional world of the film completely.

Certainly you can’t blame the actors, who are all terrific. Lam Wai, O Chun-Hung, Dick Wei, Chui Sau-Lai, and Shum Wai all contribute intense work. You may wonder why I’ve barely mentioned Chow Yun-Fat. That’s because his role amounts to a glorified cameo. He was billed as the star of Code Of Honor to capitalize on his superstar status following the blowout success of A Better Tomorrow.

But never mind. Code Of Honor doesn’t need Chow Yun-Fat to succeed. It’s a very good triad drama, with a handful of superb individual sequences. Highly recommended.

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Country: United Kingdom
Genre: Drama/ Suspense
Director: David Yates
Year: 2003

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars


TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE

First of all, this isn’t the recent American movie with Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe. It’s the original BBC miniseries. I actually haven’t seen the American version, but often times, the British originals are better. A great example of this is Traffik. The Michael Douglas version is just a potboiler and actually kind of offensive in it’s oversimplified and bloviating way. The original miniseries is a stone classic. I was hoping for something similar from State of Play, but in spite of some excellent acting, writing and production values, it’s curiously unsatisfying.

In the opening minutes, there are a couple of murders. A member of Parliament, Stephen Collins (David Morrissey) is in the center of the doings. It seems that Collins in the head of an Energy commission. We also overhear some parlimentary debates over social programs funding. Hah, we think. There’s got to be corporate skullduggery going on here. And indeed there is.

But the writer of State of Play, Paul Abbott, is playing on our expectations from other movies, from Raw Deal to The Constant Gardener, in which corporations give no more thought to murder than popping a tick. Abbott repeatedly introduces plot elements which point to a large, deadly government/corporate conspiracy, but more to fu*# with the audience than anything else. Paul Abbott wants us to ask ourselves, wouldn’t governments and corporations think of murder as a last resort, given the potential legal and financial ramifications? Maybe he has a point, but personally I enjoy corporation/government bashing, not to mention movies where people drop dead at regular intervals.

Trying to get to the bottom of the mystery is journalist Cal McCaffrey (John Simm), who was once Stephen Collins’ campaign manager. He’d like to protect his friend, but as a reporter, his ultimate loyalty is to the truth, right?

Frankly, the most entertaining aspect of State Of Play is the character work. Bill Nighy walks away with the miniseries with his portrayal of Cal’s boss, Cameron Foster. Nighy’s droll, dry sense of humor is very British, not to mention hilarious. I especially enjoyed his relationship with another reporter, played by a pre-stardom James McAvoy.

In fact, even though State Of Play is essentially a political suspense thriller, the parts that worked the best were essentially comedic. The other standout role is Dominic Foy, who may have a connection to a corporate spy. He’s played by Marc Warren. As the miniseries progresses, Foy becomes increasingly paranoid and frantic. He uses his character’s physical infirmities to better comic effect than anyone since Kiefer Sutherland in the immortal classic Freeway. (If you haven’t seen Freeway yet, stop reading this review and go out and rent it.)

I dunno. On a technical level, I don’t have many criticisms of State of Play. It’s beautifully lensed and acted, and screenwriter Paul Abbott’s depiction of both the news and political worlds strikes me as both nuanced and realistic, and yet…

The gangbusters opening of State Of Play promises a brutal rush of excitement that Abbott has no intention of maintaining. In spite of a fair amount of suspense, State Of Play is almost an anti-thriller for people who think that regular thrillers are too vulgar. If that’s you, why are you reading a website called Trash Cinema Club?

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Country: France
Genre: Action/ Comedy
Director: Jacques Deray
Year: 1970

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE

I’ve got to warn you. I saw Borsalino under less than optimal circumstances, which might cloud my judgement on the merits of the film.

The print I saw was copied from a long ago TV broadcast, so the quality was low to start with and the compression of the recording was so high that there was considerable pixelization of the images. To make matters worse, the subtitles were often not properly synced to the dialog. I had to struggle to comprehend who was saying what. On the few occasions when the subtitles matched what the characters were saying, Borsalino magically became much easier to follow. I suspect that the narrative construction of Borsalino is better than what I personally experienced.

On the other hand, I’m probably inclined to cut Borsalino some slack because I got such a kick out out of how the French express themselves.

Borsalino takes place in Marseilles in the 30s. Roch Siffredi (Alain Delon) has just been released from prison. He finds out that his girlfriend, Lola (Catherine Rouvel) is now seeing François Capella (Jean-Paul Belmondo). Siffredi ends up in a brawl with Capella, only to find that they are evenly matched. Now bosom buddies, they team up, running small-time scams around the edges of the criminal underworld. They’re sufficiently clever and ballsy that they prosper.

