Asia Shock

Sword of Desperation

2012-01-20T09:03:00.000-08:00

Animeigo sent me a very cool contemporary samurai film, Sword of Desperation (2010). It plays like a combo of old school and new -- think Twilight Samurai (2003) meets Destiny's Son (1962); all the gentle realism of the former fused with the genre conventions and deep Zen of the latter. Quite a heady mix, really.

Meet Sanzaemon Kanemi. He's a samurai retainer who kicks things off by running his wakizashi through the heart of his lord's favorite consort. Now normally that would be it for our Sanzaemon, but for some reason the lord spares his life, letting him off with a year's house arrest and a reduction in his annual rice stipend. Why did Sanzaemon do it? And why was he left with his head still fastened to his neck? All will be revealed, but slowly, delicately, oh so gradually, like the unfolding of a lotus blossom.

I mentioned that Sword of Desperation reminded me of Twilight Samurai. This is probably due to the fact that the novel its based on was penned by the same author, Shohei Fujisawa. Like the other films in the Yoji Yamada-directed sorta-trilogy, the central character here is a decent man, expert swordsman (of course), and is eventually placed in an impossible position with only his sword to help him. What I appreciated about this picture above the Yamada films was the blood; the arterial spray in Sword of Desperation is truly awesome. Think vintage Gosha meets that unforgettable scene in Sanjuro. The film takes such pains to present immaculate tatami interiors that when the blood finally starts flowing, the contrast is truly shocking. (I've often thought the Japanese must have a meticulous, time-honored technique for cleaning blood stains, what with all the sword-weilding that used to go on.)

So there you have it, another great samurai film, rich and rare and oh so very steeped in bushido. Savor it.

The Coast Guard

2012-01-17T15:51:00.000-08:00

I can definitely say this film was not what I was expecting. This is due in part to the fact that, as you can see below, the box art features fighter planes and an exploding battle ship, none of which appears in the film. What I got instead, however, was much more interesting than your standard war film. I got a WTF? Where is this going-type affair that nevertheless held me gripped all the way to the end credits. Then I remembered it was a Kim Ki-duk film, and everything fell into place.

Jang Dong-gun (Friend, Tae Guk Gi, and, more recently The Warrior's Way and My Way), plays Kang Han-chul, a gung-ho 1st private stationed at a South Korean army base assigned to watching the coastline near the 38th parallel. Private Kang is clearly wrapped too tight and a little too eager to shoot that North Korean spy he's sure will be showing up on the beach any night now. When he mistakenly blows away a townie in flagrante, it sets off a chain reaction of escalating events that lead to murder, scandal, insanity and revenge.

Jang Dong-gun is excellent as the ever-more unhinged Private Kang. It's an amazing performance, probably the most intense I've ever seen from him. Perhaps Kim Ki-duk brought it out, or maybe it was the material. In any case, you owe it to yourself to see this picture if you have any interest in either superstar Jang or cult king Kim (or, if you're like me, both). You can read more about Kim Ki-duk in my book Asia Shock.

As film scholar Rowena Santos Aquino points out in this great profile of Kim, Private Kang is less a character than a force of nature not unlike the enigmatic bait & tackle vendor/prostitute Hee-jin in The Isle (2000) or the bad guy pimp Han-ki in Bad Guy (2001). Also in common with The Isle is a certain measure of fish abuse (although not as bad).

Kim made The Coast Guard back in 2002, so it's been a long time coming to disk here in the States. It streets today, in fact, released by Palisades Tartan in a handy blu-ray/DVD combo pack. Like most of Kim's work, it's a powerful picture whose impact continues long after the final frame. One for the collection, I'd say.

Gurozuka

2011-12-15T09:32:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I had a good ol' J-horror jump scare, the kind that makes your girlfriend scream and sends the popcorn flying. The good folks over at Synapse were kind enough to send me the latest installment in their Asian Cult Cinema Collection, Gurozuka (2005, out on DVD in January) and boy did it do the trick. At least twice my hands involuntarily went up to my face, and that's saying something. It's not like I haven't seen my share of this sort of film -- I could write a book! (No wait, I did.)

First off, the title. Gurozuka is a made-up word consisting of guro, slang for grotesque, and zuka, which can mean illustration or making a rude entrance (take your pick). In the film, this portmanteau word is said to be a corruption of a term used in Noh theater and, in fact, Noh is a central theme running through the picture, centered chiefly on a psychotic murderer in a Noh mask. (The mask is of the deigan variety, a woman's face with golden eyes and teeth, usually associated with the character of Lady Rokujo, a jealous spirit in the Noh play Aoi no Ue, adapted from The Tale of Genji.)

Gurozuka is also the title of a student film unearthed by pretty college students Ai (Chisato Morishita) and Maki (Yuko Mitsuya) that depicts a brutal murder committed by someone -- wait for it -- wearing a Noh mask. It's very creepy and, intrigued by the knowledge that the two actors in the film came to tragic ends, Ai and Maki decide to find the spooky, wooded location and recreate it. In tow are Maki's older sister Yoko (Yuko Ito), angry lesbian Takako (Nozomi Ando), stuck-up wannabe actress Natsuki (Yuko Kurosawa) and her two flunkies Yuka (Yukari Fukui) and Yayoi (Keiko Saito). See where this is going? Yeah, not all of them are going to make it past principle photography ...

Now I know some of you might be thinking, "What? Yet another J-horror? Who needs it?" And I confess, I was kinda thinking that too at first. But then you throw on a film like Gurozuka and everything that you loved about J-horror comes flooding back. You discover it all over again, fresh and visceral and oh so atmospheric. To their credit, the Japanese know how to create a winning formula and stick to it. Consider sushi, Toyota, green tea ice cream, heated toilet seats, beer vending machines, those little schoolgirl outfits, you name it. Same goes for J-horror. After a bit of a hiatus, I find that I still dearly love this film genre. Thank you, Synapse, for keeping the love alive!

East/West Mash-ups

2011-08-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

I've been neglecting this blog shamefully of late, and for those who follow it, I offer my sincerest contrition, along with a couple of reviews.

As it happens, I saw two pictures recently worth mentioning, both of which have an East-meets-West connotation. One was A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop (2009). It's a remake of the Coen Brothers' first film, Blood Simple (1984), only set in Ming dynasty China (Gansu province to be precise). It's pretty faithful to the original film plot-wise and a feast for the eyes. Director Zhang Yimou (Hero, Raise the Red Lantern) contrasts the desolate wastes of his locations with brightly colored costumes and talented actors, several of which are also accomplished noodle dough jugglers (you just have to see it). My only complaint is one I normally have with Hollywood films -- no character development. At least not up front -- you are thrust into the midst of the main characters and have to hit the ground running. Eventually they develop, but it's a little rough at first trying to get a handle on who they are and what they're like, as well as whether you give a fuck about them. All in all, though, I found it enjoyable and I got completely sucked in, even though I knew what was going to happen next.

I also enjoyed The Warrior's Way (2010), a rip-snorting western featuring Korean superstar Jang Dong-gun (Friend, Tae Guk Gi, 2009: Lost Memories) as a master ninja. Jang plays it like an Asian Clint Eastwood, handling the language passably. Geoffrey Rush is fun as the irascible town drunk and Danny Houston chews scenery to beat the band as hideous, tooth-obsessed baddie The Colonel. It's just a romp, but rookie director Lee Sngmoo delivers the goods with style and verve, creating a quality picture that augers a promising career. If you were disappointed by the predictable Cowboys and Aliens, perhaps Cowboys and Ninja will be more to your liking.

The Clone Returns Home

2011-07-26T15:01:00.000-07:00

OK, I never heard of it either. But the good folks at AnimEigo sent me a review copy, so I feel I owe them a review. Unfortunately, this time around it's not going to be a good one.

I suppose there is an audience out there for incredibly slow Japanese films (Maborosi comes to mind … ). As it happens, The Clone Returns Home received several awards at prestigious film festivals like Sundance, Fantasia and the New York Asian Film Festival. And I can't for the life of me understand why. Maybe because Wim Wenders was executive producer? Perhaps it was one of those emperor's new clothes things; it's so tedious and boring, it must be good and I'm just not getting it. Nobody had the balls to stand up and say, "I'm sorry, but this is just pretentious and dull."

I've seen a few Japanese art films in my time, and I can go for a slow burn with the best of them. I love Kubrick at his slowest (Barry Lyndon anyone?). Kubrick is obviously an influence here, in the form of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but the compositions don't warrant such loooong lingering shots, and the actors need not pause like junkies nodding out between every line.

I will admit the film gets interesting about 55 minutes in when talk turns to the spiritual ramifications of cloning and what becomes of the souls of the original person and his clones (unlike a lot of film critics, I actually welcome a little philosophical inquiry in a film). However, things snap right back to dull-as-dishwater a few minutes later and stay that way for the rest of the flick.

If you liked the film Moon (the one directed by Zowie Bo-- er, Duncan Jones), you probably would like this film too, but certainly not in its current form. Actually, while I'm no fan of remakes of Japanese films, this one could actually benefit from the Hollywood treatment (wow, never thought I'd say that).

So sorry AnimEigo, I'm a big fan of every other Japanese film in your catalog, but I'm afraid you've got a dud on your hands with this one. Slow as molasses, The Clone Returns Home is a test of anyone's attention span. Watching this film made me realize what ADD must be like.

Cold Fish

2011-06-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

I originally saw this film last fall at Pusan (and said this). Upon re-screening, I think it no exaggeration to state that, with Cold Fish (2010), Shion Sono has created the definitive serial killer picture. Based on actual events, the film conveys a raw reality that is so much more chilling than Silence of the Lambs-style theatricality. Here, you're going to get blood on you. Lots of it. Here, characters wallow in the gore -- literally. Cold Fish is the kind of film Asia Shock is all about.

So you've got middle-aged Japanese character actor Denden (Cure, Ju-on, Uzumaki) channeling notorious serial killer Gen Sekine who, during the 80s and 90s with his wife Hiroko Kazama, dispatched, dismembered and destroyed the corpses of four people (that we know of -- there were likely many, many more). Sekine was an exotic animal importer specializing in Alaskan malamutes, so no doubt some of his victims found their way into his dogs. In the film, Sekine becomes Yukio Murata and his specialty shifts from dogs to tropical fish. He's got a huge shop, staffed by teenage girls in tight tees and hot pants. He takes mild-mannered Nobuyuki Shamoto (Mitsuru Fukikoshi), a competitor with a much smaller shop, as his business partner. Unfortunately for Shamoto, a primary component of Murata's business is killing people, and before he knows it, our hapless ultra-wimp protagonist is sucked into Murata's murky world of murder.

I received a review copy of the Cold Fish double disk from Third Window Films and particularly appreciated one of the special features, a half-hour discussion of the actual case upon which the film is based. This comes courtesy of Jake Adelstein, journalist and author of the book Tokyo Vice. Adelstein relates the details of the case in great detail, revealing how accurate the film is to real events (although the plot goes in a completely different direction in the third act). Adelstein also offers insights into the way murder is investigated (and often not) in Japan. Apparently 80,000 people a year go missing in Japan, and only 4% of suicides are investigated. So it seems that a lot more people are being murdered in Japan than is reflected in official records.

Anyhow, if you're a fan of serial killer flicks, you've got to see Cold Fish. Fan of Japanese film? Even better. And if you like sushi … there's a moment in the film that will forever color your sense of it. Enjoy!

Japan Cuts in NYC

2011-06-16T08:21:00.001-07:00

Summer in New York City means one thing to Japanese film fans: movie time! Beat the heat next month at the fifth annual Japan Cuts film festival brought to you by the Japan Society. Partial proceeds go to the Society's Japan Earthquake Relief Fund. Follow the links for more details and enjoy all those cool flicks for me while I sit here in the woods and whittle.

The Rug Cop

2011-06-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

There's nothing particularly shocking about The Rug Cop (2006) -- it's just a silly police procedural spoof concerning a cop with a super-powered wig. But I haven't blogged for awhile, so I figured I'd better post something.

If you're a fan of a certain kind of goofy Japanese humor, one that goes for lots of sight gags and dick jokes, you'll find The Rug Cop a pleasantly quirky 78 minutes. Directed by Minoru Kawasaki (who gave us such memorable titles as Pussy Soup, The Calimari Wrestler and The World Sinks Except Japan), the story concerns an aging cop who nevertheless maintains a high arrest record thanks to his amazing rug. In tough situations, he invariably whips it off and throws it at whomever/whatever is endangering him; the hairpiece knocks guns out of peoples' hands, beheads a ventriloquist dummy (he was holding bank employees hostage -- really), the fucking thing even bites. Rug Cop is aided in his investigations by clownish cops with nicknames like Old Man, Big Dick, Handsome and Shorty. It's all very puerile and it probably says something about me that I sat and watched the entire thing.

It occurred to me after screening The Rug Cop that the whole concept likely came from a misinterpretation of the phrase "rogue cop," as "rug cop" sounds about the same in a Japanese accent. So there you have it: One very silly concept based on a mistake. Is it a mistake to see it? Probably. But then you could say that about half the films on this blog!

Exiled

2011-05-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

Back in 2007 I attended the 30th Portland International Film Festival (I blogged about it once or twice). One of the films supposedly playing was Exiled (2006). However, every time I went to a scheduled screening, someone would walk out, sheepishly apologize, and tell the audience that the film was still on the way -- sorry, here watch this instead. After a couple of attempts, I gave up on seeing it. Finally screening the film yesterday, I realize it wasn't a great loss.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad film. However, it's a Johnnie To film starring Anthony Wong, Simon Yam, Lam Suet, Nick Cheung and Francis Ng -- it should have blown my mind, but instead it merely held my attention. It's a low-key affair, very dark (literally as well as figuratively -- most of it is people silhouetted in inky blackness) with long periods of brooding. There are, of course, the usual explosions of violence, usually protracted gun battles, but there's an emptiness at the center; I just didn't feel a connection to the characters, and the tempo was a bit too adagio.

It's about five guys from Macau, childhood friends, who became gangsters, and one of them apparently shot the boss. Now his four friends are split; two are loyal to the boss and have been dispatched to rub him out. The other two are loyal to him and determined to stop the other guys. At least that's how it starts. But you know how gangsters are, always flipping sides. This goes for the bosses as well, and before long everyone is blasting away.

Simon Lam turns in a frightening performance as Boss Fay, but Anthony Wong merely phones it in (or perhaps he was directed that way -- I don't know, I'm forever ruined after seeing his performances in The Untold Story and Ebola Syndrome). Lam Suet, the John Goodman of contemporary Hong Kong cinema, is great as usual, and Nick Cheung shows his range (compare his taciturn family man here with his vicious assassin in Beast Stalker).

I need to see more Johhnie To films (and there are certainly plenty to see), but this one just didn't do it for me. I much prefer something like PTU.

13 Assassins

2011-05-19T08:13:00.000-07:00

For those of you who find the contemporary samurai films of Yoji Yamada a bit dull, have I got the film for you! I'm not normally a fan of remakes, but I've got to hand it to Takahsi Miike -- once the enfant terrible of Japanese indie cinema, our boy is all grown up now, making modern samurai films that attempt to capture the horrendous realities of living and dying by the sword. In 13 Assassins (2010), he more than succeeds.

Whether intentional or not, the film begins as something of a mindfuck. The early scenes are virtually a shot-for-shot recreation of Eiichi Kudo's 1963 original. I was thinking, "Oh great, another Gus Van Sant Psycho affair." However, things become distinctly Miikean around ten minutes in, with a graphic beheading followed by the image of an emaciated, limbless, naked woman bleeding from her eyeballs. Miike is clearly upping the stakes here, but he manages to do so while remaining loyal to the story, as well as the spirit, of the original film.

Playing the central role of Shinzaemon Shimada is Koji Yakusho, one of the few remaining Japanese actors in the same league as the samurai stars of old. A protege of the great Tatsuya Nakadai, Yakusho made his film debut alongside his teacher in Hideo Gosha's most excellent Hunter in the Dark (1979). Us folks in the West became aware of him as the foodie gangster in white in Tampopo (1985). He's since appeared in scads of great Japanese films including Kon Ichikawa's Dora-heita, Shohei Imamura's The Eel, Shinji Aoyama's Eureka and a whole slew of Kiyoshi Kurosawa films. Needless to say, he's great in 13 Assassins. His character is much more engaged in the action than his predecessor (who only entered the fray of the final fight right at the end).

While I still have reservations about Miike's upcoming reworking of Masaki Kobayashi's immortal Hara-Kiri, I will anticipate it with somewhat less trepidation having seen 13 Assassins. Miike's definitely maturing as a filmmaker, and while he'll never stand up to the likes of Kobayashi, he just might do justice to the legacy of that great auteur. (Boy, did that sound pompous. Oh well, fuck it, that's what I think.)

The Thirteen Assassins

2011-05-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you revisit a film and you're amazed to find how much better (or worse) it is than you remember. And you're struck by the realization that since the film obviously hasn't changed, it must be you that has. When the film seems better, you've changed for the better (and when it's worse, you realize what an idiot you used to be). Fortunately for me, the former was the case when I went back and watched Eiichi Kudo's The Thirteen Assassins (1963). Screening the film several years ago, I'd found it tedious and dull up until the big finale. Perhaps I was just watching too many samurai films at the time. In any case, re-watching it the other day I finally got it.

Perhaps I have a greater appreciation now for the intrinsically Japanese passion for planning than I did here to for. It's an intense pursuit that, in the case of this period film, reflects not only a fastidious intellectual acuity, but also a deep knowledge of the forms of etiquette and ritual of the samurai ruling class (and the best ways of subverting same). One cannot truly appreciate The Thirteen Assassins without some interest in such matters.

The plot is essentially contained in the title: Thirteen guys are going to kill a guy. As I say, it's not the what but the how that is of interest here, and the fact that the thirteen guys are up against incredible odds. Their target, a cruel and detestable daimyo (feudal lord), is on one of his annual trudges back and forth to Edo (this time on his way back to his fief), heavily guarded and in the company of a wily and resourceful retainer capable of matching our baker's dozen samurai's maneuvers feint, parry and thrust.

Cast-wise, The Thirteen Assassins is stellar. You've got Toei veteran Chiezo Kataoka at the helm as master strategist Shinzaemon Shimada. He's hired by Lord Doi Oi-no-kami (The Inevitable Tetsuro Tamba) to knock off Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira (Kantaro Suga). Naritsugu is aided by the more than capable Hanbei Kito (Ryohei Uchida) who matches wits with Shimada throughout the picture. The master swordsman among the thirteen assassins is Kujuro Hirayama (Ko Nishimura). I'm a big fan of Nishimura, one of the most expressive and unforgettable faces in Japanese cinema. You may remember him as Shintaro Katsu's skeevy boss in the The Razor films, or as the guy Toshiro Mifune literally drives insane with fear in The Bad Sleep Well. Ryohei Uchida you'll know from Samurai Wolf and Shadow Hunters. And Tetsuro Tamba? Forget about it. He's been in every Japanese film ever made (plus Bond film You Only Live Twice and the spaghetti western Five Man Army).

In terms of story, The Thirteen Assassins bears more than a passing resemblance to Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. There's the seasoned pro leading a team that includes a trusty lieutenant, a master swordsman, a country bumpkin wannabe samurai, a young dude, etc. They're hired to eliminate a menace (swap out bandits for a heinous lord). Even the manner in which they execute their plan is similar. So no points for originality there.

Nevertheless, The Thirteen Assassins is an absorbing film, far more well paced than I'd remembered, and the 30 minute melee at the end is fantastic. Yes, I must reexamine Eiichi Kudo. I recall not liking his The Great Killing either. Hmm. Watch this space ...

I Saw the Devil

2011-05-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought Korean revenge flicks couldn't get any more extreme, along comes Kim Ji-woon to raise the bar a dozen rungs. In I Saw the Devil (2010), the director pushes the envelope into psycho killer/torture porn territory, making what has to be the final statement in the genre.

If you thought Choi Min-sik was intense in Oldboy, wait 'til you see him here. As serial killer Jang Gyeong-cheol, he gives Anthony Wong's Bunman a run for his money (something I never thought I'd say about any actor). See Asia Shock for more on the amazing Choi, a stage and screen veteran who is South Korea's answer to Lawrence Olivier, Robert De Niro and Tatsuya Nakadai all rolled into one. Choi plays opposite Lee Byeong-Heon, no slouch in the Korean film star world -- JSA, A Bittersweet Life, Three ... Extremes, The Good, the Bad, the Weird -- you could say he's been around. When these two top-notch performers go head-to-head, it makes for an explosion of violence that leaves no surface unbloodied.

The plot is fairly straightforward: Jang kills a woman who happens to be the fiance of intelligence agent Kim Soo-hyeon (Lee). The latter, crushing his bereavement into a tight ball of monomaniacal rage, is out for revenge. No spoiler, you get that much from the trailer. What really blows you away is the way in which he goes about it and the unpredictable events that result from his unique methodologies. As Jang tells Kim more than once in the film, "You fucked with the wrong guy." I won't say any more -- the mind-blowing plot twists and OTT gore are best experienced with as little preconceptions as possible.

I've been a fan of Kim Ji-woon since seeing his first film, The Quiet Family (1998), an exquisite black comedy (also featuring Choi Min-sik). Kim went from strength to strength with The Foul King (2000, a wrestling comedy starring Song Kang-ho), A Tale of Two Sisters (2003, a creepy K-horror), A Bittersweet Life (2005, a gangster saga starring Lee Byeong-Heon), The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008, a bonkers, Leone-fueled western) and, finally, I Saw the Devil (as well as a few shorts along the way). Moving from genre to genre, Kim seems out to prove he can master them all, and he has yet to put a foot wrong. It's hard to believe the guy's only made half a dozen features -- they're all so good that it feels as if he's made many more.

I Saw the Devil was at the top of my list of films to see in Pusan last year. However, like the other films I wanted to see, they had all played by the time I got there, mid-festival. What could I do? They didn't post screening times online until I'd already booked my flight and hotel. Thanks guys. Oh well, got it on Blu-ray now -- and I'd recommend you do the same.

Revenge

2011-05-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

AnimEigo has released Tadashi Imai's 1964 samurai classic Revenge (Adauchi), which I reviewed in Warring Clans, Flashing Blades. In the book, I stated my opinion that the film is good but has problems. It suffers from uneven pacing, underdeveloped characters and a confusing use of flashbacks (are we now or are we then?).

That said, Revenge boasts strengths as well, chiefly in the performance of its star, Kinnosuke Nakamura. Nakamura was the most emotive of the samurai stars of the 60s, and here he gives 110%. He plays a low-ranking samurai who duels a haughty superior and wins -- against the wishes of his clan (who promptly banish him to a mountain monastery). Things go from bad to worse when the slain man's brother shows up (the inevitable Tetsuro Tamba). Before long the clan elders want our hero dead, and as the pressure mounts, so does his anxiety, fear and rage (see box cover, above).

My opinion of this film is in the minority, as most critics hail Revenge as a masterpiece. Its political allegory works and, as I said, Kinnosuke Nakamura is mesmerizing. So decide for yourself and feel free to add a comment.

Confessions

2011-04-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

Confessions (2010), a harrowing tale of psychosis, child murder, AIDS, parricide and revenge, is currently winning awards. It just won Best Asian Film at the Hong Kong Film Awards and previously received Best Film, Screenplay and Director at the 34th Japanese Film Awards. It was also Japan's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at last month's Oscars. So who am I to dispute such accolades? I'm Pat Galloway, that's who, and I just will. For while there are some great things in this film, ultimately, in my opinion, the fundamental flaw of its execution is what defeats it.

And what might that be? Confessions is an adaptation of a novel by Kanae Minato, and moves from one first-person confession to another of a group of people brought together by a murder. Narratively, this concatenation of personal admissions works fine in a novel; film-wise -- not so much. What results is a near nonstop voiceover throughout the film. Blah, blah, blah, the chatter never ends. After awhile it gets to be somewhat unnerving. Film is a visual medium, and telling a story with images is its primary strength. Ironically, filmmaker Tetsuya Nakashima (Kamikaze Girls, Memories of Matsuko) does a fine job in this department. Unfortunately, he ruins the striking visual dimension of his film by covering it in a thick layer of verbal diarrhea. I can understand his dedication to the source material, but common film sense should have dictated a more sporadic use of voiceover. The way he's done it might seem daring to some, but for me it just doesn't work.

The story revolves around the murder of a school teacher's young daughter and the revelations that result from her frank disclosure to her class that two of their fellow students committed the murder. The path of her revenge takes various twists and turns, and the fallout from the initial murder leads to madness and more killing for the two young perps. Takako Matsu (who played the lovely Kie in Yoji Yamada's The Hidden Blade) delivers a slow-burn performance that culminates in a (literally) explosive grand finale. This comes, however, at the cost of a tedious 30-minute speech at the opening of the film which nearly put me off the whole picture.

