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Film: Fantastic Factory Presents…
UK Release date: 18th April 2011
Distributor: Arrow
Certificate: 18
Director: Brian Yuzna, Jack Sholder & Paco Plaza
Genre: Action/Adventure/Comedy/Fantasy/Horror/Sci-Fi
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Spain/USA
Language: English/Spanish
Review by: James Noble
Arrow gathers together four films from the Barcelona-based Fantastic Factory label. Headed up by producer Julio Fernandez and producer-director Brian Yuzna, Fantastic Factory specialised in low-budget horror films with an international cast, and shot in the English language. Such a combination seems ripe for either enjoyably kitschy guilty pleasures, or outright disasters.
In Jack Sholder’s Arachnid (2001), a ragtag crew of explorers, pilots and scientists venture to a dangerous jungle in Guam, on the hunt for the mysterious creature whose vicious bites have been killing people in the area. It turns out to be the work of an extraterrestrial spider-like creature, leaving the crew in a desperate fight for survival.
Paco Plaza’s Romasanta (2004) takes place in 19th century Spain, in a small village being terrorised by an unlikely serial killer - the suave, intense Manuel Romasanta (Julian Sands), who claims to be afflicted with a lycanthropic curse.
Two films by Brian Yuzna round out the collection. In 2001’s Faust: Love Of The Damned (based on the graphic novels by Tim Vigil and David Quinn), mild-mannered artist John Jaspers (Mark Frost) sells his soul to the Lucifer-like ‘M’ in exchange for the power and ability to avenge the murder of his lover. However, after doing so, ‘M’ binds him to his unholy contract, and John is transformed into a horned demon with a thirst for violence and carnage.
Finally, Beyond Re-animator (2003) - a belated second sequel to the well-regarded 1985 adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story - Star Trek veteran Jeffrey Combs returns to his role of Dr. Herbert West, who is now in prison after one of his zombie-like creations killed an innocent girl. Contacted thirteen years later by the brother of the victim, who is now a doctor himself, West decides to take his re-animation experiments to their very limit...
As with any box set, the quality levels vary wildly, and Arrow’s Fantastic Factory anthology is no exception, ranging from the solid to the weak. To kick off with the lower end of the spectrum, we have Arachnid, which opens with an unconvincing CGI shot of what looks like an inverted maelstrom. The clear lack of budget setting the tone for what follows, as director Jack Sholder resorts to tried-and-tested ways of getting around his financial constraints - essentially, keeping the expensive and ambitious visuals off-screen, and hoping the work of his actors sells the horror.
Sholder has limited success here - the fleeting glimpses of the alien spider, and the sense of it moving through the undergrowth occasionally arouses tension and suspense, but more often than not just frustrates. It does not help that much of the film takes place in a gorgeous jungle at daytime (presumably to save money on expensive lighting equipment), which dilutes any sense of eeriness or creepiness that Sholder is able to conjure.
Low budget does not necessarily a bad film make, but Mark Sevi’s script lacks the flair and inspiration to overcome the limitations of the production. Main character Mercer (Alex Reid), a plucky female pilot haunted by the mysterious disappearance of her brother, is introduced with very little backs-tory and while, it is revealed in pieces throughout the movie, the fact that the team of explorers is assembled in quick order (the expedition is underway within 15 minutes), without so much as a hint of any motivation among the group beyond cliché (missing brother, scientific curiosity, etc.), the audience is kept at a distance when they should be engaged.
The cast features several almost-familiar faces (male lead Chris Potter featured on the American version of Queer As Folk, and leading lady Alex Reid can now be seen on Channel 4’s Misfits), who play the film absolutely straight when, arguably, the script calls for tongues in cheeks and eyes ready to roll. Had the players shown more signs of having fun with the material, an awareness of the hokey nature of proceedings, the audience might have more fun than they ultimately do.
Faring better is Paco Plaza’s Romasanta, which has similarly obvious budgetary constraints - the English dialogue is broadly ADR’d (to get around a mostly local cast), and sharp, occasionally disorienting editing obscures a monster the production is unable to fully realise - but nevertheless manages to create a nice level of gothic atmosphere and eerie tension. As the murderous Manuel, Julian Sands brings intensity and a certain impassive charisma to proceedings, and has a decent, understated chemistry with leading lady Elsa Pataky (who also features in Beyond Re-animator), even if the pseudo love-triangle in which they are involved never really ignites, and is hindered by the script’s corner cutting (Pataky’s delaying of enquiring after the missing sister and niece that Manuel has murdered is an example of the plot holes the filmmakers are prepared to live with in order to maintain the erotic frisson).
Plaza clearly has a lot of fun with the material, and conjures some striking, memorable cinematic images throughout - the highlight being a runaway burning carriage hurtling through a forest at night-time. And while the non-linear script, at times, runs away with itself, there is enough genuine invention and creepiness here to make it recommended fare for fans of the genre.
Now we come to co-founder Brian Yuzna’s brace of films, to fill out the four-disc collection. Kicking off with an energetic credit sequence accompanied by a heavy metal soundtrack, Yuzna’s Faust: Love Of The Damned sets a tone that shows a clear debt to Alex Proyas’s The Crow, borne out in its tale of a resurrected killing machine driven by a haunted soul and a broken heart. And, for more than thirty minutes, Yuzna sets up what appears to be an intriguing psychological thriller, as Jeffrey Combs’ dogged police detective investigates a massacre committed by Mark Frost’s deranged artist. While the set-up is familiar, the dialogue and characterisation blunt and direct, and the plot bears one rather significant hole (Frost’s character’s habit of veering from catatonic to lucid at the script’s convenience would, in reality, surely torpedo any claim of criminal insanity), Yuzna’s slick editing and interesting choice of framing (showing an admirable feel for, and reverence of, the graphic novel format that is Faust’s origin), wrapped up in a gothic-mystical tone, hold the film together through its first act. Indeed, unlike the previous two films in the collection, Faust feels like solid, undemanding and reliable B-movie fare…
Unfortunately, the budget simply isn’t up to realising the ambition of the second and third act. Upon his resurrection (after being buried alive by the treacherous ‘M’), John Jasper is a sadly all-too-obviously costumed demonic avenger and, while its core audience will be along for the ride thanks to a solid opening half-hour, the artifice of the costume is perhaps a touch too alienating for non-fans, and Frost’s wild-eyed, manic performance - while containing a certain campy fun - prohibits audience identification with the protagonist. It does not help that the stylised characterisation and dialogue tend to verge on the ridiculous, as the filmmakers navigate their cast through a plot that always seems on the verge of falling into one of its progressively more cavernous holes.
That’s not to say the film is without its pleasures. Yuzna certainly has a flair for the grotesque, which should please the core audience, even if the action scenes are somewhat lacking in the excitement department. That said, the scene where ‘M’ reduces his trophy girlfriend (the game and underused Monica van Campen) to a giant pair of boobs and buttocks is visually striking for the wrong reasons, coming off like something out of a Doctor Who writer’s nightmare. Faust is mostly campy fun, but is not the sort of movie to convert non-believers.
Finally, we have Beyond Re-animator, which shares the ‘boxset-highlight’ honours with Romasanta. Beginning with a zombie attack which - while awkwardly shot, and relying on slightly-cheap visual effects - is appealingly sick, the second of Brian Yuzna’s directorial efforts to grace this collection is the superior of the two. Less reliant on manic energy, and anchored by a quietly compelling performance by the reliable Jeffrey Combs, this further updating of H.P. Lovecraft’s mad scientist story refreshes the standard zombie formula by giving the reanimated creatures consciousness and consciences, which brings a certain element of surprise and unpredictability to what ensues.
Setting the action in a prison further creates a sense of claustrophobic tension, and having the cast of characters - while perhaps not as fully developed as they could be - at cross-purposes creates the vulnerability necessary to hook an audience into the outcome of a horror story. Disappointingly, the twisted nature of the relationship between Combs’s West and Jason Barry’s Howard Phillips, the brother of the girl killed by one of West’s ‘creations’ in the opening, is never explored to its full potential, and the film offers the immensely likeable Elsa Pataky little to do with her role as a journalist reporting on the prison, caught up in the ensuing horror. However, all three actors work very hard and (unlike the cast of Arachnid) their straight-faced playing is essential to ensuring the audience is convinced by the premise and narrative.