This section of the movie, which lasts about an hour, is mostly played for laughs, fun and games. Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo are handsome and charming, although Delon has such an ice-cold demeanor that you wouldn’t doubt his capacity to commit premeditated murder. The dialog is full of Gallic nonchalance, and director Jacques Deray’s depiction of the events is bracingly matter-of-fact. The piano-centric score by Claude Bolling contributes to the generally jolly atmosphere.

When high level mobster Poli (André Bollet) foils one of our boys’ boxing scams, Siffredi takes it personally, and proposes that he and Capella knock off Poli and take over his rackets. Capelli initially isn’t interested until he’s bitch-slapped for hitting on Poli’s girlfriend.

Borsalino is unique in that the young punks who want to wipe out the established order are the heroes. They’re vain, murderous and greedy, and yet the audience has no one else to identify with. How French.

You’ve got to remember, back in the early 70s, the only people in the world who were making cheerfully amoral movies were the French. To me, there’s something fun about that.

So, how well is Borsalino done, from a filmmaking standpoint? It’s hard to tell for sure, since the image I saw was cropped, but the compositions seem clean and tasteful enough. The camera moves are fluid, without calling attention to themselves. The production design is excellent, really giving a feel for the era being depicted. The casting is impressive, in that the faces could have been lifted from photos from the 30s. It’s funny to think that Borsalino itself is now more firmly in the past than the 30s were when the film was made.

The fight scenes are fairly convincing, by the standards of the 70s. The scenes involving gunfire have a sense of danger about them, although they aren’t particularly graphic. There’s one pretty good fire stunt.

I don’t want to oversell Borsalino. It’s a chance to check out a French period gangster flick. That means charming performances, cheerful amorality, and some existential posturing. There’s no attempt at anything heavy. It’s a light, disposable entertainment. If that sounds good to you, check it out.

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Country: United States
Genre: Drama/ Mainstream
Director: Gus Van Sant
Year: 2008

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars


WORTH A LOOK

I’ve got to be honest. Even though I enjoyed Milk, it’s not a very good movie.

Before you get your panties in a bunch, let me explain why.

First of all, I’ve got to acknowledge that there’s a lot of good acting in Milk. Sean Penn is phenomenal, even more so than it seems. Some wags say that Penn earned his Academy Award for smiling alot, but that’s not true. Penn essentially becomes a joyful man. His Milk is not merely a bundle of mannerisms. Sure, his body language is very specific, but it seems to proceed from the inside out instead of merely being an affectation. On a less exalted level, Emile Hirsch, James Franco, Denis O’Hare are also very effective in their roles. Finally, Josh Brolin is terrific as Dan White. He captures a vulnerable man who is unprepared to deal with the cutthroat world of San Francisco politics.

And to give some credit to screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, he resists the temptation to paint Dan White as a cartoonish, gay-hating cretin. His portrait of Dan White is properly complex, even sympathetic. Unfortunately, Black doesn’t do as well with Milk himself.

When Milk ruthlessly pulls a power play to prevent Dan White from being reinstated as a City Supervisor after he resigns, it doesn’t make much sense in the context of the character we’ve seen up until then. In reality, Harvey Milk was a ruthless politician who did betray Dan White. His personal life was also far messier than Black and director Gus Van Sant are willing to admit. Yes, Harvey Milk was a hero, he was brave and determined, but he could also be a sonofabitch.

In that way, Milk is very conventional, painting its subject in the standard Hollywood colors. It verges on hagiography. There was nothing cuddly about Harvey Milk. Director Gus Van Sant and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black insist on Milk’s sainthood to such an extent that it damages Sean Penn’s brilliant performance. That’s a shame.

Another problem is that Black’s dramaturgy is flabby. There are too many ungainly pauses, and too much of the time, events happen in a cute Hollywood way that trivialize the enormity and difficulty of what Harvey Milk accomplished.

Still, with all of the flaws of Milk, it does provide a major public service. For those who are were unaware (that would include me), gay people in the mid-70s were brutally oppressed. Yes, I knew that there was the ever-present specter of gay bashing, and that the cops weren’t much interested in prosecuting these crimes. But what I didn’t know is that the religious right, spearheaded by orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant, was attempting to reverse civil rights legislation for homosexuals and that they were in fact succeeding. Gays were in a desperate fight for survival and Dustin Lance Black’s script makes this frighteningly clear. Proposition 6, if passed, would have called for all gay schoolteachers in California to be fired, as well as anyone who supported them. Harvey Milk was in the center of the fight to defeat this proposition. His strategy was to have gay people come out to their families, friends and employers. Why? Because it’s very difficult to dismiss gay people as a group of deviants if you happen to know some personally.

