Movie Review - Ju Dou (1990)

My parents had cable off-and-on in my household.  At one point, the cable became too expensive, and we stopped.  We picked it up again after a while, and stopped again when the cable became too much. Now, with digital cable forcing everyone to pay for stuff they used to get for free, we have cable again.  With the glut of crap on specially generalized cable television (Toddlers & Tiaras, Crocosaurus, all the no-talent shows, occult-themed shows, police procedural shows, etc.), it will never be like it was.  

Back then, we didn't have to worry about having to subscribe to a specific channel to get out foreign movies: we simply were surprised.  It was like this in my high school years when I watched the movie that started my love for Asian cinema: Ju Dou.

Ju Dou was like nothing I had seen before in American film: the new land, the strange people and culture (granted, the only time I had dealt with Asian people and culture was either at a restaurant or a kung-fu movie), the language, and the colors. OH GOD THE COLORS.  The colors weren't part of some forced hallucination or a drug-related trip on my part.  It was simply the way that director Yimou Zhang was able to not only give the set designer and cinematographer the instructions to make the movie visually appealing, but the tension between the characters was believable and tangible.  It would set the rule for me in the future that whenever I watch an Asian film, check if Li Gong is in it first.

"Dear Penthouse Forum..."

The movie is set in early 20th Century China, when the life of Ju Dou (played by Li Gong) is disrupted by her marriage to Old Yang (actor Wei Li) who runs a dye mill.  He paid a handsome sum for such a beautiful bride, so she had better produce him an heir--which she cannot because the old man is sterile.  He treats her horribly in response (an understatement, to say the least) and has no idea that someone has else has had their eye on her, but can't act on it.

Tianqing (Baotian Li) is Old Yang's younger relative, who lives and works at the mill as Yang's ward.  He is also mistreated to a degree.  He takes pity on the woman who is now legally his aunt.  At first, their relationship is deeply appalling... but you come to understand that their common ground is their hatred of Old Yang.  He is wholly deserving of this hatred, which Ju Dou and Tianqing transform into lust and love.  Nature takes its course under the influence of human intervention, and the story seems as if it will develop into an ending scenario that will be considered acceptable.  That's when the film becomes an experience in truly deep heartbreak.  The dynamic changes so hard and fast, you can only stay riveted to your seat to see how it all turns out.

OH GOD THE COLORS, MAN

And so it went, my first foreign film viewing.  

This led to me watching not only foreign films with Li Gong in it (Curse of the Golden Flower, Raise the Red Lantern), but also other foreign fare (Luc Besson's ANGEL-A, Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor [yes, it counts], Karan Johar's Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Juzo Itami's Tampopo), not to mention domestic productions with Asian themes (Memoirs of a Geisha, Snow Falling on Cedars).  I can say without any confusion that this is one of the best movies I have ever seen.  This is mostly due to my eyes being opened--not to the flare of an action movie's explosion, the shine of a silver sci-fi rocket or to the horrors of a slasher film--but to the greater expanse of world film and filmmakers outside of America and kung-fu movies.  To you and all those like you, director Zhang, I thank you.

Movie Review: Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

I don't get to watch a lot of movies in the theaters (mainly because that sh*t is expensive, but you know that already), and when I do, I watch superhero movies with my friend Will and Dacarllo.  When I'm not with them, I use the Internet.  Now, I'm not out there torrenting like the rest of y'all.  I use other forms to get my movies--all of them legal.  Which brings me to my movie review subject: Tokyo Gore Police.

I watched it and I can truly say this movie lives up to its title, as all movies should.  The film (used loosely) is set in a futuristic Tokyo, some time after the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces have been privatized and merged into the former.  Apparently, all Japan is now Tokyo...or not, I am unsure.  Also new to the mix are "Engineers"--a new type of life-form that causes mayhem in the streets and turns ordinary criminals into super-powered villains.
Enter Ruka (played by Eihi Shina of Audition fame), an expert "Engineer Hunter" with the Tokyo Metro Police, who hunts using only a samurai sword.  True to Japanese fantasy tropes, she weighs 90 pounds soaking wet and no family lineage is tied to the weapon to explain its unnatural ability to remain undamaged throughout the film as she fights hulking monsters.  She does her best and is celebrated in the ranks of the police department...but off-duty, she is a sad young woman who laments the loss of her policeman father years ago and makes cuts on her left arm for catharsis.  Only with the arrival of a particular Engineer monster does the story begin to evolve from a simple hack-and-slash videogame parody into something resembling a murder mystery.

