Dark Water (2002) April 8, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Supernatural, 2000s films , 4 commentsDirector: Hideo Nakata Cast: Hitomi Kuroki; Rio Kanno; Shigemitsu Ogi Territory: Japan Production Company: Honogurai mizu no soko kara
A bitter custody battle is being fought by Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki) against her husband for their six year old daughter Ikuko (Rio Kanno). Her ex-husband is playing dirty, using tales of Yoshimi’s previous psychological problems to discredit her. Rattled, Yoshimi rents a new apartment for herself and Ikuko and tries to get her life back on track with a new job. But the apartment is old and the ceiling leaks – not to mention noisy, as a child’s footsteps can often be heard from the room above. Yoshimi starts to feel uneasy when a girl’s red bag is found and can’t seem to be thrown away, and then she starts seeing a small child upstairs matching the description of a missing girl…
From the director of Ring, which was probably most casual viewers’ first exposure to Asian horror films, Dark Water continues in a similar spooky style which seems to be everywhere nowadays.
Shunning special effects and gore, the film instead relies on making the mundane seem menacing through implication, music and reaction shots. Which, let’s face it, could easily fall flat on its arse. Dark Water doesn’t quite fall on its arse, but after seeing it I’m not entirely sure why. The imagery seems a little over-used – creepy silent kids and things seen out of the corner of the eye being the order of the day. The red bag that continually turns up to alarm Yoshimi could seem laughable if not handled properly, as can the mounting menace of a water stain on the ceiling. But, to give the film its due, it never does, and a decent sense of quiet menace continues nicely throughout the film.
It’s just that the whole mystery of the film is rather easy to figure out, and by about the halfway mark, you’re well ahead of the game. This is the film’s most disappointing quality, as it is a very watchable experience. The film is very ably acted, and particular mention must go to the performance of Rio Kanno as the six year old Ikuko who spent the majority of the film soaking wet, which couldn’t have been too pleasant.
Although Dark Water is a pleasantly creepy way to pass the time, I really don’t think it has the legs to stand up to repeated viewings. But if you’ve never seen it, it’s well worth the price of the rental.
Heaven and Hell (1978) February 2, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, 1970s films, Kung Fu, Wacko, Supernatural , 3 commentsDirector: Chang Cheh Cast: Lee I-Min, Sun Chien, Phillip Kwok, Chiang Sheng, Lo Meng, Fu Sheng Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
A man and woman are kicked out of the Court of Heaven on trumped up charges of bringing shame onto the Kingdom. Reincarnated as a taxi driver, Xin Ling (Lee I-Min) courageously takes on and kills a gangster harassing Chen Ding (Fu Sheng) and his sweetheart (Jenny Tseng), but is himself mortally wounded in the conflict. Now sent to hell, Xin Ling applies for leniency when the annual heavenly Buddha happens to appear pretty much as soon as he gets there. In another stroke of luck, the Venoms themselves are in hell and keen to get out, and the heavenly Buddha allows them all to fight their way out.
The more perceptive of my readership have probably noticed a leaning towards the “spooky” in my Hong Kong film viewings of late, and I’ve always had a bit of an interest in this film as it looked like a wacky bit of fun. The reality, though, is a film just a bit too out there for my tastes.
You can’t fault the film for being different. We start off in heaven in this three act film, a section which of course has a strong fantasy feel to it, and reminded me a little of the film Na Cha the Great. It soon becomes apparent that the first two sections of the film are just setting the scene for the “Hell” part as the “Heaven” section barely lasts ten minutes before switching to modern day Earth. The Mortal World is the most striking part of the film visually, which, for reasons unfathomable to me, is portrayed in a kind of theatrical way as a stage play complete with stylised sets and props (and a couple of musical numbers from Jenny Tseng which are surprisingly not too bad). Fu Sheng takes on a gang of dancers pretending to be thugs in a fight scene without sound effects of any kind and with visible lack of contact. It’s a very brave style choice, and definitely something I’ve not seen before. Unfortunately, I don’t think it really pays off. The film then confusingly switches to a more realistic, external setting for the encounter between Fu Sheng, Lee I-Min and the gang boss played by Kong Do.