My Indonesian wife is a good case in point. She has an evangelical Christian background, and before she came to this country, she was very prejudiced against gay people. But after she got here, she made friends with a couple of gay folks, and after that, she stopped believing it was a lifestyle choice and all that other crap that the religious right likes to claim.

Surely Gus Van Sant knows that the story of Harvey Milk is more complex and problematic than what he has presented on the screen. My guess is that he felt that since there was only going to be one movie about Harvey Milk, it was best to portray him and his struggles in the most heroic light possible, for propagandistic purposes. He’s got a point. What with the ascent of the religious right in national politics and the AIDs epidemic, the gay civil rights movement needs all the help it can get.

I am sympathetic to Gus Van Sant’s aims, but to me, his responsibility is as a filmmaker first and a gay man second (although I’m sure he wouldn’t agree). I wish Van Sant had given us a warts and all portrayal of Milk, but this is certainly better than nothing.

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Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Horror/ Drama
Director: Oxide Pang
Year: 2004

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars


NOT WORTH YOUR TIME

Here’s the problem: with Ab-Normal Beauty, writer/director Oxide Pang creates a thoughtful, lovely examination of the artistic mind, but then he takes a big dump on his own work by tacking on horror/thriller elements which don’t add to the discussion he started. The shame of it is that he might have easily been able to incorporate these thriller elements if he’d given it a little more thought.

Jiney (Race Wong) is a sensitive, imaginative young girl. She’s a prizewinning photographer at her art school. We observe Jiney and her friend Jas (Rosanne Wong) as they roam the city, taking pictures. At one point Jas urges Jiney to move on. She thinks there are no pictures worth taking where they are. Something in Jiney says otherwise. Then she moves underneath an expressway overpass to take a photograph; in a lovely composition, the expressway cuts a sinous snakelike form between columns of highrises. What Jiney has done is to either impose form on chaos or find the form in what seems to be chaos, depending on your point of view.

That is what true artists do.

But what drives Jinney? We find out that she has a trauma in her past. Traumas, especially ones that involve betrayal and invasion of personal space, lead imaginative and sensitive victims to search instinctively for order or reason in a world that seems to have gone mad.

This often manifests in arranging elements in the world (paint, clay, photos, etc.) to evoke a sense of order. The artist may do this simply for the pleasure of creating order out of chaos, or it may be that the artist wants to wield power by controlling a tiny little corner of his or her world, and to lead others to see the world the same way. These are healthy and reasonable desires.

If a artist has been hurt badly enough, they may start to seek out and explore violence and death as materials in their art. Again, this may be a way of controlling what is uncontrollable, or it may be an outgrowth of anger at those who hurt the artist.

These are the sort of things that are driving Jiney.

Oxide Pang uses the cinematic language he has developed to express the alteration or warping of perception so intrinsic to the artistic process. All of the blurring, fast motion, slow motion, and jump cuts which I normally despise are used by Oxide Pang for a legitimate reason, to mirror the subjective state of the characters.

The music by Payont Permsith occasionally becomes too bombastic when subtlety is needed, but in most respects, Oxide Pang uses the tools of cinema responsibly to develop his themes, at least for three quarters of the movie.

(I should probably also mention that his two lead actresses, Race Wong and Rosanne Wong, do a terrific job. They’re believable as best friends, and as sensitive young people trying to find their way in life.)

Unfortunately, Oxide Pang isn’t content with a psychological drama. Late in the game, he introduces new plot elements designed to be commercial, which end up making nonsense of what came before. Someone starts sending Jiney photographs and videotapes that seem to be snuff-oriented.

Ab-Normal Beauty, which started out as a psychological drama enriched by philosphical discussion of the artistic impulse devolves into a dopey thriller. It didn’t have to be this way.

Not everyone who is drawn to imagery of violence and death gets the same thing out of it. Some people enjoy the depiction of violence and death because it feeds their sadistic impulses. These people have responded to childhood trauma or being warped by exposure to sick individuals by wanting to create new victims, rather than by looking inward for the answers.

It would have been very easy to incorporate these truths into the narrative. Then Oxide Pang would have had his commercial thriller elements and would have been able to expand his discussion of the artistic impulse even further.

