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Empire of Assassins (2011)
To put this in perspective...
Empire of Assassins is not actually a "movie" at all, but an abridged version of a Chinese TV series. Many people here have commented on the poor production values, but I think they are selling the series short. The production values are actually quite high for television, and aside from the fact that it's shot on (rather good looking) digital video instead of film, the costumes, editing, cinematography, fights, etc... are all easily par with an average 1990's style Hong Kong Wuxia movie. I've seen a few of these adapted TV series before, and this one looks better than most, honestly. The dubbing seems "off" because even in China, these series are often shot without sound, and all dialogue and sound effects are added later.
However, all of that can't save the plot from being fragmented and oversimplified, since it's been cut down from an original that would have been many, many hours longer. It helps to know what you're dealing with... this is NOT a lavish cinematic affair like CROUCHING TIGER or HERO. This is a condensed version of a cheap little TV action drama... and in that sense it not so bad if you're looking for a little bit of that retro wire-fu action. Think of it as Saturday morning cartoons, with more blood and exotic weapons. :)
Hak kuen (2006)
Pretty awful...
I've watched a lot of HK action films... some are pretty amazing, many are guilty pleasures, and sadly a few are just plain awful. This one falls into the latter category.
Fatal Contact is terrible, and not in that "so bad it's good" enjoyable sort of way. The writing is awkward, the acting is hollow, and the direction is stiff and joyless. Every scene is miserable. It's like someone made a backyard-grade production with half a normal film's budget.
I don't speak Chinese, so I read the subtitles... which means I can be pretty generous with regards to the performances, especially in a martial arts film. When I can tell how flat and mechanical the acting is, even across the language barrier, you know it's pretty bad. The dialog is recited as if read from scribbled cue cards. Actors stare at nothing in particular, making nervous faces like they've just ad-libbed a bad line.. they even sometimes look at the camera. This may seem like a petty complaint for a silly action movie, but it really makes it impossible to enter into the film and feel any excitement.
The script is similarly weak...dull, fragmented, predictable, preachy, and at times painfully misogynistic. Even for manic HK genre film, the tone is inconsistent. It seems to hit a sour note at almost every turn. I might have praised this film for showing illegal underground boxing matches in realistically mundane environments like old train stations, fluorescent-lit rented hotel conference chambers, boat marinas, etc, but somehow the lack of interesting locations or presentation often robs the scenes of any drama they would normally have. Instead, it just feels cheap and unimaginative.
So what about the action? Jacky Wu has always been a competent martial performer, if not particularly engaging on a personal level, and the action sequences should be the highlight of this film. Unfortunately, the impact is consistently killed by bad editing and unexciting villains. The choreography is pretty dull and unexciting. Every confrontation is a disappointment. Granted, Wu does pull off a couple of sweet moves. Unfortunately I mean that LITERALLY... I think I counted them and there are about two. Wu is a proved talent, but this film is strong evidence that having good screen fighters is not enough to carry even a fun action cheapie if every other aspect of the movie fails.
Notably Ronald Cheng DOES sort of portray an interesting character... I was hoping for him to become more significant in the story, but don't be fooled. NOTHING happens with this character. That goes Lam Suet and Ken Lo too, sadly. The familiar HK supporting faces in this film are no indication of its quality.
I was under the impression that a Dragon Dynasty release would at least be worth a look. Don't waste your time... or if you must, skip to the fight scenes just to relieve your curiosity. Nothing else here is even remotely worthwhile.
The Invader (1997)
Seen this story somewhere before... hmmm... so familiar....
Here we are: two travelers from a distant futuristic world arrive on earth... one is on a desperate mission to preserve a life, another is an inhuman killing machine determined to eliminate the woman who will give birth to the saviour of an entire race.
So what could we call this killing machine? It's almost like he's some kind of destroyer, or eradicator... sort of like an exterminator or something. What's the word I'm looking for... something that -terminates- things? Hmmmm....
Anyway, the protector (who swiftly doffs the white tunic he stole from Luke Skywalker in favour of local clothing) finds the young woman first and impregnates her with a future-born hero-to-be. The evil uhhhh... "exterminator" kills some rednecks and steals their guns and clothes, then attempts to locate the woman by visiting her workplace and asking around by looking menacingly into people's eyes and repeating her name threateningly.