The lion’s share of the screen time goes to the Hell sequence, but this is interspersed with flashbacks to various periods in the world’s history when the Venoms’ backstories are told. Hell itself is primarily made up of cheesy sets, cheesy costumes (Hell’s workers are kind of like human pigs) and ultra cheesy lighting. There are a few torture scenes and a little moralising along the way, but basically, the Hell sequence is just a prelude to the introduction of the Venoms and the film becomes a Kung Fu-fest from there on in. While the Venom stories are good, the whole film just descends into a fragmented mess and I couldn’t wait for the whole thing to finish.
You could walk in on Heaven and Hell at various points and think you’re watching a fantasy film, an avant-garde 70’s pop art piece, a comedy, a horror, a period Kung Fu flick, a modern day actioner and a musical variety show. With so many elements involved, it was sure to turn out badly, and Heaven and Hell was a real struggle for me to sit through. You’ll never see another film like it, but that’s meant more of a warning than a recommendation.
The Dead and the Deadly (1983) January 30, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Comedy, Supernatural, 1980s films , add a commentDirector: Wu Ma Cast: Sammo Hung; Wu Ma; Lam Ching-Ying; Cherie Chung Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Golden Harvest
A funeral director’s assistant (Sammo Hung) becomes convinced that his recently deceased friend Lu Cho (Wu Ma) has been murdered and takes steps to prove it. However, it turns out that Lu Cho, along with his accomplices, is faking his death in order to get his hands on a fortune. When Sammo starts getting too suspicious, Lu Cho “appears” to Sammo as a ghost, insisting that his death was by natural causes so that his friend will stop digging for the truth. When Lu Cho is then murdered by his co-conspirators, and the real ghost of Lu Cho appears to Sammo telling him this time that he met with foul play, Sammo doesn’t want to know. So the spirit of the dead man haunts Sammo until he agrees to help him bring the murderers to justice.
What sets Sammo Hung apart from all of his contemporaries is his work in the horror/comedy genre, a little sub-niche that he pretty much made his own and returned to regularly during the eighties and early nineties. While Jackie Chan was busy being the happy-go-lucky everyman hero, Sammo was messing about with chicken’s blood, body painting and Taoist priests. This Wu Ma vehicle is one of the odder entries in the genre, but it does have its moments.
The humour in the first hour of the film is extremely lowbrow and juvenile, something I’ve noticed in other Wu Ma films. There’s a scene where Sammo goes to a brothel and munches on some Qing equivalent of Viagra which is painfully unfunny. The only plus points are a couple of good gags involving an artificially aged Lam Ching-Ying, who needs others to help him with his dynamic showmanship. The scene with the apparent corpse of Lu Cho having his gold teeth removed is funny on first viewing but gets a little tired upon repeats.
Just when things start getting really desperate, a strange thing happens – The Dead and the Deadly actually becomes quite entertaining. Things kick off when Lu Cho gets killed for real and starts haunting Sammo in a scene that feels like a dry run for the film that would be its spiritual successor – 1986’s Where’s Officer Tuba? Things get more frantic when Sammo gets possessed and the robbers are revealed and all manor of spooky goings-on start occurring.
As with other films in this genre, some knowledge of Chinese folklore is a definite advantage to getting the most out of the film. Although the special effects are very crude by today’s standard (and even by the west’s standard for 1983, to be honest) enjoyment isn’t hampered too much. While The Dead and the Deadly isn’t anywhere near the top of my list of spooky comedies, it does have a few neat touches and, taken as a piece of superficial entertainment may give some enjoyment. Personally, though, I’d say you can’t beat the sublime Encounters of the Spooky Kind and the Sammo Hung produced Mr Vampire.
The Detective (2007) January 19, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, Supernatural, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Oxide Pang Cast: Aaron Kwok; Liu Kai-Chi; Shing Fui-On Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Sil-Metropol Organization
Tam (Aaron Kwok) is a mediocre detective in the heart of the Chinese community in Thailand. One day, drinking buddy Lung (Shing Fui-On) turns up to his office and hands him a photograph of a beautiful woman and a wad of cash. Lung claims the woman is following him and will kill him over a matter that “is nothing to do with me”. Tam suspects that Lung is using him as an introduction agency and just wants to know where the beauty lives, but then people surrounding the woman start to die. Most look like suicides, but Tam is sure they are connected and believes foul play is involved. His friend, police officer Chak (Liu Kai-Chi) indulges Tam for a while, but eventually grows exasperated by his insistence that there’s more to the deaths than meet the eye.