Hardly essential, but genre fans will likely find much to enjoy with this box set. Though the films themselves aren’t exactly significant, the collection is notable for providing a contrast to the high-quality, sophisticated standard of horror movies produced by Spain in the last several years. As an example of where the genre was at not long before, the films of Fantastic Factory hold a certain academic appeal that is perhaps more consistent than anything on offer in the movies themselves. JN
Film: Choy Lee Fut
Year of production: 2011
Running time: 92 mins
Director: Tommy Law Wai Tak & Sam Wong Ming-Sing
Starring: Sammo Hung, Timmy Hung Tin Chiu, Kane Kosugi, Yuen Wah, Lau Kar Wing
Genre: Action/Drama/Martial Arts
Country: China
Language: Cantonese
Review by: James Noble
This film was screened at Terracotta Film Festival in May 2011.
With the success of the Wing Chun-themed Ip Man movies, Chinese cinema offers us an exploration of another of its kung fu styles, this time the widely-practiced Choy Lee Fut. The film of the same name also offers up the first big-screen pairing of martial arts movie legend Sammo Hung with his son, Sammy. Do co-directors Law and Wong have an international cult hit on their hands?
Jie (Sammy Hung) is a Chinese ex-pat living in the UK, who is visited by his wandering kung fu master father (Sammo Hung) and encouraged to return to China. After a fight against local thugs, Jie decides to do just that, and returns to his old Choy Lee Fut school, now run by his Uncle (Yuen Wah), with his Japanese friend Ken (Kane Kosugi) in tow.
No sooner have they got into the swing of their training than they are approached by representatives of Pan-America, a nefarious corporation who seek to absorb their school into their empire. Jie is dead-set against this and refuses, but when an agreement contract is revealed, showing the genuine signature of his father, Jie has no choice but to challenge Pan-America to a martial arts tournament, with the winner getting control of the Choy Lee Fut school.
While Jie and Ken train for the tourney, Jie begins to fall for Xia Yu-fei (Wang Jia-yin) a Pan-America representative, who happens to be the long-term girlfriend of Zuo Zhang-hong (Steven Wong), the toughest fighter on the Pan-America side. Can Jie maintain his focus in training, and win the heart of Yu-fei?
All the ingredients for a fun, undemanding martial arts flick are here, but Choy Lee Fut squanders an impressive cast on a thrown together script that does not challenge its obviously low budget with anything approaching narrative ambition or character depth. The flimsiest of excuses are found to turn the plot in the necessary directions at every stage – Jie’s reasons for leaving his life in the UK (filmed not in the UK, but in the rather obviously Chinese location of Thames Town, a British-themed development near Shanghai) are something to do with apparently constant gang-fighting and an elusive message in the frankly spurious philosophy spouted by his master/father. In fact, too often, the script substitutes cod-Zen philosophy for narrative objective, momentum and stakes. Even though the committed cast try their best, there is simply nothing here for an audience to invest in.
The script issues extend to plot threads established (Jie’s fight with a British gang in a restaurant) and then never picked up, or directionless scenes, such as Jie being invited into the school by his Uncle, so they can talk, and then immediately going off with a senior student - the scene never establishing what Uncle ever wanted to talk about. With a goal of only creating enough reason to credibly justify the climactic martial arts tournament, too many questions are left unanswered – for example, Yu-fei and just what she sees in the admittedly handsome, but rather bland Jie, and why she would risk her apparently stable relationship, not to mention her career, for a young man who is insistent to the point of obsessive (his own attraction to her not obvious beyond the aesthetics). And the question of why Yu-fei, a power-suited career girl, seems to fill her mid-afternoons with (not unappealing) vigorous, Flashdance-style dance routines in what may be a dance studio, or may be a car park (perhaps a combination of the two) would be destined to become one of the great, unanswered questions of world cinema, were Choy Lee Fut to get a wide international release, which does not look likely.
The production is broadly shoddy, with unconvincing dubbing for the English-speaking characters by Chinese voice actors. Sammo Hung’s top-billed cameo, book-ending the film, is a real disappointment, but his presence – and the presence of rising star Dennis To – makes one wonder how the production company weren’t able to secure extra financing, if only to pay for another draft of the problematic script. The locations and settings are generally restricted to the Choy Lee Fut school, the Pan-America office, and a few selected interiors. Several flashback sequences are rendered with unconvincing CGI backgrounds which, while giving them a certain dream-like quality, underscore the limits of the budget and the apparent speed of the shooting schedule.
Perhaps the biggest problem with Choy Lee Fut is its lack of insight into what makes this particular kung fu style special, and worth fighting to preserve. Unlike Wilson Yip Wai-shun’s Ip Man movies, which took the time to educate the audience on the basic principles of the Wing Chun style (thus ensuring maximum audience enjoyment in the scenes), directors Law and Wong offer no such meditation on Choy Lee Fut. In addition, the camerawork and editing employed by Wong in his role as action director render the style visually elusive, indistinguishable from the unnamed martial arts practiced by the bad guys. The characters are mired in a story without genuine, relatable or compelling conflict, over a martial art that the audience struggles to be impressed by.
That’s not to say that Wong’s action direction is bad. In fact, the fight scenes – few and far between though they may be – are one of Choy Lee Fut’s chief pleasures. The overly-stylish camerawork may slightly undermine the crisp choreography, as well as the athleticism of the talented cast, but when Choy Lee Fut seeks to get the audience’s pulse beating a little faster, it generally succeeds.
But the chief pleasure of this film is the performance of Yuen Wah as the ageing Choy Lee Fut master with a permanently wry, bemused expression that suggests the actor is not taking anything seriously and is just having fun. Yuen’s charisma – not always on show in his earlier, smaller supporting roles in ‘80s Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung vehicles – offers the audience a way into the film and gives them a consistent delight to look forward to, no matter what fruitless detours the script takes.
A huge disappointment, given the cast, and a missed opportunity to promote a wonderful kung fu style to a wider international audience. Decent fight scenes and a terrifically funny turn from Yuen Wah alone can’t quite bring Choy Lee Fut up to the level of ‘recommended’, although the first big-screen pairing of Hung sr. with Hung jr. will ensure that it remains a footnote in genre history. JN
Film: 71 - Into The Fire
Release date: 14th March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 116 mins
Director: John H. Lee
Starring: Cha Seung-won, Kwone Sang-woo, Choi Seung-hyun, Kim Seung-woo
Genre: Drama/War
Studio: Cine Asia
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: South Korea
An expensive, ambitious production chronicling the heroism and sacrifice of a reluctant group of student soldiers who fought one of the most important battles in the early goings of the Korean War.
They have only fired a single shot in training, but 71 student soldiers in the South Korean army are left behind to face the elite 766 Commando Brigade of their North Korean enemies. Under the leadership of Oh Jang-beom (Choi), this band of hapless and frightened young men suddenly find themselves on the front line of one of the crucial battles in a raging war.
As Oh’s leadership grows and faces tests from inside, the North Koreans get closer and closer. Soon, violence will explode, and not all of the 71 can hope to escape alive. But in a war destined to endure long after their souls have departed, how long can Oh’s ragtag band of young warriors hold off their enemies?
By now, the average film-viewer is used to seeing cinematic war from deep inside the trenches and right amongst the battle. But rarely has a war film featured violence and chaos as immediate and relentless as 71 - Into The Fire. It throws the viewer right into the thick of things, following the fortunes of characters whose names the filmmakers trust their audience to catch and remember. In not stopping to carve out personalities in the opening minutes, director Lee creates an effective cinematic reflection of the chaos and fundamental madness of war. That the viewer is plunged into a battle already taking place is disorientating enough, and a pretty standard film technique for this genre. As the action and exposition progresses across the first act at a deliberate pace, with older military men already at each other’s throats over strategic differences in a campaign that seems to have been doomed long before the opening credits, it renders the characters mostly elusive - the nameless and faceless destined to merge together beneath a statistic in history. It makes for unsettling and occasionally uncomfortable cinema for the distanced viewer, but is arguably far more potent for it.
The crew do exemplary work, both with the practical and prosthetic effects, as well as the digital. Bullets whiz by characters’ heads, zipping past the frame, while hideous dark blood sprays and spurts from new bullet wounds in all its saturated gore. Scenes of the inexperienced South Korean student soldiers dragging a variety of dead bodies into mass graves is convincing to the point of stomach-turning, as arms come loose and maggots writhe in bloody wounds. It would take a viewer of unfathomable impressionability to sign up to any army after watching this film.
