Five Element Ninjas (1982) November 28, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Kung Fu, 1980s films , 4 commentsDirector: Chang Cheh Cast: Ricky Cheng, Lo Meng, Chen Pei-Hsi Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
It’s quite hard to write a great deal about this film, as it’s so brazenly shallow. The plot is the most simplistic excuse for joining a bunch of action scenes together: a clan of martial arts heroes known as the Alliance (who strut about wearing virginal white and not-very-macho little capes), challenge a local bandit gang. If the Alliance win, the bandits must go straight. In amongst the gang is a ringer in the form of a Samurai swordsman. He is defeated, and upon his death by Seppuku, gives the bandit king a note to send to a Ninja master to avenge his supposed disgrace. The Ninja master (Chan Wai-Man) arrives with his troops to finish of the Alliance, incorporating five clans named after the elements gold, earth, fire, water and wood.
Five Element Ninjas is one of those kung fu films that obtained a large fan base in the US, which has kind of blown its reputation out of proportion a little. Seen in context, it’s actually quite a desperate film. The studio was in trouble and this is a pretty cynical attempt to get bums on seats by painting the screen red and throwing action scene after action scene at the viewer. Oh, and a pseudo-naked ninja girl in a fishnet body stocking. Sounds like a winner on paper, obviously, and if anyone could have pulled it off, Chang Cheh could.
The film is outrageous in every respect. The Alliance’s outfits are highly questionable and there’s an air of campness quite unparalleled in films from this era. In many ways, it has the look and feel of a mid-70’s film rather than one from 1982. As with all Shaw movies from this period, it’s entirely shot indoors on the soundstage, and the artificial colours and landscapes add to the comic-book appearance of the film.
However, it’s in the violence that Five Element Ninjas comes into its own, and this is by far the most outrageous aspect. The fight with the “earth element” Ninja clan is too gruesome for words, but the guy tripping on his own entrails was hilarious (OK, so I’m a sick bastard). Mind you, that’s nothing compared to what happens later, but you’ll have to see it yourself to find out…
The only depth aimed for is with Junko (Chen Pei-Hsi), a ninja girl sent to infiltrate the Alliance and ends up on a killing spree. There are hints that she’s a more complicated person, and capable of loving. But then someone kills her. Oh well, easy come, easy go.
It’s a shame that there aren’t more big names on show. The hero by default is Ricky Cheng Tien-Chi, and you’d be forgiven for scratching your head trying to remember where you’d seen him before. It seems he didn’t have such a stellar career in the movies, but he certainly puts on a decent show here. Venom Lo Meng appears as the heroic Liang Zhi-Sheng and has a few great action scenes, but is definitely not the star of the film. It could be said that the star of the film is the Ninja weaponry, which the film takes great pains to explain has been extensively researched for the production. This is one of those films (like Legendary Weapons of China) which puts a caption on screen whenever a new weapon is shown, and I do find it distracting and a little annoying. Nevertheless, the weapons are shown in all their gruesome glory and the fight scenes (of which there are many) are usually quite inventive, albeit somewhat implausible!
Oddly for a film made in 1982, the soundtrack on the IVL DVD is in Mandarin and does not feature a Cantonese track, which, if it was released in this way, would have been another very unfashionable choice for the era. If you’re after something about as challenging as a Peter and Jane book, this could be for you. But it’s nothing to get too excited about.
Eye in the Sky (2007) November 25, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Yau Nai-Hoi Cast: Simon Yam, Tony Leung (Ka-Fai), Kate Tsui, Lam Suet Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milkyway Image Ltd
Captain Wong (Simon Yam), head of a Hong Kong Police surveillance unit, takes on new recruit Ho (Kate Tsui). Their target is a gang of jewel thieves headed by Shan (Tony Leung Ka-Fai). Ho (nicknamed “Piggy” by Wong, much to her annoyance) learns the tricks of the trade perusing Shan through tailing “Fatboy” (Lam Suet), one of his thugs. Can they crack the gang before they strike again?
Eye in the Sky has some top-notch performances by the leads, including a paunchy Simon Yam as a fatherly mentor to the raw recruit Ho, but suffers from an under-developed script and some negligible direction. There are two distinct plot threads, following the cops and the robbers, and it often feels like the two elements don’t mesh together very well.