Then begins a desperate race for survival as the seemingly deathless and unstoppable "exterminator" pursues the couple across the countryside. At some point he may acquire boots and a motorcycle, but I'm not sure.
Perhaps, in an exciting finale, he will attempt to crush them under the wheels of an enormous tanker truck full of... acid. Then the truck will crash. They will be saved... but no! He will then re-emerge, as strong as ever. He will kill the protector and pursue the girl into a meat packing plant, where in a terrifying finish, he is pushed into a large piece of industrial chopping machinery, and destroyed once and for all.
But maybe I'm extrapolating too much... after all, I did stop watching this movie after Mr. Protector magically impregnates Sean Young by kissing her at a bar, then tells her the child will be born in 3 days.
The costumes and effects are great in this movie... I loved them the first time I saw them on Star Trek: Next Generation too! Sean Young does another great turn as an unemotive Replicant, and career sweat-hog Stephen Baldwin is also on board as Young's Fat Cop Boyfriend. Not sure where he fits into the plot though... maybe he's an import from a different James Cameron movie?
The Brothers Grimm (2005)
A beautiful, amusing, frustrating mess...
William and Jacob Grimm are two young shysters in a Napoleonic-occupied Germany, who run a sort of charlatan-exorcism business by combining Jacob's genuine love of folklore and Will's knowledge of science and gadgetry. After bilking superstitious peasants by ousting fake spirits, they are apprehended by absurdly stereotyped French soldiers and offered a deal. They will be spared the guillotine if they expose a plot in a neighboring town where the locals are in a panic over disappearing children.
Chaperoned by an outrageous, sadistic Italian mercenary, they set out to solve the mystery. Naturally, it turns out that there is more than mere subterfuge at work... the woods are truly cursed by the spirit of an ancient evil queen who resides in a rickety spire at the center of the wood. They are aided in their misadventures by a maverick huntswoman... a kind of grown-up wanna-be Keira Knightly in a fusion of both her KING ARTHUR bow-wielding-celt role and her PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 19th century feminist character.
Normally I love Terry Gilliam's work... I find it amusing that an earlier poster recommended this film to those who like Tim Burton, since Gilliam's been at this for much longer than that.
However this film was a muddled, chaotic mess. Frantic, but without the resonance of Gilliam's usual stuff. Rather unfortunate, since some of the magic was there. It was a very pretty mess, after all...
Throughout the story, Gilliam's trademark baroque fairy-tale visuals are in full bloom, and at every turn, there are references to numerous Grimms' tales... some appropriate, some almost random. However the tone is inconsistent, the plot convoluted, and the characterizations hasty and absurdly exaggerated.
Themes of folkloric narratives invading the "real" world, 19th century tall-tales, and the contrast between Doubters (like the shrewd womanizing Will) and Dreamers (the befuddled and hopelessly romantic Jacob) are not new to Terry Gilliam, but these ideas were much better exposited in earlier films such as TIME BANDITS and especially ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, than here in BROTHERS GRIMM.
I think it could have done with less CGI and more of his oldschool practical effects, but that seems to be par for the course these days, there were some great images overall... wacky, almost Python-esquire at times, while at others darkly disturbing.
As a good fairy-tale should be I guess...
And BROTHERS GRIMM is full of cool stuff... big bad wolves, shapechanging woodsmen, magical objects, carnivorous ambulatory trees, malevolent (and terrifying) mud-gingerbread men... so I hate to give it a total pan. Yet, it's at best an amusing failure by a creative and interesting director... perhaps not unlike Ridley Scott's Legend, I suppose.
Worth seeing if these elements interest you, but prepare to sift through a muddled, slapdash mire of uneven acting, chaotic mood swings, and generally hastiness, despite it's almost 2-hour running time. Too bad.
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
This is the one that REAL zombie fans have been waiting for!!
I was practically giddy watching this film... as a zombie movie, despite being a comedy, this film really is the one I've been waiting for ever since discovering the Romero classics in high school. It truly is the smartest, most reverent, and possibly -best- zombie movie made since DAY OF THE DEAD... maybe even DAWN OF THE DEAD! ( yes, I realize that's a form of heresy )
The key here is that everything was just done so right! As a comedy, it works... the performances are very strong, especially in our main lead. You never really feel that the characters' only reason to exist is to set up a zombie punchline. The writing is fluid and clever, and you care about Shaun and his friends too.