The effects crew is matched shot-for-shot by the stunt team. In the opening ten minutes, the viewer watches agog as a stationary jeep is lifted twenty-feet off the ground by a bomb blast, soaring over the prone body of a soldier. It is the kind of stunning image, imaginative in its conception and breathtaking in its execution, that stays with the viewer throughout and after the film. Elsewhere, stuntmen tumble lifeless from buildings and absorb debris in explosions. In every department, Lee achieves a brutal, unromantic realism.
But the very nature of cinema brings a certain kinesis to proceedings and, as can sometimes happen with a war movie, or any film depicting real-life disasters and human suffering, there is the question of should it be as exciting, heart-pounding as it is? Is it disrespectful to thrill and entertain when depicting an important moment in history, a drive for freedom in which many lives were sacrificed? Director Lee admirably dances around this issue, by giving the audience thrills not with stylised or comic book-style violence, but with the heroism of the characters. The tragedy of war pounds the viewer into an exhausted state, but the courage and valour of the young men whose tale it tells makes 71 - Into The Fire an exhilarating ode to the human spirit.
Technically, the film is superb. The saturated colour palette again perfectly evokes the feeling of hopelessness and despair of war, while the cinematography is a seamless, fluid mix of a pseudo-documentary style and a more unobtrusive, subdued style in the dramatic and dialogue scenes. But no war film, however engrossing, can get by on action and visuals alone. What elevates 71 - Into The Fire above the general standard of the genre is the heart afforded to the script, and Lee’s way with teasing a pure, base form of dread from his audience. The aforementioned burial scene is stark and uncompromising in showing the human cost of war - not just the physical price paid by the dead, but the mental and emotional damage incurred by those who have to bury them. In less experienced hands, the spontaneous vomiting of the soldiers could have played like riotous - or even unintentional - black comedy, in Lee’s, the scene is heart-rending, and stokes the fires of fear in the viewer that not everyone in the group is cut out for the carnage and horror that is about to unfold. This sense of dread pervades the entire film - a scene with three ‘student’ soldiers play-acting with a grenade is unbearably tense, while the heightened antics of the North Korean forces (who swim across a river at the command of their single-minded general) render them almost otherworldly villains - the near-mythological bogeymen of history, marching relentlessly upon the plucky, overmatched South Korean underdogs.
And then there are the performances. Choi Seung-hyeon is an engaging lead as Oh Jang-beom, the reluctant commander of the student forces, whose sense of duty and patriotism is tested by his lack of faith in his own abilities. Pleasingly, upon being appointed, Jang-beom is neither whiny nor loud in his reluctance, but rather understated - his quiet conviction that he is not right for the role does as much to convince the viewer of impending doom as the looming North Korean army. But as his character rises to the occasion, Choi pulls the audience with him every step of the way - steady without being intense, and compelling without once showing off. Stealing the show is Cha Seung-won as Park, the North Korean general, who benefits from the more obviously stylised manner in which the early scenes of the North Korean advance are shot, edited and scored, filling the bigger frame with an effective evil charisma.
Of course, despite the film’s many strengths, there is the odd niggle. Lee is not averse to the odd cliché. A sequence showing fleeing soldiers crosscut with a flashback to their triumphant, hopeful setting off for the war, accompanied by a swelling orchestra, is pure war-film-by-numbers. Elsewhere, the suffering of the South Korean people is displayed in slightly gratuitous slow-motion, every effort made to wring out the last drops of emotions, and paint clear black-and-white baddies and goodies. But in a film of this quality and integrity, such flaws are forgivable as concessions for audience accessibility.
Come the conclusion, the viewer is left exhausted and spent. At two hours, the film is perhaps a little overlong - but that may be exactly the point. After all, does not every war outstay its welcome?
Technically on a par with any war film in recent memory, and with genuine heart and emotion, 71 - Into The Fire is a marvellous tribute to a brave band of reluctant warriors. JN
Film: Ip Man 2
Release date: 7th March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 104 mins
Director: Wilson Yip
Starring: Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Sammo Hung, Huang Xiaoming, Darren Shahlavi
Genre: Action/Biography/History/Martial Arts
Studio: Cine Asia
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Hong Kong
The fifth collaboration between director Wilson Yip and leading man Donnie Yen is a sequel to their mega-hit Ip Man - an epic martial arts period actioner that not only established a brand new Hong Kong cinematic folk hero, but also showed a new side of Yen’s acting ability, as well as featuring some of the best Wing Chun kung fu choreography ever committed to film. With Ip Man 2, can they clear their own high bar?
Hong Kong, 1950. Having escaped occupied China, Wing Chun Master Ip Man (Yen) is now living in Hong Kong with his pregnant wife Wing Sing (Lynn Hung) and trying to scrape a living by teaching his art. But in a colonial Hong Kong still suffering the after-effects of war, where water is rationed and the local martial arts masters are charged a protection fee by the British authorities, times are hard, and day after day goes by without a single potential student joining Master Ip’s inconveniently located rooftop school.
This all changes when Wong Leung (Huang), a cocky street-tough, wanders in to see what Wing Chun is all about. After he and his friends are humbled by Ip’s superior skills, they accept him as their Master, and he soon has a flourishing business. However, as a recent arrival to Hong Kong, Ip is not aware that the local martial arts community is a tight-knit, pseudo-Triad overseen by Master Hung Chan-nam (Sammo Hung), who demands that the new Master prove himself a worthy teacher in a series of challenges.
After forming an initially grudging, mutual respect for Master Hung, Ip is disappointed to learn that he demands a monthly protection fee from all martial arts teachers. But Hung, in turn, is under the control of a corrupt British police officer, paying him a protection fee to ensure the kung-fu schools can operate in peace. And when the arrogant boxer ‘Twister’ (Shahlavi) comes to Hong Kong for a tournament, tensions between the oppressed Chinese and the colonial bullies threaten to explode - with Masters Hung and Ip destined to find themselves right in the middle of the fray…
As has been discussed in other reviews of Hong Kong movies on this very site, the fact that there was a quick sequel to Ip Man is hardly a surprise. The first film did great box-office in Hong Kong and China, and picked up a slew of Asian film awards; it was also well-received in international territories, thanks largely to its lavish production values, terrific action sequences, and a charismatic central performance from star Donnie Yen. It precipitated the creation of a small subgenre in Hong Kong films, centred on a real-life martial arts master who had, until then, existed only as a footnote in biographies of the late, great Bruce Lee (his most illustrious disciple) - in between Ip Man 1 and 2 came The Legend Is Born - Ip Man, starring Dennis To (who, somewhat bizarrely, has a cameo in this movie as a troublesome disciple of Sammo Hung’s character) as a younger version of Master Ip; and Tony Leung Chiu-wai has taken the role in Wong Kar-wai’s still-in-production The Grandmaster. But as the first entry in the Ip Man cinematic canon, featuring a career-defining performance from Donnie Yen and endorsement from the master’s son Ip Chun (credited as a technical advisor), Wilson’s Yip’s movie has the distinction of being the closest thing to the ‘official’ and ‘definitive’ Ip Man movie. Hence, the sequel.
Pleasingly, after an initial recap of the first film, Ip Man 2 establishes a measured and deliberate pace, avoiding any temptation to launch into a simple re-tread of its predecessor, or move straight into the action. Like in Tsui Hark’s Once Upon A Time In China series a generation earlier (to which Yip’s movies now deserve comparison), the sequel attempts to mine some new storytelling territory from the off. Master Ip is in a new location and a new predicament in the early goings of part two, with new tests of his characteristic dignity and righteous nature. His developing relationship with first student Wong Leung is unlike any dynamic shared with any character in the previous movie, and allows the audience a deeper insight into Master Ip, the man and martial arts philosopher.
Ip Man 2 is at its strongest in its first hour, as it chronicles the establishment and flourishing of Master Ip’s martial arts school, with meditations on the principles of Wing Chun (indeed, both movies serve as a fabulous commercial for this practical and economical self-defence style). And Ip’s rapport with Wong Leung is a more interesting one than any featured in the first movie, as the brash and obnoxious street kid is set on the road to maturity through his martial instruction (in real life, Wong would be the disciple placed in charge of the teenage Bruce Lee’s day-to-day teaching). Yip’s directorial command is much more evident here than in the first film, as he lets the characters build and play off each other, the narrative and emotional arcs developing at a rather gentle pace that nevertheless regularly bursts into scenes of combat that never feel forced or not germane to the story.