The surveillance tricks displayed by the team are quite good and will occasionally impress in their cleverness. The film asks some serious questions about privacy and today’s CCTV-obsessed world, and there’s one very sardonic scene when a fight between the criminal gang is broken up when one spots a woman undressing in a neighbouring apartment block. We even see, later in the movie, that the technology can cut both ways.
The supporting cast are as strong as the leads. Kate Tsui, who appears to debut here, is great and believable as the eager-to-please rookie, and we learn the Surveillance Unit’s techniques through her eyes. Also worth a mention are Maggie Shaw, who plays the tough-as-nails base controller and Lam Suet (yes, again! I swear the guy is in every movie to come out of Hong Kong these days!) as a dim-witted goon of Shan, and the Surveillance Unit’s only link with the gang.
None of the characters are given any kind of background or depth, and this creates a detached feeling that you couldn’t really care less about them most of the time. This is the film’s main drawback, and it’s hard to create real tension under these circumstances. Nevertheless, the strong performances (especially by Yam) and a few clever tricks and turns (not to mention the now-obligatory inclusion of impossible dilemmas for the protagonists) make this a still very watchable film. It’s just unlikely you’ll want to revisit it any time soon.
One other thing (and this has nothing to do with the actual movie as such) is that the dialogue is delivered in an unusually clear and manageable pace, making it great for people learning Cantonese. It seems to have less than the usual slang, slurrings and contractions, and there’s a lot of repeated dialogue to aid memory. Furthermore, the nature of the film means we get lots of descriptions of people and what they’re wearing – all essential elementary building blocks of a language.
The Pirate (1973) November 21, 2007
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , 4 commentsDirector: Chang Cheh; Pao Hsueh-Li; Wu Ma Cast: Ti Lung; David Chiang; Tin Ching; Fan Mei-Sheng Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
Pirate Chang Pao-Chai (Ti Lung) springs a leak after an otherwise successful raid on a foreign ship. He goes ashore to get materials to patch his ship up, where he encounters corrupt Qing officials and poor, oppressed peasants. Being a good man at heart, he decides to help out and becomes an even bigger outlaw in the process.
Try and guess if you can spot what the problem with The Pirate is going to be from the plot synopsis above. No, I’m not saying it’s unimaginative and formulaic (although it is). That’s right – hardly any of it takes place at sea! Actually, I’d say there are fewer sea scenes than in that other pirate film that never was, Project A. Trouble is, though, that Project A didn’t suffer as a result. This does.
Things start off promisingly enough. There’s a battle between the pirates and a ship full of…erm…rather Chinese-looking Englishmen. The ships are great though, and there are some big explosions going on. However, land is always in sight, which does spoil the effect somewhat. It’s not piracy on the high seas so much as piracy in a bit of a bay somewhere. Never mind, I thought, maybe things will pick up later…
It’s always a welcome change to see Ti Lung take the starring role for once instead of David Chiang (who’s given a “guest starring” credit but does feature quite heavily). It seems like I’ve seen a million of these Ti Lung/David Chiang films, but in truth I’ve probably only seen about five-hundred-and-eighty-thousand or so. For this, Chang is “Jointly Director” (as it says in the credits) with Pao Hsueh-Li (who worked on many other Chang Cheh films in co-directing capacity) and jack-of-all-trades Wu Ma.
The three directors do not improve anything, and were probably only utilised to speed the process up to knock this out as quickly as possible. The story is a real letdown. Ti Lung as Chang is utterly unbelievable as a pirate when he comes ashore because he’s such a compassionate character and always looking out for the peasants, which seems totally at odds with the whole point of being a pirate. Things do improve toward the end when he starts beating up the bad guys, but it’s too little too late and can’t save the movie. When the film ends, we get a little epilogue which tells us that Chang Pao-Chai was a real person and what happened to him after the (highly fictionalised, I suspect) events depicted in the movie. Well, fancy that.
The only other notable element is Dean Shek. In one scene, he appears to be unaware he’s being filmed, and if you watch him later in the film he has a brief background action scene and it is blatantly obvious he hasn’t got a clue what he’s been asked to do and looks incredibly uncomfortable.