So yeah, clearly my opinion is in the minority, but I do encourage you to see this film and decide for yourself. As I said before, there are a number of things to recommend it. The dual themes of the nature of evil and the essence of grief are compelling, complimented as they are by a sombre soundtrack that features songs by Radiohead (I kept thinking, "That singer's doing a Thom Yorke impression …"). Superbly shot and idiosyncratically edited, it is visually challenging and innovative. A shame about all that yakking. In the end, it all comes down to the old adage: Show, don't tell.

The Man From Nowhere

2011-04-09T07:43:00.001-07:00

Korean superstar Won Bin proves he's more than just a pretty face in this ultra-violent crime/revenge thriller, a film that grabs you by the [your sensitive body part here] and literally does not let go until the final frame. Like fellow up-and-coming director Jang Hun (Secret Reunion), Lee Jeong-beom proves that a sophomore effort can totally kick ass as he proceeds to take what could have been yet another routine trawl through the Seoul demimonde and raises it to the heights of classical tragedy.

A cursory look at the story elements (mysterious loner, cherubic child, gangsters, cops, drugs, organ harvesting) is sure to elicit a "ho hum" from the jaded Korean film aficionado. However it's the film craft and performances that transform The Man From Nowhere (2010), ennoble it, and make it something special. Because of this, there's not a lot left for me to say -- I could go over the not-that-interesting-on-paper plot, or describe the gory details of the various gun/knife/axe/nail gun sequences, but what's the fun in that? Surely you'd rather see it, yes? Let my enthusiasm be your guide -- I've seen a boatload of these films, and if I found this one riveting, so will you.

What's that, I'm copping out? OK, let me add that the cast all give 110%, particularly leads Won Bin (as the mysterious loner badass) and wee Kim Sae-ron (as the impossibly cute little girl he must protect). Won Bin, you'll recall, was in the gut-wrenching Korean war epic Tae Guk Gi (2004), the film that broke him globally, although he was already a big star across Asia from his appearance in a number of popular Korean TV dramas, chiefly Autumn in My Heart (2000). Following the blockbuster success of Tae Guk Gi, Won dropped out of sight for five years, entering the military for real for his compulsory service and then suffering a severe knee injury. He made his comeback with Mother and, now, The Man From Nowhere. Something tells me he's going to be around awhile ...

I should add that The Man From Nowhere was a box office smash in Korea, the highest-grossing film of 2010, bagging a whole slew of Korean Film Awards including Best Actor, New Actress, Editing, Music and Visual Effects. It was on my to-see list at Pusan last year, but had already played by the time I got there (screwed the pooch on that one ... ). Thankfully, lovely PR people send me screeners, so now I'm up to speed and telling you this is one hell of a film not to be missed.

Strange Circus

2011-04-06T09:30:00.001-07:00

[Note: Japanese cult director Shion Sono's given name is frequently spelled "Sion." However, it's pronounced "Shion" -- "si" is nowhere in the Japanese syllabary. So I'm going with Shion.]

Shion Sono's films are a mixed bag to be sure. At the brilliant end of the spectrum there's Suicide Club (see my full-length review in Asia Shock), Love Exposure and Cold Fish. Down at the crap end you'll find Noriko's Dinner Table and now, not quite so far down but definitely in the vicinity, Strange Circus (2005).

On paper, Strange Circus has it all: Near-hardcore sex, insanity, gender-bending, extreme body modification, incest, dismemberment, psychedelic fantasy sequences featuring fat transvestites, and the odd beheading. Add to that Rampo-esque touches like someone hiding in a cello case observing others having sex. Yes, it could have been so much more, but the pace, oh the slogging pace -- just kills it. To his credit, Sono seems to sense just when he's about to lose his audience completely, doling out plot points right at the last moment to keep them from bailing. I came close several times, to be sure.

So what's it about? OK, you've got a love triangle between a father, a mother and a daughter. In true Electra-complex fashion, the girl fucks her dad and kills her mom. Later the daughter grows up to be a mad novelist -- is all the transgression of her past just her literary fancy? Does she even know? A young editorial assistant from her publishing house wants to find out, and his investigations into her sordid private life reveal things that … well, I don't want to blow it for you should you decide to stick it out on your own.

Strange Circus offers more than enough bizarre imagery and memorable moments to haunt you for years, especially if you're a newcomer to extreme Japanese cinema. Just wish Sono could have made it flow better ...

Rough Cut

2011-04-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

When I was in Pusan in October, I saw a great film called Secret Reunion, an outstanding sophomore effort from director Jang Hun, and I knew I had to see his debut film, Rough Cut (2008). Although "Rough Cut" is a typically slick, slapped-on afterthought of an English title (the Korean title, Yeong-hwa-neun Yeong-hwa-da, translates as "A Movie is a Movie"), it describes the film fairly well. I get the pun: "rough cut" is an industry term, and there's a lot of fighting in the film. However in the case of the film itself, it's literally rough in the cutting. Some cuts are abrupt and confusing, like visual non-sequiturs. This is a common problem with first-time directors -- they're still getting their arms around the gargantuan responsibilities of film directing. Some things are bound to fall through the cracks. However, in the case of Rough Cut, the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses.

Jang Soo-ta (Kang Ji-hwan) is an actor with anger management issues and one hell of an attitude. His specialty is gangster pictures and he's as tough offscreen as on. Only problem is: kicking your fellow actors' asses for real on the set -- it's just not done. Soon nobody wants to work with Soo-ta. Enter Lee Kang-pae (So Ji-sub). He's a real gangster with a yen to be an actor. He has a run-in with Soo-ta early on, and, as you've no doubt guessed by now, winds up shooting a picture with him. He too has an interest in kicking ass for real (hey, it's his job), and proposes that the two men just go for it, no holds barred, in every fight scene. What results is somewhere between Fight Club and All About Eve.

Given the premise, and the fact it's a Korean film, you can bet your bottom won there's gonna be wall-to-wall whoopass. The male leads are cool and tough, the love interest (Hong Soo-hyeon) is smoking' hot, the gangland b-story is tense, and the pace is relentless. Nevermind the occasional bad edit, Rough Cut is a gripping, brutal adrenaline rush from beginning to end. And Jang Hun is a director to watch.

Secret of the Urn (again)

2011-03-22T16:47:00.001-07:00

It's a great film, a fantastic entry in the genre, and just a roaring good time.

That's what I said in a recent blog entry regarding Hideo Gosha's samurai classic Secret of the Urn (1966). So you can imagine how surprised I was to read those very words on the back of the box containing Animeigo's new DVD release of the film. Hey, that's me! And it is!

I originally wrote about Secret of the Urn in my first book, Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves. The blog entry was a revisit for the sake of last Fall's annual Wildgrounds' Japanese film blogathon. So between book and blog, I've said pretty much what I want to say about this fine film. Now it's your good fortune to have it readily available. My advice: Carpe diem, temups fugit and that -- snap it up and cherish it.

Alien Vs Ninja

2011-03-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

The worst thing about contemporary action drama is the practice of presenting a group of undeveloped, cookie-cutter protagonists and expecting the audience to identify with and care about them as they spring into action. There's a name for people we know nothing about. They're called strangers. And we tend to not give a fuck about them. We usually need to get to know someone first before we start to care about them -- it's just human nature. That's why in drama there's something called character development, and it is this element that is sadly lacking in most action films today.

Now you might think I'm expecting too much from a movie called Alien Vs Ninja, but in fact character development does occur over the course of the film (albeit on the fly). So the first act was fairly wasted on me. But the film gets better as we get more acquainted with the spunky young ninja, fighting their hearts out to save their village from the vicious onslaught of their reptilian/humanoid foes.

You've got your main hero, full of gusto and derring-do, his sullen, preening pal, the hot chick, the comic relief guy and the traumatized teen. OK, still pretty cookie-cutter. What ultimately saves Alien Vs Ninja is a combination of hyper-kinetic fight scenes (utilizing swords, mixed martial arts, wire fu, shuriken, biting, nut shots, you name it), over-the-top, splatterific gore and just an overall gonzo, go-for-it vibe. No gag goes unexploited, and there's a nuanced comic underpinning to the film that makes it more enjoyable -- no one is taking themselves too seriously here, and the film is stronger for it. Basically it's a romp.

The top-notch action choreography comes courtesy Yuji Shimomura who also worked on Versus and Death Trance. The heroic male leads, newcomer Masanori Mimoto and seasoned pro Shuji Kashiwabara, are truly awesome fighters, absorbing Shimomura's swift, tightly orchestrated moves seemingly on a molecular level. (Wow, I guess I wound up liking this film more than I thought ... ).

So if you're out for some gory ninja hijinks and feeling particularly like a fourth grader, you can't go far wrong with Alien Vs Ninja, a low-budget actioner redeemed by winning performances and sheer panache.

Sleepy Eyes of Death Vol. 2

2011-02-23T14:38:00.000-08:00

My friends over at Animeigo were kind enough to send me a copy of their latest Sleepy Eyes of Death box, the second in what will be a trilogy of quadrilogies (there are twelve films in all, featuring the great Raizo Ichikawa). It's been a long time coming, and it truly warms the heart of an old samurai film fan like me to see these fine films in disk form at last. (Animeigo had previously released the first six films on VHS back in the '90s.) This is one of the all-time best samurai film series ever made, one that should be on the shelf of every true fan of the genre.

I won't go into plot synopses here -- suffice to say you'll find the usual array of corrupt clan officials, deadly temptresses, machinating merchants, vengeance-seeking samurai, secret Christians, pirates, ninja, the sadistic Princess Kiku from film #4 and at least one cherubic child. What really makes these films so enjoyable is central character Nemuri Kyoshiro, that supremely cynical, red-headed ronin, played to bitter, smirking, full-moon slicing perfection by Ichikawa.

If you're a fan of Zatoichi, you'll see plenty of familiar faces, as both film series were released by Daiei Studios during the same period, featuring the same contract players and made by a rotating stable of excellent house directors including Kenji Misumi, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, Kazuo Ikehiro, Akira Inoue and Kazuo Mori. Actors appearing in the films of this box include personal favorites Shigeru Amachi, Tamao Nakamura, Ryutaro Gomi and, of course, the great character actor Saburo Date.

Times are tough right now for specialty outfits like Animeigo, and god forbid they're unable to release the final batch of Sleepy Eyes of Death films -- I urge all my friends and fellow fans out there to support Animeigo by purchasing these excellent film sets. They really are must-haves for anyone into this most magnificent of film genres. Oh, and if you haven't already, buy my books!

The Shock Labyrinth

2011-01-31T13:08:00.000-08:00

Roughly two and a half hours north of Tokyo, near the base of Mt. Fuji, you'll find an amusement park called Fuji-Q Highland. The big attraction there is the massive Haunted Hospital, the largest haunted house attraction in the world (according to Guinness). This is the setting for Takashi "Ju-on" Shimizu's first 3D effort, The Shock Labyrinth (2009). The 3D aspects of the production were lost on me -- more about that in a minute …

The Shock Labyrinth is one of those horror pictures that opens with a series of inexplicable images and then sets about explaining them. Slowly. Yes, this film is a slow burn, so much so that I had serious doubts until about 30 minutes in, when things finally started to gel. In the classic formula, there is a woman who has been grievously wronged (to death) and now seeks revenge. In this case, the female ghost in question died as a child, at the hands of one or more of her small coterie of friends, in the Haunted Hospital (they snuck in after hours, got lost, things went horribly wrong, etc.).

Ten years later, the surviving friends are all grown up and having a strange night, particularly due to the fact that the girl they all thought dead has shown up at their door. She's acting weird and soon has an episode that requires medical attention. The group drives her to a nearby hospital -- a hospital that bears an uncanny resemblance to … you see where this is going? Things go from strange to surreal. Are they all dead? Have they entered an alternate dimension? Is all this happening in the mind of one of them? You'll find out, eventually. It's almost as if The Shock Labyrinth was made for a second viewing -- it's so much better the second time around. It's as if you have to get the first viewing out of the way before you can really enjoy it!

Fans of art house auteur Hirokasu Kore-eda may recognize young actor Yuya Yagira from his devastating film debut in 2004's Nobody Knows. He plays the pivotal role of Ken in The Shock Labyrinth. Also on hand, portraying pretty blind girl Rin, is Ai Maeda, who was also in Battle Royale (she was Shiori, and her sister Aki was Noriko). And if you're very observant, you'll recognize Suzuki Matsuo from Ichi the Killer and the risible Robogeisha.

Oh, about the 3D: The DVD package comes in both standard and 3D editions. I tried the latter first, wearing the old-timey red/blue cardboard glasses supplied … for about 90 seconds or so, before ripping them from my face, tears running from my burning eyeballs. Nope, that didn't work for me. But then I'm not a big fan of the whole 3D thing, not even the new, high-tech version you get at the cineplex these days. I find it more a distraction than anything else, another run at the same old gimmick. I caught the end of Avatar the other day on my satellite dish at 1080p and it looked way better than it did in the theater with the friggin' glasses on. I'm guessing the same goes for The Shock Labyrinth. So to hell with the 3D, just sit back and enjoy this enigmatic, ultimately enjoyable J-horror creation in glorious, it-ain't-broke-so-don't-fix-it 2D.

Pat live in Portland

2010-11-29T13:53:00.000-08:00

Hey, if you're in Portland, Oregon on Friday, December 10th and have nothing better to do, why not fall by the Northwest Film Center and take in a samurai film? Namely The Hidden Blade (2004), the second in Yoji Yamada's Samurai Trilogy. I'll be introducing the film; I also wrote a bit about it in Warring Clans, Flashing Blades. There will be a book-signing after the screening, so if you've already bought a copy (god bless you), bring it and I'll sign it. Otherwise, there will be copies available for purchase. See you there!

The Secret of the Urn

2010-11-10T08:31:00.001-08:00

Another film I reviewed in my 2005 tome Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves: The Samurai Film Handbook was The Secret of the Urn (1966). I'm revisiting the film (as well as Destiny's Son) for the sake of Wildgrounds Blogathon 2010, as I feel the film is such a supreme achievement in the genre that it deserves a second look (or first look if you haven't seen it).

The legendary Kinnosuke Nakamura plays a one-eyed, one-armed wild man of a ronin named Tange Sazen. His injuries were received at the hands of a treacherous chamberlain who used the young samurai's loyalty to lord and han for his own nefarious purposes. Now this bakemono (monster, as most who encounter Tange Sazen call him), lives out his days in bitterness and mental instability. But boy can he swing a sword! Into his lap falls a tea urn inscribed with some secret writing leading to a fortune in ryo (gold coins), a million of them to be precise. The urn and gold belong to the Yagyu clan, and they need the one to find the other (the very fate of the clan depends on it). There are other factions and more layers of intrigue which I won't go into here.

The film was directed by Hideo Gosha, one of the Great Ones of samurai cinema. Therefore you have a more realistic level of screen violence (think blood and body parts), innovative use of moving camera, and the general sense of kinetic urgency emblematic of Gosha's style. The Secret of the Urn is an excellent film that also boasts an excellent cast. As with my last two posts, at least one member of the Seven Samurai is present, in this case Isao Kimura (who played the young guy samurai who falls in love with the farm girl). Then there's Seizaburo Kawazu, here playing a machiavellian shogunate official; he was in everything from Yojimbo to Tattooed Life to New Tale of Zatoichi to Mothra. Of particular interest to samurai film nerds is the presence, in a small role, of one Ryutaro Otomo. A Toei studios stalwart of the 50s and 60s, Otomo himself starred as Tange Sazen in at least half a dozen films, his first in 1952. (His version of the character was far more comical and OTT than Nakamura's here.) One wonders how he felt playing a high-ranking magistrate trying to convince Tange Sazen to leave town ...

So there it is. You can get a copy of Secret of the Urn here (you won't find it on Amazon). It's a great film, a fantastic entry in the genre, and just a roaring good time. Oh, and if you're interested in learning more about the character of Tange Sazen, I discuss him at length in my follow up to SD&LW, Warring Clans, Flashing Blades: A Samurai Film Companion.

Destiny's Son

2010-11-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

I reviewed Destiny's Son (Kiru, 1962) in my first book, Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves: The Samurai Film Handbook, and it occurred to me that I hadn't seen this wonderful film since then, so I thought I'd revisit it. I'm pleased to say it's lost none of it's magic, none of it's power. If anything, it just gets better each time I see it. A perfect synthesis of Zen and bushido, I can safely say it's among the finest samurai films ever made.

The film stars the immortal Raizo Ichikawa as the proverbial man born under a bad sign. For starters, his mother was beheaded by his father shortly after his birth. No, it's not like that -- she was under penalty of death for having assassinated her lord's mistress (on orders from the chamberlain) and no one in the han was willing to carry out the sentence. She was actually pleased when her husband stepped forth, happy to die at the hand of the father of her child. (Gotta love that samurai class … )

Our hero is adopted by a kind man and raised up to be a good country samurai, but treachery soon rears it's ugly head, sparking a series of cataclysmic incidents that send the young man spiraling into the uncertain life of a wandering ronin. Oh, did I mention he's a brilliant swordsman? Would have to be, right? He's got this great form that so unnerves his opponents, they drop to the floor in exhaustion just trying to find some way to fight him.

This being a Kenji Misumi film, the visuals are gorgeous, the pacing tight, and the fight scenes thrilling. It's also one of three Misumi films I'm aware of where someone gets sliced in half … lengthwise. Yep, from topknot to tail, the guy just sort of flops open. Mind you, it's all very tastefully done, from a distance, so don't expect some horrendous blood bath. Blood is used sparingly in the picture, but effectively.

As for cast, all your Daiei favorites are here: Shiho Fujimura (mom); Shigeru Amachi (dad); Masayo Banri (a fugitive who strips off her clothes to create a diversion, bless her); Saburo Date (a duplicitous retainer) and of course Raizo. Also on hand is Seven Samurai alum Yoshio Inaba (the smiling one), here playing a murderous creep who cuts down Raizo's adopted father and sister.

If you don't feel like waiting for the next Raizo Ichikawa retrospective at your local arthouse to get a look at Destiny's Son, you can pick up a copy here. I can guarantee you won't regret it. And, if you haven't already, why not get a copy of Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves? My original review is better written and more thought out than this on-the-fly blog post. Up to you.

Vendetta of Samurai

2010-11-04T17:16:00.000-07:00

This lesser-known entry in the samurai film canon will be of great interest to Kurosawa fans. Vendetta of Samurai (Araki Mataemon: Ketto kagiya no tsuji, 1952) features four of the seven samurai from Seven Samurai (Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Daisuke Kato and Minoru Chiaki), as well as rubber-faced old farmer Yohei (Bokuzen Hidari). Vendetta relates the true story of a meticulously planned ambush and attack upon a mounted party protecting a murderer.

Leading the revenge is Mataemon (Mifune), a sword instructor and brother-in-law to young Kazuma (Akihiko Katayama) whose brother was recently slain by fellow clansman Matagoro (Chiaki). Mataemon and Kazuma are joined by chubby old Buemon (Toranosuke Ogawa) and chubby young Rokusuke (Daisuke Kato), forming a four-man vendetta squad. (Sorry, I realize that's a lot of names to throw at you, but not nearly as many as come flying at you in the film itself!)

Anyhow, the whole gimmick of the film, and it's a good one, is to show you what such an event must have really been like, in contradistinction to the legendary battle it became over time (in which Mataemon supposedly slew some 36 men). The opening of the film portrays just such a battle, a kabuki moment of sheer fantasy in which we see Mifune, Shimura and others covered in make-up, Mifune practically doing pirouettes as he slashes attackers left and right. I couldn't believe what I was seeing; I'm well acquainted with the work of director Kazuo Mori, and such corny, stagey samurai foppery was completely incongruous with his style. Then the voiceover explained things: This is how this famous incident is traditionally portrayed, whereas the film we're about to see is the real deal, how things really happened. I appreciate what the film sets out to accomplish, and consider it largely a success. There are moments of tedium, but I understand they're deliberate, in service to the realism of an actual ambush -- there's bound to be longueurs, no getting around it.

Vendetta was a Toho production, although Kazuo Mori is better known for his work at Daiei, helming scores of films throughout the 50s and 60s including a number of Zatoichis and Nemuri Kyoshiros. Of the films of his I've seen, my favorite is probably The Tale of Zatoichi Continues (Zoku Zatoichi monogatari, 1962), starring Shintaro Katsu and Tomisaburo Wakayama.

Vendetta of Samurai is an eye-opening look at what really happens when frightened men with big swords find themselves up against it. Some find courage, others lose heart, and some will invariably lose their lives. This is one film that tells it like it is and doesn't sugar coat the stark realities.

Japanese Film Blogathon 2010

2010-11-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

Hey everbody, head over to Wildgrounds for the 2nd annual Japanese Film Blogathon. All the hip Japanese film bloggers (including yours truly) will be weighing in on their favorite films, offering fantastic insights and insider knowledge. The event runs through November 11th, so check back early and often!

Double Suicide at Sonezaki

2010-11-03T18:08:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog know I'm a big fan of 60s auteur Yasuzo Masumura. I collect his stuff. I already had a dozen titles, and was pleased to add number 13 just recently, Double Suicide at Sonezaki (Sonezaki shinju, 1978). It's an adaptation of a play by Monzaemon Chikamatsu (1653 - 1725), the Shakespeare of Japan (however while Shakespeare only wrote 37 plays, Chikamatsu penned some 130). Chikamatsu often looked to real-life tragedies of the day for material, and this play was no doubt based, more or less, on real events.

It's a tale of star-crossed lovers: Young, noble clerk Tokubei (Ryudo Uzaki) and knockout, heart-of-gold prostitute Ohatsu (Meiko Kaji). Events conspire against our pure-hearted lovers: 1) Since Ohatsu only sleeps with Tokubei (and never charges him), her boss is fed up and plans to sell her off to some rich provincial samurai; 2) Tokubei is swindled out of a small fortune he owed his uncle/boss by the wicked Kuheiji (Isao Hashimoto); and 3) Kuheiji adds insult to injury by accusing Tokubei of attempting to swindle him and subsequently beating the shit out of him with the help of some local cops. The public humiliation, personal injury and loss of face is too much for Tokubei -- he decides to end it all. And his lady love is on board as well. It's shinju (lover's suicide) for the both of them. But what's this? Evidence of Kuheiji's heinous crimes comes to light. Kokubei is in the clear! His uncle decides to pay off Ohatsu's debt and bless their marriage. There's no longer any need for shinju. If only they can be found and stopped in time …

Sonezaki Shinju is one of Chakamatsu's most beloved sewamono (domestic drama) plays, a histrionic melodrama full of fiery furor and purple passion. Masumura has his actors play their parts in a highly exaggerated manner which I found quite entertaining. Isao Hashimoto as the evil Kuheiji is particularly vile and wonderful, all maniacal cackling and facial grimaces, like Richard III, Iago and Snidely Whiplash all rolled into one. Fans of the incomparable Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood, Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion) will want to see this film, as she's incandescently beautiful in it. I don't know if it's the exquisite period costumes, the hair and make-up, or simply her passionate performance -- maybe a combo, but one thing's for sure: she's utterly captivating. You just can't keep your eyes off her.

Then there's the violence. I have to say, I was a little shocked by the brutality in a number of scenes. Perhaps Masumura was trying to convey the reality of life in early 18th century Japan. Given the strict hierarchical structure of society during the Tokugawa period, I have to think this film offers an insight into how things really were for those who found themselves on the wrong side of law and/or convention. Taking some of the edge off is the fabulously incongruous score. As with many a samurai drama of the 70s, scenes of desperate men in topknots play out to the mellifluous strains of Spanish guitars or electric blues. It's not quite as bizarre as the waka-jawaka disco guitars of the Hanzo the Razor series (the second installment of which was directed by Masumura), but there's no not noticing it if you're American and were born at a certain time in the 20th century …

As with all of Masumura's films, I've got two words of advice: See it! His was an impeccable talent, his themes invariably turning to the darkness of the human heart. He did everything from corporate espionage (Black Test Car, Giants and Toys) to sex comedy (A Lustful Man) to ero-guro (Blind Beast) to war films (Red Angel) to lesbian love (Manji) to Shintaro Katsu vehicles (The Razor: The Snare, Yakuza Soldier) to, here, Chikamatsu sewamono. If any of these films sounds good to you, I'll say it again: See it!

Kadokawa Horror Collection Pt. 2

2010-10-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

I should mention that these weren't Kadokawa pictures. Three were released through Toho and the other through Toei. Kadokawa just bought the rights once it was clear the J-horror thing was on the wane. Having seen all four now, I think it also important to note that, as J-horror goes, these films weren't in the forefront of what you'd call frightening. They'd more properly be tagged "J-atmos" or "J-pop" than anything approaching horror. However the overall quality of the productions runs from decent to outstanding, so as long as you don't come with expectations of getting the shit scared out of you, you're still likely to get something from each of them.