The end result of Oxide Pang’s failure to consistently work his themes through the narrative ensures that Ab-Normal Beauty doesn’t work either as a thriller or as a psychological drama.

The only people who should be interested in checking out Ab-Normal Beauty are other artists. That’s really a shame because Oxide Pang clearly had something to say and the ability to say it well.

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Country: United States
Genre: Action/ Martial Arts/ Comedy
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Year: 2003

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars


TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE

Here’s my biggest problem with Kill Bill Volume 1. It doesn’t work as drama because Quentin is too busy geeking out.

Why should that be a problem? After all, Quentin Tarantino has been archly quoting from his favorite movie genres as long as he’s been a director. It’s never gotten in his way before. But there’s a big difference between a movie like Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill Volume 1.

In those earlier movies, Tarantino somehow managed to have his cake and eat it, too. His movies were extremely stylized, both in terms of dialog and misc en scene. And yet, all of this riffing on his favorite genres never completely overwhelmed character and story. In Pulp Fiction, you were horrified when Uma Thurman overdosed on heroin. In Reservoir Dogs, when the policeman was being tortured, you really felt for the guy. Those movies managed to simultaneously operate on two levels. In Kill Bill Volume 1, the balance is off.

Tarantino piles on so many layers of style that the drama collapses under the weight. I don’t question that Tarantino understands Spaghetti Westerns or Eurotrash thrillers or Samurai movies or Golden Age of Hong Kong action flicks or Shaw Brothers movies or any of the other genres he references. It’s just that he overindulges, showing zero restraint.

To be fair, sometimes this lack of restraint pays off. In the House of Blue Leaves sequence which climaxes the film, the endless lopping off of limbs and arterial spray is stylistically appropriate and quite funny. (To fully appreciate the joke, it’s necessary to obtain the Japanese Uncut version of Kill Bill Volume 1. The American version segues to black and white footage during the bloodiest action. This was Tarantino’s way of mollifying the censors while archly commenting on the same, attempting to change a limitation on his artistic freedom into a virtue.)

However, too often, Tarantino will flog a scene to death with prattle which is intended to call attention to and subvert the cinematic conventions he’s referencing. One example is a Yakuza board meeting in which the ancestry of O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) is questioned. Tarantino’s authorial voice becomes way too obvious, obliterating the character of O-Ren Ishii. Sometimes his jokes fall flat, too. I’m thinking especially of the “silly rabbit” line.

Tarantino also miscalculates on how many times he can trot out Ennio Morricone spaghetti western themes. It becomes distracting. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one genius example of Quentin’s use of music. It comes during the House of Blue Leaves sequence. As practical music, he has a Japanese girl band, the 5.6.7.8s, playing. Not many people know this, but the Ventures, a surf rock group popular in the 60s, continued their career in Japan after the 60s and were immensely popular. This had a huge influence on popular music in Japan up to the present, which includes the 5.6.7.8s. The songs the 5.6.7.8s play are perfect for Tarantino’s conception. They’re cheeky and mocking but they’re also authentic to the mileau and don’t break the mood of the piece. In fact, they enhance it. I only wish Tarantino had been as subtle for the rest of the movie.

I guess Tarantino figured that the simple revenge saga he came up with as a clotheline for his raiding of various genres was sturdy enough to withstand any amount of fooling around. He was wrong.

Tarantino’s overindulgence of his inner geek sabotages some good performances, not least from Uma Thurman, who plays our hero, The Bride. She’s never less than convincing as an assassin or as a mother grieving for her unborn child, but her emoting can’t find any traction in the nonstop genre mixtape Tarantino has put together. Vivica A. Fox is a blast in the small role as Vernita Green. Her switch from suburban mom to trash talking badass is hot stuff. Chiaki Kuriyama, so memorable in Battle Royale, is a standout as a depraved bodyguard in a Japanese schoolgirl outfit. Sonny Chiba and Gordon Liu are their usual dependable selves. In fact, all of the Japanese and Chinese actors are terrific. They manage to find just the right balance between social realism and caricature that Tarantino’s conception calls for. This is not a terribly big surprise since the cinematic traditions of both countries are steeped in this balance. The biggest disappointment in the cast is Lucy Liu as O-Ren Ishii. Even though she barely cracks a smile, it’s too obvious that she’s in on the joke. As bizarre as it sounds, the sort of ridiculous revenge saga and genre raiding that Tarantino is doing demands extremely subtle acting to achieve maximum effectiveness.