It's also important to point out that although this is a comedy, it is NOT a parody. Although there are some hilarious, occasionally satirical moments, the film is predominantly "straight". It simply treats itself as a sincere British blue-collar comedy... as invaded by bonafide Romero-zombies! There is nothing completely absurd or slapstick here... the circumstances are deadly earnest. All the situations are wonderfully reminiscent of those fleeting daydreams we all have had after seeing DAWN OF THE DEAD, applying the possibilities of zombie attack to our own mundane realities. Where would you hide? Where would you find a weapon? Who would you save? Would you crack under pressure or would you be a real survivor?
Add to this that the zombies themselves are actually quite pathetic, obstacles more than true threats. Yes, that's right... slow zombies!!
I've long held that fast zombies are an aberration, going for the cheap fright, and ignoring what zombies are really all about. Fast zombies are like werewolves that shoot lasers out of their eyes... sure it's "more dangerous, more scary", but it misses the point. It's good to see here that the spirit of the Romero zoms is being kept, er... alive?
Overall, a solid film... and as a genre homage, brilliant! This one really rises out of the mire of the zombie-retreads we've seen lately. A must-see!
Dao (1995)
A furious revisionist kungfu movie.
The Blade is a whirlwind of blood, dust, and psychedelic colour. Beneath its rough, brutal appearance lies an uncompromising and technically evolved offering from Hong Kong's prolific director/producer giant Tsui Hark. Based on the old-school kung-fu classic The One-Armed Swordsman, The Blade tells the story of a young man adopted by a renowned blacksmith, who discovers that his true father was killed by superstitiously powerful bandit named Lung, "who it is said can fly!".
When he impulsively goes out seeking revenge, he runs afoul of a gang of desert scum and loses his right arm in the encounter. Ashamed, he goes into hiding but after finding an broken weapon and the tatters of an old swordfighting manual, he begins to come to terms with his self-loathing, and eventually learns to compensate for his loss. With half a sword, half a technique, and still one arm short of a pair, he returns to his old home to confront both his past and the man who murdered his father.
A simple tale of vengeful perseverance here gets a nihilistic gritty art-house treatment. The action takes place in an amoral, almost post-apocalyptic desert landscape. Hark's camera speeds around with abandon, capturing both the bleak setting and the lush expressive palette of the characters' internal emotional landscape. In terms of camera style and visual dynamism, this is Hark's most adventurous film. Although seemingly frantic, it is never random. The cinematography bears a meticulous attention to detail, and the editing has a razor-sharp rhythm of its own.
There's a lot going on under the surface here. The simple story is fleshed out with a dark sensuality. Along with themes of surmounting obstacles through hard work, and misplaced honour in a harsh and selfish world (kung fu movie essentials), we find commentary on lust, gender, and simple pragmatism as well. Early on, a Shaolin monk, icon of heroism, meets a grisly, inglorious end, signifying that this is not just another heroic martial-arts fantasy. And yet heroism survives, in the form of a crippled man with a broken, cleaver-like weapon... just one more way The Blade offers new twists on old conventions.
This being a Hong Kong martial-arts movie, the action is to be noted. Where fluid idealized wushu forms might normally prevail, a certain street-level grittiness and desperation takes hold. Even when characters are performing incredible feats, you find yourself thinking "So this is what kung-fu fighting was really like."
Although Chiu Cheuk and villainous Xiong Xin Xin can certainly deliver spectacular physical displays (as seen in Hark's later Once Upon A Time in China films), in The Blade the camera and editing take the lead. While some reviewers tend to forget the "cinema" part of "martial arts cinema", and complain that much of the action is concealed by the breakneck editing and moving camera, there is still an impressive amount of wushu on display in this film, and the frenzied cutting serves to heighten the excitement and the abilities of the performers, even without implied supernatural powers or gratuitous wire stunts. As a result, the final 15 minutes of this movie frame possibly some of the most furious, breathless, vicious fight sequences in cinema history.
Believe it!
The Thin Red Line (1998)
A solid movie, in spite of a few faults.
It's true, this is a very long movie. It runs just under 3 hours, and much of that is quiet and internal, so it helps to be fresh and awake when you watch it. That said, I was never bored with this film, in spite of the meandering camera and plot. This isn't an in-your-face war movie, but instead takes a more hypnotic approach. This film looks past the apparent subject of the war in the pacific to frame moments of sublime natural beauty.