Inugami (2001)

Inugami is a beautifully rendered film based on what I would guess is an unfilmable novel by Masako Bando. Therefore, there's something of the WTF to the proceedings, requiring an open mind and a willingness to just let things happen. The film was shot in lush locations of dazzling natural beauty in the mountainous regions of Shikoku, the smallest of the four major islands of Japan. Shikoku is commonly known as a rural backwater with towns full of superstitious, xenophobic hicks (a pivotal factor in the film). But that's always the way, isn't it? You get to some beautiful, remote corner of the world only to be repulsed by the locals. In this case they're the Shinto version of Puritan witch-burners and they've got their sites set on Miki (lovely Yuki Amami), a member of the mysterious and wealthy Bonomiya family who, for generations, have been associated with deadly supernatural dog spirits known as inugami (inu = dog, gami = gods). Curses, ghosts, incest, suicide, lovely scenery, there's something for everyone (even if you're not quite sure what's going on). Castwise, it's great to see Shiho Fujimura and Keiko Awaji, two veteran actresses of classic samurai cinema, appearing here in their twilight years; time hasn't done a thing but wrinkle them. Then there's Atsuro Watabe who more recently appeared as the priest dad in Love Exposure. The Verdict: Not a horror film, but not a bad escape either.

Shikoku (1999)

Guess where this film is set? Yep, we're back on the island, but this time out the villagers aren't quite so hostile, the tone is more low-key, the focus softer (literally -- either they blew it up from 16 mm or they smeared vaseline on the lens). That said, it's far more creepy and, in my opinion, the most J-horror of the four films on offer. Three childhood friends are separated (one moves to Tokyo, one dies), only to be reunited as adults (well, the boy and girl who lived are adults -- the dead girl never made it past 16). So it's a supernatural love triangle with, once again, a Shinto-inflected back story. This is the one film of the four that I'd seen previously; I was drawn not only by the J-horror but the presence of Chiaki Kuriyama (here playing the ghost girl Sayori). There's something captivating about Kuriyama; she's not the greatest beauty -- got something of a honker to be frank. But she conveys an intriguing, cat-like essence I found striking upon first encountering her as the knife-wielding Chigusa in Battle Royale: "Come at me. Every inch of me will resist you!" Her unique blend of schoolgirl prim and feline menace work perfectly in Shikoku. Elsewhere there's the great Makoto Sato in a small role as Sendo the yamabushi (mountain priest) who's determined to close the portal through which Sayori has returned. If you don't know who Makoto Sato is, look him up in the index of Warring Clans, Flashing Blades. You've got some great performances to look forward to!

So that's it. Not much of a Halloween offering, I'm afraid. But no worries, there's always Kwaidan (1964), Jigoku (1960), Organ (1996), Pulse (2001), Illusion of Blood (1965), Ringu (1998), Ju-on: The Grudge (2002), Kuroneko (1968), Matango (1963) and, of course, Evil Dead Trap (1998).

Kadokawa Horror Collection Pt. 1

2010-10-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

Out of respect for the season, I'm working my way through the Kadokawa Horror Collection. These four films date back a decade to the glory days of J-horror when long-haired lady ghosts ruled and everything from video cassettes to PCs was haunted! As with any box set, the quality control is a little wonky, but overall I'm having a pretty good time.

Shadow of the Wraith (Ikisudama, 2001)

A dozen years before Shadow of the Wraith, director Toshiharu Ikeda gave us the immortal Evil Dead Trap. It appears Ikeda-san mellowed considerably in the interim. Only mildly scary, Wraith plays more like a promotional video for the band Doggy Bag (whose idol brothers Koji and Yuichi Matsuo play and act in the film). There are actually two stories: 1) A spooky high school girl stalks the red-headed Japanese boy of her dreams (Koji), killing the competition with the help of her own malefic doppelganger; 2) A normal high school girl fights a powerful yet diminutive ghost in her new apartment with the help of a dreamy guy from her homeroom class (Yuichi). Only a faint aura of Argento influence remains in Ikeda's treatment of the freakier scenes (bright colors, creepy synths) compared with the more elaborately giallo-influenced set pieces of EDT. On the whole, unless you're a hardcore Japanese pop culture enthusiast with an interest in idols, you'll probably want to skip this one.

Isola (2000)

Hey, what if you had multiple personalities and one of them turned out to be the malevolent disembodied spirit of a woman scientist who died in an isolation tank and is now killing everyone around you? Dig the conceit? Then you'll enjoy Isola. Set in Kobe during the aftermath of the Great Hanshin earthquake, everything's all rubbly and the aura of crisis hangs heavily in the air. A pretty yet troubled young psychic arrives on the scene and soon bonds with a high school girl afflicted with the above-mentioned personality disorders. Can they stop the evil spirit before she kills again? I enjoyed this film, and found it slightly weirder than the average J-horror. The beautiful girl with the 13 personalities turns out to be Yu Kurosawa, teen idol and granddaughter of Akira Kurosawa. Shortly after making this film, she married and retired from the business. Too bad, she had a truly hypnotic allure. Also present in a small role as a suicidal old man, is Hideo Murota -- he's been in everything from Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs to Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.

OK, on to the other two ...

Snow Trail

2010-10-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

Snow Trail (1947) is a milestone film for students of Japanese cinema, chiefly as it marks the screen debut of one Toshiro Mifune. Scripted by Akira Kurosawa and directed by his childhood friend and lesser-talented fellow Toho director Senkichi Taniguchi, it is not an outstanding film, but as you've no doubt gathered by now, there are some outstanding things in it.

Most remarkable by far is the performance of Takashi Shimura. Of course a remarkable performance from this legendary actor isn't remarkable in itself, as he gave so many: an embarrassment of riches. Here, he's a bank robber on the lamb with his younger and far less nice partner in crime (Mifune). They're stalking about in the Japanese alps. Why they decided to head there is never explained, but it makes for many a beautiful scenic vista (and much trudge-based plot padding). The two men (there was a third but he fell down a ravine) find themselves in a remote lodge with a kindly old man, his charming granddaughter, and a cheerful local mountain climber. They're all snowed in and there's nothing for it but to sit and wait. Shimura's heart begins to thaw in this compassionate company; Mifune's hardens. While the older crook sips sake and moons paternally over the girl, his angry young cohort spends his time cleaning his gun and counting his loot. Tensions mount. Something's gotta give ...

As I say, the film belongs to Shimura. The Spencer Tracy of Japanese film, he could say it all with a mere gesture. A more natural actor you'll never find, nor a more versatile one. From the battle-hardened Sengoku warrior of Seven Samurai to the cancer-riddled bureaucrat in Ikiru and all points in between, Shimura's every turn was perfection. In Snow Trail, he undergoes a transformation of character upon which hangs the rest of the picture. Everything else is fairly cookie-cutter, including Mifune's rather two-dimensional heavy. However, even in this comparatively unrewarding role, we see a Mifune already nearly fully-formed. His pent-up tension, his flashes of rage, his body language; he's a natural. Watching his performance, it's possible to grok with a then-37-year-old Akira Kurosawa and his determination to get this hot new talent on a set of his own (which he promptly did with the following year's Drunken Angel).

And the rest, as they say, (as they say) is history.

Shinsengumi Chronicles

2010-10-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

Once again, Animeigo and I are on the same page. In this case, it's page 194 of Warring Clans, Flashing Blades where I noted that Shinsengumi Chronicles is "largely accurate and impressive in its scope and devotion to a thorough retelling of the events of the day." Those unfamiliar with the Shinsengumi, a ronin militia formed during the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate, should probably read the whole review, as I spend a bit of time discussing the background and forming of this most legendary aggregation of lethal swordsmen. But even it you don't, Animeigo has done their usual whiz-bang job of providing lots of supplemental material to bring you up to speed.

One thing puzzles me, though. My name is on the back of the DVD case, after the quote "Samurai Knights of the Roundtable … " -- something I've never said or written in connection with this film. Either Animeigo's marketing department is confused, or they're just making stuff up. I understand they're under considerable stress just now, suffering from both a bad economy and consumer flight from disc-based media. But really, fellas, "Samurai Knights of the Roundtable"? Give me some credit. That's not only corny, but wholly inaccurate. These Shinsengumi guys operated more like gangsters than mythical Arthurian knights of old, something you surely know, so why wouldn't I?

But never mind this lapse, Shinsengumi Chronicles is a great samurai film, one of the best and highly recommended.

Inch by Incheon

2010-10-15T19:49:00.000-07:00

Just about halfway through a 9-hour layover at Incheon. As airports go, you could do worse; there are big, comfy cushions to stretch out on, plenty of restaurants, tons of free wi-fi, major shopping (if that's your thing). They're nuts for shopping in this country. All the cineplexes where the PIFF films were showing were inside shopping centers. One was in the Largest Department Store in the World (for real -- they have a huge Guinness World Records seal out front). One night after a screening, the elevators went on the fritz and we all had to use the escalators. Going down through floor after floor after floor of Prada and Gucci and Lancome and Chanel and the like -- I guess it's paradise for some folks, but I felt like I was descending through some realm of consumer madness.

Oh hey, there goes the royal family. It's a ren-faire-like procession of actors in Joseon period costume portraying the royals of yore. They walk solemnly up and down the third floor passenger terminal. Don't quite know why, but it's kinda cool.

OK, I've bored you enough with this non-film entry. Go enjoy your day (or evening). I've got thousands of miles before I sleep ...

Secret Reunion

2010-10-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

How great is Secret Reunion? Let me count the ways. It's a multi-layered, breathlessly-paced North/South Korean spy film; a buddy picture full of humor and action; a pitch-perfect political metaphor; and just possibly the best film I've seen all year.

Of course I'm a sucker for Song Kang-ho and, once again, he pulls the whole film together with his unique blend of schlubby, sleazy comedy and emotional intensity. He's a cornerstone of contemporary South Korean cinema for a reason; you just feel like you know the guy from the first frame and you're on his side, come what may. Major props also to newcomer director Jang Hun. A former AD to Kim Ki-duk, Secret Reunion is his sophomore effort after turning heads with his gangsters vs. actors debut Rough Cut (2008).

Song plays Lee Han-kyu, a National Intelligence Service agent fired for botching a mission to capture North Korean operative Song Ji-won (Kang Dong-won). Six years later, the two men meet, albeit under completely different circumstances, each becoming increasingly more involved in the other's life. Lee knows Song's real identity but keeps it on the down-low for his own purposes. Song does likewise. As events advance and tension mounts, the two men develop a mutual admiration and respect for one another. Can the North Korean and the South Korean work things out? Can't we all just get along?

Kang Dong-won deserves praise as well, perfectly complimenting Song Kang-ho's performance with his own stoic, steely stance. It's funny, I was just looking at him on Korean television the night before in a very different role, that of the title character in Jeon Woochi: The Taoist Wizard, wherein he fights giant rat and rabbit spirits among other things. Yeah, you'll be hearing more about that one -- watch this space …

In any case, I found Secret Reunion so thoroughly enjoyable that I even forgot how loud it was. I don't know if it's Korean cinemas in general or just the films at the PIFF, but every screening I've attended has been just short of deafening. The sound on these films is cranked up to 11, way louder than anything in a cineplex in the States. So if you like your action loud, get your ass to Busan!

Busan Day 3

2010-10-13T21:04:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately, due to a combination of poor timing, illness and first-timer ineptitude, I'm not seeing a whole lot of films here in Busan. I really need to get back here next year so I can utilize the knowledge I'm gaining from all the mistakes I'm making.

I did get to see a wonderful Korean comedy from 1961, Under the Sky of Seoul, and last night I caught Sion Sono's latest, Cold Fish. The latter is a perverse, serial killer splatfest that could only come from the unbridled imagination of the man who gave us Suicide Club and Love Exposure. I won't say any more about it, as it's one of those films best seen knowing as little as possible -- just let it slice into you and scatter you in pieces all across the theater floor.

Elsewhere, I wandered down the beach to where they shot all the outdoor restaurant scenes for Tidal Wave. That was a mind fuck, like stepping into the movie (minus the tsunami and Park Joong-hoon). Then, when I went back to the hotel room, what came on the TV? Yep, you guessed it. I was inside the movie watching the movie inside my hotel -- what would Poe say? (Clue: It's tattooed on this chick's back).

OK, gotta run. Going to see the new Song Kang-ho spy picture Secret Reunion. Love that guy.

Pat in Pusan (well Busan really)

2010-10-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

After an ungodly 18-hour journey, I'm finally in my hotel room in Busan, South Korea. Why am I up, writing this? Not only is it after midnight here, but, according to my clock, I've been up all night and am shuffling around in the dewy dawn like some overripe meth head. Only traveling in Asia can leave you so skuzzily in need of a shower and yet so damned exhilarated (meth don't even come close). Now all I need to do is get enough sleep to function for the PIFF.

More to come ...

Special NYC Screening

2010-10-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

Gotham Screen International Film Festival 2010 in NYC will be holding a special tribute screening for the late anime master Satoshi Kon. His last feature film, Paprika, will be screened in 35mm in Tribeca Cinemas on Oct 13. I caught the premier back in 2007 and wrote a review.

If you haven't seen this amazing film, you should now. Its a special film made by a special human being. Who can read his last words and not be moved?

Tidal Wave

2010-10-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

In light of my impending trip to South Korea for the 15th Pusan International Film Festival, I thought I'd watch the beach front location of the event being violently demolished by a massive tsunami. For a giggle. To this purpose, Tidal Wave (2009) delivered the goods. The other 90% of the film however ... not so good.

In the classic disaster flick formula, we're introduced to a variety of characters with whom we are expected to bond through long intervals of character development. This serves two purposes: 1) It sets up a payoff when the shit hits the fan -- we're emotionally invested in the fates of our new friends; 2) It creates padding (let's face it, you can't have 120 minutes of giant waves crushing stuff). So you've got the brave young coast guard guy, the plucky single mom, the lovable looser guy, the brainy-yet-hot chick, the scientist who knows the tidal wave is coming (but no one will listen), the adorable child, etc, etc. These individuals all display an emotional range that goes from goofy to sappy and back again. And again. And again. Yep, that's pretty much all you get here, either goofy or sappy. The laughs are played broad, usually involving slapstick and/or some measure of extreme drunkenness. And despite how tough or smart a character might be, underneath they're all histrionically sentimental. Behold, as the waves finally hit, the weeping, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth! The film's special effects are matched only by the emotional spectacle the actors make of themselves.

There's also an issue with the ending, which it's impossible for me to spoil unless I go into detail (which I won't). The thing is, in a film like this, where you've already kept the audience waiting for the vast majority of the picture, when the grand finale comes, the one thing it shouldn't do is drag. Oh how it drags. It drags like a drag queen taking a drag on the back of a dead dragon. It's a drag.

That's not to say there aren't some thrilling moments, like right when the wave hits. Obviously these scenes will resonate more with the tens of thousands of Koreans who flock to the lovely Haeundae Beach area each summer (the Korean title of the film is Haeundae). Me, I've been looking at pictures of the place in tour books and online in anticipation of my visit, so it was a little spooky seeing it wiped out by a cyclopean wall of water. Those without fond memories or a vested interest in Haeundae Beach may not be so engaged. However, if you're a disaster film fan, you'll probably want to see Tidal Wave, if only for the FX and the novelty of a modern Korean take on an old genre. If so, good night and good luck.

Tokugawa Sex Ban: Lustful Lord

2010-09-24T08:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, in anticipation of a film, it's possible to over-hype it to yourself, play it up in your mind until, when you finally see it, you're disappointed that it didn't live up to your overheated expectations. Such was the danger with Tokugawa Sex Ban: Lustful Lord (1972), a film I've wanted to see for nearly a decade. I needn't have worried, though; this is one of those films that defies expectations.

Made by ace Toei director Norifumi Suzuki, it is the story of a sexually inexperienced daimyo (Hiroshi Nawa) who, in 1825, finds himself compelled to marry one of the shogun's many daughters and, oh no, consummate the marriage. Displeasing the shogun is not an option, and the lord's ministers are determined that their boss delivers the goods. They get the lascivious Hakataya (Fumio Watanabe), a samurai well versed in the ways of the flesh, to turn him out. After a three-day intensive with a bevy of multi-racial beauties (including sizzling French import Sandra Julien) and a whole lot of hot sex, our daimyo is transformed into the eponymous horny lord. He becomes sex mad, and, resentful of the rest of his subjects who've been having it off all along, he prohibits everyone else from engaging in his newfound pleasure. Every man must have his member stamped with an official seal; if it's found to have rubbed off, the whole thing must come off. Yikes! Meanwhile, the lord keeps on bonking.

It's truly remarkable how explicit a film like this can get without ever showing penetration or even genitalia. Suzuki was a master of this type of film, and Tokugawa Sex Ban: Lustful Lord ranks right up there with his nunsploitation classic Convent of the Sacred Beast (see my review of the latter in Asia Shock). Sex and violence are so perfectly intermingled you'll likely become alarmed at how much you're enjoying it. Suzuki's supreme ability lies in seducing the eye before the mind can interfere, allowing the audience to gaze upon rape, torture, giant dildoes and various atrocities and appreciate their artistic merits. I realize how perverse this sounds, but bear in mind the era, the unique flair for S&M that runs through Japanese art and culture and the fact this this is, after all, an exploitation film and not to be taken too seriously. Plus, as I say, Suzuki is an artist and master of the OTT moment; even as people are being beheaded, crucified and castrated, it all works to serve the story rather than being there for mere sensation.

And the whole affair is frequently played for laughs. When you're not getting aroused, you're laughing your head off, a heady mixture of enjoyments. Frankly, words fail to describe this picture. You really just need to see it, and thanks to the good folks over at kurotokagi.com, now you can. My advice is to click that link and get yourself a copy of this amazing movie.

The Sword With No Name

2010-09-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

Oh pity the terrible fate of Korea's poor Queen Min, destined to die on the end of a Japanese sword in 1895. I was just reading about this incident, the result of palace intrigue and treacherous conspiracy, so this film, an historical drama based on the life of Queen Min, was of immediate interest.

The Sword With No Name (2009) is based on a novel, and, as is the wont of novelists, there is a fictitious character placed at the nexus of things. In the film adaptation, he is Moo-myeong (Jo Seung-woo), a country bumpkin with mad sword skills. Frankly, the character is sketchy at best; we first encounter him snoozing in a boat, waking to gaze, love-at-first-sightedly, at the young, soon to be queen (Soo Ae). Later we're supposed to get that he's really an ace assassin. He gets the gig to murder the beautiful young woman (but of course he's way too in love to do the deed).

Frankly, the film is downright choppy in parts; pivotal scenes are almost elliptical in their execution, leaving the audience struggling to make sense of it all. I got the impression that there was a lot of assumed knowledge on the part of the audience. After all, the story of Queen Min would be a familiar one for most Korean moviegoers. However, Korean film these days is usually geared for an international audience, so such cultural/narrative insularity is surprising. Or maybe director Kim Yong-gyun just isn't much cop at this sort of thing … ?

Moo-myeong devotes his life to protecting his beloved queen, becoming a castle guard to be closer to her. Obviously, things don't end well. It's a doomed lovers tale made all the more poignant when you know what's in store for Queen Min. Along the way there's plenty of sword action and the performances are terrific. Jo Seung-woo overcomes the vagueness of his character with sheer force of will, fleshing him out and making him someone you can get behind. Soo-ae says more with a teardrop than most actresses and Cheon Ho-jin is great as her father-in-law and arch enemy, the scheming Daewongun.

Overall, I'd recommend The Sword With No Name. It's drawbacks are occasionally annoying, but ultimately there's far more good stuff here than bad, plus thrilling fight sequences, tender love scenes, melodrama, conspiracy, turn-of-the-century culture mash-ups (the queen trying on a corset, interacting with Europeans, etc.) and some excellent beheadings. To enhance your experience, I'd advise a bit of brush up on the period. Do a search on Queen Min or Empress Myeongseong (as she was also called), or, even better, read this book. As in all things in life, a little prep goes a long way.

Connected

2010-09-17T18:31:00.001-07:00

I've never seen Cellular (2004), the Hollywood thriller upon which Connected is based (hey, an Asian remake of a Hollywood picture -- there's a switch!) although I've heard it wasn't good. This 2008 Hong Kong version, however, is nothing short of superb. Director Benny Chan show's us how it's done, bringing his own brand of hyperkinetic action as well as a healthy dose of sustained, edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Louis Koo (Accident, Triangle) plays the Hitchcockian everyman who receives a call on his cell phone from a woman (Barbie Hsu) who's been kidnapped. He tries to hand the phone off to a former badass detective/now traffic cop (Nick Cheung, whom we last saw in The Beast Stalker), but the disgruntled officer thinks it's a prank. Of course he'll realize later that it wasn't and get involved in the case, much to the chagrin of his former underling/now boss (Eddie Cheung). Many jaw-dropping chase scenes ensue.

The pace is relentless and the tension taut throughout. Barbie Hsu's histrionics become occasionally tiresome, but what's the poor woman to do? Her loved ones are being threatened and brutalized by bad guy rogue Interpol dudes after … well, you gradually find out what they're after and why. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is wild action, OTT stunts and high tech hijinks all delivered with style and a sense of humor. Are we reinventing the wheel here? No. Is this an important film that will change the way you look at life? Probably not. Is it a top-notch cinematic thrill ride from one of the best action directors in the business? Oh yeah.

Samurai Vendetta

2010-09-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

Raizo! Katsu-shin! Chushingura! Tange Sazen (sort of)! If you don't know what I'm talking about, you probably won't enjoy Samurai Vendetta (1959) as much as those who do. But that's how it goes with some samurai films: The filmmakers assume a certain amount of background knowledge on your part because, after all, you're Japanese, right? Why else would you be watching it? Surely no gaijin would be interested in this stuff. It was to remedy this cultural myopia that I originally wrote Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves and then, a few years later, Warring Clans, Flashing Blades (which includes, funnily enough, a review of Samurai Vendetta). You're welcome.

And you're doubly blessed, as the good folks at AnimEigo have seen fit to release Samurai Vendetta featuring their unique brand of onscreen annotation and cultural/historical supplemental materials. Armed with an AnimEigo edition of a samurai film and my books, you're gonna be just fine.

So what's it all about? Essentially it's a love triangle between real-life samurai Horibe Yasubei (Shintaro Katsu), made-up samurai Tange Tenzin (Raizo Ichikawa) and mutual love interest Chiharu (Maki Chitose). I should point out that while I normally write Japanese names Western-style, here I've retained the Japanese form of surname first for the two male characters in order to point out the similarity between the name Tange Tenzin and Tange Sazen (the latter being the famous one-armed, one-eyed ronin character originally created by novelist Fubo Hayashi in the 1920s). Why point this out? Because Tange Tenzin is similarly mutilated over the course of the film, making me wonder what the author of the original story, Kosuke Gomi, was playing at. A one-armed swordsman named Tange? Dude, it's been done.

Historical events such as Horibe's thrilling duel with the Murakami brothers at Takadanobaba in 1694 and the revenge of the Loyal 47 Ronin in 1702 provide a backdrop for the two men's mutual longing for Chiharu (as well as their own bromance -- being samurai, of course, they barely speak a dozen words to one another throughout the movie). Along the way, many cruel and treacherous acts are perpetrated against Tange and Chiharu. Horibe's big wound is he doesn't get the girl (that's not a spoiler -- you learn this fairly early on).

On the minus side, Raizo's swordplay, never the strongest, comes off much worse next to that of Shintaro Katsu (aka Zatoichi), particularly when Raizo's forced to play it left hand. And then there's the regrettable casting of Maki Chitose. I don't know whose cousin or niece or sister-in-law she was but frankly she's a drip, and definitely not up to the more dramatic moments of the script. So uninspiring is her performance, one wonders why the two samurai would fall so utterly for such a homely, insipid woman. Where's Masayo Banri when we need her?!

Overall, though, Samurai Vendetta is a decent film. Somewhat more melodramatic than what you're used to getting with Katsu and Raizo -- Sleepy Eyes of Death this ain't. But there's no denying this is one picture that's positively steeped in bushido, adhering to the code of the samurai to the bitter end. The original Japanese title, Hakuoki, translates as Chronicle of Pale Cherry Blossoms, a more fitting title I think. While there are plenty of vendettas to go around, the film is ultimately more concerned with the beautiful melancholy symbolized by those falling petals, that of untimely death.

Mother

2010-09-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

Man, that's what I'm talking about. Excellent film. I love murder mysteries and I love Korean film, so this one was made to order, but Mother (2009) is a downright fantastic film into the bargain. Director Bong Joon-ho revisits the bleak, rural noir setting he conjured so deftly in Memories of Murder (2003). But whereas that film was based on South Korea's first (and still unsolved) serial killer case, this film presents the full mystery set including the denouement, providing an overall more satisfying film experience.