There are bucketfuls of historical epics from Chang Cheh during the early to mid 70’s, but I’d say this is probably the worst of the lot. For completists only.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) November 19, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Drama, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Park Chan-wook Cast: Ha-kyun Shin; Kang-ho Song; Du-na Bae; Ji-eun Lim Territory: South Korea Production Company: CJ Entertainment
Ryu (Ha-kyun Shin), a deaf-mute factory worker, has a sister in desperate need of a kidney transplant. Not having enough money for such an operation, he approaches underground organ traders. They rip him off (and steal a kidney in the process) and he has to come up with another plan. His girlfriend (Du-na Bae) comes up with the idea of kidnapping the young daughter of Ryu’s wealthy ex-boss Park (Kang-ho Song). When this also goes wrong, resulting in tragedy, Park goes after Ryu.
The first film in director Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance trilogy is sometimes overshadowed by its successor, Oldboy, and it’s easy to see why. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is pretty tough viewing: it’s bloody and brutal, has very little dialogue and is occasionally pretty hard to follow (not helped by the DVD’s shortcomings – more on that later).
It’s magnificently filmed and often looks breathtaking in the shot composition. It also has a top-notch cast who perform brilliantly. Particular mention should go to the little girl who plays Boss Park’s daughter, who has to do some quite emotionally complex things during the film.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is never straightforward, but the obvious question is with whom do you sympathise? Ryu is an honest guy looking after his sister, faced with a series of impossible situations when things go from bad to worse to impossible. Yet Park, Ryu’s ex-boss, starts as a completely insensitive character, who, through tragedy, becomes believably sympathetic. This point is not lost on Park, who even says that he knows Ryu is a decent man.
Like Oldboy, there are certain scenes that stand out as utterly shocking in their use of the blackest of black comedy. The obvious example is the one where a group of teenage boys are jammed up against the apartment wall adjoining Ryu’s flat, furiously masturbating. They are masturbating to the sounds of Ryu’s sister, thinking she is in the throes of orgasm. In actual fact, she is screaming in pain from her sickness, and Ryu, being deaf, is oblivious to the fact. That’s a scene that will probably stay in my memory for a long time to come.
The version I watched is from Tartan, and it is usually pretty good. I have read that several versions have at least one scene played out of place - the sex scene between Ryu and his girlfriend appears much earlier in some versions (presumably to get some rumpy-pumpy on screen as early as possible to stop the casual viewer getting bored). However, it does screw up in a quite major way: text is not subtitled. Sometimes this is not necessary, but unfortunately in this particular film it is pretty crucial to at least one plot point. Thanks to the Internet, some kind soul has translated the bits shown on screen for all to see and the meaning is now clear. I must admit I think I would have appreciated the film a lot better with this information at the time rather than after the fact. Readers who have seen the film probably know what I’m alluding to here.
After watching such downbeat films like Dog Bite Dog recently, I found Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance pretty harrowing and hard to take. It is undoubtedly clever, intelligent and thought-provoking, but the constant dark tone got to me. I will return to it one day and appreciate it more, I’m sure, but now I really need a light, fluffy comedy, I think…
Dog Bite Dog (2006) November 11, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 2000s films , 1 comment so farDirector: Soi Cheang Cast: Edison Chen, Sam Lee, Pei Pei Wei-Ying, Wayne Lai, Lam Suet Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Art Port Inc; Same Way Productions
The husband of a barrister pays to have a Cambodian hitman (Edison Chen) kill his wife. The killer’s getaway is thwarted by the police headed by Wai (Sam Lee) and is cornered, taking more lives before making a spectacular escape. Wai then comes after the killer with everything he’s got, even going well outside of the law to get revenge rather than justice.
Dog Bite Dog is an exceptionally squalid, gritty, dirty and distressing film. The excessive (but realistic) gore just keeps on coming and coming. No wonder this received a Cat III rating – I would seriously advise against eating while watching this film. It is also one of the bleakest, starkest and most nihilistic films I’ve seen in a long time. It doesn’t quite make The Deer Hunter look like a Three Stooges film, but it’s still pretty grim.