Detective is a decent gumshoe tale told in the gritty, noir-ish style that is so popular in Hong Kong these days. Aaron Kwok is one of the few pop-stars-turned-actors I can watch, as he does tend to have some ability and doesn’t seem obsessed with looking pretty all the time. He shares a lot of screen time with Liu Kai-Chi, who is carving a nice career as a character actor, and the two have some very tangible onscreen chemistry. The film is also helped by the Thai locations, which give it a very different visual feel from the current crop of Hong Kong Noir thrillers. The supporting cast is excellent throughout (Wayne Lai pops up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him role, and Shing Fui-On is creepy as hell as Lung) and the direction is solid. Unfortunately, the film can also be seen as one big advertisement for a certain brand of telephone/camera manufacturer, but I’ve said my piece on product placement elsewhere here and I’m determined not to repeat myself.
As you have probably gathered, not everything is as it seems and the mystery is fairly compelling. It does get uncomfortably complicated than is strictly necessary at times, though, and there is a little too much padding to the story for my liking. But you do want to get to the bottom of it all and the fact that the answers don’t come easily enhances the mystery.
Detective is not so much a “whodunit” as a “what-did-they-do”, and is definitely worth seeing. I have a sneaking suspicion that once you’ve been shown all the answers you won’t want to come back to it, but it’s certainly worth the price of a rental.
Where’s Officer Tuba? (1986) January 14, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Supernatural, 1980s films , add a commentDirector: Phillip Chan; Ricky Lau Cast: Sammo Hung; Jacky Cheung; David Chiang, Joey Wong Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: D & B Films
Cowardly cop Tuba (Sammo Hung) is content to play in the police orchestra for a living and leave the real police work to others. Unfortunately, his unconventional looks and manner make him an ideal candidate for an undercover mission headed by “Rambo” Chow (David Chiang) to bring down an extortion ring. Chow is promptly killed in action, but not before harassing a promise out of Tuba that he will avenge his death and bring the gang to justice. Tuba reneges on the promise, which makes Chow’s mischievous spirit manifest itself to Tuba, and the ghost (which only Tuba can see or hear) makes a thorough nuisance of itself until he and his over-ambitious rookie roommate Cheung (Jacky Cheung) swing into action. Tuba also tries to woo supermarket manager Joanne (Joey Wong), who thinks he’s a pervert, and whose parents think he’s a deranged idiot.
Where’s Officer Tuba? is Hong Kong Cinema’s best-kept secret. Generally overlooked by Sammo’s fans in favour of more obviously action-packed fare like Eastern Condors or Pedicab Driver, it’s also overlooked by comedy fans put off by the thought of watching a “kung fu” movie. It is a comedy first and foremost, and despite the inclusion of some awesome action stars from both the 70’s and 80’s (Sammo Hung, Hwang Jang Lee, David Chiang, Yuen Wah and Chang Yi all in the same movie?!) it’s the humour that wins the day.
The film’s greatest strength is the excellent script from the late Barry Wong, who certainly could knock together something simple but enjoyable. Here, he comes up something that packs more into its 92-minute running time than you can credit on first viewing, and the humour is very well written. Take the pier scene, for example: Sammo is picked to meet the extortionists and drop off their ransom money. There follows a string of gags that all hit their target as Sammo deadpans through misunderstandings and knowing references to espionage thrillers. And this is all before any of the ghostly shenanigans kick off.
It’s surprising that the main event – David Chiang appearing only to Sammo and ruining his life by manipulating his actions and making him look like an idiot – doesn’t really start until about an hour into the movie, but when it does, it’s hilarious. Sammo refuses to help the ghost of Chow seek revenge, so he runs amok when Sammo visits his prospective parents-in-law. It’s a scene that should write itself, and it does to a large degree, but even on the umpteenth viewing I still find myself laughing out loud at it.
The climax, where Sammo and Jacky Cheung (in his first movie appearance, I believe) take down the bad guys (this time with the help of Chow’s spirit) is as good as any action movie from the 80’s, and the inclusion of Hwang Jang Lee means there’s some mean legwork on display. But there’s not enough of it to really make this a contender as an action movie, and it’s the laughs that are the most memorable.
