People’s Hero (1987) April 25, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Drama, 1980s films , add a commentDirector: Derek Yee Cast: Ti Lung; Tony Leung (Chiu-Wai); Ronald Wong; Tony Leung (Ka-Fai) Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Long Shong Pictures Ltd
A pair of youths (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Ronald Wong) plan to hold up a bank but lose their nerve at the last moment – only to have their hand forced by circumstance and have to carry their plan through after all. Their botched effort to steal the money begins a siege that career criminal Koo (Ti Lung) cannot afford. Koo intervenes and juggles the hostages, the would-be robbers, the police and his former girlfriend - who is imprisoned for a crime he himself is responsible for.
Right from the start, you know this is a little different from the usual Hong Kong action movie with its stark titles and dark, foreboding music. The reason only becomes clear quite late in the movie – this is not an action movie at all; rather People’s Hero is a taut dramatic piece that survives without ever having to throw in a few kung fu moves (even though, of course, Ti Lung is more than capable of such antics). It also avoids many pitfalls of Hong Kong movie plotting and pacing, and the story genuinely moves along at an excellent pace by introducing new elements and problems at precisely the right moment. By that, I mean that the story actually evolves in a remarkably realistic way (some logistical anomalies aside) and what you expect to happen invariably doesn’t happen.
The characters, aside from Ti Lung’s Koo, are introduced at the start, and they do seem horribly clichéd. Basically, the bank’s staff and customers are given a minute or two’s spotlight to give a slight insight to their character – there’s a bankrupt shopkeeper, a spoilt schoolgirl and her vacant mother, an obnoxious, arrogant young man, a rich businessman, etc. These tired old stereotypes (hardly a likeable one in the whole bunch) threaten to drag the film down a level or two but are not given the opportunity because the focus stays quite solidly on the two young robbers and Koo.
The theme of the film is that everyone is a victim, and this is nowhere more evident than in the two youths who are forced to steal to live. Ah Sai (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) is the older, more responsible of the two, while Boney (Ronald Wong – Hong Kong’s Peter Lorre!) is a hopeless liability prone to fits of epilepsy. Both are sympathetic characters, but pale when compared to Koo, who was hoping to skip the country before the robbers decided to rob the bank. Koo is plagued by demons from his cop-killing past and is heartbroken over his girlfriend’s imprisonment (we learn she was jailed for carrying his gun). His interaction with the hostages sets up the character as a practical, reasonable man to whom the hostages quickly like and cooperate with.
Obviously, the police are aware of what’s going on inside the bank, and Captain Chan (Tony Leung Ka-Fai – that’s right, both Tony Leungs for the price of one!) tries to foil the robbery. He has a personal grudge against Koo, and will stop at nothing to get him – dead or alive. This does make the moral message of the film (cops bad, robbers good) a little obvious, but things get more complicated when Koo is forced (once more, through practical necessity) to show why he’s such a wanted criminal, and, without going into too much detail as to spoil the film, the line becomes blurred again.
There’s a lot of talk about this being the Hong Kong Dog Day Afternoon (the IMDB has just one plot keyword for this film – “remake”), but let me tell you right now the similarities are superficial. People’s Hero stands quite nicely on its own merits, thank you very much. I’ve always like the kind of dramatic film that takes place over a relatively short space of time or has one location, and this is a little of both. The characters are memorable, the plot taut and lean (the film runs like a panther for its 82 minutes’ running time) and the whole thing bristles with freshness – even 21 years after it was made.
Unfortunately, the recent DVD edition from Mei-Ah ports the original subtitles – and they are pretty bad. I remember some of them from the first time I watched the movie over ten years ago, and it’s a terrible shame that someone couldn’t have cleaned them up for this release. Unintentionally funny subtitles are usually great, but in a dramatic piece like this, they are glaringly out of place and hampers the tension.
It’s unlikely we’ll see a proper release in the West, as there’s no real action to speak of and it probably isn’t “serious” enough to be classed as World Cinema (whatever that is) and that’s quite a loss. People’s Hero is a great little film with a fantastic performance by Ti Lung, who was really hitting his stride at this point in his career, and an early standout performance by “Little Tony”.