On paper it's, well, paper thin: Mother (Kim Hye-ja) tries to save her simpleton son (Won Bin) who's been sent up for a murder he's clearly too sweetly retarded to have committed. It's a small town with seemingly no potential perps except maybe her son's sleazy friend (Jin Goo). Where do you go from there? This is clearly no Agatha Christie affair featuring an assortment of colorful characters with means and motives. However, as mom investigates, she starts uncovering the town's nasty little secrets in a Blue Velvet-y, pick-up-a-rock-and-see-what's-squriming-there kind of way. Her gentle, gradual flaying of the community reveals all sorts of unexpected things, including issues pertaining to her own past. It's all very sordid and dark and utterly engrossing. By the time the credits role, two hours have slipped right by -- you've been utterly rapt.

It's difficult to say much more for fear of spoiling something. Best to just sit down and let the film envelop you like a dark dream. Bong Joon-ho got a lot of attention for his 2006 monster mash The Host, but for my money it's the crime stuff at which he truly excels. Mother is a modern murder masterpiece not to be missed.

Crying Fist

2010-08-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

Korean fight picture. So you know it's gonna be brutal. Not that the Korean people are indigenously any more brutal than anyone else. However, between the Japanese, Americans, Russians and their own various home-grown military dictatorships, these people were brutalized for the better part of the twentieth century, and that kind of thing doesn't just go away. Fortunately South Korean filmmakers have been sublimating this brutality into their work over the last decade or so, creating something like a national catharsis. Don't get me wrong, they also crank out their share of sicky-sweet, sentimental fare. The cumulative result is a national cinema that offers a broader emotional range than its neighbors to the north and south.

So yeah, Crying Fist (2004). I didn't get a chance to see it when I was writing Asia Shock, so it's not included in my profile of the great Choi Min-sik, one of the picture's two stars (the other being Ryoo Seung-beom). No one who's seen Oldboy (2003) is likely to ever forget Choi Min-sik, Korea's own Lawrence Olivier/Robert DeNiro/Gerard Depardieu. If you check the years, you'll shrewdly deduce that Choi was still down at his fighting weight from the Oldboy shoot when he made this film (he's been much pudgier on other outings). That said, he's still 42, not a good age to be staging a boxing comeback as his character, Kang Tae-shik, plans to do in the film, particularly when he's been making his living on the street as a human punching bag. Literally. For 10,000 won (roughly $8.50) you can wail away (he supplies the boxing gloves). Yep, he's pretty down and out, and this daily abuse isn't helping his head -- he's starting to show signs of brain damage.

Then there's the parallel story of Yoo Sang-hwan (Ryoo Seung-beom). He's a petty criminal with natty dreads and a beard who finds himself in the slammer (minus the hair) after a mugging goes horribly awry. The prison population soon learns that he's nobody's bitch after he chews off a guy's ear Tyson-style on his first day. He's immediately recruited into the boxing team where perhaps his natural talent for violence can be honed and refined -- see where this is going? Of course Yoo and Kang are on a collision course, but just how they meet I'll leave for you to discover.

While I'm not particularly drawn to the genre, I thought this was a great boxing film. Gritty, bloody, populated with a fascinating array of urban losers and grimy locations -- you can almost smell the garbage and B.O. The supporting cast is great, featuring Oh Dai-soo (A Bloody Aria), Nah Moon-hee (The Quiet Family) and the diminutive character actor Ki Joo-bong (he's been in everything -- one of those "oh yeah, that guy" guys).

Style-wise, Crying Fist changes up on you -- it gradually shifts from elliptical jump-cut indy at the beginning to a more conventional ending, but it all works out. I have one minor complaint, but it concerns the ending, so I'll have to sit on it. I'll wait 'til you see it and then I'll tell you ...

Invisible Target

2010-08-24T08:01:00.000-07:00

Man, what a kickass flick! I realize that isn't a terribly scholarly pronouncement, but this ain't that kind of film. This is balls out action, everything's on the table: Urban crime thrills, martial arts, parkour, shit blowing up, gang fights, a seemingly unlimited supply of plate glass to fling people through, and of course guns, lots of guns. Shame about the crap title (how can a target be invisible? And what does that have to do with the price of rice?).

Boiled down to its essence, it's a cops and robbers picture. An elite criminal gang blows up an armored van, inadvertently killing the fiance of police detective Chan Chun (Nicholas Tse). Six months later, the tragedy has turned him into something of a rogue I-just-don't-care-anymore cop. When he isn't moping around the apartment, he's blowing a stake-out by chasing after the perp through the streets of Hong Kong in a dizzying free-running sequence. Then there's Carson Fong (Shawn Yue). He's another detective, more of a slick dick, but just as explosive and high-kicking. Rounding out the inevitable trio is straight-laced rookie Wai King Ho (Jaycee "Son of Jackie" Chan). On the other end of the equation is that group of baddies I mentioned earlier, led by Tien Yeng Seng (Jacky Wu, one of the toughest movie mofos I've seen in quite some time).

This film had me involuntarily laughing and whooping, delighted as an eight-year-old completely lost in the fun. If you've got a drop of testosterone in you, you'll likely do the same. Invisible Target (2007) is the perfect synthesis of Hollywood and Hong Kong action, with a little Parisian flair thrown in. The fight sequences are breathtaking -- fast and tight, they raise the bar considerably on what you usually get in this kind of film, even employing a touch of wire fu. Like I say, everything's on the table and director Benny Chan is on his game.

"That's all very well and good, Pat," I hear you saying, "but what's so shocking?" Well frankly, considering the bad title and generic box art, I wasn't expecting much. What's shocking is how damn good it is! Jackie Chan's kid acquits himself admirably; Nicholas Tse shows what a shape-shifter of an actor he is (in comparison to the character he played in The Beast Stalker); Shawn Yue and Jacky Wu are just plain awesome. While I'm not big on the historical epics coming out of Hong Kong of late, these crime flicks are just getting better and better. Of course I miss the more quirky, crazy, fried vibe of HK films of the 80s and 90s. Luckily there's a ton of those on disk when I need them; this new stuff, while more streamlined and Hollywood-influenced, well, I'm still liking what I'm seeing. Keep 'em coming, Benny Chan!

Nagisa Oshima Pt. 2

2010-08-20T16:00:00.001-07:00

Warning: DVD manufacturers often use the box set as a way to get you to buy sucky movies. Case in point: Criterion's Eclipse label box set Oshima's Outlaw Sixties. Of the five films on offer here, only one (or maybe two) really warrants a look in. So let me save you a little money by reviewing the rest of them (for more see Nagisa Oshima Pt. 1) as well as one more that Criterion really ought to release.

Three Resurrected Drunkards (1968)

This kooky bit of piffle comes as close to a typical Sixties romp as Oshima is likely to get. The misleadingly-titled film stars real life pop group The Folk Crusaders as three decidedly sober students who fall victim to a couple of South Korean soldiers. The latter have deserted, not wanting to fight in Viet Nam, and have entered Japan illegally. They steal the clothes of two of the students and assume their identities. So far, so good. But then things get sillier and sillier until, about halfway through, the whole movie starts all over again; after about ten minutes of the exact same opening sequence, things finally get going in a slightly different direction. This film further fed my suspicion that Oshima was interested in not only provoking his audience, but actually alienating if not downright annoying them. This extends to showing the three young guys ridiculing the famous Eddie Adams photo of the summary execution of a Vietcong soldier. Redeeming features: Kei Sato (as one of the deserters) and Fumio Watanabe doing an OTT dastardly character (it's fun to watch him playing it for laughs for once). But really, this film was a waste of my time.

Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (1967)

Another study in driving the audience up the wall. A buxom young lass (Keiko Sakurai) wanders around looking for a man, any man, to have sex with. A gaunt, haunted-looking man (Kei Sato) wants someone to kill him. Elsewhere, a young guy longs to shoot a gun, a rotund monster of a man likes to stab people, an old man spends a long time repairing a gun, a group of heavily armed men prepare for a gun battle, most of the main characters are held against their will, and for the first hour nothing happens. The girl seduces several men to no avail; Kei Sato jumps in front of every brandished weapon -- nobody will kill him; the gang war never comes off. It's all talking and no action. Once again, Oshima is, well there's no other term for it: He's fucking with us. Finally things kick off, and the remaining forty minutes are an explosion of general mayhem, the various main characters befriending a young, caucasian psycho sniper character similar to the one in Peter Bogdanovich's Targets (although Bogdanovich's film came out a year later -- go figure) for a grand finale shoot out with the cops. To its credit, the film's B&W photography and avant garde production design are visually stunning and the performances are great. So if you're up for an hour of stultifying, Waiting for Godot-style existential nothingness followed by a lot of shooting and killing, this is your movie.

The Ceremony (1971)

This was the other film, along with Boy (1969), recommended to me as among Oshima's best. I'd have to agree, but it's far more uneven than Boy and, in Audie Bock's phrase, "discouragingly complex." The story concerns the Sakuradas, a wealthy, provincial family that, over the course of roughly 25 years (from the immediate post-war period to the "present") completely disintegrates. Narratively, we're dropped into the story with no explanations, and forced to catch up as best we can through flashbacks. "The Ceremony" isn't any one in particular, but rather a collective reference to the series of weddings and funerals we follow throughout the film; these events, and the increasingly outrageous behavior of their participants, serve as way stations on the family's ever-spiraling downward trajectory. What kind of outrageous behavior, you ask? Let's see, there are incestuous dalliances, corpse bothering, a wedding with no bride (during which a coup attempt occurs), someone is affixed to a tree with a samurai sword, a young man sexually assaults his grandfather -- is that outrageous enough for you? Bear in mind, however, that these scenes come at the price of interstitial longueurs. Yes, pacing is a problem here; overlong voice-overs, tedious conversations, vague, dark scenes where nothing much happens. The question I asked myself as a critic was, "Does it all even out? Are the interesting bits worth the slog?" I suppose so. I can't really say no. It's just a shame no one thought to cut 120 minutes down to 100; it would have improved the picture immeasurably. Those interested in post-war history and politics will find many passing references and subtle commentary woven into the story, and, once again, the cinematography is gorgeous and the performances are first rate.

So that's it for Oshima for awhile. Having now seen a dozen of his films, I think I've gotten a better handle on his oeuvre. Although he is, as Bock puts it, "almost impossible to pin down stylistically, except in terms of recurrent favorite symbols," there's no denying his films boast great strengths in terms of craft and performance. It's only the filmmaker's perversity that gets in the way. If I didn't hate the expression, I'd say Oshima's a little too smart for his own good. But maybe I don't have the right to be that condescending. I dunno, you tell me.

The Music

2010-08-13T12:34:00.001-07:00

Meet Reiko (Noriko Kurosawa). She's young and sexy but a bit of a head case. Seems she can't hear music. Go ahead, put a radio up to her head -- she just can't hear it. Also, she can't experience sexual pleasure. Unless, of course, she's with a man who's impotent or on his death bed. Perhaps it all has something to do with being hot for her brother (whom she witnessed getting it on with their aunt)? She also has a scissor fixation. Hmm. And she dreams of a bull coming out of the sky with horns shaped like huge penises. Her psychiatrist is having a field day. But can he really get to the bottom of her problems?

Watching The Music (Ongaku, 1972), one of Yasuzo Masumura's better yet lesser-known flicks, made me realize how long it's been since I've seen an truly, wonderfully bizarre film. Masumura delivers the fucked-up, Freudian goods in this exploration of incest, necrophilia, rape, suicide, sexual dysfunction, and, of course, mental illness. Noriko Kurosawa is amazing, a one-woman encyclopedia of psychosexual neurosis, channeling a dozen conflicting impulses at once (in a near-perpetual state of undress). Quite frankly, she burns up the screen, making for far more compelling viewing than would have been the case with a less gifted and demonstrative actress.

However, the lovely Ms. Kurosawa (no relation) can't take all the credit for the murky, manipulative mind job that is The Music. The film is based on a novel by Yukio Mishima, himself a notable nut job (you'll recall he famously attempted to take over an army base in 1970 and, failing, subsequently committed a painfully protracted seppuku). Masumura directed Mishima in the not-great vanity picture Afraid to Die (1960); it wasn't Masumura's fault -- Mishima just wasn't much of an actor. The noted novelist was much better as a "human doll" in Kinji Fukasaku's Black Lizard (1968) and in the tiny role of a samurai who commits a spontaneous seppuku (!) in Hideo Gosha's Tenchu! (1969).

As for your being able to see The Music, well I won't lie to you, it ain't gonna be easy. It's not available commercially. I got a copy through back channels, so you're gonna have to know a collector to get a gander at this delightfully demented picture. But hey, things can change. Many's the time I've secured a hither-to hard-to-find film only to see it released commercially in the US a couple of years later. Who knows, maybe Fantoma will put it out? They've been doing great work carrying the Masumura torch, with half a dozen titles out to date. Perhaps we should all send them an email? If they get enough requests, they just might do it. That would be great, because this is a forgotten gem that really deserves to be seen.

Nagisa Oshima Pt. 1

2010-08-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

Over the years, many a Japanese filmmaker has captured my attention, becoming the object of a protracted obsession: Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi, Beat Takeshi, Kenji Misumi, Yasuzo Masumura, Kenji Mizoguchi, Hideo Gosha, Kazuo Ikehiro, and on and on. Nagisa Oshima, however, was never one of them. I don't know why, the guy just never got under my skin. I liked Cruel Story of Youth, Realm of Passion and Taboo. The Realm of the Senses was alright. Didn't care for Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. Hated Violence at Noon. And yet, he is one of the Big Names, so in light of the recent Criterion box (Oshima's Outlaw Sixties), as well as a couple of suggestions from Peter Nellhaus, I decided to delve deeper into this filmmaker's oeuvre. Here's what I've come up with so far.

Pleasures of the Flesh (1965)

I really enjoyed this weird tale of a slightly insane young man who murders for love (unrequited), then is blackmailed into holding a small fortune for a crooked government official (just until the old guy gets out of prison). The young man, played compellingly by Katsuo (brother of Kinnosuke) Nakamura, decides fuck it, and uses the money to create a living fantasy of luxury and non-stop sex. Of course, this extended spree takes its toll, the man growing jaded and cruel. According to Audie Bock, the young man symbolizes Japan, newly rich and without a moral compass. (Oshima utilized symbolism quite a bit in his mid to late 60s films as we shall see.) I appreciated this careful-what-you-wish-for-you-might-get-it parable and found the plot and pace right on the money (not always a given with Oshima). So I give this one a thumbs up.

A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs (1967)

Criterion is using the alternative title Sing a Song of Sex, but that title is misleading. This isn't some light-hearted sex romp, but rather a somewhat dry tale of four male high school graduates and the perverse directions in which their misguided energies take them. Issues touched upon include rape fantasies (which may or may not come true), the death of a teacher (who may or may not have been murdered), peace rallies, an obsession with an older woman and, of course, singing. Lots of singing. If it isn't the incessant repetition of one particular Japanese bawdy song by the boys, it's folk songs, drinking songs, even a little Korean prostitute ditty evoking a motif common to several Oshima films of the period, that of Korean identity in post-war Japan. Also present is Oshima's singular flag imagery. This time out it's an alternative Japanese flag, with a black dot instead of a red one, symbolizing Oshima's regard for Japan as a dead nation (the black dot flag and Japan's treatment of Koreans is also featured prominently in Oshima's Death by Hanging). Too bad A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs unravels so badly in the third act. Either Oshima lost interest, or he decided to drive us all crazy -- this also happens in films of this period (see Violence at Noon). Worth a look if you're interested in Japan of the late 60s, but I couldn't really recommend it otherwise.

Boy (1969)

Based on real events, it's the story of an incredibly dysfunctional family of con artists who fake being hit by automobiles to extort money from the distraught drivers. Fumio Watanabe, one of Oshima's go-to actors, turns in another great performance as a truly despicable man, the father who forces his wife and young son to run out in traffic, risking their lives for payoffs so he can lounge around in hotels and eat. Oh, the eating. This guy is always eating. (Watanabe, in the photo up top, was a versatile actor with a bulbous nose, perhaps the Karl Malden of Japanese cinema? In the 70s he moved to Toei where he played heavies in such exploitation classics as Joy of Torture and Convent of the Sacred Beast.) Oshima's flag imagery is in full force here; this time, it's the standard Japanese flag, always in close proximity to the family, making me suspect it symbolizes some aspect of Japanese society with which the filmmaker has an issue (lassitude? Gluttony? Mistreatment of the young?). Bottom line: Awesome film, the best I've seen from Oshima and one that is rightly singled out as a classic. Young Tetsuo Abe, playing the eponymous 10-year-old, gives a devastating performance as the tough little guy who endures painful injuries, a life of uncertainty and all his father's cruelty and manipulation. This is the film Criterion should release.

Shogun Assassin

2010-08-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

Back in 1980 a couple of guys decided to re-cut the second Lone Wolf and Cub film (Baby Cart at the River Styx), add a few scenes from the first film (Sword of Vengeance), change the storyline, replace the music and dub it in English. Now I'm a bit of a purist, me, and, to be blunt, I consider it a desecration. I said as much in my first book, Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves. Nevertheless, the folks at Animeigo sent me a copy anyway. In blu-ray no less. And to tell you the truth, I'm glad they did. Not that it's changed my opinion of the film itself, but the extras are quite nice and the transfer does look gorgeous. Just so long as I don't have to hear that insufferable "voice of Daigoro" narration and Sandra Bernhard voicing lady ninjas.

Fortunately, the disk contains not one but two commentary tracks. One features folks involved in the 1980 production. The other has "film scholar" Ric Meyers talking non-stop while another guy, martial artist Steve Watson, tries periodically to comment on what's happening onscreen. Meyers used to write a column for the now-defunct Asian Cult Cinema and, to his credit, is full to overflowing with background information.

There's also a great interview with Samuel L. Jackson. Turns out his interest in samurai film goes way beyond voicing the animated Afro Samurai series. He's got a huge Asian film collection and is more than happy to tell you all about it. Between Jackson and Meyers, it's a genuine Japanese film nerd out!

And of course there are the standard Animeigo reference materials that always enhance their releases, providing historical and cultural background and making outfits like Media Blasters look like the fly-by-night hacks they are.

So even though I wouldn't personally recommend Shogun Assassin, I realize it's as close as some folks are going to come to watching a samurai film, and I can respect that it was a doorway for people back in the 80s to discover the real thing. The TV mini-series Shogun had a similar impact. I guess whatever gets people looking to the East has its merits. I'll leave it at that.

They can't all be good Pt. 2

2010-08-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

Bad choices. They're what holds us back in life. They impact our lives in adverse and unpredictable ways, wasting precious time and resources. I know because I've made some lately, in terms of my film viewing. So once again I must sully the pristine pages of my virtual salon with reviews of bad films. It's the only way to reclaim some vestige of value from an otherwise utterly unprofitable enterprise.

I wasn't expecting much from Tokyo Gore School (2009); it was sent to me by one of my PR contacts, so I figured I owed them a look. I thought it would be yet another OTT gross-out like the similarly-named Tokyo Gore Police or, perhaps, Robogeisha. Turns out there's precious little gore involved, the story revolving instead around an internet-based fighting game where high school kids target one another for fun and cash prizes. So we spend 109 minutes watching kids alternately staring at their cell phones and running after one another. Yawn. Occasionally we get a bit of philosophical rumination re: Japan's school bullying problem, as well as some half-hearted attempts at parkour, but these elements can't save this vacuous life-drainer.

So I turned to a master filmmaker, Yasuzo Masumura, for solace. I'm a great fan of his work and have made an effort recently to obtain as many of his titles as possible (I have over a dozen including Kisses, Giants and Toys, Black Test Car, Manji, Red Angel, Yakuza Soldier, A Lustful Man, Blind Beast and The Razor 2: The Snare). Masumura is one of those go-to guys, always great. Or not. I discovered that Masumura, In common with most of his contemporaries, wasn't perfect (go figure), and on occasion could make a clunker.

In this case, it's a film called Irezumi (which means tattoo) from 1966. It's a tale of a beautiful woman forced into tattooed sexual slavery. The sumptuous cinematography is provided by the great Kazuo Miyagawa, and the cast features Kei Sato and Masumura golden girl Ayako Wakao. The script, by Kaneto Shindo, has passages like this one, spoken by an evil tattoo artist: "The spider is moving. Painful, isn't it. The spider's embrace is strong. Look! Look in the mirror. On your back lives a golden orb-web spider. This joro spider will kill countless men and you will gorge on their corpses. In this creature I have infused the soul of my tattoo art. It's my whole life!" The problem with the film lies in the lack of development of the central character, Otsuya, the wronged woman with the big spider tattoo on her back. We never get a sense of who she really is -- it's as if Shindo and Masumura were captivated with the gothic trappings of the story and forgot to provide essential information that would have otherwise drawn us into the web they were spinning. Anyway, you check it out and see if you agree, but for me it was a dud.

So I turned to another big name from the 60s, Nagisa Oshima. While not a great fan of Oshima (he's always seemed to trade more on controversy than talent in my opinion), I've enjoyed films like Cruel Story of Youth, In the Realm of Passion and Taboo. However he's just as likely to make a crap film like Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence or Violence at Noon. The latter film, also from 1966, I saw the other day, still looking for a redeeming Japanese film experience. It started out promising, again with Kei Sato (this time as a rampaging serial killer). While the performances are great and there are some lovely, Nouvelle Vague-inspired jump cuts, the film dissolves halfway through into tedious, repetitive dialog that goes nowhere for what seems like hours. You're just waiting, hoping, praying for it to end. Really bad.

So there you have it, three more disappointments. I hate to sound like some old curmudgeon, but I have not choice. I write about film, it's what I do. So I think it best to report and keep on moving. Don't let my comments stop you from seeking out these films, though (with the exception of Tokyo Gore School). I could have my head up my ass (wouldn't be the first time). I look forward to your comments.

Triangle

2010-07-13T10:39:00.001-07:00

Triangle (2007) is an engaging caper flick concerning three Hong Kong losers. It's directed by three great Hong Kong filmmakers: Wong Kar Wai, Ringo Lam and Johnny To. Oh, and among other things, there's a love triangle. So you've got a triangle of triangles, as it were. And, just for good measure, there are some triad guys running around as well. Guess it's true what that redneck Schoolhouse Rock singer sang, "three is a magic number."

The three losers are: Lee Bo Sam (Simon Lam), a creepy businessman who may or may not have killed his first wife; Fai (Louis Koo), a flaky cabbie who's in hot water with some local gangsters; and Mok (Sun Hong Lei), a knowledgable yet taciturn antique dealer. They unearth a Tang dynasty coffin wherein they find the film's MacGuffin, a garment made of gold coins worth millions. Also chasing the treasure is a local cop (Lam Ka Tung) who's having it off with Lee's neurotic second wife Ling (Kelly LIn) -- they gum up the works considerably.

But the creaky plot isn't what's good about Triangle. It's really more of a character study, and a good lesson for any young filmmaker learning how to establish strong characterizations on the fly. Economical yet effective dialog plus top-notch acting puts us on intimate terms with the three principles almost from the get-go. Also fun, of course, is observing how the three directors handle their segments (Wong has the first third, Lam the second, and To the third). Wong's bit features a lot of daytime and exterior shots; Lam goes a bit darker and more emotional, turning the tables on the audience in regards to Lee Bo Sam, the most enigmatic character of the piece (played to perfect pitch by the great Simon Lam); by the time Johnny To gets the reins, it's all about darkness and night, with a grand finale in which the lights go out again and again …

I find pictures like Triangle, where the three directors share the same story, far more interesting than when each get their own vignette; things can go so far afield in the latter scenario, it often feels like three different short films. Here, the filmmakers are forced to work together while still imparting their own individual styles. (If you appreciate this as well, I suggest you check out the American indy horror flick The Signal.)

So there you go: Great directors, great cast, great fun.

Mystics in Bali

2010-07-09T07:52:00.000-07:00

I wish I had seen the Indonesian horror classic Mystics in Bali (1981) when it came out. I was a teenager then and would have appreciated it more -- certainly wouldn't have noticed the cheesy special effects as much, and would have just reveled in the craziness. Coming to it late now, especially after reading about it in Pete Tombs' Mondo Macabro and elsewhere, and having imagined the big scene where the girl's head detaches from her body and flies around with vital organs in tow, well frankly it's a let-down. They achieved the effect in two ways: first, the separation itself, a very primitive optical printer job with the actress's real head, and then a prop head w/guts on a wire. The latter was by far the better effect; you couldn't see it very well and it zipped through the night air with a flair -- much like the real thing, one would imagine.