There are a surprising amount of puns and Cantonese wordplay in this film which obviously don’t translate, but even a passing knowledge of the dialect will be enough for you to get a couple of the more childish jokes. I wish someone would do a proper release of this film with remastered subtitles as, if memory serves, the subtitles on the Universe DVD are identical to the original VHS “Chinese and English” release and are particularly poor. Along with the usual spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical problems, there are some strange translations - such as when two characters talk about someone being “successfully raped”, which is just plain odd. It also helps to have some knowledge of Chinese superstitions, as on first viewing I thought the ending was very Deus Ex Machina, only to find a particular method for dispelling ghosts is all part of Chinese folklore.
Where’s Officer Tuba? was remade in 1990 as Look Out, Officer with Stephen Chow, which seems a mouth-watering prospect but sadly it didn’t realise its potential. And it has to be mentioned that Where’s Officer Tuba? at times bears an uncanny resemblance to Wu Ma’s The Dead and the Deadly, which also starred Hung as a man possessed by the spirit of a dead man only he can see. But for my money, Where’s Officer Tuba? is by far the funniest and most enjoyable of Hong Kong’s “invisible man” comedies.
Seeding of a Ghost (1983) December 29, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Supernatural, 1980s films , 5 commentsDirector: Richard Yeung Cast: Phillip Ko; Norman Chu; Maria Yuen; Tin Mat Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Shaw Brothers
Chow (Phillip Ko) is a taxi driver whose wife Irene (Maria Yuen) is having an affair with a casino gambler named Fong (Norman Chu). When Irene is raped by a pair of youths and dies in an attempt to escape, Chow summons her spirit with the aid of a mono-brow Black Magic priest to exact revenge on all guilty parties. But the ultimate revenge is hinted at by a prophesy of a son carrying out the final justice, and as no one involved has offspring, the warning is not heeded. But they had reckoned without the seeding of a ghost…
Reported to be the third and final film in the Black Magic series (although it shares no cast and has a different director, leading me to think it might be a spurious claim), it cannot be denied that Seeding of a Ghost is a pile of utter trash. But it can also be an entertaining pile of utter trash.
The film starts out hinting at trouble ahead when Chow knocks over a priest in his taxi, only to find the old guy is safe and well in his back seat and eager for a ride home. We then forget all about that and the focus shifts to soft-core pornography for a while. Quite a while, in fact. Irene gets her kit off at the drop of a hat in some of the most gratuitous nude scenes I’ve ever seen. For example, she’s shown playing about with Norman Chu on the beach (I think it was him and not Phillip Ko, but to be honest I wasn’t paying too much attention) when her top gets ripped off and she playfully runs after him in slow motion. And just so you get the message, we zoom in on her bouncing breasts for a few seconds. Now that scene could possibly be defended (except for the boob-zoom shot) as showing the blossoming of her illicit relationship with Fong but a little while later we see her starkers in the shower. Accompanied by sleazy sax muzak, we watch her wash and zoom in yet again on her boobs and…well, there’s a fair bit of full-frontal nudity in the film. This kind of thing elicits many reactions in people, but to be honest I thought it was just funny. Not the actual nudity itself, but the way in which it is so desperately and cynically used – a hallmark of late-era Shaw Brothers productions, sadly.
With this in mind, it is somewhat surprising that the rape scene that follows is not as exploitative as it could have been. True, her assailants do smack her around considerably (and would probably prevent the film getting an uncut release in the UK, I suspect) but this is not in the same ballpark as Sammo Hung’s Iron Fisted Monk, whose rape scene was purely meant to titillate viewers. This sets up the revenge plot for the second half of the movie when Chow seeks out the priest he knocked over at the start of the film to get revenge on the killers.
All manner of nastiness follows, such as people vomiting worms and unwittingly eating brains and drinking blood. Fong’s wife becomes possessed and needs the help of a Taoist priest (while she’s naked, obviously). The effects are obviously low budget, but as with most things of this nature, there are one or two cool effects in with all the cheap make-up and puppetry. The “creature” effects (inspired, no doubt, by John Carpenter’s The Thing) are particularly poor and I suspect that the DVD age hasn’t helped matters very much by showing all the limitations so clearly. The animation sequence for the “seeding” is quite good, however, and is similar to the effects in Wu Ma’s Dead and the Deadly from the same year.
From all the buzz surrounding the DVD release of Seeding of a Ghost, it is evidently a much-loved piece of eighties Asian horror. I have no doubt at all that in its day it would held its own with many other similar films from the lower end of the genre, and it is certainly still watchable if you can turn a blind eye to its faults. One final note: I would recommend watching this film with the Cantonese audio track, as the Mandarin track seemed dull and lifeless.