See it.
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…
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…
Giù la Testa (1971) September 1, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Action, Drama, War, 1970s films , add a commentDirector: Sergio Leone Cast: Rod Steiger, James Coburn, Romolo Valli Territory: Italy
A Bandit family headed by Juan Miranda (Steiger) runs into explosives expert John (or Sean) Mallory (Coburn) who is also a terrorist fugitive on the run from the British. Seeing an opportunity to use the Irishman’s skills to get into and rob the Mesa Verde bank, Juan badgers Mallory into working with him. Upon arrival in Mesa Verde, though, they witness the horrors of the Mexican Revolution first hand, and Juan’s priorities change.
The film starts with a quote from Mao Zedong saying that revolutions are not civilized things – and then opens with a shot of Juan pissing on a colony of ants. It’s not terribly subtle, but it does set out Leone’s political viewpoint right from the beginning. As if that wasn’t enough, though, Juan (who is, or at least starts out as, an ignorant Mexican peasant) then hitches a lift on a stagecoach filled with American high society – who condescendingly goad and insult Juan before feasting. The camera gets right up to their open mouths while they eat – really nasty stuff and definitely not for the squeamish. Juan calmly watches this, clearly thinking that the rich and powerful are no better than the peasantry. Like I said, it’s not subtle, but the point comes across very clearly and in true Leone style.
The character of John Mallory is a member of the IRA, and his back-story is told in slow-motion dialogue-free flashbacks (which feature David Warbeck, who would later go on to star in Lucio Fulci’s horror classic The Beyond). He is superficially in Mexico to mine for silver, but on seeing the carnage going on in Mesa Verde, joins the revolution.
The first hour and a half of this film is quite light and humorous in a lot of places, while the last hour (yes, this is another Leone epic, it runs at just a shade under two and a half hours on DVD) is altogether darker. A standout comic scene sees Juan tricked into releasing a whole army of political prisoners on behalf of Mallory. Seeing as how it was Juan who was supposed to be using John makes it all the more funny.
The juxtaposition of comic scenes such as this with scenes of mass executions didn’t strike me as jarring as it did with some viewers, who found the film’s shifting tone too disconcerting. The real stroke of genius is in the filming of the executions largely in the background as if they were routine, banal and not really worthy of great comment. The result is much more shocking and makes one hell of an impact.
James Coburn may be the headlining star, but this is Steiger’s film without a doubt. Although his character initially seems little more than another Tuco from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (in fact, you can almost see Eli Wallach in the role at the start), the character progresses much further and has much more scope than anything Leone had done previously. What’s more, we can buy Steiger’s depiction of the peasant as he turns from a bandit to an accidental hero of the revolution. The only fault is I sometimes had difficulty understanding his dialogue, and had to rewatch a key scene with the subtitles on!
Although this was not initially intended to be a Leone directed film, he did stamp it with his own distinctive style all the way through and is as much part of his oeuvre as anything else, even though it will always be regarded as the “black sheep” of his filmography. Although production values are quite high, this is not as sumptuously produced as Once Upon a Time in the West. The film doesn’t suffer too much as a result except for a slightly wonky special effects shot at the end involving a miniature.
Ennio Morricone once again provides the score, and for a while I thought he’d dropped the ball for once. The themes just did not jump out at me in the same way as in earlier films. However, with repetition, towards the end of the film it all gels together and becomes something quite, quite beautiful. The man’s a genius.
No review of this film would be complete without some comment on the title. This film is commonly called Duck, You Sucker, which is the film’s official English language title, but in the UK is known by the exploitative title of A Fistful of Dynamite. I absolutely loathe both. The first sounds like some screwball Terence Hill/Bud Spencer comedy; not that I have anything against these films (and will probably write a review or two on some of best in the near future), but it’s just wrong for a Leone movie dealing with such dark themes. Legend has it that Leone thought the phrase was in popular usage in the States (how, and in what context, I wouldn’t like to even guess!) and would not listen to his American stars’ insistence that it was not. The Fistful of Dynamite title obviously trades on past glories, which is also misleading as it is nothing like a “Spaghetti” Western, and has no gunfights or laconic anti-heroes who may or may not have a name. By far the best title is the French Once Upon a Time…the Revolution (his previous film was a massive hit there), which even keeps in with the loose idea that this is the second film in Leone’s second American trilogy. Unfortunately, though, this title seems the least well known of all, so I’ve opted to call it by its original Italian title, which I believe translates literally to “down the head”.
