It’s fairly safe to say that when it comes to Hong Kong cinema, the country’s action films get all of the glory, and for obvious reasons.  While HK cinema in general has been lagging over the past decade or so, there’s absolutely nothing like HK cinema in its prime, especially the action titles, be they classic Jackie Chan and Jet Li martial arts, or John Woo and Ringo Lam actioners.  However, that unfairly ignores a lot of great HK films that have fallen through the cracks, films that are usually overlooked due to the simple fact that they don’t feature a heavy dose of flying fists and blazing .45s.

Such is the case of Riley Yip’s Just One Look.  On its surface your typical pop star-studded teen romantic comedy, Just One Look is, at its core, a gently nostalgic and bittersweet look at the Asian films of yore, and the way that they shape the memories and actions of their viewers.  In this regard, Just One Look bears a passing resemblance to Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso, a film which also dealt with the ways that films shape and mold its characters’ lives.  But it’s safe to say that Yip’s film is considerably more wacky and lighthearted.

Continue reading…

Watching The Son, the critically-acclaimed film from the Dardenne brothers (La Promesse, Rosetta), I was struck, first and foremost, by what I didn’t see in the film.  No soaring musical climaxes (actually, I don’t seem to recall any music in the film whatsoever), no heartwrenching speeches, no tearful monologues, no overwrought finales.  And this in a film that deals with some very weighty moral choices and themes—revenge, forgiveness, and grace.

Olivier (Olivier Gourmet) works at a rehab center for teenage boys, teaching them carpentry so they’ll have some sort of trade when they enter back into real life.  He’s been divorced for several years and lives a quiet, meticulous existence.  That is, until a new boy named Francis arrives at the center.  At first, Olivier refuses to take him, and then inexplicably changes his mind.  Soon, he’s following the boy everywhere, noting his every movement, where he goes, who he sees.  He scrambles through the halls of the center, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

At first, we’re complete unsure why he’s doing this, why he’s so obsessed with Francis.  And then we learn the secret (which I shan’t reveal), and it all becomes clear.  And as the film continues, our knowledge of the exact nature of Olivier and Francis’ “relationship” ratchets up the tension, casting an interesting pall over every single one of Olivier’s actions and words until the credits roll.

Continue reading…

I was never big into skateboarding, but I have friends who were.  However, you don’t have to be a skater to get into Stoked, a documentary chronicling the rise and fall of Mark “Gator” Rogowski.  In the early 80s, before skateboarding became an “extreme” sport and Tony Hawk’s visage graced everything from video games to Mountain Dew commercials, Rogowski was one of the sport’s first true superstars.

Kids adored him and companies, eager to cash in on his popularity, sent a flood of endorsements his way.  Not surprisingly, the fame and fortune went directly to Rogowski’s head, resulting in a serious “rock star” complex, i.e. self-destrutive lifestyle and the requisite behavior (many of Rogowski’s antics seem like direct precursors to the likes of “Jackass”).

However, as the 90s rolled around, skateboarding underwent some major changes.  The style of skateboarding that Rogowski had made famous was no longer en vogue, and Rogowski’s fame began to crumble around him.  Unable to deal with his slipping fortune, Rogowski became even more self-destructive, even lashing out his fans, friends, and loved ones.  Hitting rock bottom, he finally found salvation and became a born again Christian.

Continue reading…

When the 2004 Academy Award nominations were announced, I was absolutely thrilled to see The Twilight Samurai listed as Japan’s entry for “Best Foreign Picture”.  I had just seen the movie several weeks earlier, having finally bought the DVD after reading so much about it for the past year or so and how it was cleaning up at festivals around the world.  Having now seen the movie 3 times (and I’ll probably be going on viewing #4 here shortly), I personally consider it an instant classic, and I find it easy to foresee it joining the ranks of such genre classics as Yojimbo, Harakiri, and Zatoichi.

Although I found it a completely involving and affecting film, it’s safe to say that The Twilight Samurai is probably not what most people would expect from a samurai movie.  The Twilight Samurai tells the story of Seibei Iguchi (Hiroyuki Sanada), a low-ranking samurai of the Unasaka Clan.  From the first time he appears, it’s obvious he’s not your typical silver screen samurai.

He doesn’t appear to be a skilled warrior.  In fact, he works as a bookkeeper in the clan’s storehouses, cataloging food supplies.  Nor does he carry himself with any sort of swagger or pride, a la Toshiro Mifune.  Rather, he just sort of shuffles about in his torn clothing, unkempt hair, and downcast expression.  All in all, he seems more inclined to be a farmer instead of a proud and deadly warrior.  And truth be told, that’s how Seibei would prefer to live.  He’s perfectly content living a humble life far removed from the sweeping changes that are about to engulf his clan and country.