- ATOMIC BOMB REFERENCE LOL -

There are a lot of counter-culture elements, sexual elements, dark humor (i.e., cutesy wrist-cutting devices that "make the blood sweeter"), and alternative lifestyle choices on display, which pale in comparison to the main event the movie puts forth.  When a person talks about themselves as an expert and says that "[Insert field of expertise here] is my middle name", they want you to believe that they were born with an intense knowledge of the field.  The same holds true for Tokyo Gore Police.  GORE is its middle name.

There were a lot of moments when I had to stop watching--not because I was gonna throw up, but...  Y'know what?  I'm lying.  Lying, and lying so hard.  I was gonna throw up so many times while watching, because I had just eaten dinner and there was so much gore for the sake of it.  Characters who could have just hit their opponents in the head with a bottle and stopped there, chose to jam the broken bottle into their opponent's face and use it to cookie-cut the flesh and bone from his skull.  What does that do? He dead!

The worst part of the movie for me was when I was watching it, I began to get used to the simulated carnage--the watery blood, the churned-up whatever they were using to simulate destroyed flesh, the ever-increasing attempts at body horror, etc.  Each special effect kept taking me out of the story.  At the end of it all, I was more concerned with the story than the poor tries to keep my attention with special effects.

Normally, I give Japanese films a pass when their story surpasses their special effects (STACY, Mechanical Violator HAKAIDER), but this movie is on its way to becoming the next Death Trance.  What's Death Trance, you ask?  Exactly--you probably don't know.  That's how bad it sucked.  I truly wish more time was spent developing the characterizations of Ruka and the bar owner--ESPECIALLY the bar owner.  Instead, we have a fine revenge story and a great fantasy world that is undercut by its own special effects.  For shame, Japan. For shame.

Movie Review - The Malay Chronicles: Bloodlines or Clash of Empires: The Battle for Asia (2011)

I rented this movie, Clash of Empires: The Battle for Asia, because the cover looked so cheesy.  It brought me back to the old days when I reviewed movies on the previous Gedren's Peak website just because they were bad--movies like Bog and Robot Ninja.  This movie went and pulled the wool over my eyes, because this is a great movie despite technical failings.

The story reads as an account in the Kedah Annals ( I had to look that up on Wikipedia) by a Malay king of his far-removed ancestor, Merong Mahawanga (indeterminate South Asian actor Stephen Rahmen Hughes), descendant of Alexander the Great, future founder of the Malay Dynasty and future ruler of Langasuka.  The story speaks of his earlier vagabond life and how he came to prominence by helping out a foreign prince from a faraway empire of the world--the Roman Empire.
Prince Marcus Carpenius (Gavin Stenhouse) of Rome is to be wed to Princess Meng Li Hua (Chinese actress and model Jing Lusi) of the Empire of China in the days of the Han Dynasty, placing the events around 120 AD/CE.  The meeting place between the two empires is a well-known trading place and not ruled by any king.  It is populated by several indigenous tribes, one of which has taken to piracy called the Garuda.
The barbarian Garuda--known for murdering every man, woman and child in a village under plunder--are led by the shaman Taji (W. Hanafi W. Su) and his successor, the wily Kamawas (Khir Rahman). They have decided to kidnap the Chinese princess and her clever handmaiden Ying Ying (Nell Ng) and ransom the princess for 1000 taels of gold and sovereignty.  In the ensuing battle, the Roman prince is lost and our main character Merong fights on despite his wounds causing him to faint.  It is Merong's that triggers the meeting with his teacher Kesum the guru (Rahim Razali) and his future wife Embok (Ummi Nazeera).

But I am getting ahead of myself...

Movie Review - Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)

Snow Falling on Cedars is a movie that means so much to me, yet had absolutely nothing to do with my current situation when it was released. For one, I wasn't in a forbidden relationship and there was no open war fought on two fronts. But I can sympathize with the characters in the movie, given the theme of love in a world that will not have it, despite the gains made in society to facilitate it.