Whatever you call it, there’s no escaping the fact that this is by far the least seen of all Leone films since A Fistful of Dollars, with many still unaware of its presence. It did not do great box-office business, probably due to whatever misleading title the film was given in your territory. I’m sure had people known that Leone was only going to direct one more film it would have gotten more love. I’m just starting to realise that Giù la Testa has a lot more going for it than I previously thought, and, like its predecessor, needs to be viewed as a completely separate entity from the world-renowned and ever-popular Dollars films.
Bullet Train (1975) June 9, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Drama, Thriller, 1970s films , add a commentDirector: Junya Sato Cast: Ken Takakura, Kei Yamamoto, Eiji Go, Sonny Chiba Territory: Japan Production Company: Toei Productions
The Hikari 109 Bullet Train has an unexpected passenger – a bomb that primes itself when the train reaches 80KPH. Subsequently, if the train decreases speed below 80KPH, the bomb will go off - killing the 1,500 people on board.
Quite obviously used as a starting point for Jan de Bont’s Speed in 1994, it still has to be realised that Bullet Train is a different kettle of fish altogether. In actual fact, it is in itself a kind of remake of Airport.
Or at least it starts out that way. The passengers assemble at the start and all the classics are there – the spoilt pop star, the twitchy, self-centred businessman, the convict en-route to prison and of course everyone’s favourite – the pregnant woman. Plus we have extremely sweaty train driver Aoki (Sonny Chiba, in an exclusively seated role), the unflappable train crew and the guys running the show in the control booth.
A great deal of tension is created early on when the Control Centre discover the train’s been compromised and relay the information to the driver. However, what you expect to be a series of mishaps and challenges along the route never really happens. There’s one problem when a train ahead on the track has mechanical problems, and inevitably the pregnant woman goes into labour, but not a lot else until much later on.
The reason for this is that for quite a lot of the movie we follow the bombers. Lead bomber Okita (Ken Takakura) pretty much takes centre stage throughout – and at one point late in the movie I’d even forgotten about the train entirely! It must be said the film’s handling of the terrorists is unique and actually rather interesting – they are portrayed as human, compassionate and they elicit a damn sight more sympathy than the obnoxious passengers on the train. It’s an odd direction, certainly. Their cause (if they have one) is never mentioned, and they are always referred to only as “radicals”. It seems to me that they are in it purely for the money, rather than for any political motivation. However, not being particularly knowledgeable about Japan’s socio-political stance during the mid 70’s, it could just be a form of the filmmakers showing some tact by not naming any specific cause by name.
All this kind of makes for a bit of a jumble of a movie. Certainly the “disaster” angle of the film is a washout, as we don’t really see enough of the train and it’s inhabitants to care – and as mentioned before, they’re a pretty objectionable lot anyway. These films work by creating a sense of claustrophobia, creating the illusion that the viewer is also in the perilous situation, but when so much of the film is shot away from the train this never has the chance to work.
The version reviewed here is the unabridged Japanese language version released by Optimum Asia. At over two and a half hours, it’s certainly an epic (even the cut version is nearly two hours long), and I don’t think there’s enough in there to warrant that running time. But Bullet Train is occasionally enjoyable – it’s just that I can’t see myself wanting to watch it again anytime soon.
Rouge (1988) May 13, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Drama, Romance, Supernatural , add a commentDirector: Stanley Kwan Starring: Anita Mui, Leslie Cheung, Emily Chu, Alex Man Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Golden Harvest/Golden Way
In 1934, 12th Master Chan (Leslie Cheung) is a son of a wealthy, high profile businessman. He becomes increasingly infatuated with concubine Fleur (Anita Mui), who succumbs to the 12th Master’s charms leading the pair to fall hopelessly in love. However, the match is not blessed by Chan’s parents, who understandably wish for their son to find a more respectable woman to share his life. Meanwhile, in 1987, a news printer runs into a mysterious woman who is searching for her lost love.