And make no mistake, out in the provinces, those villagers really do believe in that stuff. Some go so far as to place thorns around their windows so as to snag on the hanging entrails, should one of these floating monstrosities ever try to venture in. The most shocking scene in the film involves just such a home invasion, the head making a meal of a newborn baby as it's coming out! Of course we only get a mother's-eye view which, if you didn't know better, looks rather like a bit of disembodied head cunnilingus.

And whose head is this, anyway? It belongs to pretty Cathy Kean (Ilona Agathe Bastian), a writer from the US who's in Bali doing research on the practice of leak (pronounced LEE-AK), supposedly the world's most powerful form of black magic. With the help of the suave Mahendra (Yos Santo), she meets the leak queen and gets more schooling than she bargained for. And, of course, she becomes the evil queen's slave.

I realize it's ridiculous to complain about the special effects (as well as the crap acting and general cheapness of the production). I'm sure, considering the state of Indonesian cinema at the time, Mystics in Bali was probably considered fairly cutting-edge. I'm obviously reacting out of self-hype, that process where you build something up in your head to the point where nothing can come close to it. In fact, the film has a funky charm and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to venture beyond the realm of good taste and proper production values and get down and dirty with some jungle sorcery. Certainly the scenes where women transform into snakes and pigs are a scream -- at one point the leak queen gets stuck halfway, jumping around and fighting as a pig-woman with pendulous pig tits! Yes, it's a unique film experience, there's no denying it -- just make sure to keep you expectations set on "low."

The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker

2010-07-07T18:12:00.000-07:00

The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker (2007) had its North American premiere last night at the Japan Society in New York and I was lucky enough to see it. I wish I could say I saw it in New York -- nope, I managed to secure my own copy (one of the perks of being a world-renowned aficionado of Asian film). But I'm going to pretend I was sitting there with my popcorn, elbow to elbow with Mr. and Mrs. First Nighter.

So yeah, great flick. Complex narrative construction delivered so smoothly that it isn't until you find yourself phumphering trying to describe it that it hits you just how finely crafted it all really was. What starts out as a quirky indie gets progressively darker as the nascent friendship between nebbishy college freshman Shiina (Gaku Hamada) and enigmatic cool guy Kawasaki (Eita) takes the former deeper and deeper into the bizarre and confounding life of the latter. To say any more would get me phumphering again, and besides there's a game-changing, nothing-is-as-it-seems plot twist halfway through that I wouldn't think of revealing. I can say there is murder, revenge, kidnapping, a love triangle, Bhutan and Bob Dylan, all wrapped up and delivered in ways you'd never expect. If you have any sense or taste at all, you'll love it.

Based on the novel by Kotaro Isaka and directed by Yoshihiro Nakamura, The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker is an unclassifiable triumph of contemporary Japanese cinema that certainly rewards repeat viewings. Highly recommended.

Storm Warriors

2010-07-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

Oh my. I had high hopes for Storm Warriors (2009), the somewhat tardy sequel to the Wuxia classic Storm Riders (1998), a film I've been a fan of for years. Original stars Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng back for another go? Great! Directed by the Pang Brothers? Cool! Er … well, maybe not so cool. In fact, not cool at all. While my boys Oxide and Danny make a mean modern horror (The Eye) and a nifty neo-noir (Bangkok Dangerous, The Detective), it seems they don't know much about Wuxia. There is nothing of Storm Riders in the dreary, tedious Storm Warriors. So dissimilar are the two films, one wonders if the Pang bros even screened the original.

However, watching Storm Warriors isn't a total loss, as comparing it with its predecessor provides a handy lesson in how to make a good Wuxia film vs. how to make a bad one. Let's consider some primary elements:

Energy: In terms of physics, the energy in Storm Riders is kinetic, while Storm Warriors opts for pure potential. In the latter film, it's all about waiting, waiting, waiting for something to happen in each scene. Characters brood and sulk and pout and pose, say a lot of portentous-sounding lines and stare into the middle distance. Energy is conserved, defying our natural expectations of some sort of action. And when the action finally comes, it does not satisfy; I've never seen more stilted, unrewarding fight scenes in a film. Remarkably, even when action sequences are fast-forwarded, particularly towards the end, they still drag.
Sense of Place: While Storm Riders featured a blend of outdoor location shots, conventional sets and computer-generated backgrounds, Storm Warriors is set-bound and claustrophobic, playing out primarily in one of two murky caves. There's an open, airy, epic quality to the former film, whereas the latter is dark and close and stuffy.
Cast: As noted, Storm Riders and Storm Warriors both feature Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng, in the pivotal roles of super-powered warriors Cloud and Wind respectively, but the first film also featured Sonny Chiba, Shu Qi and Anthony Wong. In Storm Warriors, Simon Lam phones it in as the villain Lord Godless, and Lam Suet is wasted in the role of King Piggy, a character who does nothing more than complain and munch on potatoes; everyone else is wallpaper.
Special Effects: Storm Warriors piles on the CGI and not in any way we haven't seen before … a lot. Particularly curious is the continual use of Matrix-style bullet-time sequences -- really guys? In 2010? It's as if the Pang brothers were so set against letting anything exciting happen on screen that even the sword fights had to be slowed down.

I tried to find some positive spin to impart to this review, believe me I tried. The PR person who sent me the disk to review will now no doubt consign me to the trash bin on his desktop and empty with extreme prejudice, but what can I do? Like I said, I was really looking forward to this picture. It gives me no pleasure to dub it a pretentious, ponderous bore-fest.

But at least we still have Storm Riders. I threw it on after the other film, just to refresh my memory -- what a palate-cleanser. That flick is the real deal. Don't settle for imitations.

JAPAN CUTS at the Japan Society NYC

2010-06-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

Hey all my East Coast homies, starting Thursday, July 1st it's the fourth annual JAPAN CUTS Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema at the Japan Society, the largest showcase of contemporary Japanese film outside Japan. Special guests include filmmakers Momoko Ando, Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Tomorowo Taguchi, Toshiaki Toyoda, Hitoshi Yazaki, Isao Yukisada, and actors Tatsuya Fujiwara and Daichi Watanabe.

Films to be screened include Confessions (dir. Tetsuya Nakashima), Sawako Decides (dir. Yuya Ishii), About Her Brother (dir. Yoji Yamada), Blood of Rebirth (dir. Toshiaki Toyoda), Bare Essence of Life: Ultra Miracle Love Story (dir. Satoko Yokohama), Dear Doctor (dir. Miwa Nishikawa), Golden Slumber (dir. Yoshihiro Nakamura), Nightmare Detective II (dir. Shinya Tsukamoto), Parade (dir. Isao Yukisada), and Zero Focus (dir. Isshin Inudo).

Great chance to get right up to the minute with Japanese film and yet another reason to be in Manhattan!

Green Fish

2010-06-15T08:54:00.001-07:00

I've been working my way backwards through the filmography of Korean novelist and director Lee Chang-dong. A couple of years ago I saw his then-latest film Secret Sunshine (2007) in San Francisco and was properly blown away. More recently I screened Peppermint Candy (1999), another triumph. And just now I've seen his directorial debut, Green Fish (1997). Remarkably, that amounts to the majority of his output; he's only made five films in the last 13 years. But if the other two films are as good as the ones I've seen, he can take all the time he wants. His stuff is worth the wait.

Green Fish follows the progress of a young guy named Mak-dong (Han Seok-kyu) from newly-discharged soldier to low-level gangster via an encounter with a mysterious beauty on a train (Shim Hye-jin). She's a singer in a nightclub owned by local gang boss Bae Tae-gon (Moon Seong-guen), whose moll she is, but she's also got a thing for Mak-dong. If all this is starting to sound somewhat film noir-y, it is. What makes the film remarkable is its utterly unpretentious realism. Such a seemingly hacky set-up works because Lee Chang-dong roots his characters and situations firmly in terra firma, employing a style you could call verite noir. As with his other films, Lee isn't so concerned with conventional story-telling as with direct, visceral human experience. This leads to an unpredictability in his films; standard tropes do not concern him, only raw emotion (and a certain measure of social commentary). But since most films are simply a series of surprises anyway, Lee's approach works, albeit from a completely different direction. The audience's cinematic expectations are thwarted by the rude intrusion of something unexpected that might actually happen.

So, for example, when Mak-dong's brother gets pulled over by a cop, he tries to bribe the cop ... and the cop takes the bribe. Mak-dong's brother only has one large bill and asks the cop for change. The cop agrees, then gets in his car and drives away. So crazy brother chases the cop, demanding his change! Elsewhere an imposing thug from a rival gang bumps into Mak-dong in a store, causing him to drop his groceries. The thug picks them up and apologizes ... in English! Then, moments later, he returns with his cohorts to beat the shit out of Makdong and his pals. Green Fish is filled with moments like these. Things inevitably ratchet up but, again, not in the way you might think, and the film ends on a decidedly unconventional note.

One more reason to see Green Fish is the presence of the incomparable Song Kang-ho (The Host, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, JSA, The Quiet Family, Thirst), here playing one of Mak-dong's fellow gangsters. It's an early, small role for Song, but his manic energy is in full force -- any time he's on the screen, you can't take your eyes off him. He would team up again with Han Seok-kyu in the taut political/crime drama Shiri (1999).

Green Fish won the Dragons & Tigers Award at the 16th Vancouver International Film Festival.

They can't all be good ...

2010-06-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

Contrary to appearances, I have not been neglecting this blog. I have, in fact, been screening films to write about, but they've all been too sucky or non-shocking to qualify. But then I thought, "Hello, why not write about them anyway?" As Groucho Marx once remarked after a particularly crap joke, "They can't all be good, you've got to expect that." You said it, Groucho!

The lamest of the lot by far was Battlefield Baseball (2003). I'd wanted to see this one for years, having heard it was similar to Shaolin Soccer (only with Japanese zombies instead of Chinese martial artists and baseball instead of soccer). Plus Tak Sakaguchi is in it, and I thought he was great in Versus. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I discovered it was utter dogshit. Seriously, I'm willing to forgive a lot in terms of outrageous, manga-esque excess (see my Asia Shock for ample proof), but this film didn't even deliver on the promise of its own outrageousness.

The premise, wafer-thin as it is, is this: A high school principal fears for his prize baseball team when he realizes they're slated to play another team known for mutilating and murdering their opponents on the field. That's it, that's the whole movie. Apparently, the film's budget did not allow for special effects, as all such mayhem happens off screen, leaving us to view a baseball field strewn with cheap-looking body part props. To keep things going, people come back to life, only do the same schtick all over again. Ugh.

Then I watched Dorm, (2006) supposedly a Thai shocker about a haunted dormitory in a boy's boarding school. Part The Devil's Backbone, part The Sixth Sense, the film isn't bad, in fact it has a gentle charm that infuses what amounts to a supernatural coming-of-age picture wherein a living boy and a ghost boy help each other and those around them. But it sure ain't scary or even remotely shocking.

So I decided to throw on a Hideo Gosha film, Four Days of Blood and Snow (1989), about the notorious "226 Incident" that occurred February 26 (hence 226), 1936, in which a group of young Imperial Japanese Army officers attempted a coup de e'tat. Knowing Gosha's visceral style and reputation for brutally realistic screen violence, as well as his string of just-plain-awesome samurai and yakuza films from the 60s and 70s, I figured it was a slam dunk. Gotta be great, right?

Nope. Sadly, whatever Gosha had in 1969 (when he made both Goyokin and Tenchu), he'd all but lost 20 years later. Outside of a thrilling sequence early on, in which the rebellious young officers run around Tokyo assassinating government officials, the rest of the film is just a tedious bore, suffering as it does from the same problem that plagues most films coming out today: No character development. The half dozen leaders of the coup attempt are flat, flat, flat. We are expected to just hit the ground running with these guys without any background, a bunch of wooden toy soldiers spouting the usual nationalistic banalities. Who cares? Wanna know how to make an ensemble piece set in wartime work? Try Paul Verhoeven's The Soldier of Orange.

So now I'm on to the next film. Never fear, dear reader I'll find something good for you. It is my quest, my raison d'etre (and, usually, something I enjoy -- here's hoping I have better luck with Green Fish).

The Blind Menace

2010-05-29T08:58:00.000-07:00

Well, it's happened again: A rare film I had to beg, borrow and steal to secure a copy of has now, once again, been released by a major distributor. This always fills me with conflicting feelings: pissed off that I had to work so hard for something now widely available, yet gratified that others will have no problem enjoying this fine film.

Such a film is Shiranui Kengyo (1960), available now from AnimEigo as The Blind Menace. I wrote a review of this film in my book Warring Clans, Flashing Blades, from which I will now lazily quote (what, I gotta come up with original blog content for you? Buy the damn book, already!). The central character is a man named Shichinosuke, "a sinister, scheming blind masseur played with dark exuberance by the incomparable Shintaro Katsu. Shiranui Kengyo was the first film to showcase Katsu's unique blind man act (somewhat more exaggerated here), but this anma is the polar opposite of the actor's most celebrated sightless characterization, Zatoichi. Shichinosuke, rather than wandering from town to town, gambling, giving massages and protecting the innocent, is more inclined towards thievery, rape, extortion and murder, all employed in the service of his ruthless rise to the top."

Elsewhere I write, "Released in 1960, the film was an instant hit, elevating Katsu to full-fledged movie star. The film's success rested largely on Katsu's brilliant performance as a vile, Richard III-like villain. Like Richard, Shichinosuke's handicap fuels his rage and ambition to rise in a world where the deck is stacked against him, relishing the liberties his treachery allows him with those in the sighted world, particularly the ladies."

Then, toward the end of the review, I say: "Simply put, if you're a Shintaro Katsu fan, you have to see Shiranui Kengyo ... it's one of those holy grail pictures, not necessarily a samurai film proper, but nevertheless essential to aficionados of the genre." (Say, this guy's good!)

If I were you, while you're on Amazon buying a copy of The Blind Menace, I'd also pick up a copy of Warring Clans, Flashing Blades. Then, when that stuff arrives, go get a six-pack, kick off your shoes and get ready for a good ol' Japanese film nerd-out time. You're welcome.

(The Blind Menace streets June 15th, 2010.)

Robogeisha

2010-05-26T09:20:00.001-07:00

She's a robot. She's a geisha. She's ... well, you know. Written and directed by Noboru Iguchi, the guy responsible for Machine Girl (as well as less-than-memorable titles like Doctor's Enema and A Larva to Love), Robogeisha is essentially a live-action cartoon aimed squarely at the 10 to 14-year-old demographic. This wouldn't be a problem if Iguchi were talented enough to bring out the 14-year-old in me (it's not that hard, I have to say).

Unfortunately, he isn't. Every performance is so exaggerated, every gag so overdone that one can't even lose oneself in the outrageousness of it all -- the film is too busy trumpeting its own outrageousness. Literally. Someone gets fried shrimps jammed into their eye sockets. Immediately the victim screams, "Oh! She jammed shrimps in my eyes!" Or a bionically modified girl shoots half a dozen shuriken out of her ass and the guy who gets them in the face makes a similar announcement. It's as if the director isn't sure you're getting it, that you can't possibly process what just happened (because, of course, it's SOOOO outrageous), that it has to be announced after the fact. This happens continuously throughout the picture.

Don't get me wrong, the gags are indeed outrageous, and often quite inventive. Swords lunge out of womens' mouths and armpits; geisha wigs are tricked out with "wig nepalm;" girls shoot bullets from their breasts, as well as "milk from hell" (which, of course, melts peoples' faces off); one robogeisha projects a circular saw from her mouth with which to murder a prominent politician. Done a bit more deadpan, this stuff might have worked (or at the very least worked better). As it is, it all plays like a twisted, bloody take on a Saturday morning kid's show.

But hey, that's just me. You may indeed be thinking, "twisted, bloody take on a Saturday morning kid's show? I'm there!" In my case, I tend to enjoy OTT antics in films, and if you know me (or if you've read any of my books), you know I'm no snob. The bone I'm picking with Robogeisha is purely a matter of presentation. With a little more work, it could have been a campy romp, instead of what amounts to a mad dash from one jaw-dropping set piece to the next.

So you tell me. Am I being too hard on Robogeisha? Am I just some old fart who doesn't get it? Give it to me straight, folks, I can take it.

(Robogeisha streets June 7th in the UK courtesy of Cine Asia.)

6ixtynin9

2010-05-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

Gimme a black comedy where bodies stack up faster than they can reasonably be disposed of. Now make it in Thailand and populate it with a cast of hilariously quirky characters. And, if you must, give it a dumb-ass title.

That film is Pen-ek Ratanaruang's 6ixtynin9 (1999). And before you ask, no, the film has nothing to do with the sex position. It refers to a bit of confusion caused by a 6 on an apartment door that keeps flopping over to become a 9. Clearly the much-better (and Hendrix-referencing) title "If 6 were 9" never occurred to anyone. However, what did did come of Mr. Ratanaruang's efforts is a tasty, twisty Thai take on Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave (1994).

Tum (Thai soap star Lalita Panyopas) finds a box of money on her doorstep. As we all know, this means trouble. Tum's not exactly what you'd call a tough customer, but she nevertheless possesses some impressive survival instincts. Plus she's just been canned from her job and could really use the cash. Therefore when the inevitable thugs show up to retrieve the loot, they get more than they bargained for, setting off a chain reaction of murder and mayhem.

Now you might be thinking, "Oh brother, been there, done that." But you haven't. Pen-ek Ratanaruang was one of the originators of the Thai film boom of the late 90s and is known for his unique style, applying inky black strokes of comedy with a light, deft brush, creating a vibe I'd call "Thai/indy." 6ixtynin9 is more kinetic and plot-driven than his most well-known film, the moodier, dreamier Last Life in the Universe (2003).

As mentioned earlier, the film is made memorable by its wonderful assortment of kooky characters, each played to a naturalistic perfection by the talented cast. Tum's nosy neighbor Pen (Sirisin Siripornsmathikul) is a hoot, a Thai cougar who's having it off with a young cop (uh oh). She always turns up at the wrong moment and at one point has a hilarious discussion with her cronies as to what to do with an inconstant lover (hint: It involves a knife and a food processor ... ). Tum is also forced to deal with the drama queen antics of her friend Jim (Tasanawalai Ongarittichai), a beautiful girl who's unlucky in love and ready to open a vein over it.

But I've said enough. If you haven't seen that many Thai films, I'd definitely recommend this one. If you saw Last Life in the Universe and found it dull, try 6ixtynin9. Thai-flavored black comedies don't get much better.

Accident

2010-05-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

Remember Harry Caul, Gene Hackman's character in Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974)? Well imagine Harry and his team decided to go beyond mere surveillance and actually worked as a hit squad, murdering people by way of elaborately planned and untraceable "accidents." Now imagine Harry and his guys are Chinese and you've worked your way around to the inventive psychological crime thriller that is Accident (2009). Produced by Johnnie To and directed by Cheang Pou Soi, Accident blends the narrative arc of a heist film (big job goes horribly awry) with the paranoia and meticulousness of The Conversation, throwing in enough twists and turns to keep you guessing throughout.

The crew: Brain (Louis Koo, above), Fatty (Lam Suet), Uncle (Stanly Fung), and, for want of a character name, Hottie (Michelle Ye). They're good. Very good. We see a bit of their handiwork in the opening sequence, wherein they maneuver their target into "accidentally" offing himself. In public, in broad daylight (and quite bloodily, I might add). Later, Brain is upset because Uncle left a cigarette butt at the scene. Yeah, he's that anal. But I guess you have to be in his line of work. Soon they're on to the next job, and it's here that the well-oiled machine begins to break down. Plus, it looks like another faux-accident hit squad has set their sights on Brain ...

Director Cheang Pou Soi worked under Johnnie To as an assistant before donning the director's cap some ten years ago, and while there's a confusing moment now and again, Accident nevertheless delivers the goods as a more cerebral, insular and subtle Hong Kong crime film than you might expect. Recommended.

Breathless

2010-05-18T09:23:00.001-07:00

Yang Ik-joon isn't at all like the character he plays in Breathless. And that's good for him. And us. In fact, it's good for anyone within punching, slapping or kicking distance. For Sang-hoon, an enforcer for a local loan shark in a squalid, unnamed town somewhere in South Korea, is a swirling maelstrom of verbal and physical abuse, lashing out at any and all comers (as well as innocent bystanders, friends, old men, women, children, you name it). We eventually discover the childhood trauma that is the source of Sang-hoon's seemingly bottomless rage and realize that, like everyone else, he's a mixed bag. There's actually a human being lurking beneath that brutal facade; will its gradual emergence lead to well-deserved destruction, or to somehow equally well-deserved redemption?

Yang Ik-joon wrote, produced, directed, and stars in Breathless (2009), a film it took him three years to make. It is his directorial debut. A better name for the film would have been "Vicious Cycle," for that is its underlying theme: The time-honored family tradition of cyclical abuse. They say charity begins at home; so does watching daddy beat mommy to a pulp, or witnessing thugs break daddy's nose for not paying his debts. The takeaway for the child in such circumstances is either A) this is wrong and I will never be this way, or B) this is how things work and as soon as I'm big enough, I'm going to do the same. Both viewpoints are expressed by the variously damaged characters in Breathless. Clearly Sang-hoon has opted for plan B, but Yeon-hee (Kim Kkot-bi), a high school girl he encounters early in the film, is a strong adherent to the A option. This doesn't mean she isn't tough as nails, but hers is a toughness of character. So when Sang-hoon accidentally spits on her in the street, she doesn't let it go. She demands the terrifying thug make amends. Thus begins a unique and unpredictable relationship. Elsewhere, Sang-hoon is trying, in his churlish, awkward way, to develop some kind of bond with his small nephew Hyeong-in (Kim Hee-soo).

While I'm no stranger to violent Korean cinema, I have to admit I was a little wary at the start of this picture. The opening scene begins, in medias res, with a guy beating a woman in the street. Before long, Sang-hoon appears and pounds the guy into the ground. Turning to the bloodied woman, he spits in her face and slaps her repeatedly, asking her why she takes such abuse. It's as if Yang Ik-joon has posed himself a challenge: Create an utterly repellent character and then make him sympathetic. He succeeds, of course, by gradually peeling back the layers of scar tissue until the core person is revealed. Yang has said that Breathless is partly autobiographical, inspired by friends and family members he grew up with in Namgok-dong, a poor town in Chungcheong Province. "Breathless is a story about Korea," he says, "a story about a family. People were able to relate because families are similar, although the degree of family problems vary of course ... it was an exorcism for me." Indeed, the cathartic power of this film is formidable. I came away emotionally exhausted, yet at the same time exhilarated. I suppose you could say that's one definition of great cinema.

In the year since Breathless' release, Yang has been invited to 60 film festivals and received 23 prizes (from the Deauville Asian Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, Tokyo FILMeX, Fant-Asia Film Festival, etc. etc.). The praise is well-deserved and Yang Ik-joon is a name to remember.

The Insect Woman

2010-05-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

Before you ask, no, this is not a sci-fi movie about some half bug/half human woman. Nor is it a remake of Shohei Imamura's 1963 film of the same title. No, this film is a bizarre world of obsessive desire and psychological torture teeming with rats and the odd vampire baby. Getting interested? Bear in mind the only available print looks as if it was left out in the sun all summer and then taken for a drag around the parking lot, as well as having huge Spanish subtitles seared into it. But even with all that, you won't be able to take your eyes off this gloriously, deliriously weird and wonderful movie.

The Insect Woman (1972) was directed by Kim Ki-young, the Korean cult auteur who gave us The Housemaid. Here, a dozen years later, he revisits the central theme of that picture, namely a middle-aged man's adultery with an unstable young woman and the subsequent destruction it wreaks upon them and the man's family. Both films were based on true crime incidents and work well as a set; The Insect Woman, to use a cliche, is like The Housemaid on acid.

And so we have Myeong-ja (Yoon Yeo-jeong), a 19-year-old girl who's recently lost her father and isn't taking it well at all. Now she's forced to work as a bar hostess and is quickly tricked/forced into prostitution by two very unsavory women. Being a virgin, she of course falls madly in love with the man who violently deflowered her, Dong-shik (Namgung Won). His industrialist wife Soon-jo (Jeon Kye-hyun) wears the pants in the family and, soon after learning of the affair, puts Myeong-ja on salary as her husband's concubine. But don't get the idea she's anywhere near pleased about having to share her husband; castrating bitch that she is, she drugs him and arranges for a quick vasectomy (OK, not quite castration, but not as far as Dong-shik is concerned ... ). Dong-shik's teenage son and daughter are a perverse pair; he's a strict Buddhist who eats only honey, while she spends her time playing piano and breeding rats.

Things take a bizarre turn at around the one-hour mark when Dong-shik finds a baby in the refrigerator of the house he's sharing with Myeong-ja. The couple are overjoyed that they can raise some kind of baby together, but things soon turn from bad to worse as psychosis, razor blades and hordes of white rats bring about the deaths of several of the main characters. Oh, and did I mention the baby's a vampire?