Based on the 1994 book of the same name, the movie is set in two time periods: around the middle of the Second World War and a period ten years later. Our two main characters are Ishmael (Ethan Hawke) and Hatsue (Yoki Kudo), two kids growing up in a small West Coast fishing town. They would grow up to be lovers, but they could never be together because Hatsue is Japanese-American and Ishmael is White. In their teens, World War II comes to America's doorstep. All Japanese-Americans had to report to internment camps due to their being a "homeland security risk" in the war against Japan. While Hatsue is placed in an internment camp, Ishmael joins the fight and finds himself in the Pacific Theater. It is this period where the young lovers are changed.
Hatsue meets her future husband Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune), a man in her internment camp who is shipped out to the European Theater and returns. Ishmael loses his arm--and his love for Hatsue--at Iwo Jima. Yet something inside Ishmael still burns...

Fast forward to postwar America: people are still against Japanese-Americans. Sometimes out in the open and sometimes behind closed doors. It all comes to a head when the small fishing town where Ishmael grew up has a murder mystery. It seems a young fisherman was murdered. The only suspect is the last man to have a dispute with the young man's family: his friend Kazuo Miyamoto. The racism in town has got Hatsue and Kazuo's father Zenhichi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) worried that his son won't get a fair trial, even with the help of Nels Gudmunssen the defense lawyer (legendary actor Max von Sydow). Ishmael, now a newspaper reporter, has evidence that could clear Kazuo's name, but will the jilted love of Hatsue stop him from doing the right thing?

The idea that there's this love story with history being used as a backdrop for a murder mystery is absolutely brilliant. I can't think as to why I went to see this movie... Wait! I think I know why: back then I had CRAZY yellow fever.
I was all about the Asian hotties. Hell, I used to rationalize that I admired the minimalistic beauty of the Asian woman as a man AND as a graphic designer. I used to say, in reference to the Asian woman, that God did so much to create a beautiful woman by doing very little. In many ways, I still feel the same but definitely not as strongly as I did during the time I saw this movie. When this movie ended, I cried quiet tears. I cried for the happiness and sadness of the characters. Most of all, I cried in recognition of Ishmael's silent battle fought to quell the feelings in his heart for Hatsue and to uphold a pillar of the newsman's existence: the truth.

Here be an excellent movie.

Movie Review - Shuang-Qi-Zhen daoke (1992)

I picked this up at Blockbuster in the Martial Arts section, even though it would fit much better in the Foreign section. I say that because Swordsmen in Double Flag Town doesn't have the copious amount of swordplay that most martial arts movies have and that doing so would be giving Blockbuster too much credit. Enough about the rental company, here's a movie about the Chinese West that took place around 71, no 81 years ago...
Upon his deathbed, old man Hai told his young son Hai Ge (Gao Wei) that he was betrothed as a baby to a girl in Double Flag Town. She's got a mole on her butt and her father is a lame man. Armed with the information and a trusty pair of daggers, Hai Ge sets out across the Gobi Desert to find the town. Along the way he crosses the path of Desert Eagle (Wang Gang), a self-proclaimed champion of the people. They part ways as Hai Ge approaches  Double Flag. He meets his father-in-law Lame Man (Chiang Jiang) under the worst circumstances and makes a fool of himself in front of his bride, Hao Mei (Zhao Mana). Once everything is straightened out, Hai Ge starts to work at Mr. Hao's restaurant. Even if Hai Ge gets no respect, it's a living, until bandits come to town.
These bandits are under the command of the Lethal Swordsman (Sun Haiying), and they want a little fun. That fun comes in the shape of trying to rape Hao Mei. Quick with the daggers, Hai Ge makes short work of the offender. Sadly, the offender is not just any bandit--he's the Lethal Swordsman's brother. This is sure to bring the wrath of the Lethal Swordsman down on Double Flag Town, so the townies ask for Hai Ge's help, but expect to be wiped out in a bloodbath. Their fear is justified; Hai Ge is barely 15 years old.

This movie is an award-winning film in its native China and across the globe, winning six awards over three years from different countries. To quote the back of the DVD case, it's a style that can be describes as "Sergio Leone meets Hiroshi Teshigahara". I can understand the Sergio Leone reference, but I'll have to take the time to watch a Teshigahara film to truly appreciate the sentiment. Nonetheless, it can get bloody, but not so crazy that the fighting overshadows the story. It probably won't grab the imagination of most martial arts fans because of the lack of fighting, so I should recommend this film migrate to the foreign film section, where its merits would be appreciated.