However, his life is not without hardship.  He’s a recent widower, his wife having died from tuberculosis.  Her funeral has left him deep in debt and he must now care for his two young daughters, Kayano and Ito, and his senile mother all by himself.  A famine is currently sweeping through the country and to support his family, Seibei takes odd jobs in addition to his other duties.  As a result, he has no time to associate with his fellow samurai, who mock him and nickname him “Twilight Seibei”.

Having no time to look after himself, his appearance becomes rather bedraggled, and after an embarrassing incident with the clan leader, he becomes the laughingstock of the clan and a disgrace to his family.  Still, Seibei’s perfectly content to look after his beloved daughters, refusing to remarry for fear of how the change will affect them.  But change is coming, and several events threaten to disrupt Seibei’s simple life.

Continue reading…

On paper, So Close seems like the perfect movie.  Take three attractive Asian ladies (Shu Qi, whose lips should be banned by the Geneva Convention; the ultra-crushworthy Zhao Wei; and Karen Mok, one of Hong Kong’s more controversial entertainers) and their bare midriffs, give them with some high-tech spy gizmos, throw in plenty of high-kicking martials arts action and gunplay, and toss in a little romance.  And, for those into that sort of thing, throw in some minor lesbian action for good measure.  Oh yeah, and the most preposterous use of the Carpenters’ music in a movie… ever.

All in all, So Close sounds like the sort of cheesecake movie that Hong Kong action cinema is so adept at producing (i.e. Downtown Torpedoes, Tokyo Raiders).  And it certainly tries its darndest to exceed its audience’s expectations in every way possible.  But even those expecting pure eye candy and cinematic fluff might find So Close less than filling.

Qi and Wei play Lynn and Sue, two sisters who, in addition to gallivanting about town and buying cake in their supermodel outfits, also happen to be a topnotch assassin team.  Sue is the deadly marksman, whereas Lynn is an expert hacker who serves as her eyes and ears.  Backing them up is the Deus Ex Machina, err, I mean World Panorama, a satellite surveillance unit created by their father that allows them to hack into any closed circuit TV system in the world and spy on anyone they wish.  (Yes, that sound you just heard was Donald Rumsfeld having an orgasm.)

Having completed their latest job - the assassination of a wealthy CEO named Chow Lui - the two sisters are ready to get on with their next assignment… or try to out-cute eachother, whichever comes first.  However, life as an assassin isn’t always what popcorn Hong Kong action movies makes it out to be, and the sisters soon find their lives getting more complicated.

Continue reading…

In case you didn’t figure out from my extended ramblings on Lars Von Trier and Dogville, I’m a bit of a fan of the current wave of Danish cinema and the Dogme movement.  Thus when I spotted a film written by Thomas Anders Jensen, who also wrote the scripts for Mifune and Open Hearts, and directed by Lone Sherfig, whose Italian For Beginners is the only female-directed Dogme film to date, I had to go.  Good thing.  Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself was probably my favorite film of the festival on all levels—script, acting, cinematography, everything was fantastic.

Filmed in a conventional style (i.e. this is not a Dogme film) with a largely Scottish cast, the film tells the story of the terminally depressed Wilbur.  And yes, he does in fact want to kill himself.  Both of his parents have been stricken with cancer, he hates his job, and he lives alone, so what does he have worth living for?  After one of his suicide attempts, Wilbur is sent to live with his older brother Harbour in the large house/used bookshop that Harbour has just inherited from their recently deceased father.

Here the two brothers meet Alice, a poverty-stricken single mother who sells them the books she finds while working as a night cleaning nurse at the local hospital to support her young daughter.  Harbour falls in love with Alice and Alice, genuinely fond of Harbour and seeing a way out of her terrible life, agrees to marry him.  Things become far more complicated when Harbour is diagnosed with the same cancer that afflicted both of his parents and when Wilbur and Alice find themselves falling in love.

Now here’s the thing: it’s a comedy.  A very dry and black comedy, but a comedy nonetheless, and one that hits its mark both often and hard.  Scherfig manages a fairly similar balancing act to the one Alan Ball manages with “Six Feet Under”.  She finds humor in extremely unlikely situations and uses it to break the tension in what could otherwise be an unbearably oppressive film, while also managing to respect the seriousness of the situations her characters are in.