As in The Housemaid, a two-story house is used to symbolize the dichotomy between the more stable world of the ground floor and the neurotic emotional hothouse of the upper chambers (Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray were known to use this symbolic device as well). And of course, this being 1972, the sex scenes are a bit more interesting. One memorable moment finds Dong-shik making love with Myeong-ja on a glass table covered with multicolored candies ... shot from below.

The Insect Woman can be had as part of a region-3 box set. The box contains four films and an informative booklet in Korean and (wonkily translated) English. For fans of Korean cinema, this is a very cool edition to your film library. Kim Ki-young's films were a big influence on contemporary directors like Park Chan-wook, Kim Ki-duk and Bong Joon-ho; it's a shame so many of them have been completely lost or only exist in diminished capacity (another of the films in the box, Goryeojang -- considered by some critics to be Kim's masterpiece -- has whole reels missing, leaving us in the dark with only the soundtrack). However, such is the strength of Kim's cinema that even with these hindrances, one can still become utterly absorbed, captivated and amazed.

Under the Flag of the Rising Sun

2010-05-11T08:56:00.000-07:00

It isn't often that I watch a film and then immediately watch it again, particularly one as emotionally wrenching as Under the Flag of the Rising Sun. OK, so the second time I wanted to hear Linda Hoaglund's excellent commentary. Nevertheless the story itself is packed with twists and reveals that provide a very different, yet equally compelling, experience the second time around.

Made by Kinji Fukasaku in 1972, Under the Flag of the Rising Sun ranks with Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition (1959-61) and Kon Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain (1959) as one of the finest Japanese anti-war films ever made. If your awareness of Fukasaku's films stops at Battle Royale (2000) or his groundbreaking Jingi Naki Tatakai (Battles Without Honor and Humanity, 1973-4) yakuza series, be prepared for a revelation: This director, known primarily in the West as a purveyor of innovative screen violence, was in fact passionately anti-war. Along with Kobayashi and Kihachi Okamoto, Fukasaku got a firsthand look at the horrors of war as a young man, picking up the body parts of his school friends after an air raid at the age of 15. Like Okamoto, these early experiences informed Fukasaku's use of violent imagery in his films, particularly in the case of Under the Flag of the Rising Sun.

The story concerns Sakie Togashi (Sachiko Hidari), a war widow who, 26 years after the conflict, is still uncertain as to the nature of her husband's death. Official records were either burned or hastily prepared, and it falls upon her to investigate the matter, seeking out the four surviving members of her husband's unit. Thus ensues a series of confounding, Rashomon-like flashbacks, each told from the viewpoint of one man, colored by his own personal agenda, and all utterly contradictory. Sgt. Togashi (Tesuro Tamba) was either a valiant leader who died gloriously in battle, a ghoulish human flesh peddler, or something in between. Gradually, through his wife's efforts, a clear picture finally emerges, but don't expect a happy ending.

The film is unflinching in it's depictions of starvation, disease, insanity, cannibalism, inter-rank brutality, summary executions, dismemberment and the like. As it happens, the Japanese high command had a tendency to disregard the fate of soldiers stranded in places like New Guinea, and the gruesome realities of survival in such a situation are laid bare. It's not an easy film to watch, but then the truth is never easy, particularly the truth about war.

Although a contract director for Toei for most of his career, Fukasaku made Under the Flag of the Rising Sun independently, having secured the book rights with his own money. Shooting guerrilla style, using found locations and hand-held cameras, Fukasaku was simultaneously developing the gritty style that would make his jitsuroku yakuza saga Jingi Naki Tatakai so uniquely visceral. No, there's no Bunta Sugawara in the platoon, but you can't miss a strangely mute Isao Natsuyagi alongside Tamba.

As I mentioned earlier, the HVE disk of Under the Flag of the Rising Sun features an engaging and informative commentary track courtesy of the translator/subtitler, Linda Hoaglund. I first became aware of Ms. Hoaglund while writing Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves, quoting from an interview she conducted with Masaki Kobayashi. She's subtitled scores of Japanese films, including plenty by Kurosawa (both Akira and Kiyoshi), Kon Ichikawa, Hiyao Miyazaki, Sabu, Kore-eda and on and on, as well as writing articles, conducting interviews and producing films.

Anyhow, I urge everyone to see Under the Flag of the Rising Sun. It's one of those films that brings home the atrocity of war, something people seem to need constant reminding of; only in this way will we be able to avoid it in the future. Oh, and it totally makes up for Message From Space and The Green Slime!

Miyamoto Musashi

2010-05-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

It is my great pleasure to announce, if you didn't know already, that AnimEigo is releasing Tomu Uchida's five-part "Zen and Sword" version of Miyamoto Musashi (1961-65). For fans of Japan's Greatest Swordsman, this is definitely a cause for celebration. Uchida's sprawling epic film series adheres faithfully to Eiji Yoshikawa's sprawling epic novel (well, as faithfully as possible given that the latter weighs in at 970 pages). At times the films follow the book page by page, even line by line. This makes for a far different film experience than Hiroshi Inagaki's more well-known three-part saga starring Toshiro Mifune (1954-56). Indeed, apart from the first installment and a few other key events, the two film series are remarkably dissimilar. While the Inagaki films take more liberties with the source material, the most striking difference lies in the performance of the two stars. Don't get me wrong, nobody loves Toshiro Mifune more than me, but when it comes to emotional range and screen intensity, I gotta hand it to Kinnosuke Nakamura. His steadily mesmerizing performance is the strongest selling point of the Zen and Sword Miyamoto Musashi.

If you bought my latest book, Warring Clans, Flashing Blades (and if you didn't, that link goes right to Amazon wink wink), you'll know something about Kinnosuke Nakamura (I included a biographical sketch of this most beloved of jidai-geki stars right at the front and reviewed half a dozen of his films). At one point I said, "Toshiro Mifune had a natural talent, keen instincts, and quick reactions; Tatsuya Nakadai is the master thespian, cool and chameleonic; Shintaro Katsu was bold and genuine; Raizo Ichikawa had versatility and a perfectly poised heroic persona; but when it came to communicating sheer emotion, often in complex combinations, nobody did it like Nakamura." You need go no further than the Zen and Sword series for ample proof.

As I mentioned earlier, the first film in the quintilogy (it's a word now) covers the same ground as the Inagaki version, beginning with the Battle of Sekigahara and following the teenage Musashi (then called Takezo) and his loser buddy Matahachi (Asao Kimura) as they make their way from the corpse-strewn battlefield towards an uncertain future in the new Tokugawa era. Matahachi's bitch-on-wheels mama-san (Chieko Naniwa) gets it into her fool head that Takezo is somehow responsible for her son's death (even though he isn't dead) and her quest for revenge is a running gag throughout the series. Meanwhile, Matahachi's fiance Otsu (Wakaba Irie) winds up falling for Takezo while Matahachi runs off with older-and-bolder Oko (Michiyo Kogure). Takuan the Know-It-All Priest (Rentaro Mikuni) eventually takes the wild Takezo to Himeji Castle where the young mountain madman studies to become a great samurai. One down, four to go.

Over the course of the remaining films, we find Musashi (a different reading of the kanji for Takezo given him by the Lord of Himeji) confronting scores of opponents, his battles ranging from single combat with sword masters to full-on melee with scores of attackers. It's all too sprawling and epic-y to describe in detail here. The labyrinthine, Dickensian plot has all the many main characters becoming interconnected with one another (if they weren't already) and by the final battle between Musashi and arch rival Kojiro Sasaki (a bewigged Ken Takakura), you feel as if you've been on your own journey of thrilling adventure and discovery.

If you're new to samurai cinema, this Musashi series is a great place to start. If you're already into the genre, trust me, you've got to have it. Just plain excellent.

Phobia

2010-04-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

The omnibus horror film: Tales from the Crypt, Creepshow, Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, etc. -- if you're a fan of this mulit-vignette format and have an interest in Asian cinema, you can't go far wrong with Phobia. Four Thai filmmakers weave a queasy quartet of compact shockers, each a mini gem of supernatural outfreakage. Unlike other collective Asian efforts such as Three ... Extremes, where stories and techniques vary wildly according to the whims of their respective directors, here unity of purpose underlies the divergent directorial styles of the participants, providing a more natural progression from tale to tale.

First off we have a bit of cell phone horror with Yongyoot Thongkongtoon's Happiness. (If you don't know what I mean by "cell phone horror," I suggest you check out the excellent 2002 K-horror film Phone). Then it's on to bullies 'n black magic with Tit for Tat, courtesy of Paween Purikitpanya. This second installment is probably the most disturbing (you decide), so the third, Banjong Pisanthanakun's In the Middle, wisely opts for a more comedic approach. A group of young guys are on a white water rafting trip and before you ask, no, there are no buggering rednecks on hand; the horrors these four young guys encounter are strictly of their own making ...

Last Flight, directed by Parkpoom Wongpoom, is by far the most claustrophobic, taking place as it does on a commercial airliner. It's also the only one to feature a vengeful female ghost, and before you say, "Oh no, not another one of those ... " well, just wait 'til you get a look at her. Not your daddy's Sadako ...

Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom co-directed the creepy, photography horror-oriented Shutter (2004) -- that would be the original Thai production, not the tepid Hollywood remake. For my money, theirs are the best vignettes in the bunch, but the others are certainly strong contenders. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed Phobia; everything just clicks, making for a rip-roaring supernatural thrill ride with a very definite Thai flavor.

Phobia will be released on DVD May 10th in the UK from Icon Home Entertainment. Not sure about a US release date. But if you're in the States and reading this, surely you're a dedicated foreign film fanatic and already own a region-free player, yes? So no problem then.

Chambara gold this Saturday at Japan Society NYC

2010-04-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

Hey New Yorkers, two of my all-time top sword films are playing this Saturday, April 24th at the Japan Society: The third installment in the Zatoichi series, New Tale of Zatoichi, and the fourth film in the so-called Sleepy Eyes of Death franchise, Sword of Seduction. The latter film in particular is my favorite in the 12-part series starring the incomparable Raizo Ichikawa.

Sword of Seduction was a make-or-break film for the series; box office hadn't been great and the Daiei studio execs tasked director Kazuo Ikehiro with turning things around or else. Fortunately, Ikehiro had the good sense to take a page (or two) of the more transgressive material contained in the original novel by Renzaburo Shibata to liven things up. And it worked. Sword of Seduction is the chambara equivalent of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll (with swords replacing electric guitars). You can read my drooling review of the film in Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves or in the booklet that accompanies AnimEigo's box set of the first four films.

Air Doll

2010-04-20T12:14:00.001-07:00

Like many Westerners, I first became aware of the lovely and versatile Bae Doo-na as the spunky, one-woman anarchist revolution in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002). While researching Asia Shock, I learned she'd been discovered on the street by a talent scout in 1998 and had made her film debut in 1999 in the Korean Ringu adaptation, The Ring Virus. She went on to appear in a wide variety of films extending to black comedy and erotic romance. Ones I've seen include the aforementioned Ring Virus, the coming-of-age picture Take Care of My Cat (2001), the needlessly insipid girl rock flick Linda Linda Linda (2005) and giant monster blockbuster The Host (2006). I guess you could say I'm a fan. So when I heard that in her latest film outing she portrays a blow-up sex doll that comes to life, I was intrigued to say the least.

Far from some some trashy exploitation flick or campy romp, however, Air Doll (2009) turns out to be a multi-layered meditation on what it is to be a human being, told from the point of view of, yes, a newly self-aware blow-up doll. Somehow, she has developed a heart, and this allows her to walk the streets of Tokyo, delighting in the everyday, mundane miracles the rest of the population has long since forgotten. She gets a job at a local video rental place, learning about movies and gradually getting involved with a young guy who works there. The only person who doesn't seem to notice her transformation is her owner, a somewhat pathetic figure who carries on with the elaborate charade of pretending she's alive as he did before, even though now she is. Could it be because he too is "empty inside"? Elsewhere in the film, her living doll status barely raises an eyebrow; no one is particularly surprised that a blow-up doll has become alive. Upon cutting her arm at work one day and promptly deflating, her co-worker merely applies a bit of scotch tape and blows her back up. Problem solved.

Air Doll is the latest film from art house stalwart Hirokazu Kore-eda, who began his career making TV documentaries in the early 90s. In his feature films, dating from Maborosi (1995), Kore-eda's stylistic choice has been to apply a documentary approach to narrative fiction, whether it be the supernatural After Life (1998) or the more fact-based Nobody Knows (2004). More recently, Kore-eda tried his hand at period drama with the well-recieved neo-samurai film Hana (2006). Since Air Doll represents an immersion in all-out fantasy, one wonders in what direction Kore-eda will strike out next ... ?

I will say I found Air Doll to be one of Kore-eda's more absorbing films, not least due to the performance of the perfectly-cast Bae Doo-na (who won best actress awards at the 2009 Japan Academy Awards, Tokyo Sports Movie Awards and Takasaki Film Festival). The film takes a dark turn in the third act which required a measure of rumination, but I'm always up for some not-altogether-impenetrable ambiguity. In this case, it was a matter of taking the internal logic of the film to a certain extreme ... oh, you'll see.

As it happens, Air Doll was not Bae's first foray into Japanese cinema -- Linda Linda Linda was also a Japanese feature. When asked recently about the differences between filming in Korea and Japan, she said, "When an actress is shooting a nude or bed scene in Korea, there are very few staff members on set -- like only the director, cinematographer and boom mike operator. But my first scene [in Air Doll] was a nude scene and I was very surprised because there were so many staff members and I felt this is really different." No surprise, then -- "peeping" is something of an epidemic in the Land of the Rising Sun ...

Air Doll is playing April 30th at the San Francisco International Film Festival and will soon be available on DVD from Palisades Tartan.

The Housemaid

2010-04-09T10:17:00.001-07:00

Time Out film critic Wally Hammond, in reviewing The Housemaid (1960), remarked that its "hot-house Sirkian drama and Clouseau-like horror suspense makes for a notably delirious experience." I couldn't say it better or agree more. If your awareness of Korean cinema doesn't stretch back past the last couple of decades, you're in for a real treat with this tale of jealousy, greed, sexual obsession and rat poison.

Things start off rather staid, with a Leave-It-to-Beaver-ish family whose patriarch is the music teacher down at the local factory. The workers, all women, live in dorms at the facility and look forward to choir practice with their handsome teacher. A couple of the girls are, in fact, hot for teacher, one of them taking a job as the housemaid in his newly-expanded house. See where this is going? Maybe, but I bet you won't guess how far or to what end ...

I'll admit I was dubious at first. During the opening scenes, the performances seemed wooden and abrupt -- I wondered if this was going to be some formalist experiment in dramatic control. Man, was I wrong! Director Kim Ki-young was just setting me (and the characters) up for an impending cataclysm of emotional upheaval and self-destruction. Before long, the passion, tension and psychological torture ratchet up, reaching a crescendo of emotional chaos to match anything you may have seen in more recent Korean films.

Best of all, this is the first film discussed on this blog that you can actually see right now for free. You have to create an account, but so what? What's one more login/password? The Auteurs features a bunch of other free foreign/cult films and tons more for a nominal service charge, so my advice is: dive in. You certainly won't be sorry you did once you see The Housemaid.

Merantau Warrior

2010-04-07T09:17:00.001-07:00

I was initially intrigued with Merantau Warrior (2009) for two reasons, namely 1) it's an Indonesian film (I don't get to see too many of those), and 2) it features the indigenous Sumatran fighting style known as silat. Silat is amazing to watch, one of the more dance-like of Asian martial arts incorporating lightening-quick, open-handed striking actions and body movements inspired by jungle animals. So far as my prerequisites were concerned, Merantau Warrior acquitted itself admirably: It presents gorgeous images of Indonesia and is an excellent showcase for silat. However, there are some problems ...

The sophomore effort of Welsh writer/director/producer Gareth Evans, the film features good production values and some stunning images of the natural beauty of the countryside. The story is fairly bare-bones: A young man (Iko Uwais) from a provincial village sets out on his merantau, a kind of walkabout or vision quest. In this case, his journey from home involves a bus trip to Jakarta where he soon finds himself protecting a pretty girl and an adorable waif from sleazy gangsters. Cue ever-escalating fight sequences.

The problem with Merantau Warrior is a common one in the martial arts genre: The fights are wild, but in between there's not much going on. The narrative pace slows to a crawl, the characters are ill-defined (and thus hard to care about), and the acting isn't great. Normally, this wouldn't be quite so damning, but this being Southeast Asia, any fan of martial arts movies will instantly be reminded of a little film called Ong Bak (2003) and a fella named Tony Jaa. The publicity materials for Merantau Warrior even reference Ong Bak, an unwise comparison. Perhaps if Ong Bak's director Prachya Pinkaew had helmed the picture ... Tony Jaa found out how much he needed Pinkaew when he decided to direct Ong Bak 2 (a film far more stultifying, by the way, than Merantau Warrior).

But perhaps I'm being too tough on this film. After all, I can think of a couple of Bruce Lee pictures that were fairly snoozable between the ass-kicking bits. I'm sure the target audience for Merantau Warrior will be less nit-picky and just enjoy the many exciting action sequences (featuring what looked to me like some very real injuries). So come for the fights and stay for the ... fights. As silat movies go, I've never seen better.

House

2010-04-04T08:44:00.000-07:00

I'd been wanting to see House ever since reading about it in Patrick Macias' Tokyoscope some ten years ago. He raved about it then, and critics have echoed his praise more recently as the film has enjoyed a revival on the festival circuit. So when I learned that it had been released on a region 2 Masters of Cinema disk (England's answer to the Criterion Collection), I snapped it up.

It's about seven high school girls who go for a stay in the country in the eponymous building. It's the residence of the aunt of one of the girls, a weird old spinster. The girls have fanciful names like Fantasy, Angel, Kung-fu and such, each corresponding to a theme (Melody plays music, Fantasy is imaginative, Kung-fu kicks ass, etc.). Are they up to the supernatural forces that await them in auntie's sinister dwelling?

Perhaps it's the result of a decade of self-hype, but I have to say I was disappointed. The film has a heady, giddy surreality to it, and it periodically pops with outrageous horror gags, but for the most part it just drags. The first half hour is particularly trying, a protracted wait state in which we spend an inordinate amount of time with the not-very-interesting lead character. The candy-colored imagery and non-stop 70s cheeseball music go from charming to annoying in short order, and it isn't until the arrival of a flying decapitated head (around the 35 minute mark) that things begin to pick up. And then they go right back down again. Tension invariably mounts (sort of) but at that point I was so disengaged that I couldn't really get back into it.

Director Nobuhiko Obayashi was a beginner, coming from advertising, and it shows. House is like an extended version of one of those crazy Japanese commercials (if you've been to Japan or seen them on YouTube, you know what I mean). That kind of thing works in 30 second chunks, but 88 minutes of it? Maybe I'm just jaded; I've seen a lot of Japanese movies. I can see how someone unfamiliar with Japanese cinema might find this film more of a hoot. And I'd recommend it to anyone interested in a fantasy/horror romp. The current critical reception certainly proves that my opinion is in the minority. But I gotta call 'em like I see 'em, and this flick just didn't do it for me.

Kaidan

2010-03-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

Kaidan means "ghost story," but here, it's short for Kaidan Kasanegafuchi which translates roughly as Ghost Story: The Depths of Kasane (Kasane is the name of a swamp). This 2007 film is one of at least half a dozen adaptations of the classic supernatural revenge tragedy Shinkei Kasanegafuchi, penned by rakugo (stylized monologue) performer Encho Sanyutei in 1859. Indeed, at the beginning of the film we see Encho himself telling the tale in the traditional manner. Encho's story is heavily influenced by Namboku Tsuruya IV's Kabuki shocker Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan (1825, another source for numerous films), and these tales, along with others, form the foundation of the traditional long-haired, vengeful lady ghost so prevalent in J-horror films of the late 90s and early 00s.

So it comes as little surprise that director Hideo Nakata (The Ring), seeing the phenomena he'd almost single-handedly launched a decade earlier beginning to wane, should return to the old well (as it were). Here we have a finely crafted, well-paced, traditional kaidan, masterfully mounted with just the right blend of stately grace and blood-curdling chills. Those new to jidai-geki (period drama) should have little trouble adjusting; the film is accessible, in similar 21st century fashion, to Yoji Yamada's samurai trilogy (Twilight Samurai, Hidden Blade, Love and Honor) and Kon Ichikawa's Dora-Heita -- except here there be ghosts.

The story involves two generations, with a sins-of-the-fathers theme woven throughout. Essentially its boy meets girl, but neither know that his father brutally murdered her father. He's a nice guy, but cursed by his wicked family karma to inadvertently cause the deaths of a lot of people, at least one of whom becomes that vengeful wraith with all the hair ... Kaidan should not be confused with Kwaidan, Masaki Kobayashi's 1964 masterpiece based on the ghost stories of Scotsman Lafcadio Hearn (at least one of which was a re-working of a story by Encho!).

Personally, my only other reference point is the B&W 1957 Kaidan Kasanegafuchi (Ghosts of Kasane Swamp) directed by Nobuo Nakagawa. Clocking in at a little over an hour, it actually utilizes more special effects than Nakata's version! The pace is also more frenetic than that of its 2007 cousin (the latter running at just under two hours), and the story much foreshortened. Tetsuro Tamba plays a villainous character who never shows up in Nakata's film, although several additional characters not in the Nakagawa version do. I'm guessing that Nakata's interpretation is more loyal to the source material and that Nakagawa did a bit of cutting (a la Olivier with Hamlet) for the sake of cinematic forward thrust.

Those familiar with my books will know I'm a sucker for Japanese period drama, as well as Japanese horror, so a film like this is right up my particular street. And it's an excellent interpretation of a kaidan classic. What's not to like?

Three Deadly Beauties at the Japan Society

2010-03-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

It's things like this that make me want to move to NYC tomorrow: Mad, Bad ... & Dangerous to Know: Three Untamed Beauties (March 31 - April 18) features 13 films starring Ayako Wakao, Meiko Kaji or Mariko Okada. I've written about all these fine, fine, super-fine actresses in the past, but have only managed to see half these pictures. If you're looking for action, these are the women to see, although you'll likely get more than you bargained for -- they're fierce!

BTW, if you just read the previous post and want to see Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion, it's playing Saturday, April 3. Wish I could go!

Love Exposure

2010-03-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

Four hours just fly by in this epic tale of transgression and teenage love. Director Shion Sono, who gave us the fantastic Suicide Club (2001) and the fantastically awful Noriko's Dinner Table (2005), spins a yarn that, at its core, follows the standard boy-meets-girl formula while continually spiraling off into areas like child abuse, transvestitism, religious mania, castration, incest, tosatsu (up-skirt photography) and hot schoolgirl-on-schoolgirl action. Except that it doesn't feel like that. What I mean is, the film is morally balanced in such a way that all of the perversity of modern life seems to diminish, to take its proper place in the face of true love. The beauty and power of love, whether earthly or divine, is what Sono is concerned with here, and all the other weird stuff that people get up to is presented as silly or pathetic. How refreshing!

Sono also returns to a theme explored in Noriko's Dinner Table, that of makeshift/dysfunctional families. In the world of these films (as well as Suicide Club to a degree), the Japanese family unit has been irreparably damaged, and it's up to individuals to reconstitute it, however badly or perversely. In the case of Love Exposure, the young male protagonist Yu (pop idol Takahiro Nishijima) winds up in a family situation in which the girl of his dreams, Yoko (Hikari Mitsushima, another pop idol), has become his "sister." Her "mother" (really just an ex-lover of Yoko's dirty daddy) is going to marry Yu's dad (Atsuro Watabe), a Roman Catholic priest. What's that you say? Catholic priests can't marry? Yes, this is one of many conflicts that arise in the film between contemporary Christianity and affairs of the heart (and groin).

Love Exposure enjoyed a rapturous reception on the 2009 international festival circuit, scooping up awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, Kinema Junpo Awards, Fant-Asia Film Festival and others. It's without a doubt Sono's finest work to date and could well stand as his magnum opus.

I don't want to say too much more, as this is the kind of film that's best approached with a minimum of preconceptions. I will suggest a prerequisite, however: Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion. The main character in this seemingly unrelated exploitation classic from 1972 will figure largely in Love Exposure, and a familiarity with her will only serve to enhance your enjoyment of this amazing picture.

Chaw

2010-03-23T09:44:00.000-07:00

As giant, killer wild boar movies go, I can safely say the Korean Chaw (2009) is the best since the Australian Razorback (1984). While more derivative (think Jaws except with a giant, killer wild boar), Chaw is certainly more funny and upbeat than its sleazy and lugubrious Aussie cousin (although the latter's monster is pre-CGI and, thus, better). I suggest a double feature, with Razorback first; Chaw will serve as the palate-cleanser (to get the taste of dusty, rotting offal out of your mouth -- yuck!).