Movie Review - 2009: Lost Memories (2002)

I remember back in 2005 while scanning the aisles for the Zorro sequel and sundry other movies, I found this foreign film.  It was telling when I did not say "seen it", "own it" or "LAME" at 2009: Lost Memories--a movie I had never heard of before. I write this review in 2011, two years after the events were to take place in the film, and I can say that this movie is proof as to why you never date your films in the title.  Then again, this is an Asian movie, and the thinking of its people is most evident in their film-making.

The Japanese are a different breed of thinker as a result of being isolated on an island and from their World War II involvement in China and Korea. This has led to many a weird, bloody movie (Audition, Ichi the Killer, Tetsuo the Iron Man, The Locker) and movies on the opposite end of the spectrum (StereoFuture, Samurai Fiction, Tampopo, Dreams). Imagine if such a Japan did not exist: no major loss to nuclear weapons, no crazy movies...no Korean War. Such a world exists in the alternate version of 2009, but a terrorist group called the Fureisenjin seeks to change that by stealing an artifact called the "Lunar Soul" from the Inoue Foundation. Luckily, two agents of the Japanese Bureau of Investigation (JBI) are on the case.
Best friends and JBI agents Sakamoto (Dong-Kun Jang) and Saigo (Tohru Nakamura) stop the theft of the Lunar Soul and find out that the Inoue Foundation is hiding... something... about the case. In order to solve the case, Sakamoto digs deep and finds himself confronted with the female leader of the Fureisenjin, Hye-Rin Oh (Jin-ho Seo)--a woman that haunts his dreams before he's even met her.
Presented with contradictory events of history from the turn of the 20th Century on, Sakamoto begins to see a puzzle in which he is but a small piece. When all the pieces of the puzzle come together, the solution is a world-shattering one for both Sakamoto and Saigo, tearing apart a friendship and forcing a battle for the fate of the land and people of Korea.

Now, I've seen good Japanese action/sci-fi and I've seen bad Japanese action/sci-fi. This movie breaks the mold in Japanese action/sci-fi in that it's actually a Korean production. The last Korean movie I watched was The Good, The Bad, The Weird, only because the cover looked interesting. Now I feel comfortable enough to watch a Korean film because their film industry is capable of masterpieces like this. This officially makes up for Yonggary and the English dub of Volcano High, so thank you Korea. You are forgiven and blessed.

Movie Review - Ninja (2009)

In many movies, it seems to be the the realm of Caucasians that when confronted with another race or peoples, they become better than the best at being that culture.  T.H. Lawrence of Arabia in the titular role of the associated film is a good example, as well as Lt. John Dunbar (aka Dances with Wolves). The biggest offender was The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise.  The fact that the last samurai in the film was a White guy really teed off many Japanese upon its release in the land of the samurai, and deservedly so.  It's a good thing that a DVD that feels so much like "The Last Ninja" did not get great publicity.  So it is with the imaginatively titled action movie Ninja.

Casey (Scott Adkins) is an American man studying in Japan--not as a Japanese English Teacher (JET), but as a ninja. He has grown up in the Koga school since he was orphaned at eight years old.  Now a man, Casey is tasked by his Sensei (Togo Igawa) to protect the Yoroi Bitsu--a collection of Koga ninja artifacts from centuries past--from his disgraced rival-turned-assassin, Masazuka (Tsuyoshi Ihara).  Masazuka plans to take control of the Yoroi Bitsu to become Koga clan leader, but the sensei's daughter Namiko (Mika Hijii) has arranged for it to be moved halfway around the world to New York City.  With a guard consisting of Casey, Namiko and other ninjas, there's no way Masazuka will be able to get the Yoroi Bitsu...
...that is, unless he's called in some favors from his secret society friends at the Temple Corporation, run by Mr. Temple (Miles Anderson).  He's got Euro-goons and guns, so finding and capturing a couple of undercover ninjas in New York City should not be a problem.  At all.