Jensen’s script is honed to near perfection and beautifully cast.  Jamie Sives and Adrien Rawlins play the brothers to perfection, no small feat considering the number of issues they both carry hidden away deep inside.  Sives in particular is stunning in his portrayal of Wilbur, somehow managing to remain deeply sympathetic to the audience despite the sometimes horrific things this script leads him to do.  Also strong are the criminally overlooked Shirley Henderson—best known either as Moaning Myrtle in the second Harry Potter film or as Spud’s girlfriend in Trainspotting, depending what part of the demographic you may be in—as Alice and Mads Mikkelsen who steals every scene he is in as the hospital’s drier-than-a-desert psychologist.  

One of the great strengths of this film, and something that sets it apart from anything coming out of North America, is Scherfig’s willingness to present a complex moral story without casting any judgment whatsoever.  She simply presents the story to the audience as something that happens and leaves it to them to sort out the morality of it all at the end.  Smart move as it gives the film a lingering emotional heft that would have been destroyed by any attempt at moralizing.

Written by Chris Brown.

Nearly half of the films I caught this year were black comedies or labeled as such; Cheeky, Jeux D’Enfants, Grimm, Save The Green Planet, and this one.  I didn’t really plan it that way, but that’s just the way the schedule seemed to come together.  But few of those films were as dark as this one.  Of course, anytime you’re dealing with the subject of suicide (as the title implies, the film is largely about a man named Wilbur who, you guessed it, wants to kill himself), you’re going to be delving into some darker stuff just by nature of the subject matter.

As you can probably guess from the title, Wilbur (Jamie Sives) is a pretty depressed young man.  And who can blame him?  Both of his parents are dead (his dad dies shortly before the film’s events take place, and Wilbur was accidentally responsible for his mum’s dead) and he lives in Glasgow, a town not normally associated with bright and cheery weather.  Wilbur’s only goal in life is to end his, but until he’s successful, he insists on making life miserable for everyone around him, even the other patients in his support group.

The only one who seems to truly care for Wilbur is his older brother Harbour (Adrian Rawlins).  The other patients in the support group hate him and even vote to kick him out, his nurse seems only interested in Wilbur’s body, and his stone-faced doctor doesn’t seem to have any expression whatsoever.  The two brothers live in the back of their parents’ old bookstore, which seems like it’s in constant danger of collapsing under the weight of its own bookshelves.  Harbour suicide-proofs the apartment as best he can, but it’s obvious that it’s only a matter of time before Wilbur is successful.

Continue reading…

For years now, American action movies have been ripping off Asian style, a trend that saw its culmination in The Matrix franchise.  Not that this is a bad thing mind you, especially when it’s done well and because it comes from an obvious love for the stuff (as was the case with the Wachowski Brothers).  But still, it’s become rather excessive, especially when it seems like any action movie nowadays has to have some shot, move, or scene that’s directly lifted from the late 80s/early 90s work of Jackie Chan, John Woo, Ringo Lam, Tsui Hark, Jet Li, and others.

I guess it’s only fair that a movie like Returner come along and shamelessly rip off some of the biggest American action movies, blatantly borrowing ideas, scenes, and even explosions from blockbusters such as Mission Impossible 2, Die Hard, the Terminator series, and yes, even The Matrix.

In the year 2084, nearly all of humanity has been wiped out by the Daggra, a mysterious and highly advanced alien race.  Hidden away in Tibet, the survivors have developed a time machine that will send a lone warrior back into the past to stop whatever caused the war.  When the human base is ambushed, a plucky young girl named Milly (Ann Suzuki) jumps into the time machine and travels back to the year 2002, only to land in the middle of a shootout between Miyamoto, a Neo-esque bad-ass replete in black leather and purple-streaked hair (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and a bunch of Yakuza thugs led by the cruel Mizoguchi (Goro Kishitani).

In the firefight, Miyamoto accidentally shoots Milly.  Despite coolly mowing down a bunch of Yakuza thugs without batting an eye, Miyamoto is at heart, your basic “moody gunman with a conscious” type, so he takes Milly back to his apartment and tends her wound.  When she wakes up, she tells Miyamoto her story and that she only has a few days to prevent a horrible tragedy from happening.  Miyamoto, being the good guy that he is, believes her and immediately starts making all of the preparations necessary to help her… Ha!  I had you going there, didn’t I?  Of course Miyamoto doesn’t believe her.  He’s the tortured, cynical anti-hero type, for Pete’s sake!

Continue reading…