The Man From Nowhere

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

[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

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 smokin' 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)

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

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

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

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.