The cast are brilliant - including Edison Chen, believe it or not. He plays a young man raised in brutal fight camps in Cambodia who then progresses to assassination, and is man with nothing to lose. The main reason for Chen’s success here I suspect is the fact that he barely speaks, and when he does, it is in Cambodian. Against him is Sam Lee as Wai, a cop with his own problems – his father is currently in a coma and who will face accusations of drug dealing if he should wake. I only know Lee from comedic roles (including the horror comedy Bio Zombie) and I was initially sceptical of his ability to play it straight. However, he pulls it off, giving a great and natural performance. The cast is rounded out with the always watchable Wayne Lai (also from Bio Zombie, now that I think about it!), and Johnny To regulars Eddie Cheung and Lam Suet (who seems to be in just about everything I watch these days!). The only real female presence come from newcomer Pei Pei Wei-Ying, who is an abused young woman who forms an attachment with the hitman when he kills her bullying father.
The hatred of Wai for the hitman is handled in a believable manner and it is quite exciting when the two men meet for the first hour and a half of the film. One thing that did seem a little unnecessary was the inclusion of dog snarls and animal noises when the two start knocking each other about – yes, they’re like animals, I get it, stop hitting me over the head with the metaphor!
Without going into too much detail for those who are yet to see it, the film seems to wrap up in a satisfactory (if inevitably grim) way after about an hour and a half. Instead though, we get another fifteen minutes tacked on which I could have done without and do the film no favours whatsoever. The whole tone changes after this, and becomes a little predictable in my view. Also, do we really need another montage scene with a pop song playing over it? In 2006? In a film as dark as this? I do believe the director shot himself in the foot quite badly with this ill-considered coda. And when you thought the violence and gore had stopped once and for all, it’s time to get the sick bags out one final time for the climax.
There’s a reasonably good film in here, for sure, but it’s too uneven and the relentlessly dark tone makes it a bit of a hard slog to get through and I can’t honestly see myself ever wanting to sit through all that again. If you do watch Dog Bite Dog, don’t expect many chuckles – and it might be an idea to lay off the popcorn unless you want to see it again later.
Lam Suet-o-meter: Low. But here’s here and even has the name “Fat Lam”. I wonder how long it took to come up with that name?
Shaolin Wooden Men (1976) November 7, 2007
Posted by Cal in : 1970s films, Kung Fu , 4 commentsDirector: Chen Chi-Hwa Cast: Jackie Chan, Kam Kong, Doris Lung, Chiang Kam Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Lo Wei Motion Picture Co
A mute and underachieving Shaolin student (Jackie Chan) endures mistreatment and disdain by his contemporaries for his disability while the masters think he’s lazy and lacking in ability. He harbours a secret past: as a child, he saw his father assassinated, and has vowed to find the killer. One day, as he slaves away at the temple, he spots a secret cave within the grounds and investigates it to find a man chained to the walls. Living on scraps provided by the guards, the mute strikes up a friendship with the prisoner and trades extra food for Kung Fu lessons. He also gets some tuition from a Shaolin nun and a drunken monk, and soon he is skilful enough to take the ultimate graduation test – crossing a corridor lined with large wooden mechanical dummies that attempt to pummel the students back to the safety of the temple. Once released to the wide world the mute again meets his prisoner friend, who is now a free man, and seeks the killer of his father.
Back in the day when Hong Kong movies meant Jackie Chan movies and vice versa to me, I thought Shaolin Wooden Men was a pretty great film and certainly one of the best from his time with Lo Wei. A few hundred movies or so later, I have to admit my horizons have been broadened and the shine has been knocked off this particular nugget a little.
For a start, it’s a bit of a knock-off of 18 Bronzemen, which was released the same year and is quite a bit better than this even taking into account its own faults. Furthermore, well, it’s just a bit…naff. The villain (who I’m not going to reveal, just in case there is someone out there who can’t figure it out from my plot synopsis) is pure comic-book cliché and there’s a bizarre scene where a misunderstanding leads to him killing a family in front of Jackie and a restaurant worker (played by Chiang Kam, one of the few familiar faces amongst this nondescript cast). There’s an attitude of: “hey, you shouldn’t have done that. Oh well, never mind. Let’s bury them”. This odd behaviour runs throughout the film and everyone seems to be prone to it at one point or another.
