mykungfuistrong Reviews

Tampopo (1985)

Food Porn

[3/10 · 1 August 2014]

This is quite literally food pornography in many scenes. You can accurately judge the whole film by the credits scene, which is a 2 minute close up of a woman's nipple as she feeds her baby.

The film documents the rather Japanese obsession with food and the "correct" way to eat, prepare, or order it. You can tie it into sexual repression and the replacement of enjoying food instead of enjoying sex. (There is no kissing or sex between any of the characters in the two main love stories, unless food is in their mouths.)

The main story of a woman seeking to become the best noodle chef is supplemented by several short scenes of random strangers that are loosely based on the food theme as well, but otherwise have nothing to do with the main narrative. A lot of people would probably like this film a lot more if those unrelated scenes were cut out, leaving the main narrative at about 1 1/2 hours. As is, they are often very seriously filmed while meant to be darkly, bizarrely comical. I don't think many people will find them funny, and some scenes actually reinforce a lot of negative ideals in Japan. For example, a couples' food fetishism beginning when a gangster buys an oyster from a child diver (she might be 12 or so) and eats it from her hand, whereby they start making out. A husband attempts to keep his wife alive a few minutes longer by demanding she make the family dinner before dying. An old lady with dementia damages all the food in a grocery store while "inspecting" it, and the store owner chases her around the store.

These highlight very real issues in Japan. Ignored mental illness in the elderly. Rigid gender roles and unhappy marriages. The worship and fetishization of young girls by men old enough to be their fathers. Far from being a document of these issues, the film does not seem to censure them in anyway, and actually to support them a bit. Take them out and you're still left with a main story that has hollow comedy, is mired in boring details, and has an irresolute love story. And it's all built around the idea that a woman needs a team of men to teach her how to be a good noodle cook, despite one's comment that "I never believed a woman could be as good of a noodle chef as a man!"

Frankly, it's a movie that is cleverly directed, but whose story and tone were archaic at the time, and are even more disgusting by modern standards. Look elsewhere for depth or entertainment.

No Regrets for Our Youth (1946)

If you're not a film geek, is this worth watching?

[5/10 · 14 April 2014]

All the reviews of this title are people who clearly love the director and have lots of knowledge about his work and Japanese films from 70 years ago. What if you are not especially interested in 70 year-old films? What if you don't need to watch everything by one critically- beloved director?

Well, then, you don't need to watch this movie. In short, it's old, very old. From a historical perspective, it did some things very different, very interesting. But compared to nowadays, a lot of the acting doesn't resonate. The directing seems unpolished and cheesy in parts. It's slow-moving and has several over-long scenes. It skips over a lot of historical details that the audience may have to research to fully appreciate why the characters feel the way they do. Basically, it's a film for a very select, educated audience at this point.

If you don't usually watch ancient Japanese films, there's no reason to make a special exception for this one.

Ip Man 2 (2010)

Do NOT watch for the martial arts!

[2/10 · 23 March 2014]

Firstly, I think some people will look at any martial arts film, even one based on a real person's life, and say "What does the story matter? As long as there's good action!" Even if that's you, do not waste your time on this film.

Donnie Yen is amazing, and Sammo Hung is also a legend, they both do great work. There is ONE scene with them that is worth looking up on Youtube. However, there are many other scenes in the film that focus on other martial artists, or more likely actors who TRY to do martial arts. The quality level just isn't there. There is a lot of use of wire-work, and lots of quick editing to make it look like there is power and speed to the fights when actually there is none (even for some of Yen's moves). There is even a fight in the movie with a character wearing boxing gloves, and this is portrayed as not making him any slower or less-damaging to the other fighters. Not only is it a fair fight, he's even MORE powerful than them. Most of the fights are just ridiculous, not close to the level of the first Ip Man film.

Another comparison to be made to Ip Man 1 is that these films both claim to tell a story based on Ip Man's life. Now, while the first film showed Ip Man doing manual labor and having a public fight with a Japanese general (which weren't true), the film was at least based on truths from the real time period. Many Chinese were impoverished, were victims of Japanese brutality and atrocities. It was modern Chinese propaganda, but it had a historical basis.