Occasionally some of this parade of music and languid imagery crosses the line into near-parody. The choral voices and idyllic images of native children swimming in crystalline waters all feel a bit cliché, and there's a sequence of a woman on a swing that is like being hit with a whole truckload of sentimental stereotypes. Thankfully, these are only brief lapses, and for the most part, the imagery is handled with great humility and elegance.
Also, the internal monologues can get a bit tiresome. To me, the persistent philosophical internal voices of the characters are entirely unnecessary. They come in waves of empty metaphor and naively melodramatic ruminations. After the first few such interludes, I just tuned them out and focused on the more immediate visual and experiential aspects of the film, which I find to be a much more potent combination.
Among the strengths of this film is its ensemble casting. The odd thing is that if you go into this expecting a Woody Harrelson/George Clooney/John Travolta/John Cusack movie, you're in for a surprise. The cast is an ensemble in the true sense of the word, many actors making up one whole. Most of the big names are just faces in the crowd, who speak their parts, and pass through. Even Nick Nolte and Sean Penn, who have fairly large roles, are not our protagonists, so much as forceful bits of scenery for the real main characters, all relative small-timers, to bounce off of, and really shine. The way the narrative passes through so many hands, through several viewpoints, gives Thin Red Line its epic scope. It is a journey through the experience of war, not just a vehicle for gory set-pieces on the beaches of D-Day, like Saving Private Ryan.
Oddly enough, I consider this movie an excellent companion piece to Saving Private Ryan. Both movies manage to depict WWII in two very different and effective ways, and the experience of seeing one compliments the other. While not as colorful as Spielberg's D-Day, Thin Red Line's grassy ridge siege is an amazing, extended piece of performance and cinema, and every bit as successful at putting you in those fields, and in the soldier's experience.
All together, this is a smart, affecting movie, that rarely takes the easy bait for thrills or shock value, and succeeds in spite of its few misteps.
Dung che sai duk (1994)
A haunting postmodern genre revision...
Loosely based on the Chinese heroic literature classic, "The Eagle-Shooting Heroes" by prolific Wuxia author Louis Cha, ASHES OF TIME is conspicuous for the unusual and postmodern approach it takes to a genre so firmly entrenched in Hong Kong cinema.
The "story" consists interactions between various characters as they weave in and out of each other's lives, with a small village in a bleak desert wasteland as the crossroads. These vignettes are not always sequential, and we must gradually piece together the relationships and backgrounds of the protagonists, some of which contribute to a larger story, while others do not. The all-star cast portrays a varied palette of characters, perfectly flawed incarnations of fantastical beings, with performances teetering on the line between disarming humanity and iconic romanticism.
One thing to love about this movie is the way that director Wong Kar-Wai takes the reflective internal monologues and quirky, alienated losers from his other films and transposes them to the world of Chinese heroic fantasy. It's an interesting idea that both ennobles and deconstructs the genre. Martial-arts superheroes who can literally shear mountainsides with a wave of the sword, mired in their own personal conflicts and bouts with inadequacy, in the points of time that occur between the legend-worthy events. This unusual treatment lends these mythic characters a familiar dimension that is both poetic and banal. The cast and the desert are wrenchingly beautiful in the same starkly desolate way. The music consists of odd synth dirges, like a moody clash of Ennio Morricone and Vangelis (particularly the 1492 soundtrack), but it is nonetheless hauntingly atmospheric.
ASHES OF TIME is a truly beautiful movie. The cinematography is a lush blend of stunningly arid vistas, iconic posturing, minute sensual gestures, grainy documentary-style camera-work, and stylish, impressionistic fight sequences. A visual metaphor for textiles and tapestry persists, with the various interwoven plots echoed in the camera's almost tactile attention to fabric and texture throughout... sometimes tightly bound like an inescapable net, others fraying apart like elusive memories.
That said, this movie is not going to appeal to everyone. The disjointed dreamlike narrative can be confusing initially, with so many characters behaving in obscure ways, backwards and forwards in time. Still, in the end, if you take some time to retrace your steps, it all does fit together remarkably well. The puzzle pieces really do form a coherent picture, but for most people it will probably take a second viewing to see it all.