ROUGE won a boatload of awards on its release in 1988 with its sharp script, interesting leads and haunting theme. It is often regarded as an “art-house” film (whatever THAT means) but the truth is it’s just a superior film that tells a great story in quite a unique way. Some of the techniques and plot devices are a LITTLE heavy-handed VERY occasionally, but other than that it is free of the usual “arty” clichés that can bog a film down. In fact, it’s refreshingly free of sentiment and melodrama, and moves at a cracking pace.
Alex Man and Emily Chu are brilliant as the modern day couple – with the type of practical relationship characteristic of modern times. The contrast between them and the passion and earnestness of the 12th Master and Fleur is one of the driving points of the film – and definitely one of the elements that really make it work. The lead characters played by Cheung and Mui are, of course, the focal point of the piece, and it has to be said that they make a convincing couple. Obviously these days the film is lent a special kind of poignancy as neither of them survived to reach old age, but it remains that this was a classic well before tragedy struck in real life.
One word of warning to newcomers: if you buy the Fortune Star DVD of this film, do not read the back of the box as it gives everything away. It’s not The Sixth Sense, but this film definitely works better when you know as little as possible about the plot. When I first saw the film, I knew literally nothing about it, and was blown away. What I’ve written in the first paragraph of this review is enough (or indeed too much) for you to enter the world of Rouge and come away from the experience knowing that you’ve seen something truly different.
Sons of Good Earth (1965) May 5, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Drama, War, Romance, 1960s films , add a commentDirector: King Hu Starring: Peter Chen, Lee Kwan, Betty Loh, Kok Lee-Yan, King Hu Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
The year is 1937 – just prior to the Japanese invasion of China. Painters Ju Rui and Lao San (Peter Chen and Lee Kwan) inadvertently stumble upon He Hua (Betty Loh), a woman sold into the sex industry at a local brothel. Doing the decent thing, they protect her from the brothel keeper by posing as a married couple. The relationship quickly becomes the real thing after a comment by kindly old sergeant Hao (Kok Lee-Yan), who proves to be too clever to have the wool pulled over his eyes. Their peaceful life is shattered when the Japanese invaders come to town and begin their reign of terror. But certain citizens such as Director Ding (King Hu) start mobilizing guerrilla forces in the area.
This was King Hu’s first film as sole director (although he has that credit on The Story of Sue San, he was apparently supervised by Li Han-Hsiang), but already some King Hu trademarks are in place. It starts as one thing (a romantic comedy, believe it or not) and ends up as something completely different (a war film), going through something else in the middle (a political drama, for want of a better term) without the separate pieces jarring together horribly. The film is also shot fantastically, but that is standard for a King Hu film and hardly warrants a mention. Actually, the soundtrack almost steals the show – there’s so much martial music here that it reminds you of one of those big WWII epics made in Hollywood during the period.
The two leads play painters caught up in the whole mess, and do a pretty good job of it. Lee Kwan will be familiar to many as a comedy actor in such films as Fearless Hyena, but here he pretty much plays it straight. There are also so many familiar faces in this such as veterans Kok Lee-Yan, Ku Feng and Tien Feng – who between them probably racked up film appearances well into triple figures! King Hu himself appears in a supporting heroic role, and does a pretty decent job of it.
There are certain small lapses in the narrative from time to time, but the whole thing hangs together surprisingly well and there’s hardly a hint of melodrama involved. This is perhaps the least sensationalist portrayal of the Japanese invasion of China I’ve seen, but you’ve still got your despicable villains (one of whom is played by Fung Ngai, who seems to have made a career out of playing Japanese villains). The film does have an unnecessarily jingoistic feel at times, and it’s hard to believe that the Chinese weren’t actually at war with anybody when this film was made, least of all the Japanese.
You will have to suspend your disbelief a number of times, but Sons of Good Earth is certainly worth watching.