Okay. Well, how about the action? Tarantino actually directs several types of action in Kill Bill Volume 1. The first action sequence is in the Golden Age of Hong Kong style (1985-1995), and Tarantino actually pulls it off as well as you could possibly expect, given that he was working with actresses who aren’t martial artists, namely Vivica A. Fox and Uma Thurman. The films Tarantino was referencing, like the Tiger On The Beat flicks, typically used real martial artists who had a background in Shaw Brothers martial arts flicks, so the action director had the luxury of shooting sequences from medium distance with a minimum of cutting, so you could enjoy the fluid movements of the performers. Also, at that time, there were zero regulations around stuntwork in Hong Kong, so outrageously dangerous stunts were the norm. In contrast, Tarantino uses lots of cutting and closeups, but he gets the energy and flavor right.

Tarantino does even better in a sequence involving Uma Thurman and Chiaki Kuriyama. In this one, The Bride faces off against O-Ren Ishii’s bodyguard. It’s samurai sword against mace and chain. I’m not sure how many of the ideas belonged to martial arts consultant Yuen Wo-Ping and how many should be credited to Quentin Tarantino, but this sequence would fit in with some of the finest work of Hong Kong’s Golden Age. That’s high praise indeed. The characters are reflected in their fighting strategies, which you can follow every step of the way. The action is just brutal, in that Golden Age of Hong Kong style. For me, this was the high point of the film.

The swordfighting throughout the rest of the House of Blue Leaves sequence is a matter of quantity over quality. It’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of, especially considering that Uma Thurman is not a martial artist. The swordplay compares favorably to that in such classics as Lady Snowblood, for example, but is not as witty as the Lone Wolf and Cub flicks. In terms of modern day swordfighting, the sequence from So Close, choreographed by Corey Yuen, also kick’s Quentin’s ass. But the sword fighting in Kill Bill is still not bad. One thing I did like about the sequence was Quentin’s feverish quoting of the bloodiest moments from the Lone Wolf & Cub series. Lopped off limbs, decaptitations, bodies split in two, severed stumps spraying arterial gore — it’s a regular Fantagoria festival.

In the end, Kill Bill Volume 1 doesn’t really gell as a coherent work of art, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. Individual bits are superb. Just don’t expect a masterpiece and you won’t be disappointed.

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Country: Korea
Genre: Drama
Director: Yun-ho Yang
Year: 2007

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars


NOT WORTH YOUR TIME

Faithful readers will no doubt recall that I consider Jerry Bruckheimer responsible for indirectly ruining more action movies, through his bad example, than any other director alive. Directors of the world: stop imitating Jerry Bruckheimer! Unless you’re only trying to make money, that is, because artistically, he sucks balls.

Lately it has come to my attention that Tony Scott, an infinitely more talented filmmaker, has been having almost as bad an influence on directors of thrillers. The latest evidence is Rainbow Eyes, a psychosexual thriller from Korea.

Director Yun-ho Yang abuses two tropes from the Tony Scott canon. The first is the locker room bantering set almost to a musical beat. Yang pushes it too hard, which is a pity. One of his characters is a working class cop who’s none too bright. He’s only too happy to close a case, even if he has the wrong perpetrator. That’s an honest and realistic character, often found in Korean films. If the character was treated with a lighter hand, it would lend Rainbow Eyes some welcome humor. As it is, the character becomes a distraction.

But the far more damaging stylistic tic Yang copies from Tony Scott is his visual excess. Yang constantly uses every film trick he can come up with: lens flash, slow mo, speeded up scenes, frantic jump cuts, etc., etc. It’s bad enough on a TV. I can only imagine the world class migraine headache theater goers experienced after watching Rainbow Eyes on the big screen.

This is doubly a shame because director Yun-ho Yang is actually a very capable visual stylist. You could take freeze frames from Rainbow Eyes at random, blow up the images, and use them to decorate an entire highrise full of luxury apartments. Yang’s compositions are often exquisite, and he uses almost every color scheme imaginable. That’s part of the problem. Instead of sticking with six looks for his film at the most, he overloads the screen until the effect is as if he’d puked glitter all over his film. Maybe that’s where the “Rainbow” in the title of his film comes from.

Yun-ho Yang cares so much about showing off that he blows the big chase that climaxes his film. He slices and dices the footage so feverishly that the work of the stunt drivers is diluted until it ceases to have any effect.

However, Yun-ho Yang’s failure as a director isn’t too big a loss because the screenplay by Jeung-ae Han is an incomprehensible mess, anyway. It shouldn’t have been that difficult. Writer Jeung-ae Han started out with an interesting story.