1950s Hong Kong is sumptuously created, even if astute and knowledgeable viewers will spot the odd anachronistic detail (a poster advertising the Sonny Liston-Cassius Clay fight being perhaps the most egregious). This is an even bigger production than the first movie, and it is to the filmmakers’ credit that a good portion of the running time is given over to quieter, human drama, rather than wall-to-wall bombastic action. The early sequences of Master Ip, the family man, trying to support his heavily pregnant wife and their son, too embarrassed to chase his young students for the school fees that his life literally depends on, are engaging thanks to the combination of understated acting and Yip’s resistance of showing the poverty of the era with a heavy hand. In its first two acts, Ip Man 2 is that rare beast - a Hong Kong martial arts movie with a dramatic foundation that is genuinely character-based.
Act two sees Yip and screenwriter Edmond Wong move up a gear with the introduction of rival students to Master Ip’s, led by Master Hung, a Hung Kuen (occasionally referred to as Hung Gar) stylist who owns and operates a fish market, and carries himself as much like a Triad kingpin as a martial arts teacher. This again, brings a new character dynamic to proceedings, as he and Master Ip develop a mutual respect for each other’s abilities, while butting heads over their respective approaches to navigating the sometimes difficult and oppressive nature of living under colonial British rule. Master Hung’s deeply conflicted approach, which perhaps involves a soul-destroying modification of his own beliefs and patriotism in an effort to protect his compatriots as best he can, is in direct contrast with Master Ip’s more immovable stance that a martial artist should not accept extortion under any circumstances. It’s a clash born as much out of personality as standard kung fu macho posturing, and is all the more compelling for it.
However, in the middle of act two, the filmmakers attempt another gear-shift - one that is not as smooth as its first. Meandering away from Ip Man to Master Hung, and exploring his dealings with the racist, extortionate British authorities (in the person of Charlie Mayer’s corrupt police officer), the narrative loses focus and leaves its protagonist stranded on the periphery of the main plot, without a real objective of his own, other than to preserve his integrity. Thus, when Master Hung’s bullying students pick a gang fight with Ip’s disciples, the resulting ruckus lacks the weight of earlier action scenes.
The script sacrifices its more interesting story to become a rather more familiar Chinese vs. Evil Oppressor narrative, which is perhaps disappointing coming off the back of a first hour pleasantly devoid of the broadly caricatured foreign figures that have been turning up all-too regularly in recent Chinese-language action movies. Personified by Darren Shahlavi’s ‘Twister’, a hulking boxing champion with an air of the period gangster about him, the British colonialists are quickly introduced as the enemy - Twister’s flagrant disrespect for ‘Chinese boxing’ sets in motion a chain-of-events that will result in a brace of hard-hitting, inter-discipline duels that see the righteous Chinese heroes stand up for the honour of their country and its martial arts traditions.
Not only is this story’s change of direction a little disappointing because it is what we might expect from a more basic Hong Kong martial arts film, but it is also - as was the depiction of the Japanese in part one - somewhat troubling for the viewer. A sense of nationalism in Hong Kong/Chinese cinema is nothing in new, but as the world moves further and further away from the eras depicted in period films, it is both fascinating and bizarre to witness the gusto with which certain Chinese filmmakers present broad, ugly caricatures of past-oppressors in the name of bolstering contemporary national pride and identity. If anything, Ip Man 2 represents a deepening of this ‘problem’ – the first film’s principal villain, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi’s General Miura, at least had a recognizable sense of warrior’s honour and respect for Ip Man; his desire to fight him born more out of a need to test himself against a credible opponent than any sense of oppression. No such element is afforded to Shahlavi’s ‘Twister’, whose personality outweighs even his heavyweight physique, and remains a rather one-note villain. This is not to take away from Shahlavi, who works hard in the role (especially in the combat scenes), but is not afforded the screen-time or nuance to flesh out his antagonist, as the filmmakers take no chances at all that the audience won’t be clamouring for the defeat of the ‘gwailo’.
But if Ip Man 2 strikes an inconsistent balance between its first and second hours, it scores consistently - and consistently high - in the other areas that matter. Once again, Donnie Yen delivers a terrific performance, building on the quiet grace that so surprised long-time admirers in the first movie, and adding to it a sense of dignity that is both appealing and, occasionally, affecting. The early scenes with Ip Man sitting quietly, smiling through the frustration of having a school with no students, are rather poignant, and ensure that even newcomers to the Ip Man legend will accept him as their hero right from the off. Yen is destined to become as synonymous with this role as Jet Li was with Wong Fei-hung.
As the conflicted Master Hung, Sammo Hung brings all of the weight and gravitas acquired over his nearly five decades in the fight film industry, commanding the screen and audience as easily as he does the kung fu masters and students he oversees. Huang Xiao-ming is engaging and appealing as the hot-headed Wong Leung, even if the character is the most disserved by the story shift, more or less disappearing from the film in the second half. Throughout the cast, there are pleasing guest appearances from returning faces like Fan Sui-wong and Simon Yam - and if their various scenes don’t always feel absolutely essential to Ip Man 2’s core narrative, their presence is nevertheless a clear indication of the filmmakers’ attempt to create not your usual quick cash-in, but a bona fide martial arts saga, which lends both films an invaluable sense of prestige.
As action choreographer, Sammo Hung has much more to work with than he did previously, staging a series of unique and thrilling battles, pitting Ip Man’s Wing Chun style against a variety of other disciplines, most notably Hung Kuen and Western boxing. His work here exceeds that of the first movie, and his collaboration with cinematographer Poon Hang-sang (veteran of Jet Li’s Fearless, among other notable entries in the genre) makes thrilling use of Kenneth Mak’s gorgeous production design - the highlight being the table-top fight between Ip Man and Master Hung. Unique, inventive and thrilling in its conception and execution, it is a worthy successor to the actors’ maiden dust-up in Yip’s earlier Kill Zone, and another reminder of Hung’s genius with staging action scenes.
Ip Man 2 is not without its issues and flaws, but in broadening out the canvas of the mythology, Wilson Yip has crafted a sequel that deserves comparison with the Once Upon A Time In China series. What next for part three? Should Donnie Yen overcome the trepidation he has expressed in interviews about trying to top his work in part two? Tantalisingly, there remains at least one more relationship to extract from the Ip Man mythology - the one between Master Ip and his teenaged disciple, Bruce Lee. In a splendid coda to Ip Man 2, this story is teased when a precocious youngster swaggers into Master Ip’s school and requests to be taken on as a student. Played by Jiang Dai-yan - a child actor who not only bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Lee at that age, but also a fine flair for mimicking the ‘Little Dragon’s’ signature mannerisms - Lee’s appearance is a crowd-pleasing one. In fact, one may even go as far as saying that it begins to deliver on an unspoken promise to audiences (especially international) that the Ip Man films would, to some extent, explore the early life of the martial arts movie legend. Given that Lee’s name has been used prominently in the two films’ promotion, it seems only fitting that he make an appearance, and - for all the flaws in the narratives of the first two films - a final movie focusing on the positive effect martial arts teaching had on a young icon-in-waiting who was, at that stage of his life, something of a troublesome delinquent is entirely desirable. Reportedly, image rights issues with Lee’s estate prevented the filmmakers from featuring him more prominently in this film, but one would hope these are resolved if and when Yen and Yip decide to conclude their trilogy.
Builds upon the groundwork of part one, and exceeds it in the areas most audiences will care about - acting, production and action. If the depiction of foreigners remains an issue in the genre, it should nevertheless not obscure the fact that Ip Man 2 is supreme, peerless entertainment where it counts. JN
Film: Enter The Dragon
Release date: 15th October 2001
Certificate: 18
Running time: 98 mins
Director: Robert Clouse
Starring: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly, Ahna Capri, Kien Shih
Genre: Action/Crime/Drama/Martial Arts/Thriller
Studio: Warner Bros.
Format: DVD
Country: Hong Kong/USA
This is an English-Language release.