So you've got a frustrated Seoul cop who's transferred to a provincial post out in the boondocks. He thinks it's going to be all fishing and afternoon naps. Boy is he mistaken. Seems there's this huge ... well, you know. Cue the Jaws prototypes (town leaders who downplay the danger for the sake of tourism, professional hunter who's tough but ultimately not up to the job, the aforementioned cop, a scientist) and away we go. Aside from these stock characters, the townies are a hoot, and the whole business is infused with a uniquely Korean comic sensibility. (Don't ask me what "uniquely Korean" means -- just a vibe I've picked up from watching a lot of Korean movies.) Broad, and at times brutal, the gags are nevertheless consistently hilarious and I laughed out loud more than once.

The grand finale appears to be an homage to the final scene in Razorback, albeit with a different climax. All in all an entertaining hoot. You won't be snorting at this boar-fest!

Vengeance Trilogy

2010-03-23T08:19:00.001-07:00

I remember when the only way you could see one of these pictures was on an import DVD (my original copy of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a region-3 disk out of Hong Kong). How gratifying, then, to have a box set like this, boasting a whopping eight disks! There's also a glossy collector's booklet featuring production stills and essays by Hollywood insiders like Eli Roth and my boy John Kreng (Fight Choreography: The Art of Non-Verbal Dialogue).

The feature disks all have commentaries (three different ones in the case of Oldboy) and, this being an eight-disk set, there's a veritable smorgasbord of extras. Since Sympathy opened to less than favorable reviews (following director Park Chan-wook's more crowd-pleasing Joint Security Area, its ultraviolence was off-putting to audiences), its extras disk is the leanest. That said, we're talking several making-of featurettes, cast interviews, storyboards, stills, trailer and a profile of director Park Chan-wook by Brit talk show host Jonathan Ross. Yeah, that's the "skimpy" extras disk.

By the time you get to Oldboy, it's insane. Oldboy was such an international phenomenon that, in addition to the standard array of DVD extras, there are featurettes about the phenomenon itself (like Le Grand Prix at Cannes, a short documentary about the splash the film made at the renowned French film festival). There's a solid two disks worth of extras for Oldboy including five making-ofs, interviews, deleted scenes and a 3-hour video diary.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (or simply Lady Vengeance as it is called here) is similarly well-endowed with additional features, as well as an alternate, director's cut version of the film.

I reviewed all three films in the Vengeance Trilogy in Asia Shock, so I'll leave it to you to check that out for my own critical take. Upon obtaining this new box set, I took the opportunity to watch these films again, and seeing them all together I came away with a greater appreciation for the first film, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. In retrospect I think it is probably the finest of the bunch. I found greater appreciation for it's subtle, artistic touches in contradistinction to the manga-esque outrages of Oldboy (as great as they are).

In any case, do I really need to tell you to go get this box? If any one box contains the essence of "asia shock," it's this one.

Nightmare Detective

2010-03-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

I was all set to enjoy this film. And I tried, believe me, I tried. How could it be bad? Directed by that titan of Tokyo transgression Shinya Tsukamoto (A Snake of June, Tokyo Fist, Hiruko the Goblin, Gemeni, Tetsuo the Iron Man) and featuring a cast of Japanese cult film favorites like Masanobu Ando (Battle Royale, Kids Return) and Ryuhei Matsuda (Taboo, Izo) as well as crusty but benign stalwarts Ren Osugi and Yoshio Harada (their works too numerous to mention), it seemed like a slam dunk. So what happened? Well, as Groucho Marx once remarked after a particularly bad joke, "They can't all be good. You've got to expect that."

Considering Tsukamoto's stature and body of work, I suppose he's entitled to a stinker now and then. And Nightmare Detective is that odoriferous offering. The story begins with a promising array of elements (murder, suicide, psychic phenomena, dark doings in the dreamworld, a monster), yet they all soon melt into so much boring mush. Two factors are fatal to one's enjoyment of the picture: 1) a non-actress in a pivotal role and 2) a talky talkfest of a script. The latter problem speaks for itself (in overlong, repetitive dialog sequences). As for the former, it boils down to the abilities (or lack thereof) of mononomial model/singer Hitomi. She's beautiful in a computer-generated sort of way, but only manages to muster one facial expression throughout the film, a sour frown. The camera, or perhaps Tsukamoto himself, loves Hitomi, so we get lots of long extreme close-ups of her frozen visage creating a feeling more like flipping through a magazine than watching a movie.

The film occasionally stumbles into something interesting, like the surprisingly compelling arguments for suicide delivered by Tsukamoto himself (here playing a knife-wielding maniac whose own wounds are somehow healed when someone else takes their own life). And of course the gory action sequences are top-notch, especially when we get a glimpse of the rampaging nightmare beast. But that's about it. Overall, Nightmare Detective is 20% intriguing, 80% deadly dull.

So instead of watching this film, may I suggest instead checking out one of the others I mentioned en passant? You'll have a much better time and any resultant nightmares will be good ones!

Kokoro

2010-02-24T09:54:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you see a movie and it feels ... slight. It just doesn't seem to make much of an impression. Something in the way it was filmed, the themes, the characters, all strike you as somewhat wanting. So you shrug and go on about your business.

But then you notice you keep thinking about it. Images come back to you, character's faces, bits of dialog, a moment, a gesture. You find yourself going over it in your head, parsing it, making connections, finally getting it. It dawns on you that this film was far better than you registered while watching it, so understated yet intimate was the subject matter, so low-key and subtle the presentation.

And so we have Kokoro (1955), adapted from the acclaimed novel by Soseki Natsume and directed by Kon Ichikawa. The film stars Masayuki Mori (Rashomon, Ugetsu) as a depressed man whose central secret, the cause of his misery (and that of his long-suffering wife, played by Michiyo Aratama) forms the core of the story. Of course we eventually learn all about it through exposition and flashbacks. Without giving too much away, it involves a love triangle and a tragic choice, leading to years of desolation and inner turmoil. Eventually what meager scab that's managed to grow over the wound is picked open by a young student (Shoji Yasui, who would go on to play the unforgettable deserter/monk Mizushima in Ichikawa's The Burmese Harp) who befriends the tortured older man and only wants to help. No good deed goes unpunished ...

Kokoro (which translates roughly as "the heart of things") is one of those quietly devastating films particular to certain cultures (I'm thinking Japanese, but Scandinavian is right in there as well). In form and content it is quite different from the kind of film normally discussed on this blog, yet in its themes of misery and self-destruction it is ultimately as harrowing as any of the more outre outings on offer here. Recommended.

King of Comedy

2010-02-16T10:45:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I saw a Stephen Chow movie, so I threw this one on last night. It's also been awhile since I burst forth with barking blasts of uncontrollable laughter -- what a great feeling. Chow is funny on his own, but what really knocks his comedy out of the park is a combo of the people he surrounds himself with, comedic compatriots like Ng Man Tat and Tin Kai Man who form a loose troupe from film to film, and the broad nature of the gags, bordering on, if not spilling wholly over into, outrageous gross-out humor. A bar hostess forced to entertain a particularly repellent male customer is a funny pretense; ah! He's got roaches in his hair and a worm crawling out his ear! Or how about the tender love scene between Chow and Karen Mok wherein a big glob of runny snot hangs perilously out of his nose over her face? OK, it's puerile, but nobody laughs more deliriously than an 8-year-old, and sometimes a fella needs to laugh like that. Sue me.

Also on hand is smoking hot Celia Cheung. More recently, Ms. Cheung found unwanted publicity when "candid" photos of her and a number of other HK actresses made their way from singer/actor Edison Chen's hard drive to the internet. Oh, and don't blink or you'll miss a walk-on cameo from Jackie Chan. He plays a stuntman (ha ha). The premise of the movie is that Chow is a "background artist" trying to worm his way into a more substantive role on a film shoot (a la Ricky Gervais in Extras).

If you're new to Stephen Chow, I recommend starting with Shaolin Soccer, his masterpiece. Then move on to The God of Cookery, King of Comedy and From Beijing With Love. Only then check out the somewhat more jaded Kung Fu Hustle. Then you can move on to the 50+ films he's been in since the early 80s (like Royal Tramp and God of Gamblers 2). Chow is one of a kind, a national treasure, and everyone should have at least a couple of his films in their collection.

PTU

2010-02-05T08:48:00.001-08:00

Perhaps you, like me, hate film titles that consist of abstract numbers and/or letters. I don't mean something like 1941 or K9 or D.O.A. -- with those, you have a frame of reference. I mean combos that mean nothing outside the context of the story (which you haven't seen yet) rendering them utterly meaningless and thus unlikely to provoke any interest whatsoever (9? U-571? THX-1138? I'm intrigued!).

In the case of PTU (2003) we're talking Police Tactical Unit, and before you say, "Oh no, not a Hong Kong S.W.A.T. flick" let me reassure you: The cops in this film may wear quasi-military uniforms, but they're no black-clad stormtroopers repelling down the sides of buildings. Led by cooly menacing Mike (Simon Lam), they're merely one more gang in this tale of rivalry and retribution on the mean streets of gangster-ridden HK. They're not above beating and torture to get information, they lie to their superiors, falsify reports, cut deals with local drug lords -- in effect, they're just like real cops. And the gangsters are no slouches either. The kingpins, with names like Bald Head and Eyeball, are as nasty as they wanna be, certainly up to the sadistic standards of any self-respecting Hong Kong triad boss.

What makes PTU really great, though, is the way the story is told. This is a Johnnie To film, and Johnnie To, while he's been around awhile, has emerged in recent years as among the most intriguing genre directors of Hong Kong's post-colonial period. His films are finely crafted, they move, they pop with a stylistic frisson that raises the cinematic bar. PTU, for example, is interesting on just about every level. It's gorgeous to look at; the lighting, framing and use of negative space transform the dark city streets into an absorbing moving tableaux. Some shots linger just to let you soak in the mise-en-scene (like one where three cops are waiting outside a building -- the color, the way the frame is broken up, it's just tasty). Plotting and characterization are quirky and unpredictable; Sergeant Lo (Lam Suet) is the tough head of the organized crime unit, bullying triad members in a restaurant, only to get jumped by them around the corner. His gun is taken in the fracas, his subsequent search for his missing manhood providing the forward thrust of the narrative (a la Kurosawa's Stray Dog). Mike helps in the search, and suspicious CID inspector Cheng (Ruby Wong) knows something is up. Everything ends with a twist and you'll love it.

I'm not alone in my appreciation for PTU; the film has spawned half a dozen sequels with no end in sight. So nevermind the crap title, check out PTU, a very well-made and engaging piece of Hong Kong cinema that will most likely get you hooked on Johhnie To. Next stop, Triad Election ...

Destiny's Son at the Japan Society

2010-02-03T08:02:00.001-08:00

I wrote about this film years ago in Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves. I said, "The feel of Destiny's Son is like a haiku. Lyrical, minimalist, it is a beautiful film, infused with the Japanese aesthetic qualities of tranquility, introspection and reverence for nature ... A deep Zen calm surrounds and interpenetrates the people and settings of the film; even the violence and treachery are subsumed in it, making these elements somehow more and less disturbing simultaneously." I'm inclined to agree.

Anyhow, The New York Japan Society will be showing it February 19th and I encourage all my NYC homies to get on over there and see it. Director Kenji Misumi made a lot of chambara pictures with the legendary Raizo Ichikawa (above), but only one like this -- a true gem.

Epitaph

2010-02-02T09:51:00.001-08:00

K-horror meets art house in this majestic masterpiece of the macabre from 2007. Sibling directors Jeong Beom-sik and Jeong Sik spin a haunting yarn of serial murder, unnatural love and supernatural retribution set in a Seoul hospital circa 1942. The membrane separating life and death is wafer-thin in this house of pain, all rich mahogany hues and dark shadows, and nothing is what it seems. If you love having your expectations defied, if you savor a confounding plot twist, if you're up for a rousing game of "who's the ghost?" (as well as "who's about to become one?"), well, here you go.

Three stories entwine and inform one another: An intern (Jin Goo) falls in love with the frozen corpse of his arranged fiance (Yeo Ji); A young girl (Ko Joo-yeon) survives a car accident that kills her mother and potential step-father (Park Ji-ah, David McInnis), only to be haunted by their ghosts; and husband-and-wife doctors (Kong Ho-seok, Kim Bo-kyeong) try to determine why one of them doesn't cast a shadow. Meanwhile, someone is brutally mutilating Japanese soldiers in the vicinity and an intrepid army cop (ubiquitous character actor Kim Eung-soo) wants to know who. Oh, and I did mention ghosts, right? Yes, there are ghosts. The kind that don't just float there looking wispy, but rather tend to grab your ass and pull you right through the morgue tray door!

There is one issue, however, namely a certain slow-as-molasses-in-January element. Not all the way through, mind you, just now and then, but increasingly during the third act. Epitaph is, after all, the Jeong brothers' film debut, and their beginner status is apparent in the way they're just a bit too in love with a suspenseful scene, dragging it out until all suspense is drained and the audience is left with a mounting "get on with it!" annoyance. Fortunately, there's enough talent on display here to warrant optimism for future films (and, as I say, the majority of this one moves along just fine).

Hats off to 12-year-old Ko Joo-yeon (above) for a show-stealing performance unlike any I've seen since little Eun Seo-woo ran off with it in K-horror classic Phone (2002). Ko's adult contemporaries are no slouches either, raising the overall prestige of the picture with their understated yet intense portrayals.

So yeah, absolutely see this film. The Jeong brothers have arrived, and from the looks of it we can expect exciting things from them in the years to come.

Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai

2010-01-16T12:16:00.000-08:00

Back in August '09, I posted my review of Tadashi Imai's Cruel Tales of Bushido. Now I've gotten hold of an advance copy of AnimEigo's DVD release (out February 9th) re-dubbed Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai. As with all AnimEigo releases, the disk is packed with historical and cultural information in the form of supplemental notes and essays, as well as explanatory supertitles above particularly idiomatic/referential subtitles. In short, the package is a Japanese history nerd's dream. And speaking of Japanese history nerds, my boy Randy Schadel from the Samurai Archives provides one of his typically voluminous pieces on the disk, a definite value-add.

Even if you're not all that interested in Japanese history, you'll still find this film an unforgettable experience and a unique look into a centuries-old martial culture. Plus it's a great showcase for the talents of the great Kinnosuke Nakamura, here portraying seven different roles to devastating effect. Needless to say I'm overjoyed to see this true classic of Japanese cinema receiving the long-overdue DVD release it deserves.

The Beast Stalker

2010-01-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

This top-notch, edge-of-your-seat Hong Kong crime thriller from 2008 packs more than a couple of emotional gut-punches. For the record, these come primarily from fucked-up things happening to little kids. While I'm not a big fan of the killing, kidnapping and general endangerment of children in film, here it's done -- dare I say tastefully? Certainly effectively, adding an extra layer of involvement for the audience beyond the standard police procedural and action elements.

The story pivots on a singular, multi-vehicle traffic collision from which the various characters emerge, their faces scarred, their lives entangled, forever changed. Except one, a little girl, her tiny body pierced by the bullets of a well-meaning cop in pursuit of a crime boss (the chase leading up to the crash). Sadly, wee Yee won't be growing up any time soon. Of course the cop, Sergeant Tong (Nicholas Tse, above right), will never get over it, so when the dead girl's sister is kidnapped, he's doubly motivated to save the little tyke and make some kind of amends to the mother (Zhang Jing Chu) and the universe at large. He's in for a rough ride, though; the kidnapper, Hung (an electrifying Nick Cheung, above left), is an elite ex-assassin, lightening fast and smart as a whip. He'll give Sergeant Tong a run for his money ...

The Beast Stalker director Dante Lam employs hand-helds and steady cams to create a kinetic, P.O.V. style that drops you right into the breathless action. Nice to see Hong Kong cinema getting back to gritty after the string of super-slick, Hollywood-style outings that characterized the post-handover era. The film won several awards in 2009 including the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor for Nick Cheung. More good news: Beast Stalker 2 (working title) just finished shooting in Hong Kong last week, so keep an eye out for that one (will premier over there this Summer). The follow-up film isn't a sequel -- the two male leads swap roles (Tse is the criminal, Cheung the cop) -- a far more intriguing proposition.

If you're in Europe or Japan, you'll be able to rent/purchase The Beast Stalker tout de suite -- it was released on region-2 DVD by Cine-Asia on January 4th. If you're in the US, you're in good shape -- it's been out on disk since May, 2009. As for the inevitable Hollywood remake, well, let's just hope they don't wreck it ...

Kurosawa Centenial

2010-01-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

If you're in the NYC area, why not celebrate Akira Kurosawa's 100th birthday with a film? From January 6th through February 5th, the Film Forum is showing 28 of the master's films including my personal favorite, High and Low (above, playing January 22nd). I also recommend the seldom-seen The Idiot (1951) playing January 17th and Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945) on the 19th.

Sure, Criterion has released lots of these pictures on DVD, but I don't have to tell you how much difference the big screen still makes, especially in regards to the compositional skills of an artist like Kurosawa. Maybe when our LCDs get to be 300 inches, we can all stay home, but for now, get thee to the Forum!

Thirst

2009-12-29T10:46:00.001-08:00

Who says vampires can't get it on? Not me, and certainly not Park Chan-wook, Korean auteur extraordinaire (The Revenge Trilogy, JSA, Three ... Extremes). He's also jettisoned the whole fang thing, but otherwise the standard lore is in place (the blood is the life, no sunshine, superhuman strength, etc.). And yet this one element, sex, opens things up considerably, plot-wise, making for a more intimate, complex and unpredictable story of a man, a woman, and their sexual/vampiric relationship.

The man in question, a Catholic priest named Sang-hyun (Korean superstar Song Kang-ho), volunteers to become infected with an ebola-like virus as part of a drug trial in Africa. Sang-hyun (get it? Sang is French for blood) is inadvertently transfused with some vampire blood that keeps the virus at bay, but, of course, makes him a vampire in the process. In keeping with convention, Sang-hyun's genesis involves a heightening of the senses, but this time out, that extends into his pants. Yes, in addition to a newfound thirst for blood, he discovers he's also got a hankerin' for some good old fashioned poontang. This leads him to pretty yet troubled Tae-ju (Kim Ok-bin) who becomes his first girlfriend (although she's married to someone else ... ). However, Sang-hyun never fully abandons his moral nature, and his inner conflict, reminiscent of Louis from Interview with the Vampire, makes his character that much more compelling.

What I found most striking about Thirst was the way the film defied my expectations. I've seen a lot of vampire films, but this one kept me off balance throughout. Park Chan-wook takes the "rules" of vampirism (clearly borrowing from Anne Rice) and turns them sideways, defying audience expectations while working within the parameters of the genre. As I say, he brings human sexuality into the mix (thus eliminating the need for the penetrating fang), and we all know how complicated things can get when that happens. The line between human and vampire is blurred to the point where genre predictability is all but obliterated.

Thirst won the jury prize at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival last Spring, the second Cannes award for Park Chan-wook (he got one for Oldboy in 2004).

Total Film's 60 Greatest Movie Books

2009-12-23T11:34:00.001-08:00

Guess who made the list? Asia Shock is #23.

A particular kick, as this is my favorite Brit mag. I even went to the considerable expense of securing a subscription. I also enjoy sending them insulting emails castigating their staff for occasional mistakes regarding Asian film. Being British, this is no doubt the reason for their warm embrace.

Anyhow, thank you, Total Film!

The Good, the Bad, the Weird

2009-12-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

Kim Ji-woon does it again (see previous post). This time out, the genre-hopping Korean director serves up a heapin' helpin' of what I would call "kim chee ramen western." Yes, in an affectionate nod to the Dollars Trilogy of Sergio Leone, Kim delivers a fast-paced, wildly exotic horse opera set in Manchuria in the 1930s filled with gun-slinging Chinese outlaws, opium-smoking prairie prostitutes, marauding Korean bandits, thieves, psychos and revolutionaries ... oh, and the Japanese Imperial Army, all in constant motion via motorcycles, trains, trucks, jeeps and, of course, horses. Lots of horses.

At the center of it all is the irrepressible Song Kang-ho (The Host, The Quiet Family, The Foul King, Thirst, JSA, Secret Sunshine, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Memories of Murder, etc. etc.) as Yoon Tae-goo, The Weird. While robbing a train he comes into possession of a treasure map (which becomes the operative MacGuffin of the piece). He's a two-pistol shooter, greasing, hmm, maybe 100 guys throughout the picture? 200? (The mortality rate in this movie is off the chart.) Then there's Jeong Woo-seong as The Good (a bounty hunter named Park Do-won), doing a slick Korean version of Clint Eastwood. And finally we have Lee Byeong-heon as The (very) Bad Park Chang-yi, channeling a sinister Alain Delon by way of Prince (trust me, it works -- you've just gotta see it). These guys go round and round, winding up in a three-way standoff similar to their original counterparts in the film's namesake. Along the way we get many an homage to the Leone trilogy including a scene involving metal plating used as a bullet-proof vest, as well as a bit where someone's hat is shot off, then continually shot out of reach.

Kim Ji-woon was also influenced by Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992). "I wasn't particularly aiming to make the Western genre popular in Asia," he told an interviewer at Cannes last Spring. "It's enough that I can revive the Manchurian Western genre in Korea."

There's so much lead flying through the air in The Good, the Bad, the Weird, it could pass as a weather condition. Some might feel the action sequences go on a bit; that all depends on how you feel about action sequences. Fortunately, Kim's are the best in the business: Inventive, thrilling, outrageous. My advice is don't fight it, just sit back, relax, and let the madness sweep over you. As contemporary Korean westerns go, you really can't do better.

EDIT: I recently purchased this DVD of the film. It's the shits. Terrible, blurry transfer. Clearly somebody downloaded a low-res, compressed version, pressed it on disk and distributed it to vendors who don't bother to check out their foreign titles. DO NOT BUY THIS DISK.

A Bittersweet Life

2009-12-18T10:34:00.001-08:00

Korean director Kim Ji-woon is one bad mutha ... [**Shut yo mouth!**] Only talkin' 'bout Kim! The guy defined family-based black comedy with The Quiet Family (1998). Then he went all freaky deaky K-horror on your ass in A Tale of Two Sisters (2003). And here, in 2005's A Bittersweet Life, he proves he can make operatic gangster pictures with the best of 'em.

Lee Byeong-heon (JSA, Three ... Extremes) stars as Sun-woo, a suave mob enforcer who finds himself on the shit list not only of a rival gang, but that of his own boss. (The latter tends to happen when the boss asks you to look after his hot young girlfriend, even when you don't make a move.) Before long our boy finds himself being beaten, stabbed, shot, even buried alive. This doesn't sit well with him, his thoughts turning to revenge. To do the job right, he's going to need more than the standard array of melee weapons commonly used by Korean gangsters -- he'll need firepower and lots of it. Sun-woo's quest for guns takes him on a bizarre odyssey, the film's only comedic set piece, featuring one of the goofiest looking guys in Korean cinema, Oh Dai-soo (Oldboy, A Bloody Aria).

A Bittersweet Life hits all the right notes. Slick urban settings mask what is essentially a cruel tale of bushido similar to Japanese films like The Secret of the Urn or, indeed, Cruel Tales of Bushido: A trustworthy retainer is subjected to the whims of a capricious lord and made to suffer for being nothing less than a paragon of loyalty. Blend this with Korean cinema's uniquely kinetic flair for screen violence and you've got one hell of an exciting picture. Lee Byeong-heon is on fire, one minute pouncing like a jungle cat, the next blasting away like some Peckinpah anti-hero.

I picked up A Bittersweet Life on a region-2 Tartan Asia Extreme disk back when Tartan was still a UK entity. It can still be had as a Japanese import, but let's hope the new US-based Tartan Palisades label decides to release it here. If you like Asian gangster films, you'll definitely want this on in the collection.

The Inugami Family

2009-12-16T12:04:00.000-08:00

Nobody loves a good murder mystery more than me. My all-time favorite is The Last of Sheila, and until recently I've never seen anything to rival it. But now I've seen The Inugami Family, and I have to say this Kon Ichikawa film from 1976 comes damn close. For one thing, like Sheila, it features a double denouement (a convincing-yet-fake one, then the real one). I love that! The film is masterful in its misdirection, seemingly assuring you you've figured it out, only to confound you time and again. This is the essence of a great mystery, and you get it in spades in The Inugami Family.