Also, those looking for the action sequences Hong Kong movies are famous for, will find the emphasis is on the characters and their meandering thoughts. When the (nonetheless exciting and very cool) action scenes do take place, they are blurred hyperkinetic washes of motion. While Hong Kong action films have some of the greatest choreography captured on film, ASHES OF TIME attempts to capture an impressionistic, psychological aspect as well, sometimes obscuring the action as much as displaying it.
This movie takes many of its cues from Sergio Leone's revisionist westerns. The stylized desert environment is the wastes of New Mexico revisited through Chinese legend, complete with tormented superhumanly-skilled anti-hero swordsmen/gunslingers, lost, deromanticized ideals, melodramatic showdowns, and roving hundreds-strong gangs of horse thieves. Still, Ashes of Time manages to be its own beast, a technical, artistic, visual, sentimental masterpiece, that gives a new twist on old conventions, while simultaneously managing to belong very much to Wong Kar-Wai's thematic oeuvre. A movie you won't easily forget.
La cité des enfants perdus (1995)
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant...
What more can be said about this movie? The words "darkly beautiful" become a little redundant. City of Lost Children combines the mood of some of Roald Dahl's more twisted stories and the visuals of a Terry Gilliam tour-de-force with a uniquely European lushness. Comparisons with with movies like "Dark City"(which it predates) are obvious, but when all is said and done, this is a much more intensely original, visual, complete, and above all, magical, piece of filmmaking. It clearly transcends any sci-fi/fantasy genre to take its place in a league more perhaps with films like Kurosawa's "Dreams" It is a film that still manages to inspire emotion in spite of being a little nasty, but never enough to dispel your sense of childlike wonder.I don't know where charges of plot incomprehensibility come from... it all makes a perfect internal sense, an odyssey in a 1920's rusting industrial cyberpunk dreamworld.
Having viewed this movie both on the large screen, with wonderful english subtitles (resembling an aging typewriter font, fitting in perfectly, rather than detracting from the atmosphere), and on non-widescreen video with horrendous english dubbing, I can safely say it loses a lot in the transition. In its pure form, the sensuality of the characters' luscious gutter-french, and art direction beautiful enough to make your eyes cry blood tears, this is a visionary film you will never forget.
Sonachine (1993)
More genuine male bonding than any John Woo movie.
It's true that this is not truly what one usually expects an action movie to be. As much as I love all that stuff, Sonatine is something that affects me on a deeper level. I was fortunate enough to catch it on the big screen, which is possibly the best way to see it. Not due to spectacular cinematography, effects, or explosions, but because this is that rare type of movie that captures an ambiance and a sense of 'place' in such a way that you can feel transported. Ambient natural sounds and quiet vistas draw you in. You can sense the gentle breezes over the dunes, smell the sea air, or feel the warmth through the windows as a mini-bus trundles out of a sun-baked parking lot.
This is a Yakuza gangster movie about human emotions, not just tattooed iron men and sullen street punks. The violence that defines their life gradually gives way to a sense of renewal of a pure human spirit. Sure, we've all seen those movies about how the gangsters hiding out together grow paranoid and hostile, and eventually turn on each other. How often do you get to see one where they all start to loosen up and like each other, returning to a childlike state of grace?
This movie is about the time that takes place between all the major events in other action movies. The slow sequences are alternately contemplative and charmingly gentle. The violent moments are as sudden, intense, and shocking as in real life, retaining an unvarnished authentic weight. All of this camouflages a film full of spontaneous whimsical humor and underlying humanity. It's hard not to grin at the childish antics of the hardened criminals, suddenly liberated from the shackles of their lifestyle, and find something redemptive there.
Kitano has the tight-lipped charm of all the great leading macho men; a stout, taciturn Japanese Charles Bronson, whose quiet, unflinching exterior conveys a tainted, tired soul. This makes it all the more worthwhile when we finally see him break into a mischievous boyish smile. That said, while not as boisterous or acrobatic as someone like Chow Yun Fat, Kitano shoots people with an icy detached cool that is both exciting and unsettling to behold.
In many ways Sonatine feels essentially Japanese; sparse, meditative, lyrical, a little repressed,... yet elegantly beautiful for all of this. Recommended for a change of pace.
Not recommended for people who hate the beach, though...