In late 1972, Bruce Lee abandoned work on his fourth Hong Kong action movie, and second as writer-director-star - his pet project, the planned philosophical opus Game Of Death. The reason - Hollywood had come calling, with a million dollar budget for an English-language, international co-production. Lee was convinced that this was going to be the break he craved - the moment he brought martial arts movies, and his combat philosophy, to the wider world for the first time. He was right - in August 1973, Enter The Dragon was released in America, and it would go on to make 200 times its budget in box office receipts, and cement Lee’s position as a cinematic and cultural icon as revered internationally as he was in Hong Kong. The tragedy was, he would never live to see his efforts be rewarded, as he would pass away the month before the film’s premiere.
Three very different men have three very different reasons for making their way to an elite martial arts tournament on the mysterious Han’s Island, which lies off the coast of China. Williams (Kelly) is an American karate expert, looking for the next challenge - and a good time while he’s at it; his old ’Nam buddy Roper (Saxon) is a struggling businessman whose gambling problems have got him in hot water with shady money-lenders. And then there is the man known only as Mr Lee, a Shaolin-trained secret operative hired by a British intelligence agency to go undercover as a competitor while he gathers evidence of a human trafficking ring by the owner of the island, Mr Han (Kien).
As Lee gets to work, the tournament gets underway. But after a nocturnal reconnaissance mission, Lee’s cover is almost blown - leading to the brutal murder of a wrongly accused competitor. With Han closing ranks to make sure his evil secrets never leave his island fortress, can Lee and the Americans escape with their lives?
The setting may be international, the leading man may be Chinese, and the action full of hitherto little-seen martial arts, but the genius of Enter The Dragon as a commercial endeavour is that, for western audiences, the movie feels quickly familiar and comfortable. Once the Shaolin-based prologue sequence (featuring a nifty dust-up between Bruce Lee and a young, pre-fame Sammo Hung) is out of the way, the story settles into a James Bond-like scenario, with Lee contacted by a posh, British intelligence supremo and charged with his mission to get the evidence against the corrupt, disgraced former Shaolin monk, Mr Han. While Han’s cover, his martial arts tournament, has lashings of the exotic and mystical about it, his real business - opium production and prostitution - is run out of an underground lair in which the likes of Blofeld or Dr No would feel very much at home.
The familiarity may ensure that western audiences are not alienated, and the technical aspects of the film are of a standard that said audiences would expect (with the exception of the sound dubbing, necessitated by the international cast, which is mildly - but very noticeably - out of sync), but the script by Michael Allin offers little in the way of surprise. The perspective of the film is broadly omniscient - Han’s guilt is established early on, his criminal operation known to those who would have him brought down (“We know everything,” says Mr Lee’s British contact Mr Braithwaite, “we can prove nothing”). As such, the main narrative objective is frustratingly simple - Mr Lee must get in and get out. The star may be working with a significantly bigger budget than he was used to in Hong Kong, but the step forward in script sophistication is minimal at best. Enter the Dragon is as pure an exploitation film as The Big Boss and Fist Of Fury.
With Mr Lee’s mission simple and straightforward, complicated only by an early subplot involving the death of his sister at the hands of Mr Han’s bodyguard Oharra (Bob Wall, veteran of Lee’s directorial debut, Way Of The Dragon), it is left to the other main characters to flesh out the story and perhaps hook the audience emotionally. Unlike Mr Lee, Williams and Roper don’t know what they have got themselves into, and as Mr Lee’s clandestine mission pulls them in, it is their vulnerability and narrative disposability that creates the highest levels of suspense in the early and middle sections of the film. Indeed, it is obvious - from the attention paid to Mr Roper, as well as the actor’s sharing of top billing - that John Saxon is intended almost as a ‘secret’ star of the movie in the event that international audiences were alienated by a Chinese leading man. While this may seem like a ludicrous notion in 2011, one must remember that the film was produced just a few short years after studio executives rejected Bruce Lee for the lead role in the television series Kung-Fu (which he had helped develop) for this very reason, preferring to cast Caucasian actor David Carradine and use make-up to make him look half-Chinese.
Of course, there is little chance of an audience not being in awe of Bruce Lee’s screen presence, even in what is unquestionably the blandest role ever scripted for him. Mr Lee is a straight-faced, straightforward heroic character who sets about his mission with an unwavering sense of duty, even despite his obvious disdain for his British employer. While his desire to avenge his sister’s death, as well as his loyalty to the Shaolin Temple that Han has offended (it is unclear if Mr Lee is a monk, former monk, or simply some kind of ward of the Temple Abbot), adds some extra weight to his objective, this protagonist lacks the intense, vengeful drive of Fist Of Fury’s Chen Zhen, or the pushed-too-far-wrath of The Big Boss’s Cheng Chao-an. But if the script serves up no real reason for the audience to invest in Mr Lee’s mission, the actor’s grace and physicality provide ample vicarious pleasure as compensation.
Knowing that this could be his big break into Hollywood, Lee goes all out to ensure that international audiences are left in no doubt that they are seeing an action hero unlike any that has graced their screen before. Bearing not a shred of resemblance to the personas of western counterparts such as Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen or Sean Connery, Lee puts his physicality and grace front and centre. However extravagant the fight scenes get, there is a simple, undeniable conviction to Bruce Lee when he fights on-screen. So compelling a presence is he, audiences - of all ages - genuinely believed that he was the ‘real deal’, as dynamic and exciting off-screen as he was on it. Here, arguably, is the core to Lee’s initial and enduring appeal - the audience’s faith that he was more than a movie hero, or - to borrow a Hong Kong phrase - a “Paper Tiger”. He was one-hundred-percent for real.
The fight sequences are the most elaborate Lee ever filmed, each one more stirring and spectacular than the last, as the star forges a clear international identity. Lee’s fight against dozens of nameless henchman in an underground cave showcases the full range of his martial arts skill - empty-handed fighting, followed by a variety of weapons, including his signature nunchuku, in a sequence that remains every bit as breathtaking thirty-eight years later. The beginning of the climax, that begins with a two-against-twenty set-up that quickly becomes a martial arts riot, is the appetiser to the film’s main course - a genuine coup de cinema that pits Mr Lee against Han in a hall of mirrors. A genuinely stunning sequence from a visual perspective - and clearly an immense challenge for all departments - this fight also shows Lee’s innate skill, not just as a choreographer of technique, but with pacing the action. Here, at last, in the film’s legendary final reel is the kind of suspense lacking in the preceding hour, with Lee the action director using the imaginative setting to full effect.
Of course, Lee as a martial artist and martial arts filmmaker was concerned with much more than simply giving the audience a good time. An intensely passionate and philosophical man, he wanted to introduce martial arts to the wider world, to popularise what he believed was the true essence of combat and physical expression. A consistent theme of his work in Hong Kong film, the original release-print of Enter The Dragon suppressed this element to a handful of references. Some are beautifully simple and clear, such as Mr Lee’s withering response to a show of strength from Oharra (“Boards…don’t hit back”), while some are almost ambiguous and obscure, such as the reference to “heavenly glory” in the famous “kick me” scene. Due to his passing, we will never know how Lee would have reacted to the final cut of Enter The Dragon, but later re-issues of the film have now reinstated a key philosophical exposition scene that one imagines is much more in line with the actor’s vision for his international coming out party. After his bout with Sammo Hung, Mr Lee is summoned to his Abbot’s side for an assessment of his victory, during which the two relay philosophies of approach to combat, a discussion which will pay off during the Hall of Mirrors sequence. Though the hour-plus of running time between set-up and pay-off renders the recalling of the initial dialogue somewhat convenient, even jarring in the midst of a climax to a martial arts espionage thriller, it nevertheless feels appropriate that Lee’s philosophies survive and endure.
Enter The Dragon is rightly considered a classic, and remains the cornerstone of western martial arts movies. Viewed objectively in the fourth decade since its release, it is easy to note that its esteem is somewhat higher than the simple script and efficient, but indistinct, direction from Robert Clouse actually warrant. But, as he did in his Hong Kong films, Bruce Lee does not simply ‘slum it’ in an ordinary movie - rather, he lifts the ordinary movie closer to the level on which he works. A genuine cultural phenomenon in 1973, it remains American cinema’s most successful fusion of east and west - Hong Kong action with a Hollywood sheen. And if the film is perhaps something of a ‘camp classic’ today, the sincerity and passion which Bruce Lee brought to his every endeavour makes it an exhilarating one as well.