Ip Man 2 is just blatant propaganda. Ip Man did move to Hong Kong and open a school. There was a boxing match between his STUDENT and a Russian boxer. And.....those are pretty much the only parts of the film that have any basis in reality.

Every British person in the film is only interested in exploiting the Chinese and keeping them making money for them. I actually looked online to find any basis for this and couldn't. All the main roles are such one-dimensional, raging, racist assholes that it's hard to believe they wouldn't be killed in their sleep their first night in Hong Kong. The Chinese characters, on the other hand, do some pretty horrible things to each other, and show zero concern for the lives of other Chinese. But the message in the film is that if you unify against non- Chinese, then you prove your worth and all will be forgiven.

This is a 2 hour piece of propaganda, plain and simple. "Hong Kong, don't fight China! Our real enemy is the foreigners who hate our skin color and history! It is what binds us together, so ignore any oppression by Chinese in power, and instead tell the foreigners that they must respect us!"

The End

P.S.- For a good Yen/Hung film, watch S.P.L! It has awesome fights AND an actual plot!

The Big Blue (1988)

Not an enjoyable film if story is important to you...

[3/10 · 8 March 2014]

A lot of people seem to rave about the film because they felt emotionally affected by it. I got recommendations to watch this from so many people. And yet when I asked them what it's about, not 1 could tell me. Well, I'll tell you. Essentially, it's the story of two childhood friends who grow up by the sea and develop an obsession with it. Unable to connect with real people, they become world-champion free divers, and the film is basically about them competing for the world record.

This could be an intense, beautifully shot film, but it ends up being long, meandering, and nonsensical. I thought Jean Reno was great in it, as I've known some Italians like him. However, the other characters were completely unbelievable to me, and the story was...well, kind of retarded.

Without spoilers, I will say there are several deaths in the film that are ridiculous and completely avoidable, at least from the way Besson shows them, they are.

The character choices are also ridiculous, with women reduced to broad, sexist stereotypes of becoming easily obsessed with commitment and children, and chasing men with little or no reason.

There are a whole lot of beautiful shots of dolphins and ocean locales, but if you want to see that, you can watch the Discovery Channel or "Planet Earth", no need to make a 3 hour excuse for a story.

In the end, I can't possibly recommend anyone waste their time on this. There are so many better films for nearly any way you could look at it...romance, story, acting, atmosphere, etc.

Bijitâ Q (2001)

Bizarre, disgusting, psychopathic, and unfunny

[1/10 · 3 March 2014]

If you read some reviews of this film that mentioned scenes involving a horny, faithless husband, a miraculously-lactating housewife, an abusive teenage son, and a despicable whore of a daughter...you might think "wow, that movies sounds so crazy and messed up that I HAVE to check it out! Anyone who doesn't like it probably just had their delicate sensibilities offended." Some reviewers imply "if you don't GET it, you just are too narrow- minded to appreciate Japanese cinema and culture." They seem to think it's a dark comedy. I think perhaps at some point the actors thought they were making a dark comedy. But there is nothing to GET about this movie, and nothing to laugh about.

It is only by watching how the "story" unfolds in the film that you can really experience the creeping revulsion that the film brings on. It opens with a Japanese businessman in a "love hotel" with a girl half his age who is trying to seduce him into paying for sex with her. This is shot on hand-held video, which may have been edgy at the time, but doesn't matter now. This scene could be erotic or possibly funny until you realize that the girl is actually the man's daughter, and not an estranged one or anything. Now I've lived in Tokyo and this is all the more disturbing to me because a lot of young girls do sleep with men old enough to be their fathers for money, and a lot of men do barely know their daughters. But I hope and pray no one actually pays them for sex.

Much less that the daughter then complains the father finished too soon and wants to charge him more. He doesn't have enough cash, so says he'll give the rest to her mother later.