Someone has brutally murdered the owner of a fitness club by stabbing him more than 20 times. That sounds personal, no? The investigation becomes more complex as there are more murders, and evidence is uncovered which suggests that the owner may have been bisexual, so the assailant might have been either female or male. There is a team of policemen investigating the murder, but the screenplay concentrates its focus on two of the cops.

Detective Jo Kyeong-yoon (Kang-woo Kim) takes a special interest in the case when it turns out that the victims were army buddies of a childhood friend, Cha Soo-jin (Su-kyeong Lee). Jo Kyeong-yoon is so wrapped up in the case that he blows off his fiancee repeatedly, once while she is trying on a bridal dress.

His girlfriend isn’t the only woman Jo Kyeong-yoon is ignoring. His colleague, detective Park Eun-joo (Min-sun Kim) has an unrequited love jones for Jo Kyeong-yoon and becomes increasingly concerned as Jo Kyeong-yoon unravels under the strain of the investigation.

Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, the way the clues are uncovered is needlessly confusing, which is only exacerbated by the visual clutter. Much of the time, big hunks of exposition are dropped clumsily into the narrative. Only by the end of the movie does the viewer understand what was going on and by that time, it’s much too late.

The only reason I’ve given Rainbow Eyes even two stars is because of the beauty of director Yun-ho Yang’s compositions. If Yun-ho Yang ever gets his head out of his ass and stops trying to imitate Tony Scott, and pays more attention to narrative clarity, he might become a good director.

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Country: United States
Genre: Action/ Drama/ Romance
Director: Dito Montiel
Year: 2009

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars


WORTH A LOOK

Oddly enough, in Fighting, the background action is more interesting than what the picture is ostensibly supposed to be about.

In it’s bare outline, Fighting couldn’t be more straightforward.

Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard) happens to witness Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum) in a street fight and is impressed. He arranges a series of underground matches for increasingly high stakes. The only problem is that Shawn refuses to throw fights. The payout for the final fight is $100,000. Shawn agrees to throw the fight, but when the time comes, will he? Boring. We’ve seen this scenario many times already.

But writer/director Dito Montiel has something more interesting and personal in mind.

How did Harvey Boarden happen to see Shawn fight? Did he just happen to be passing by? Nope. You see, Harvey is a low-rent hustler. He’s such a bottom dweller that he was trying to hustle Shawn, who was hawking ipods and bootleg Harry Potter books near Rockefeller Center. Here’s how the scam works. One person pretends to be interested in Shawn’s wares. Another person distracts Shawn while a third person steals his bankroll. Shawn responds as best he can, beating the crap out of one of the scam artists while Harvey looks on.

To Harvey, Shawn is his ticket to the big time. He offers Shawn a chance to make some money fighting. Shawn isn’t too swift and goes along with it without knowing who his opponent is. For that matter, Harvey doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing either. Really, they are both losers, cruising for a bruising.

I love the way Terrence Howard plays Harvey as a shambling wreck with a line of patter that’s not nearly as smooth as he thinks it is. Shawn, on the other hand, is a typical highschool jock, heavy on the testosterone with not a lot going on between the ears.

We aren’t dealing with sharp characters here. That’s smart writing because if our heroes are in over their heads, there’s some actual suspense. They might well get hurt.

Writer/director Dito Montiel raises the stakes further by shooting in real locations in the Bronx and Brooklyn, using non-actors to give his scenes the stink of authenticity. There is real danger in the first half of the picture because we sense the unpredictability of real life.

Unfortunately, halfway through the picture, writer/director Dito Montiel loses his nerve and the picture reverts to a rehash of the moldiest genre conventions. If Montiel had stuck to his original intentions, he might have had something truly original, a street fight flick taking place in the real world, a place where the good guys don’t always win.

Still, the fighting sequences are engaging enough, even if the later ones become increasingly less innovative. And Fighting takes us places we haven’t been before. It kinda makes sense that there would be an underground economy in Manhattan that lurks in the shadows, just out of sight. If it weren’t for Fighting, I would have never known it was there. And it doesn’t just feel like an invention. The writing by Robert Munic and Dito Montiel has a specificity to it that feels like the real thing.

In the end, Fighting is entertaining enough, even if the pat and overly optimistic ending disappoints. This is the kind of picture where you take what pleasure you can in the ethnographic details, aura of danger, and engaging fight choreography and dismiss the rest as the warmed over garbage it is.

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