A simple but magnificently effective martial arts actioner that deservedly broke down the barriers in the west. It is also quite possibly the most appropriate title in film history. However, it is one of action cinema’s greatest tragedies that the Dragon had already made his exit. JN
Film: Taipei Exchange
Running time: 82 mins
Director: Hsiao Ya-chuan
Starring: Kwan Lun-mei, Zaizai Lin, Chang Han, Ma Yu-li, Lin Chen Xi
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Country: Taiwan
This film will be screened at the Pan-Asia Film Festival, which begins today in London (7th March 2011). Find out more about this event by clicking here.
A simple, unpretentious story about two sisters running an unconventional café. As an offering from this year’s Pan-Asia Film Festival, is Taipei Exchanges a profound statement on the nature of true personal ‘treasure’, or an exercise in glossy style over substance?
Doris (Kwan) and Josie (Lin) are two sisters who jointly run Doris’s café in a suburb of Taipei - a café filled with the useless junk and clutter brought by Doris’ friends on its day of opening. Unsure of what to do with the random ‘gifts’, which robs their establishment of any clear identity, Josie hits upon the novel idea of offering everything up not for sale, but exchange.
Encouraging customers to bring unwanted items of their own to the café, which they can trade for anything that takes their fancy, Doris and Josie attract a random selection of souls, whose new gifts carry stories and emotional baggage…
Opening with a series of close-ups, in varying degrees of focus, of a slender pair of female hands making coffee and preparing food - the camera lens lingering over every shot, accompanied by a jaunty, jazzy piano score - one could be forgiven for expecting Wong Kar-wai’s name to pop up on the credits (if not as director, then maybe as an executive producer). Director Hsiao sets up a leisurely, unhurried pace that is maintained throughout the remainder of the film. Like the characters that wander in and out of Doris’s café, Taipei Exchanges will amble and drift in any direction it pleases, confident that its audience will come along for the stroll.
It’s not just the cinematic fetish for food and meandering narrative that recalls Wong Kar-wai, but also the pseudo-philosophical dialogue ponderings of the central characters, as well as the film’s premise - the coffee shop as cinematic precinct make it almost a descendant of Chungking Express. Unlike Wong, however, Hsiao’s film refuses (or perhaps lacks the confidence) to use its intriguing theme (bartering, and the curious things humans ‘treasure’) to offer anything in the way of profundity. A first act digression into a series of talking heads (presumably real people on the streets of Taipei), giving differing opinions on a choice between cash and countless calla lilies (repeated in the second act, on the subject of Study vs. Travel, and then again in the third, which summarises the film’s lightweight ‘message’), suggests an attempt at commentary on capitalism, or perhaps materialism. But the effect is disorientating rather than stimulating, Hsiao’s exact intentions oblique and distant.
In truth, Hsiao’s attempts to lend meaning and weight to proceedings do little more than get in the way of what is, otherwise, an enjoyable slice of cinematic fluff. The film’s principle strengths lie in its breezy energy, and a knack for conjuring bizarrely funny visual gags (Doris’ friends bringing their succession of tacky ‘café-warming’ gifts hits a high point with the arrival of a big red barbell). But what lingers after the end credits are its genuine and moving human moments - the customer who seeks to exchange thirty-five scented soaps in exchange for thirty-five love letters, for example, or the trading of a (possibly fabricated) story for a mobile phone accessory that, again, recall Wong Kar-wai, without explicitly feeling like homage or imitation. Taipei Exchanges is light without being pointless, positive without recourse to pat optimism. Though it takes place in the kind of heightened reality that can only really exist on celluloid, it never feels calculated, manipulative or disingenuous. Because of this, it is impossible to dislike.
Hsiao is also aided by a delightful performance from leading lady Kwan Lun-mei, whose eager smile and child-like eyes are undoubtedly heart-melting. As Doris, Kwan fleshes a real character out of one that a lesser performer might have rendered as little more than incessantly quirky. It is a charming, mature performance that anchors the film. She is well matched by Zaizai Lin as Josie, perhaps the slightly more ‘oddball’ of the two. Tempering her youthful energy, and letting her charisma work a magic on the audience, Lin makes Josie the heart of the film, pulling the audience in and making them invest, even though - by traditional narrative standards - there is almost nothing at stake.
The cinematography is as easy on the eye as the film’s photogenic leads, even if its long-lensed master shots and wilful obstruction of the actors with inanimate objects in the foreground smacks of filmmakers reaching for Christopher Doyle-style imagery without the great man’s flair and innate genius. Though not a great deal of Taipei is actually shown (which is surprising, considering that the film was part funded by the city’s tourist bureau), the film brings out the character of the city, making it feel like a story that could take place only there.
Taipei Exchanges is, perhaps, not for everyone, and certainly not the uninitiated. Its central relationships lack traditional tension and conflict, while its narrative happily meanders from sequence to sequence - content to drift, rather than motor - and there is never anything significant at stake from minute one to minute eighty-two. However, for the initiated, and even those who have grown weary of smug and cynical cinema, the film’s simple pleasures and genuine heart make it an absolute delight.
Taipei Exchanges is inoffensive and thoroughly charming, even if it is about as substantial as one of the éclairs Doris sells (on Wednesday’s only). Delightful. JN
Series: Bamboo Blade: Series 1 - Part 2
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: PG
Running time: 170 mins
Director: Hisashi Saito
Starring: N/a
Genre: Anime
Studio: Manga
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
The second half of Bamboo Blade Series 1 offers more in the way of surreal comedy and outrageous action. After an impressive first half, does the anime adaptation of Masahiro Totsuka’s manga maintain the quality?
Sensei Toraji’s all-girl kendo team are chasing the goal of reaching the national championships. But the road to glory is paved with injuries, treachery, deceit, protective fathers, quiz game shows and threats of disbandment.
Facing conflict on and off the mat, can the Muroe High kendo girls maintain their focus and team unity?
When the doors of Muroe High open up, a viewer feels like he or she has attended there themselves, such is the vividness with which Saito and his writers bring to life their quirky cast of characters, and their equally quirky dramatic precinct. The series balances recognisable teen conflicts and trials with exciting action, and the cast of characters ensures that what could have been a one-joke, rather high concept simply never runs out of steam.
The juxtaposition of sweet looking and sounding teenage girls indulging a love for kendo never gets old. The series maintains a consistent level of fun that makes the episodes breeze by, as well as an impressive balance between action and surrealism. Saito doesn’t just break the fourth wall in this series - he bulldozes right through it, pulling out seemingly every trick from the animation bag. Characters shrink and de-age to reflect inferior status in conversation; comedic asides are almost bewildering non-sequiturs (think Family Guy, or even the classic 1980s British sitcom The Young Ones - only madder); and subtexts of scenes are given visible metaphorical treatment.
While the experience is initially overwhelming, the series settles into a delightful groove, with occasional knowing, deadpan winks to its outrageous happenings (“Did you hear something go boom?”/“There’s something black coming from that direction…” ). The quieter moments are just as, if not more, effective (such as Tamaki’s adorable panic about DVR-ing her favourite TV programmes over the weekend she’ll be at training camp). The filmmakers are clearly having fun, and want to share that fun with their viewer, but the efforts they make to flesh out the characters ensures audience empathy is high.
It is the surrealism that remains the most effective element of the series. ‘It’ girl Miya-miya is perhaps the embodiment of the series’ fascinating contradictions/juxtapositions. In a series that could very easily get by as a classroom comedy about plucky young heroines we can root for, Miya-miya occasionally seems like she’s walked in from another (darker) series entirely - her manipulative acts accompanied by a black aura and asides to a giant snake, the audience is momentarily almost convinced that this schemer has magical powers.
In its high school setting, the series is extremely well observed, and consistently witty. Boy team-members Yuji and Dan-kun are reliable sources of humour. The latter especially, in his odd couple romantic pairing with Miya-miya (the sight of them together is a subtle visual gag that the filmmakers refrain from overplaying), and perennial position on the sidelines, is a delight. The relationships between the girls rings true, and the mixture of high-action and -farce with recognisable teenage/high school problems gives the series its continual momentum, where it could so easily have run out of steam. In addition, the bigness of the characters creates opportunities for the writers to throw out silly lines like “The sliminess is the best part of pool cleaning!” - the fun is infectious for older viewers, and the silliness of the comedy is pitched just right for younger ones. Bamboo Blade has genuine appeal across age-ranges and gender.