If you are reading this and think it sounds like a hysterical, incredibly black comedy, I assure you that the film is edited and scored in a very sparse, gritty way so that there are no comedic tones to it. It is extremity for extremity's sake, a hallmark of Miike's films.

From there, the film gets worse. You watch as a teenage son routinely beats his mother while no one in the family bothers to look up from dinner. The mother is unloved by her husband too, and so goes into town to sleep with men for money to buy heroin. Apparently though, none of these things are really her trouble. Her trouble is some kind of metaphysical manifestation of her inability to be a mother, which a stranger takes care of by squeezing her breasts so hard that she reverts to post-natal lactating. Thereafter, this is all she cares about, and wants to squeeze out milk all over the floor or wherever she happens to be. Trust me, this is neither funny nor erotic.

The husband, meanwhile, has found that his son is being bullied by neighbor kids, which explains the apparently nightly bottle-rocket assault on their house, which no one bothers to fix. This entire plot line is really stupid and twisted. Bullying is actual a very topical problem in Japan recently, but it is fairly pedestrian bullying of teasing and exclusion from groups, as opposed to the beating, home attacks, and urinating on the son that they show in this movie. Even one event like this in Japan would make national news, yet the parents don't care or acknowledge its strangeness in any way in the film.

The father doesn't care about his son at all, instead thinking to film his abuse and use it as a news story for his job as a reporter. When he shows this idea to his female boss (HA! I'd love to see that in Japan.) she detests him. He resents this rejection, so he decides to rape her by the side of the road and accidentally/on purpose chokes her to death. So he hauls her corpse home to rape. But he gets stuck raping her, physically. So his wife comes to help him pry himself loose, with all the emotion of helping someone out of a jacket. Should I go on?

Again, perhaps you're thinking this sounds so over-the-top that it must be funny. Again, I assure you that it is presented in a way that is filmed like a drama. It is not remotely funny. I will not judge the fans of the film who laughed at bits like killing a woman and raping her corpse, but I have to wonder what it is that they found amusing about it?

There is an attempt to thread these characters together with a kind of metaphysical angel who subtly helps them to come together as a family again. A family that has sex with everyone and anything and doesn't demonstrate any human feelings for anyone. It doesn't work at all.

To me, this is the director throwing as many taboos into one story as he could think of, and thinking that shock had value. The actors, looking for fame and trusting an established director, just went for it. And moviegoers were fooled into thinking they were seeing something edgy. Instead, it's a desperate attempt to be creative and relevant just by doing something that no one else would do. Because they know better.

Half a Loaf of Kung Fu (1978)

The TRUE start of Jackie Chan's career

[5/10 · 9 October 2010]

Jackie had moved from the Peking opera to the film industry as a teen, but had done mostly bit parts, eventually gaining respect behind the scenes for his commitment to stuntwork and willingness to do anything in any film. However, Hong Kong directors were still trying to figure out what Bruce Lee had done, and he was suddenly gone... they tried to find a replacement for him and copy his films, but the magnetism and quality wasn't there, leaving the HK film industry churning out a lot of mostly forgettable schlock in the 70s.

Jackie was coming up in this time, and a lot of his earlier roles attempt to cast him in the part of the upstart hero. Audiences at the time didn't go for him however (he was well-known then for NOT being handsome) and directors tried casting him as a stock villain, which didn't really work either.

Finally, uber-director/producer Lo Wei let Jackie start having more creative control, finally resulting in Jackie acting as the 'action director' or 'martial arts director'. You see a bit of this in the film "Shaolin Wooden Men", but it starts really blooming here with "Half a Loaf of Kung Fu". In this film, you see a huge emphasis on comedy over action, and very avante' garde choreography for the fights. This is also a departure in tone from many of Jackie's previous films which centered on oppression and hardship and featured quite graphic violence, death, and rape. Here, the comedy is almost nonstop, with Chan continuing to fight a man even as he's just hanging impaled on a spear....which everyone soon realizes and all have a good laugh about.