The Haunted School (2006) July 16, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Supernatural , 2 commentsDirector: Chin Man-Kei Cast: Theresa Fu Wing, Amanda Lee, Stephen Cheung Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Fortune Star
Teenagers, eh? It’s a wonder any of them survive into their twenties. If they’re not being chased by some homicidal serial-killing maniac, they’re being picked off like flies by some supernatural force that the post-pubescent population is either immune to or blissfully ignorant of.
You can probably tell from the title that The Haunted School is in the latter camp. For reasons that are never explained, four boys are introduced into a previously girls’ only boarding school. Although the sexes are kept separate as much as possible, contact is inevitable and rampaging hormones do their duty. Unfortunately, the school’s number one rule is “falling in love is not allowed” (unusual for a girls’ only school, I thought). There seems to be some wisdom in this rule though, as twenty years previously a fire ravaged the school resulting in two deaths and the stirrings of lust between the kids has reawakened something evil in the school that starts pulling the children into another dimension.
The Haunted School is typical teen horror all the way. It’s unlikely anyone above the age of eighteen will find it particularly frightening, although it does achieve a few good scares along the way. This is simply because it throws so many of them at you that a few of them are bound to be effective.
There are some decent ideas in here (I quite liked the permanent shadows on the wall) but most of the time the film relies on clichés – the flashbacks to the original incident show that it occurred on a stormy night with lightning flashing in the sky, blah de blah. Also, the kids’ reactions are just bizarre at times. One boy, after seeing his missing friend dragged through into the netherworld, simply walks calmly away. Also, the sudden appearance of hitherto nonexistent doors seems to cause a breakdown in intelligence: “Hey, that door wasn’t there before! Let’s go and have a look at what’s inside!”
There are far too many tired ideas in this to make it work, and the attempt at fleshing out the characters fails and just makes the film drag. But if you’re young and not too demanding, you might find something to like in here.
Versus (2000) May 19, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Blogroll, Horror, Action, Supernatural , 2 commentsDirector: Ryuhei Kitamura Cast: Tak Sakaguchi, Hideo Sakaki, Kenji Matsuda, Chieko Misaka Territory: Japan
AKA: The Forest of Resurrection
A couple of recently escaped convicts (including Tak Sakaguchi) rendezvous with their Yakuza cohorts on the outskirts of a forest. The convict is not too pleased that they’ve brought along a female they’ve kidnapped (Chieko Misaka) for no readily apparent reason. Shots are exchanged, and the convict’s partner goes down. And gets back up again. It turns out that anyone who dies in the Forest of Resurrection (which is placed over the 444th portal to the land of the dead) will return to an undead state. The trouble is, the Yakuza have been using the forest to bury the bodies of their dead victims, and when they return to life they’re not in a forgiving mood. Which in itself is bad enough, but then the boss of the Yakuza shows up and it becomes apparent he’s more than he appears to be, and holds the answer to why the convict and the girl have been brought here.
Versus is a bit of a “difficult” film for a number of reasons, not least because no one is ever referred to by name. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film in which not one name is uttered by anyone for the entire length of a film. Another problem is that I’m sure there are some cultural references I’m still just not getting. The final one I’ve started to come to terms with – Versus has some blacker than black comedy that will leave some completely nonplussed. Comedy is perhaps the hardest thing to translate and put across to a foreign audience, and on first viewing I thought this was as straight a film as you could make. Now, I find it hard to believe I ever had that view – at times, Versus is bloody hilarious.
It’s also one of the goriest films I’ve seen, and the gore effects are pretty damn good. An army of zombies is dispatched early on in a bloodbath that would turn Romero green with envy. And it doesn’t stop there – with Yakuza, immortal swordsmen and zombies about, you can be sure there’s enough of the red stuff thrown around to keep even the bloodiest gorehound happy. It also has a lot of Kung Fu (yes, in a Japanese film) which is pretty effective most of the time, but is let down by poor wirework. Unfortunately, this seems to be the Achilles heel of the action scenes in that the wires are pretty much always visible.
It’s also a little overlong (at just under 2 hours) and the relentless woodland setting (apart from a brief car interior shot and the coda, the entire film takes place outdoors in the forest) can be a bit much. And it can still be a trifle confusing. But I’d have to say that Versus worked a hell of a lot better second time around.
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.