These characters are the cornerstone of the whole series. Tamaki, perhaps the closest to an actual heroine, is an endearing character with an intriguing home-life and relationship with her suspicious, overprotective father. Miya-miya strikes an enticing balance between loved-up and calculating. Then there’s the sensei character, Toraji. He is an interesting mentor figure in the sports/high school genre in that he’s a bit of a sad sack, with very little in the way of genuine wisdom or insight. In fact, most memorable about him is his nerdy outlook (such as his abhorrence of 3D gaming - “Long live sprites” being one of the funnier lines in the series). On the surface, the series is a rather simple one, but the filmmakers wisely eschew making caricatures of any of their characters.
And herein lies the key to the success of Bamboo Blade as a series: a cast of characters with lives and backstories gently fleshed out over the course of the series. Episode by episode, we come to care about them all. An audience never has any trouble cheering for the Muroe High kendo team.
Freely mixing styles and tone with characters that are alternately over-the-top and understated, Bamboo Blade should not work, and yet somehow does. Consistently funny, and often touching, it is a delight from start-to-finish. A second series is a highly desirable prospect. JN
Film: Tajomaru: Avenging Blade
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: 12
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Hiroyuki Nakano
Starring: Shun Oguri, Yuki Shibamoto, Kenichi Hagiwara, Kei Tanaka, Kyôsuke Yabe
Genre: Action/Adventure/Crime/Drama
Studio: Manga
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
The name ‘Tajomaru’ will ring bells with cinephiles, it being the character played by the great Toshiro Mifune in Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon. Director Hiroyuki Nakana resurrects the character, and fleshes out a backstory that leads into the earlier film’s narrative. But are the results worthy of one of cinema’s great masters?
Feudal Japan. Naomitsu, second son of the house of Hatakeyama, strikes up a friendship with young thief Sakuramaru, who he rescues from punishment and appoints as his servant. Free of the future of responsibilities lying on the shoulders of his older brother, first son Nobutsana, Naomitsu wants nothing more than a simple life with his friends…and maybe, in the future, romance with Princess Ako-hime.
But later in life, tensions rise, threatening to rip apart the bonds of the lifelong friends. Under pressure from the Shogun, Nobutsana (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi) pushes his claim to marry Ako-hime (Yuki Shibamoto), much to Naomitsu’s (Shun Oguri) chagrin. Then everything Naomitsu knows is shredded by the betrayal of Sakuramaru (Kei Tanaka), who - with the backing of the Shogun - plans to kill the brothers and claim their family’s gold.
Banished into the mountains, the young lovers’ path crosses with that of the mysterious bandit, Tajomaru (Hiroki Matsukata), where they discover that their lives are about to take a darker turn...
In constructing a brand new film to serve as back-story for one of Akira Kurosawa’s landmark works, director Hiroyuki Nakano sets himself rather a high bar to clear. Indeed, the challenge is comparable to a high-jumper attempting to beat a pole-vaulter, without the pole. Film industry legend says that Rashomon was the reason for the creation of a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and brought Japanese cinema to the world. The film’s very title has long since been adopted by the English language to describe the scenario of conflicting testimonies regarding the same event. Attempting to add to its legend and mythology is a bold move for any filmmaker to make, not least because, in Rashomon, Kurosawa showed a master’s understanding of the very language of cinema. It is not just an enthralling movie that warrants constant revisiting - it was a game-changer in its day. Its manipulation of classic film narrative structure was as bold and groundbreaking as Citizen Kane almost a decade before, and its influence resonates in such diverse works as Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects and Zhang Yimou’s Hero, both proud spiritual descendants of Rashomon.
Kurosawa produced an epic in less than ninety minutes. Nakano’s film, in contrast, is over two hours long and has neither the scope nor the depth of the earlier work. Conversations move sluggishly, and character motivations are often frustratingly oblique. Consider Sakaramaru’s initial playing-off of the Hatakeyama brothers, regarding their duelling affections for Ako-hime. Off the back of a rather sweet prologue played by child actors depicting youthful versions of the central quartet, Sakaramaru’s character ‘turn’ is unexpected and shocking, but perhaps not in the way the filmmakers intend. We have no reason to suspect that, in the intervening years, the Hatakeyama brothers - in particular Naomitsu - would have done anything to warrant the manipulation (and eventual treachery) of their adoptive brother, nor does it seem credible that the bedraggled, desperately hungry boy of the prologue sequence was simply biding his time until he double-crossed them for his own gain. What should be an engrossing opening act instead leaves the viewer cold, and not infrequently confused.
Because of the lack of depth to the characters as written, the simmering tensions never feel on the verge of boiling over or exploding. When they do, as in Naomitsu’s storming of the compound looking for his treacherous (that being an unfortunately catch-all adjective for almost every character in this film) brother, the action sequences are stilted and unimaginative. Likewise, the drama never really takes hold. The movement of the plot is often as staid, stately and stilted as the characters’ conduct and interaction - consider a scene early in the film, where Sakumaru coldly announces his plan to kill a secondary character who, rather than run or back away, chooses to calmly ask why. With a cast of characters whose contradictions are simply contradictions, rather than complexities, and who exist within a historical/political context that is neither fully defined (thereby inhibiting the audience from understanding and caring about the stakes), Tajomaru never escapes the shackles of its own irrelevance. Indeed, one wonders if the claiming of Rashomon as a cinematic ancestor is little more than an opportunistic attempt to elevate a film that sits awkwardly between genres - neither hard-hitting samurai epic or insightful human drama.
No discussion of Tajomaru can completely escape the comparison to Rashomon, not once it introduces the character of Tajomaru, the famous and feared bandit. While the piquing of audience interest may have more to do with the basic fascination factor of its ties to Rashomon, the reveal of the titular character does shore up what had previously been a scattered, wayward narrative. Disappointingly, the initial fight scene between Tajomaru and Naomitsu is clumsily staged, with a distractingly modern, electronic-sounding score in place of the expected traditional orchestral soundtrack - a rather bewildering and inexplicable anachronism. The swords are sharp, but the action is blunt - a problem that persists throughout the rest of the film.
Tajomaru is easy on the eye, even if its sets and production design aren’t quite as grand as one might have expected from a historical epic (indicative, presumably, of a limited budget); and the actors work hard to bring life to a script that offers little in the way of character emotion beyond varying levels of intensity, jealousy and anger. It’s clear the filmmakers intend to create a passionate epic, but with the story making a point of stopping by so many familiar and traditional signposts, audience engagement is limited. Even an intriguing subplot involving the sexual abuse of Sakuramaru at the hands of the Shogun, within the confines of otherwise clichéd storytelling, is nothing more than a way for the filmmakers to ensure that audience sympathy was directed where they intended. It aims for so much - grand, epic, passionate and powerful - but in the end falls sadly short. Ultimately, Tajomaru never seems quite sure of its own identity, and is more a mixed bag of curious intentions than any sort of cohesive whole.
Hardly a Japanese Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. An interesting proposition for cinema lovers, but an ultimately unnecessary appendix to the Rashomon legacy. Lacking its own identity, and fighting for shelf-space with superior movies in the same genre, it is difficult to see to whom, exactly, Tajomaru will appeal. JN
Film: Legend Of The Fist: The Return Of Chen Zhen
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 102 mins
Director: Andrew Lau Wai-keung
Starring: Donnie Yen, Shu Qi, Anthony Wong, Huang Bo, Zhou Yang
Genre: Action/Drama/History/Martial Arts
Studio: Metrodome
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Hong Kong/China
One is an acclaimed director, the other an ever-growing martial arts man-of-the-moment. Their source material is Bruce Lee’s finest hour. How does this first collaboration between Andrew Lau and Donnie Yen shape up?
In this sequel to the mid-90s television remake of Bruce Lee’s Fist Of Fury, Legend Of The Fist sees Chen Zhen returning from fighting in World War One and assuming the identity of a fallen comrade in order to evade the Japanese Imperialists who believed that he died years before.
Becoming a partner in the famed Casablanca nightclub in Shanghai, run by the likeable Mr Liu (Wong), he falls for the charms of Kiki (Shu Qi) a beautiful singer/hostess at the club, not knowing that she is really a Japanese spy.