The story bears a lot of similarities to several of Jackie's partnerships with Chi-Hwa Chen, like "Shaolin Wooden Men", and "36 Crazy Fists". The 'hero' is actually a bumbling fool, who nevertheless manages to improve his kung-fu to heroic levels in a very short period of time. Of course, the traditional kung-fu masters are actually not the best, the fool learns all the best techniques from old drunken hermits who taunt him as they berate and steal from him, much as Yoda later would to Luke. These same off-the-wall techniques are, of course, the secret to finally defeating the evil gangsters who are rampaging in the town/village/countryside. These films also all have a great number of random story elements and lightning-quick plot twists. Characters are introduced out of nowhere, form alliances, double-cross each other, patch things up, or ultimately die suddenly, all before you can figure out why they were in the film in the first place! If you're looking for Shakespeare, you won't find it here, but the story of this movie actually took me back to being 6 years old and just being amazed at the freshness and unpredictability of these films compared to your cookie-cutter Hollywood movie. There's a definite charm here.

The comedy, on the other hand, fell pretty flat for me. It doesn't quite work as a satire of the films at the time, and it's not as fine-tuned as the comedy in his later films.I chuckled a couple times, but mostly it was a lot of over-the-top cheesy slapstick that I don't think would appeal to most people that aren't an Asian audience in the 70s.

The martial arts is a bit of a mixed bag. The regular performers aren't doing anything very special here, and this is definitely an ensemble film. Even Jackie takes quite a while to warm up, as the whole point in the beginning is that his skills suck. The sequences toward the end of the film start becoming more and more inventive, though, and it's a kick to see Jackie 'learning' wacky techniques and then trying to apply them at every chance in future fights. The final fight is a worthy addition to the Chan 'notable fights' reel, with him attempting to study scrolls of techniques littering the ground WHILE fighting, so that he can then use those techniques IN the fight! It's good stuff, and exemplary of why this movie is the first real step into the Jackie Chan films we all later came to know and love.

Redbelt (2008)

Another take on the film

[4/10 · 27 September 2010]

It seems most people who saw this film really liked it. It also seems that most of those people are really familiar with writer David Mamet's work, and really follow that. Most people give credit for the 'excellence' of this film to the script. I really have to disagree.

For me, the film started out really promising. I dig that the main character is too noble for the world around him. I get that the nobility he exhibits and brings out in others seems to just bring them all more pain. There's really some great philosophy and mixed martial arts in the early parts of the film. It's later in the film that everything falters.

*****SPOILERS AHEAD***** First off, the whole middle of this film contains little to no action. Fine, fine, but not really satisfying for a film that's all about martial arts. Second, the motivations and machinations of the characters seem too convenient and intricately orchestrated. The whole deus ex machina with Tim Allen's movie star character is just too convenient, and then suddenly there's this masterpiece of a plan involving all the other characters that've been introduced. The lawyer in the beginning suddenly becomes essential at the end, etc. It's all too convenient and sorry, that's just poor writing. The wife abandons the main character pretty quickly and easily...she seems quite loving and concerned in one scene, and then completely done with the relationship the next scene! A world class fighter is going to risk damaging his reputation, getting arrested, and possibly getting really injured all for an out-of-the ring fight?! Why would he jeopardize his career when he clearly only cares about money? The main character wins one fight, and then an old Asian man is hugging him? I live in Japan, old Asian men rarely demonstrate emotion with physical contact, much less to strangers! *****END SPOILERS*******

Basically, the whole 2nd half of the movie just seems shoehorned together to pay off the concepts introduced in the first half. For a movie that's so cleverly written in parts, it adopts an extremely convenient viewpoint on how things fit together later. To me, it just became really cheesy and unbelievable. It's a shame too, because it is well-acted and there are a couple moments with some great MMA work. It had a lot of potential, but ultimately it was just frustrating for me. Perhaps I'm just not a big enough Mamet fan.

The Spirit (2008)

Miller's shining days are over; Rodriguez he's not.

[1/10 · 17 May 2010]

It is pretty much accepted that this is not a good film. The people who defend it largely don't try to argue that it's good, they just say it's not THAT bad. I disagree. It IS that bad. It's horrible. It's the most god-awful mess I've ever seen, and I've watched an absolutely insane amount of movies.