It goes without saying that our American ninja (no Joe Armstrong here) is in a relationship with the Sensei's daughter.  Verily, the TV Tropes entry "Me Love You Long Time" is in full effect.  In a related tangent, I remember my friends in college coming up with an inverted scale of White guys and their Asian girlfriends.  I'll be honest: the lead actor Scott Adkins is a chiseled man who is ripped like a panther, which explains why the love interest is not as attractive. I wouldn't put a bag on her head or anything--not that bad.  Just not raging hot, like most Asian female love interests tend to be.  Remaining on the track previous, this movie has a lot of flaws.
Dumb cops acting on plot dictation, mild references to Star Wars (look for it), heavy dependance on uniformed street thugs and obvious ADR work are a sign that the filmmakers made the wise decision to go directly to DVD.

Movie Review - Mechanical Violator HAKAIDER (1995)

I love movie previews. They are a great money-saving medium when considering what movies you should see. More often than not, they'll tell you whether a movie is worth seeing or not. In many cases, I don't listen to myself and NOT go see a bad movie, because I know I'll have a good time nonetheless. That was the case with Underworld (2003) and Waterworld, but a grave misstep in the case of the recent Uwe Boll film House of the Dead. What's important about this nex example is that the preview I saw led to another preview, which led to another movie. All three Asian movies and their traliers are videos released by TOKYO SHOCK!, a division of Media Blasters.
I first became acquained with TOKYO SHOCK! through Craig Kilborn's "5 Questions" clip of someone getting their head crushed. That is a clip from the film Riki-Oh: the Story of Ricky. I went out and bought it and it still is an entertaining romp to this day, especially when I saw a preview or another TOKYO SHOCK! video release: Keita Amemiya's Moon Over Tao. I watched that film and saw the trailer for another Amemiya film called Mechanical Violator Hakaider.

Hakaider is the name of the villain in the manga/anime/live action show "Kikaider". He's more cyborg that robot because his brain is easily seen from the transparent glass over it. While Kikaider would be the normal choice for a movie character in the United States ('cuz he's the hero), Amemiya decided to turn Hakaider into an anti-hero. Channeling Schwartzenegger in Terminator 2 (complete with Winchester shotgun in motorcycle holster) for the entrance to our setting of Jesus Town, he's all kinds of bad-ass; a major point in the story.
The story is about rebels fighting against the misguided, angelic King Girjev (Yasuyaki Honda) and his utopian dream where people no longer have freewill via a simple lobotomy. The rebels aren't shining examples of goodness either; stealing and counterfeiting money as they see fit. One member, the young love interest Kaoru (Mai Hosho), seems alone in her dream for a good world where people can be free. While dreaming of freedom for the people, she is also plagued by nightmares where she's menaced by an evil white angel and the only one who comes to save her is a black knight astride an ebony steed...

Enter Hakaider in a battle for his life. He barely makes a getaway from Girjev's troops with the help of the rebels. With most of the engaging troops destroyed, the survivors must face an even greater threat: Girjev's trusted robot lieutenant, Mikhail (voiced by Kazuhiko Inoue). The presence of Mikhail can only mean one thing in a movie like this: ROBOT SHOWDOWN. And what a showdown it is. Will Jesus Town be free of Girjev's mad dream? Will Kaoru's dream of a world that's filled with good and love be realized? Will Kikaider make a cameo?

Mechanical Violator Hakaider has the most interesting tagline that I've heard in a while:

    "IF THIS PEACE IS FICTICIOUS... I WILL DESTROY IT!"

Sounds like "Engrish" to the untrained movie watcher, but if you actually see the movie and have a small understanding of how the native Japanese sci-fi fan thinks, you'll understand. You'll still laugh at it when it's in the trailer.
The movie itself is very cheap-looking in the street throng scenes, achieving the look of a dystopian future. The street battles are awesome. He may have blown up many a mannequin, but Hakaider's off the hook! There was an atristic idea that was placed in this movie that wows me to this day: when Hakaider and Mikhail fight in Girjev's chambers, they damage the pristine white walls and reveal bright red insulation. It's almost as if Girjev's chamber is made of flesh and blood. A similar effect is achieved when Hakaider damages Mikhail, showing Mikhail's interiors of red piping and wiring. The battle between them slowly begins to turn the pristine world Girjev puts forth into a bloody-like representation of its true form. This is further cemented through
Kikaider's cameo (it's very brief and you'd have to know he was there to see it.)