The Shaolin Wooden Men of the title are but a minor part of the film and serve merely as a final test for each student to pass. There’s little sense of drama here, especially seeing as how Jackie takes the test mid way through the film and passes. Even if you’re not looking too carefully, you can see the head of one of the wooden “robots” lifting to give a glimpse of the performer beneath! I actually prefer the first half of the film, where Jackie is being tutored by the three very different masters. His relationship to the chained man is quite unusual for a film of this nature, and it’s a pity their ties to each other wasn’t explored more deeply. Jackie, in his only “silent” role, is surprisingly flexible without the dialogue and shows a decent range of facial expressions.
It’s the second half, where Jackie is let out into the world, that things get a bit haphazard. He is befriended by a family of restaurant workers (including the aforementioned Chiang Kam and Doris Lung, who would go on to feature in Half a Loaf of Kung Fu) and helps them out of a few scrapes with a gang of thugs (which includes a young Yuen Biao). From here on in, it’s a standard Kung Fu movie, and not a very memorable one at that. Jackie finds the killer of his father and the two duel to the death. The action choreography is passable and occasionally pretty good with Chan throwing in some flips and some other impressive acrobatics, but sadly there’s nothing to pump the adrenaline through the veins.
I find these days that I want to like Shaolin Wooden Men a lot more than I do. I guess I’m never going to think of it as fondly as I used to, but it still has a few things going for it. There’s a rousing score and the opening titles are really great. They show the Wooden Men in a series of still silhouettes (even though you can actually see them moving most of the time!), and the effect is quite striking. Maybe if they’d played more of a part in the film, it would have been better. There again, maybe not…
Election (2005) November 5, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Drama, Thriller, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Johnnie To Cast: Simon Yam, Tony Leung (Ka-Fai), Wong Chung, Louis Koo, Lam Suet Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milkyway Image
My Johnnie To season continues with Election, a nasty look into the world of the Triad. The Wo Sing Triad is one of the biggest crime organisations in Hong Kong with an estimated membership of 50,000. Every two years, the leader is elected by a council of elders (or “uncles”), and this year’s contenders are Lok (Simon Yam) and Big D (Tony Leung Ka-Fai). When Big D loses the contest fair and square, he doesn’t take it well and threatens to steal the power from under his rival, something Lok will not allow. The chase is on for the century-old baton which will bestow official leadership to the head of the Wo Sing group, and possibly start a horrific civil war in the process.
Election’s tale of warring Triads, corruption, tradition, political allegories and spoon-eating psychopaths (yes, you read that right) was nominated for a whole bunch of Golden Horse awards in 2006 and even won a few (including Best Picture and Best Director). It is a very well presented film with a great acoustic guitar theme, and Johnny To again shows he’s great at shooting exteriors. The characters are mostly great and believable, but I was quite surprised when I heard that the Tony Leung that was in this film was Leung Ka-Fai and not Leung Chiu-Wai. Maybe To made a mistake and hired the wrong one and couldn’t back out, but this particular Leung overcooks it a bit in my opinion in this one. Yam is excellent as the more restrained Lok, a gangster who also has to contend with family life with his son and I particularly liked Wong Tin-Lam as Teng Wai, a very human “uncle”. Old Shaw Brothers superstar David Chiang also gets a role as an anti-Triad police officer, which surprised me – I thought he’d retired to Canada years ago!
The film does play well as a serious look at organised crime and the consequences of being in such an organisation, but it also has flashes of comedy (such as when the representatives of Lok and Big D resort to sabotaging each other’s cars) which is sometimes very dark. There are also moments of suspense and action when the ceremonial baton is unearthed and transported from the Mainland to Hong Kong. Whoever owns the baton is seen to be in control of the Society, and this means that those who want it will stop at nothing to obtain it.
Election is not an action film or a “Heroic Bloodshed” film; it is more of a crime drama, and one scene reminded me strongly of a scene from Krzysztof Keislowski’s A Short Film About Killing. It’s not all doom and gloom, but it’s not light and fluffy either. It’s also a little confusing in places, which I’m coming to understand is par for the course with a Johnnie To film. I’m thinking another viewing will probably yield more appreciation. I’m not sure if this film is meant to be a satire on the corruptive nature of democracy, but I’m pretty sure one of the lessons taught by the film is that patience is a virtue. Either that or don’t accept invitations to go fishing with someone you once screwed over.
Lam Suet-o-meter: Medium. Mr Lam is the aptly named “Big Head”. Quite a lot of exposure for this part…