The culprit here is Miller, and his script. Miller was responsible for groundbreaking comics in the 80s/early 90s, known for his visual style and bringing grit and noir to comics. However, he's lost touch. The comics he's done the past 15 years have been almost parodies of his former work. The same thing happens here. He goes for stoic, dry humor and ends up with slapstick. He tries to lay down a cool narrative and ends up with a pervasive reminder of how the film's lost it's way. He adds nothing new or original to the genre, and actually takes tried and true conventions of film noir and finds a way to make them tired and boring.

This carries on to his directing. He wants cool visuals, but they're so overdone they actually take away from the appeal of the film. There's no sense of subtlety here, none of the appeal that made the original film noir great. He's inconsistent with the execution, the dialog, the technology. At times it's modern, other times it's dated. He just has no idea when to reel it in. It takes a pretty horrible writer/director to make actors like Scarlet Johannsen sound like they need to go back to acting school.

Oh, but wait, it doesn't stop with Miller. No, there's plenty of horrible overacting and poorly delivered lines from the small parts to the mainstays of the film, Jackson and Macht. They try to deliver the dialog with sass...it ends up coming out like a Troma film. There's a fine line when doing period pieces like this, and it requires some skilled acting to pull off the dialog and get the feel right. "The Rocketeer" worked pretty well. It can be tricky even if you have the talent. "The Good German" really didn't work.

Compared to a Troma film, this movie has way too much money thrown at it, which actually works against it. If this were some student film, you might say "hey, maybe that guy'll do something decent one day" but it's so glossy on screen you know that this is a project that the studio gave the director everything he wanted...he threw it all up on screen and it was so much at once that it fell even flatter.

The film is just a train-wreck from beginning to end. Nonstop cheesiness, an inane "plot", if you can call it that, trite and demeaning characterizations, and an attempt at 'style over substance' that fails even in that because Miller doesn't know how to use the style artfully instead of spastically.

It is hands down, the worst film I've ever seen. Worse than Battlefield Earth. Worse than Batman & Robin. Worse than some crappy Bring It On sequel, I don't even know what the name was, but it had Hayden Panetierre in it. Yeah, worse than THAT. There is just NOTHING about this film that works. Not even Eva Mendes hot, naked ass can make it worth watching.

And a final word: some people have tried to say this is supposed to be a parody. You'd think so, wouldn't you? But no, it's not. It's supposed to be fun, sure, but not a parody. A parody takes well-known conventions and turns them on their head. "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" is a film noir parody, and a great one at that. This simply takes the conventions and exaggerates them in an attempt to do everything bigger and better. But instead it comes off shallow and weak.

Avoid this film at all costs. It's not even worth watching to see how bad it is. It's not even a candidate for that "so bad it's good" category. It just has nothing to recommend it. You've been warned.

Sid and Nancy (1986)

Even Gary Oldman can't save this.

[3/10 · 21 October 2007]