Adapted from a novel by popular mystery writer Seishi Yokomizo, the story kicks off with the death of a wealthy patriarch and the dark doings that follow hard upon. Before his will is even read, one of his lawyers is murdered with a poison cigarette. And once the peculiar contents of the diabolical document are read out, the bodies really start to stack up. There are gruesome shocks and surprises around every corner in this wonderfully creepy whodunit extending to decapitation, horrible facial disfigurement, mistaken identity, incest, infanticide, rape, torture, kidnapping and, of course, murder. Wrap it up, I'll take it!

Obviously, this being a mystery, I don't want to give any more away than I have to, so this blog entry will have to end here. A region-3 copy of the film can be found here. Otherwise, if you've yet to commit to a region-free DVD player, you're left to wonder ...

Tora-san

2009-12-11T09:17:00.001-08:00

So what's Tora-san, a bumbling traveling salesman, doing on a blog called Asia Shock? What's so shocking about him? Well it may come as something of a shock to those new to the film series (an amazing 48 installments from 1969 to 1996) just how hilarious, multi-dimensional and downright grok-worthy this low-level yakuza huckster really is.

I'd seen a Tora-san film years ago, when my awareness of Japan and Japanese film was still somewhat green, and I confess I just didn't get it. I wondered what all the fuss was about (Tora-san is a national treasure in Japan). I believe I characterized the series as "tepid" in Warring Clans, Flashing Blades (a sin for which I've been chastised by fellow Japanese film nerd D. Trull). But sitting down with the new box set from AnimEigo (films 1 - 4) provided a what-was-I-thinking? experience unlike any in recent memory. I fucking LOVE Tora-san!

A number of elements combine to create the unique and, sure, I'll say it, heart-warming Tora-san experience. First off, there's the performance of the films' star, Kiyoshi Atsumi (1928 - 1996). Vacillating wildly between street-wise scammer, moony schoolboy, angry drunk, lighthearted drifter, caustic upbraider, foul-mouthed joker, kind-hearted caretaker, weepy penitent, violent hothead, and forlorn loner, Atsumi deftly blends the strands into a complex yet seamless and fully-realized character. When he's not getting up to this or that wacky scheme, he's falling for some beauty who considers him charming yet ultimately just a friend. Then there's his family and an odd assortment of neighborhood characters, all endlessly sympathetic yet wary of their fractious friend. These folks reside in Shibamata in Katsushita, Tokyo, a nostalgic locality centered on a Buddhist temple, and it is the dumpling shop run by his aunt and uncle which serves as Tora-san's home base between sojourns (for he invariably wears out his welcome and winds up hitting the road).

Based on a TV series, the first film was an instant hit, featuring a guest appearance by the legendary Takashi Shimura (Seven Samurai, Ikiru). The guest star thing became a feature of the series; eventually, everyone who was anyone in Japanese film turned up in a Tora-san picture including the great Toshiro Mifune (he's in #38). The second film in the series features the prolific character actor Eijiro Tono, as well as Tsutomu Yamazaki (whom you'll remember from Tampopo and High and Low). In the third installment, look for Bokuzen Hidari, that ubiquitous, rubber-faced old man you've seen in so many Japanese films. In addition, Shochiku contract actor and Ozu's go-to guy Chishu Ryu has a recurring role as the head priest at the local temple, forever castigating Tora-san for his shortcomings.

My advice to anyone who digs Japanese film is to go pick up this box set. It's great, features informative liner notes, and the sales will encourage AnimEigo to keep putting out more. Like the old saying goes, they just don't make 'em like this anymore, and in these uncertain times, you never know when stuff like this will poof out of existence.

Abayo!

Onimasa

2009-12-04T09:42:00.000-08:00

In terms of volume, Hideo Gosha was far from an impressive filmmaker. With a mere 24 films to his name over the course of three decades, he would seem something of an underachiever compared with his contemporaries. But then you see his films, and realize that quality so outstrips quantity as to lift him to the upper echelons of the Japanese filmmaker elite. His 1960s samurai films alone stand among the finest in the genre. In the 70s he turned to yakuza films; in the 80s he specialized in what could best be described as "women's pictures," centering as the did on geisha, yakuza wives, serving girls and lady assassins.

Onimasa (1982) is the first of Gosha's 80s films, and for those familiar only with his earlier genre outings, it might come as something of a shock. There is no tension like we feel in Three Outlaw Samurai and Sword of the Beast; gone is the bold, sprawling action of The Secret of the Urn, Goyokin and Tenchu; nowhere do we find the labyrinthine intrigue of Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron and Hunter in the Dark. With Onimasa we move from exterior to interior, to an intimate portrait of behind-closed-doors life in a small-time yakuza gang.

The primary figures, under whose skin we will get in all the depth that 2 1/2 hours affords, are boss Onimasa (Tatsuya Nakadai), his wife Uta (Shima Iwashita), and Onimasa's adopted daughter Matsue (Masako Natsume). There's also Onimasa's natural-born daughter Hanako (Kaori Tagasugi), who figures in the story more as a spoiled princess MacGuffin than a viable character. The story moves from 1918 through the 20s and 30s, during which time we observe internecine conflicts, gang rivalries, an outbreak of typhoid fever, a railway strike and a somewhat disturbing dogfight (is it fake or not?). The leisurely pace and exaggerated performances, particularly from Nakadai, take some getting used to and may not be to everyone's liking. However, the film has a lot to offer and, according to AnimEigo (who recently released Onimasa on DVD), it's "considered in Japan to be Hideo Gosha's best-known film."

The supporting cast features Isao Natsuyagi (Samurai Wolf, G.I. Samurai) and Koji Yakusho (Dora-Heita, Kamikaze Taxi), two excellent actors whom I discuss at length in Warring Clans, Flashing Blades. There's also the inevitable Tetsuro Tamba (he was in everything). And, of course, you can't go wrong with luminaries like Shima Iwashita and Tatsuya Nakadai. While Nakadai's performance here is unusual, it tends to grow on you, so by the time of the grande finale (a Gosha specialty), you're behind him 100%.

Onimasa won the prestigious Blue Ribbon award for Best Actress and the Japan Academy Prize for Best Art Direction.

Classic Chambara in NYC

2009-12-02T14:25:00.000-08:00

If you're in the New York City area and dissatisfied with the current crop of sequels, remakes and sequels of remakes at your local cineplex, might I suggest something wholly other and altogether subarashi (fantastic)? Starting December 11th, The Japan Society will be presenting a new series, The Double-Edged Sword: The Chambara Films of Shintaro Katsu and Raizo Ichikawa. Opening night, it's Samurai Vendetta starring both Katsu and Raizo (a fine film, reviewed for your convenience in my latest book, Warring Clans, Flashing Blades). The film will be introduced by series curator Chris D., author of Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film, with a reception and book signing to follow.

The Detective

2009-11-24T09:42:00.001-08:00

Every now and then a movie comes along with a twist ending so unexpected and exhilarating, it elicits an involuntary "Wow!" The problem, however, is just how to write about such a film in a way that will capture your interest without ruining that "wow" moment. Fortunately for you, I have a bit of experience in this area ...

The film is Oxide Pang's The Detective (2007), a seemingly by-the-book noir set in the seedy Chinatown of Bangkok. Hong Kong film star Aaron Kwok (The Storm Riders, After This Our Exile) plays Chan, the classic destitute gumshoe who takes a case that turns out to be far more than he'd bargained for. He's hired by a strange man who claims a woman is trying to kill him. Interesting. In the standard formula, a woman hires the detective, and later turns out to be the femme fatale (The Maltese Falcon, Chinatown). Here the woman at the heart of the mystery is established as a murderous creature right up front. Or is she? Getting to the bottom of of it all will involve digging through layer after layer of intricate backstory as we follow a corpse-strewn path to that final "wow" revelation.

Occasionally the story loses momentum, but only temporarily, nothing detrimental. At one point, mystery fans will feel sure that the whole thing is going to wrap up leaving gaping plot holes unresolved. But therein lies the genius of the film: The ending sows up everything so perfectly and unexpectedly, well, I won't belabor the point.

If you're wondering why we're in Bangkok, yet everyone is speaking Cantonese, it's due to the unique style of twin Pang Brothers, Oxide and Danny. Hong Kong natives, they relocated to Thailand and started making films a dozen years ago. Oxide goes solo here, and the film is closer in feel to Bangkok Dangerous (1999) than the more slick and effects-laden The Eye (2002). This being Thailand, there are elephants and durian on hand. The dingy back streets of Bangkok's Chinatown (hmm, Chinatown -- wonder if that was a conscious reference?) lend a gritty, exotic feel to the proceedings, although the by-now-tiresome washed-out palette tends to drain away some of the vibrance of the setting. In any case, it's all a heady concoction of old tropes and new innovations sure to dazzle fans of the mystery thriller.

So hopefully I've succeeded in whetting your appetite for a little Southeast Asian Noir. Like the durian, it's funky and pungent, but for the discriminating cinematic gourmand, delicious and uniquely satisfying.

Red Angel

2009-11-21T09:31:00.000-08:00

Anyone interested in World War II really owes it to himself to check out some Japanese WWII pictures. It's quite a different perspective from the losing side, and while there were plenty of films made with a hurray-for-us-anyway-we-did-our-best sensibility, the ones I find most compelling are those that strip away the heroics and patriotism and examine the reality of war. Such films include Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition trilogy, Kon Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain and The Burmese Harp and Yasuzo Masumura's Red Angel (1966). While less well-known than the others, Red Angel nevertheless stands alongside these classics in terms of its virtuosity and shocking veracity.

The angel of the piece is an army nurse, Sakura Nishi (Ayako Wakao), shipped off to Manchuria to work in field hospitals in 1939. Her first day on the job, she's raped by one of the patients. He turns up later on a table with a hole in his belly and, despite his despicable act, Nurse Nishi takes pity on him, lobbying for extra care even though he's a goner. Yes, she's a sweetheart, a loving, giving woman whose compassion for the men she encounters extends above an beyond the call of duty. I don't want to give too much away, but suffice to say you will never forget this movie or the character of Sakura Nishi.

Red Angel doesn't shy away from controversial wartime issues including the harsh realities of triage, comfort women, drug addiction, rape and disease. The film deals frankly with amputation (complete with an extended bone-sawing sequence) as well as the fate of the limbless survivors; according to one armless man (Yusuke Kawazu, right), guys like him would never see their families again (due to the Japanese government's policy of stashing multiple amputees away in convalescent hospitals so as not to expose the dark verities of war). The special care Nurse Nishi provides this poor unfortunate makes Florence Nightengale look like a candy striper.

Director Yasuzo Masumura was attracted to the dark side of human nature (one reason he's a personal favorite); it is an ever-present component of such wildly divergent yet consistently excellent films as Giants and Toys and Black Test Car (corporate espionage); Manji (lesbian love); Blind Beast (ero-guro); A Lustful Man (Edo-period sexcapade); and Yakuza Soldier (Shintaro Katsu as a drafted thug). Masumura studied film in Rome at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and AD'd under Kenji Mizoguchi. He liked working with Ayako Wakao, casting her in Manji, A Lustful Man, and yakuza flick Afraid to Die.

Back when I acquired Red Angel, it was only available overseas on a region-2 disk. Fortunately for you, the good folks at Fantoma have released it here, along with Blind Beast, Manji, Giants and Toys and Black Test Car. I can't recommend these pictures enough. It kills me to think of all the other Masumura films never released on DVD, but what can you do? Well, you can blog about it and hope the manufacturers take notice.

Bad Guy

2009-11-14T09:57:00.000-08:00

Having enjoyed a number of films from controversial Korean director Kim Ki-duk (The Isle, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, Samaritan Girl, 3-Iron, The Bow -- well, actually, I didn't enjoy The Bow), I thought I'd go back and see one I missed, 2001's Bad Guy. I'd initially avoided it because of the storyline: A pimp forces a woman into prostitution. Yawn. However, we're talking Kim Ki-duk here, and it occurred to me that I'd probably underestimated his ability to take a simple story and fill it with nuance and complex emotion. I was right.

So you've got Han-ki (Jo Jae-hyeon), a fearsome tough guy who never says a word (a recurring motif in Kim's films). In his case, it could have something to do with that big, ugly scar across his throat -- sliced vocal cords? (In point of fact, he does say something eventually, but I won't say what.) He takes one look at pretty college student Seon-hwa (Seo Won) and it's all over: Love at first site. However, he's a violent dude with a gangster past, and the best he can think of is to grab her, on the street, in front of her boyfriend and a throng of bystanders, and plant an extended, angry kiss on her lips. Needless to say, this doesn't go down well with anyone, least of all a group of passing soldiers, who insist he apologize to the young lady. Their way of insisting involves beating the shit out of him, but our bad guy ain't talking. Seon-hwa spits in his face and everyone disperses. But does this incident dampen Han-ki's ardour? Not a bit of it. It rather stiffens his resolve.

Han-ki eventually gains total control of Seon-hwa, through a series of machinations I leave to you to discover. And eventually, a relationship of sorts develops between them, even as he watches her turn tricks through a one-way mirror, at one point with one of his own henchmen. It's a strange, dark tale of obsession and degradation, and whether you consider it a misogynist fantasy or a genuine love story, there's no denying Kim's ability to suck you in and hold you, riveted, until the final frame.

Mansion of the Ghost Cat

2009-10-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

This classic Nobuo Nakagawa spooker holds many a key to the J-horror genre of recent years. Notable, that, as it was made in 1958. Many tropes and features of the modern Japanese horror film, considered so unique and cutting-edge by contemporary Western viewers, go right back to Nakagawa (and beyond). Here we have the horrific apparition of the vengeful lady ghost, the elaborate backstory, even the old corpse-in-a-wall revelation (utilized to great effect in the Korean shocker Phone).

Less familiar is the Japanese folkloric tradition of the bakeneko, or "ghost cat." The bakeneko, a demonic shape-shifter, often poses as a human, wreaking revenge on behalf of a dead owner. However, the line between human ghost and ghost cat tends to get somewhat blurred in film, most notably in movies like Kuroneko (see my review in Warring Clans, Flashing Blades) and Demon of Mt. Oe.

In Mansion of the Ghost Cat, a choleric old Chamberlain strikes down his Go master when the young man accuses him of cheating. The Chamberlain proceeds to slay the Go master's mother and grandmother (world-class asshole that he is). The Go master's beloved cat somehow melds with the spirit of his grandmother and proceeds to wreak bloody revenge on the Chamberlain and his kin. But the curse extends to all the descendants of the Chamberlain, and therein lies the connection to the modern-day (late 50s) frame story. Yes indeed, the old granny/cat isn't finished yet ...

Any fan of modern J-horror (and K-horror) owes it to him/herself to check out some Nakagawa pictures. Here's a partial list (although IMDb is always a little dodgy with their Japanese film data). A more comprehensive list can be found here, but you have to be somewhat conversant with the Japanese language.

If you only see on Nakagawa picture, make it Jigoku (Hell). It's on a Criterion release, so you won't have any trouble finding it. You'll just have trouble sleeping later ...

Two from Tartan

2009-10-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

Or rather Palisades Tartan, as the US-based Palisades Media Group has seen fit to resurrect the venerable UK Tartan DVD label (following its lamentable demise last Summer). Why should you care about this? Because of the many great films in the Tartan Asia Extreme catalog including Audition, Battle Royale, Dead or Alive, The Eye, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Hard Boiled, Infernal Affairs, The Isle, Joint Security Area, Marebito, Oldboy, Phone, Ringu, Shiri, A Tale of Two Sisters, Tell Me Something, Tetsuo: The Ironman, Three... Extremes, Triad Election, Versus, and Visitor Q (all of which you should have seen by now).

The good folks at PT were nice enough to send me the first two releases from the revivified Asia Extreme line, so it behooves me to oblige them (and you) with a review. The two titles are P (2005, Thailand) and The Butcher (2007, South Korea).

P
Yeah, I know, I hate the title too. Letters, numbers, they make even worse movie titles than vague crap like State of Play or Away We Go. In this case, P is the name of a particular go-go bar in the Soi Cowboy section of Bangkok. Soi Cowboy is where all the farangs (white foreigners), as well as hordes of Japanese and other Asian guys, go to pay for sex. (Check out a novel called Bangkok 8, you'll spend a lot of time there.)

So what's a pretty young thing like Dau (Suangporn Jaturaphut) doing in a place like this? The usual: She's come from the provinces to earn money for her sick grandma back home. She's a virgin and none too pleased with the ugly turn her life has taken. First day on the job, she's turned out by the farang owner of the bar, and, before long, she's dancing and servicing the customers like the rest of the girls. But our little Dau is not your typical country bumpkin-turned-Bangkok-pro. Since childhood, her grandmother has schooled her in the ways of Khmer sorcery, and right about now she's deciding she's had enough, and it's time for others to start suffering ...

Unfortunately, our Miss Dau breaks certain cardinal rules laid down by grandma, and winds up releasing a demonic doppelganger that goes on gory killing sprees while she sleeps. Things get out of control and, well you'll see.

I would categorize this film more as "supernatural drama" than straight-up horror. For one thing, Suangporn Jaturaphut is just too cute to be all that frightening, for all the efforts of the lighting and effects guys. And the tone of the film is more mellow, gentle even, than a horror film should be. This I attribute to writer/director/editor Paul Spurrier, a British former child actor who seems more interested in relationships and cultural resonances than scaring the shit out of you. Which is fine by me -- he does an admirable job, and, once I adjusted my expectations, I found myself really enjoying the picture. But then again, I'm a sucker for Southeast Asia ...

The Butcher
I've said it before and I'll say it again: No wonder real snuff films cost so much -- the fake ones are crap! Or perhaps I'm just not the fake snuff film type. Because as fake snuff films go, you can't really fault The Butcher. Its innovative use of first-person P.O.V. (via a head-mounted camera) puts you in the driver's seat (or rather under the wheels of the car) as the victim of a trio of relentless psychos with cameras (one of whom wears a pig's head the whole movie and squeals accordingly). First you quake with fear as a couple of your fellow victims are dragged away to another sector of the dilapidated industrial compound in which you're being held, only to hear their agonized screams accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a laughing chainsaw. You and your wife are next ...

All sorts of nastiness ensues, and it really is unbearable. Unbearably boring, that is. And annoying. I can only take so much incessant, horrified screaming. I had to turn the volume way down low just to get through it (I don't know how the crowd at last year's New York Asian Film Festival managed it). Here we have methodical violence pushed to it's furthest extreme, and after 75 minutes one hits upon a philosophical truth: Brutality is ultimately mundane. There's nothing particularly inventive about cutting someone's hand off or pulling out their entrails and their eyeballs. Shocking? Sure, but once you get past the shock, where do you go from there? Nowhere, that's where. But hey, that's just me. Like I said, I'm not the torture porn type.

I'll give The Butcher credit for improving on the notorious Guinea Pig movies. This being a Korean film, the ferocity factor is definitely jacked up past the threshold of that Japanese franchise, making the latter look positively sedate in comparison. If you liked the Guinea Pig flicks, you'll likely go gaga for this. I can't say how it might compare with those horrendous August Underground films, of which I've only read in the pages of Rue Morgue Magazine -- I'll leave such decisions to the true gore hounds out there.

According to the press materials, The Butcher will be released October 27th, just in time for Halloween. Good thing, that, because this would be a great film to have on while kids are coming to your door for handouts. All the screaming will create great ambiance, and a glimpse of the screen will surely freak their little worlds. Just hope some concerned parent doesn't pull a Charlie Sheen and call the police!

The Lustful Shogun and his 21 Concubines

2009-09-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

If you thought Bohachi Bushido was a good example of sexy jidaigeki, have I got a much-better (and sexier) movie for you: The Lustful Shogun and his 21 Concubines. The story concerns a horny shogunal kagemusha (double) who bonks his way through the ooku (royal harem) of Edo Castle. There's ever so much lovely female flesh on display here, along with all manner of inventive sexual activities employing dildos, midgets, paintbrushes, and a talented pekinese. We also meet a tattooed nun, a lady thief and a couple of Chinese eunuchs. But what we get most of is lots and lots of good old fashioned rumpy pumpy. Yes, whatever complaints you might have about this film, "I didn't see enough fucking" will not be one of them. Frankly, I had no complaints at all; laughs, beautiful women, political intrigue, sword action, and every sex position imaginable -- what's not to like? Sure, the whole affair is decidedly softcore -- no full frontal nudity or penetration -- but there's no denying the Japanese pink film genre's determination to deliver everything but.

The film was directed by Norifumi Suzuki, who, together with Teruo Ishii (he directed Bohachi Bushido), churned out some amazing exploitation films for Toei studios during the late 60s/early 70s. But for my money, it is Suzuki who deserves the mantle of superior filmmaker. While Ishii had his moments, his output was uneven in the extreme, whereas Suzuki always delivered consistently well-made and thoroughly entertaining films.

Featured here are Toei's reigning fleshpots of the period, Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto (as the lady thief and a hot noblewoman respectively). Then there's the stunning Yayoi Watanabe as Ukiku, the peasant girlfriend of our impetuous impostor (played with enthusiasm by Shin'ichiro Hayashi). Toru Abe is the manipulative minister who set up the whole imposture for his own ends; his wife and virgin daughter are soon defiled by his priapic protege.

I won't pretend The Lustful Shogun and his 21 Concubines is anything more than a panorama of prurient pleasures with some goofy gags and sword fights thrown in, but hey, it's better than 90% of the crap down at your local cineplex, so why not check it out?

Attack the Gas Station

2009-09-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

I often speak of the amazing violence and rage of late 90s/early 00s Korean film, and Attack the Gas Station (1999) is a prime example. While far more light-hearted than something like Peppermint Candy or Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, this comedy nevertheless exhibits the same explosive quality, a product of nearly a century of political repression.

The story is straightforward enough: Four tough misfits from divergent backgrounds (a baseball player, a rocker, a painter and a formidable goofball) decide to rob a gas station, and wind up staying all night. They've hit this place before, you see, trashing it in the process, and the boss is wise; he's given the day's receipts to his wife, leaving nothing for our petulant protagonists. So they decide to hang around and collect what comes in. Fair enough, but things get complicated, as employees and difficult customers are held hostage, local cops get suspicious, and conflicts develop between the fearsome foursome and a collection of high school bullies, gangsters and scooter-driving Chinese food delivery boys. Tension mounts, and what started out as a simple premise becomes an epic of political allegory and high farce (with tons of fighting, property damage, huge bowls of noodles and bad singing).

Fans of Oldboy will recognize Yu Ji-Tae, the villain of that film, here with his hair dyed white as Paint, the artistic member of the group. The aforementioned formidable goofball is played by the unforgettable Yu Oh-seong, who also turns in a great performance in the poorly-titled yet compelling gangster saga Friend (Chingoo, 2001).

I saw Attack the Gas Station years ago, thought of it quite a bit since and finally bought a copy. I suggest you do the same. You'll love it, plus you never know when this stuff will go out of print. One thing: The dimwits at Media Blasters set the default audio to the English dubbing. Do I have to tell you to switch it to Korean and turn the subs on? Good, didn't think so.

Tokyo!

2009-09-07T11:36:00.001-07:00

You'll never forget this guy (above), although his is the least of the three vignettes that make up this cinematic triptych featuring the directorial talents of Michel Gondry, Leos Carax (both French), and Bong Joon-ho (Korean, he who gave us The Host). Manhole boy here is Merde, the so-called Creature From the Sewers (of Tokyo, of course), played with aplomb by the talented French actor Denis Lavant (he was great in 2005's steamy slow burn Wild Camp opposite the very hot Isild Le Besco). We learn more than we ever wanted to know about Merde, and while Lavant's performance is engrossing, it can't overcome the tedious, static tone of the piece.

Better is Gondry's bit. You'll remember him from such films as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, so so) and Be Kind Rewind (2008, horrible). (More intriguing to me is Gondry's claim that all his dreams are lucid, and he directs them as he would his films -- I guess I should see his 2006 film, The Science of Sleep). Anyway, his deal concerns a hapless young couple trying to make their way in the big city (that would be Tokyo) until the girl makes a remarkable and unexpected transformation ...

Best is Bong's entry, about a thirty-something hikikomori (shut-in) who falls in love with a pizza delivery girl and learns true values (it's a lot better than it sounds). I'd recommend the film just for this segment -- however it's the last one so you might as well watch the other parts as well.

Keep an eye out for some familiar faces, like Nao Omori, forever remembered as the title character in Miike's Ichi the Killer; Teruyuki Kagawa (Tokyo Sonata, Hana, Sukiyaki Django); and the great character actor Renji Ishibashi (Watcher in the Attic, Audition, Crest of Betrayal, Dora-heita, and many more).

The vignettes are far stranger than I was expecting. Refreshing that, as I was dreading some drab, meandering, mumblecore thing. Only the Bong piece truly utilizes and reflects Tokyo's sense of place -- the French films use it more as a backdrop. But all in all, I'd say I'm glad I saw Tokyo! and feel sure it will appeal to fellow Nipponophiles.