How does this movie have a 7/10 score? I wanted to like it, I really did. Gary Oldman is my favorite actor, and he's in fine form here, although his "Sid Vicious" accent degenerates into a kind of generic Brit accent by the end of the film. I was interested in the story of Sid and the Sex Pistols, but true to the title, the film focuses squarely on Sid's relationship with Nancy. The film assumes a general and broad knowledge of the life and events of Sid and the Sex Pistols. You get tidbits of reportedly 'real' happenings from infamous stories, but it plays out as a disconnected series of events, without any framework to ground you in the lives of any of the characters. The dialog is mostly semi-coherent drug-induced babbling while stumbling blindly from one downtrodden location to another. In short, the film, much like Sid's life, is a train-wreck. Is this intentional? Trying to capture the feeling of what it was like? Maybe, maybe not. But it's a moot point. The film's main fault is in failing to create any sympathy for it's characters. Unlike other films which show the unglamorous cycle of drug dependency such as Trainspotting and The Basketball Diaries, Sid & Nancy shows not one redeeming value in its 'protagonists'. I was actually grateful when Nancy is no longer a focus of the story because I couldn't stand hearing her whining and screaming on the screen anymore. I thought the end of the movie might pull it out and make the whole thing worthwhile now that the focus was squarely on Oldman. And what do I get instead? A meaningless sequence where he dances with children before a magical cab pulls up to escort him and his newly revived love off to Never-never-land. (Yes I'm aware the disco on the radio had meaning.) Well, this sequence is certainly a happier note to end on than what happened in real life. And why not toss in another sequence glorifying a destructive, co-dependent relationship based on drug use? Yes, the film has the audacity to imply that this is real love. If you're 13 and looking for a film to romanticize and justify your rebellious anti-everything feelings, and you have a lot of knowledge and fascination for Sid Vicious, you might enjoy this film. For everyone else, stay away. The details are fudged and fuzzy, the script is misguided, the directing is slipshod, and unless you just HAVE to see Courtney Love's first role, the acting isn't worth sitting through the film.

Dolls (1986)

Worthy horror film for those who don't watch them

[6/10 · 13 July 2007]

I find many horror films to emphasize young, hot "actors" and gore more than any real story or talent. Even though this is an older, cheesy movie with some dated effects, it's still enjoyable. Most of the actors range from bad to mediocre, except for the kindly old couple, but it's got charm to it, and a message: don't let life turn you into a wicked adult, keep in touch with the childlike part of yourself or you'll reap what you sow. Unlike another review here, I thought the methodology of the story and the "magic" was sufficiently explained, they just didn't hold your hand to reach the conclusion. I like that. All in all, worth watching if you're into some 80s camp.

New Police Story (2004)

Not as bad as some US releases, but close

[5/10 · 13 October 2006]

Some have touted this as the best Chan film in 10 years...well, that's not saying much, is it? For fans of his pre-Rush Hour, we know that his American films have been mostly American-style comedy with light action...pretty mediocre fair. Jackie's Hong Kong films however have amped up the action and have always had a delightful appeal in that they don't try too hard in the story or acting departments. They're generally loosely linked narratives with slapstick comedy in-between awesome stunt/martial arts scenes performed to physical perfection. No CG, wires, gore, sexual or lingual explicitness. Well, NEW Police Story is right as this film adopts the more serious tone and gloss of a Hollywood film. It's a misstep for Chan's HK work, which has always had a simple appeal to it. Once you try a real story, you have to put some thought into it and this one is COMPLETELY implausible. There is NO attempt to show realistic police-work or tactics. The film does allow for some surprisingly effective acting performances, but they're occasionally over-the-top. Chan may be older, but seeing him using wires and toning down the fights and action is soooo disappointing. He's still got the speed, and I just wish the fight choreography (for the measly 2 or 3 fights present) were more inspired. This film just has all it's emphases in the wrong places. It feels so typically Hollywood in its action sequences and deathtrap scenarios, only its emphasis on extreme sports and video-games in youth culture is about 10 years too late to be anything but cliché'd. This film attempts to take a different tack than previous Jackie efforts and is worser for it. You're better off watching the FAR superior previous installment (JC's First Strike), or any Lethal Weapon for a serious buddy-cop movie, or go back to Gorgeous or Who Am I? for some great recent Jackie action films that aren't pure martial arts.

The Last Samurai (1990)

UGH!

[1/10 · 30 December 2003]

Good God, this was horrible! Why I ever watched it, I don't know. You keep thinking that it HAS to get better, but no, shut the movie off. As bad as it is, it actually gets worse as you watch. Horrible, horrible movie, topped only by "Safe" and "Satyricon".

Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)

Not a typical action movie, more of a political + cultural statement.

[7/10 · 15 September 2003]

Bizarre. Convoluted. Epic. Once Upon a Time in Mexico (OUTM) is a strange bird. I will tell you right off the bat not to think of it as a follow up to Desperado or El Mariachi. This is a very different film. If taken on its own, you may be pleasantly surprised, but if you want `Desperado 2' then you're in for a letdown. THIS REVIEW CONTAINS POTENTIAL PLOT SPOILERS!!!!!! In 1992, Rodriguez makes El Mariachi on a shoestring budget and wows the indie film industry with his directing promise and prowess. The story revolves around a guitarista who is mistaken for an assassin who carries his guns in a guitar case. He spends all movie running away from the Mexican mafia until he is eventually forced to become the killer they think he is. In '95 Rodriguez followed it up with Desperado, his big budget remake. Technically, the story is a sequel, but the plot is basically the same. El Mariachi has come to town, looking for the men who were responsible for his fate in El Mariachi (his love was killed and his hand was shot, ensuring he'll never play as well as he used to). He has inherited the mantle that comes with the guitar case, and people in this town fear this urban folktale. It doesn't take long before he's embroiled in an all-out-war with the local mafia and has gotten mixed up with the head gangster's girlfriend (again). In OUTM, we pick up several years after the events of Desperado. It incorporates a little revision into the story. Carolina's boyfriend was now military instead of mafia, and he wasn't actually killed but survived to come and wreck his vengeance. El Mariachi and Carolina run and run until they think they are finally safe, but then the military ex, Marquez, drives up with soldiers and shoots them and their young daughter. This is all told in flashback over the course of the movie, so realize that at the beginning of the movie Salma Hayek's character is dead. This leaves a broken-hearted Mariachi in seclusion in a small village, having somehow survived Marquez' attack. Johnny Depp plays Sands, a CIA operative looking to exploit the current political situation in Mexico to his own gain. But he needs a reliable hitman not connected to him for part of his scheme and finds out about El Mariachi through Belini (Cheech Marin), a bartender who survived one of El's previous rampages, albeit less one eye. So Sands forcibly recruits El and points him in Marquez' direction, leading El to track down some of his guitarista buddies and retrieve the fabled guitar case. This is just the beginning of a complex story involving a plethora of characters, all with their own motivations and designs, and before the movie is over we'll get to see whether they all get what they want or end up victims of the other characters' machinations. This movie is Rodriguez' baby. He was writer, director, cinematographer, composer, editor, producer, visual effects supervisor, production designer, and camera operator. Over the years you see him working with the same actors again and again (Banderas, Hayek, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, etc.) and taking more creative control. Eight years after Desperado, and eleven years after El Mariachi, he's still perfecting his original idea. Each time the result has been a richer and more complicated movie, but he might've taken it too far this time. As I said before, the story is extremely complicated with more twists, turns, and double-crosses than an episode of Passions. That's a far cry from the violent simplicity of the previous two efforts in this series. On the one hand, all the characters are believable in their own right. On the other hand, when you put it all together it seems a bit over the top and it takes the focus away from the `main' character that everybody is interested in. The acting is top notch, and it's great to see a cast like this all with decently developed roles. On the flip side of that, there may be too many characters for the average movie-goer to care about. It is after all, an action movie, and the action is Bruckheimer-ed out to exaggerated proportions, but it's somehow not as satisfying as the focus of Desperado. The overall feel of the movie is a bit mingled, with some scenes that play well but don't seem very connected to a main narrative; just as some shots are catchy and interesting but take attention away from the cohesiveness of the movie. In the end, Rodriguez has created a Mexican fairy tale, replete with a noble prince, a rebellious aristocracy, a simple everyman hero, and a couple wild cards to shake things up. He shows us a vision of Mexico that is gritty and violent, where politics are ever-changing, and religion is constant but secondary to survival. The humor is surprising and sometimes campy but seems to work. The story is complex and unfocused but also works. The directing and composing are self-congratulatory but also.work. OUTM is a unique blend of action, drama, horror, and comedy. Rodriguez best work remains in the purity of Desperado, but those who can keep an open mind may find a rewarding experience in Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

It's all in the details: You may notice Tito Larriva as the cab driver Johnny Depp has to deal with. Tito (from the band Los Lobos) has made a career out of movie cameos including Desperado and From Dusk 'Til Dawn.