As the Japanese Imperial might grows stronger and more impressive, Chen’s sense of righteousness prevents him from simply sitting in the shadows. Adopting a secret identity as ‘The Masked Warrior’, he stalks the streets at night and sabotages the Japanese villains’ assassination attempts, quickly becoming a scourge of the Imperialists, and a mythologized hero to the locals.
Challenged to a wager by the evil Colonel Chikarasishi (Kohata), whereby they bet on how many dissident Chinese intellectuals the Japanese can assassinate before ‘The Masked Warrior’, Chen Zhen is drawn deeper and deeper into a desperate fight for freedom…
Opening with an intense First World War/No Man’s Land sequence featuring Donnie Yen in super-heroic mode, Legend Of The Fist establishes an extremely arresting visual style that sets the tone for a classic extravaganza of action. Along the way, the ‘classic’ adjective begins to fade, but the film remains very much the kind of thrilling fight movie that Hong Kong and China do better than anyone else.
This opening sequence, featuring Yen’s Chen Zhen battling German soldiers with just his fists, feet and occasional knives, is pure cinematic adrenaline - Lau’s stylised visuals and Yen’s kinetic choreography creating a comic book-like Saving Private Ryan. Not only does the intensity and breathtaking action set a bar so high that what follows does not always clear it, but its brief exploration of the experience of Chinese labourers conscripted (in lieu of an army) to aid the British in World War One is fascinating and unfamiliar - and instantly compelling. By the time the film returns to 1920s Shanghai, one can’t help feeling that they are leaving a more interesting film (perhaps even several) behind to tell the kind of story we’ve seen many times before.
The comic book sensibility of the prologue is retained in a very colourful depiction of occupied Shanghai, which is a pleasing layer of a gloss on a film that settles into a straightforward story of rebellion, plotting, counter-plotting and treachery, enlivened mostly by Anthony Wong’s gravitas, Shu Qi’s luminescent star quality (never more in evidence), and the presence of Donnie Yen promising that some sort of wicked beat-down is never too far away.
The film aims for political intrigue, but keeps it mostly hinted-at and often off-screen. It might play well for local audiences who can fill in the gaps, but these gaps will be occasionally frustrating for an international viewer. The filmmakers do little to prompt us to care about the story and characters beyond painting very distinct shades of good (the Chinese) and evil (everyone else, especially the Japanese). Most interesting, and even troubling, from a cinema point of view, is the presence of Gordon Chan in the credits, as both producer and co-writer. Chan directed the 1994 remake of Fist Of Fury, starring Jet Li as Chen Zhen and, in that film, showed at least a willingness to take an even-handed approach to his depiction of the Japanese. Sixteen years later and that even-handedness is sacrificed in favour of a straight-faced, chest-thumping nationalism, which is uncomfortably close to propaganda. Without seeking to excuse the atrocities of Imperialist Japanese of the era, nor dismiss the suffering of the Chinese of the time, one nevertheless is prompted to ponder if the filmmakers might be better served taking a colder, more distant view of the historical period - with several characters having monologues about the importance of national unity, making references to the list of foreign forces throughout history who tried and failed to overrun China, it is inescapable that the film aims to speak to contemporary audiences, as though China still fights the battles of centuries ago. A cause for concern, yes, but also fascinating from an academic standpoint.
But the nationalism question is really one for the viewers to informally discuss after the credits have rolled. There is more to Legend Of The Fist, though perhaps not as much more as a film this expensive warrants. It is overly straightforward, at times frustratingly so, the script doing nothing to elicit audience sympathy beyond piling one Japanese atrocity upon another (assassination, hanging, torture, rape), near-pummelling the viewer into agreeing that vengeance must be sought, even if we’re not angrily clamouring for it ourselves.
The film’s opening act - after the ingenuous prologue - serves to get all its characters in place so as to justify the action sequences most punters are paying for. Unfortunately, this results in something of a plodding, listless narrative in which one struggles to fathom certain characters’ motivations and aims, and many seem to have none at all - for example, Anthony Wong’s sympathetic nightclub owner has no real objective other than to keep his club open and leave his hands clean of blood (admirable, to be sure, but the character hovers around the story, adding no drive or momentum to the narrative). Chen Zhen is on a crusade to protect Chinese dissidents from the oppressive Japanese but, aside from an intriguing wager made between Chen and the Japanese villain Chikarasishi (that would have perhaps made the basis for an excellent action film all on its own), the film seems to assume that ‘fighting the Japanese’ is all the justification that is required.
That the film is not especially emotionally involving is a surprise when one considers who is at the helm. Andrew Lau is responsible for some of the more visceral and engaging moments in recent Hong Kong popular cinema (consider his Young And Dangerous movies, or the original Infernal Affairs), but here he shows an oddly clumsy hand with character and emotion. A low-key dialogue scene between Chen Zhen and Kiki, where each almost stumble upon the other’s real identity, is an alienating mix of repetitive questioning and overblown fake-outs, none of which creates any suspense. This romantic subplot (which develops along a pleasantly chaste and subtle trajectory) culminates in an emotional climax that would have had immense impact had their earlier flirtation been relatable. The actors work hard, and have chemistry, but the filmmakers give them little to work with beyond the expectation that the audience simply ‘knows’ the beautiful leading lady and debonair leading man must have feelings for each other. Viewers have been conditioned to expect more convincing humanity from Andrew Lau.
More curious is Lau’s liberal use of homage - not just Bruce Lee in general, but The Dark Knight (the framing and general presentation of Yen’s ‘Masked Warrior’ is highly reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s depiction of Batman) and even Mad Men (Chen Zhen’s identity swap) - which effectively stamps out the directorial voice that boomed so loudly through every frame of his Young And Dangerous series. Indeed, Legend Of The Fist draws direct comparison with some of Lau’s misfires from a decade ago - Storm Riders and A Man Called Hero - where his feel for character and moral ambiguity could not coexist with the demands of a big budget epic movie. Legend Of The Fist is better than both those films, but it does not come close to the cinematic brilliance of Lau’s Triad movies.
Lau benefits from a committed cast that works very hard. Donnie Yen has perhaps always carried himself like a leading man but, here, he confirms his status as a peer of, rather than successor to, Jackie Chan or Jet Li. Infusing his natural, unsuppressible ‘badassery’ with the stoically righteous and relatable qualities that first came to the fore in Ip Man, Yen holds the movie together, and keeps the audience on his side even when they’re not always sure what, exactly, he wants to gain beyond beating up Japanese people. He may be no Bruce Lee, but he is a magnificent Donnie Yen.
Legend Of The Fist is an event movie, and it has an event movie cast. Frequent Lau collaborator Anthony Wong is an immense asset to the film, bringing life to a character not given much by the script. Shu Qi, always growing and improving, manages to garner sympathy for a plot device. Shawn Yue turns up in an under-written role as the son of an off-screen Chinese General, whose motives and allegiances aren’t always clear. Huang Bo does well in the one comic-relief role in the film, even if his Inspector character oscillates between cowardly and upstanding at the script’s convenience.
Of course, plot and characterisation aren’t the main course for aficionados of this genre, and Donnie Yen, as action director, ensures that fight fans eat heartily with Legend Of The Fist. His recent output since his ground-breaking work on Kill Zone is very much ‘a tale of two Donnies’. There is the hard-hitting, grounded and realistic fight staging of Kill Zone and Flashpoint, where Yen shows a keen awareness of mixed martial arts and a commitment to authenticity; the other side of the coin is the over-the-top, outrageous excesses of films like Dragon Tiger Gate - and it is into this category that Legend Of The Fist falls. While Yen incorporates flashes of Jiu-Jitsu and even Wing Chun into his action here, the emphasis is squarely on comic-book style, almost supernatural feats that, in the wrong hands, can alienate an audience. Yen’s creativity with the OTT fight scenes is unmatched in this era, but there remains throughout Legend Of The Fist the niggling suspicion that, had he toned it down, it would have boosted the intensity of the fight scenes, and made us care in ways that the script simply does not. Had he lived, there is no doubt that Bruce Lee would have certainly approved of Yen’s cinematic mixed martial arts trailblazing; it is interesting to ponder what he would made of this updating of his Chen Zhen character.
This is not to take away from the action on show, for it is clearly the main reason to catch Legend Of The Fist. Always exciting, always breathtaking, and never predictable, it will hopefully ensure a decent cinema and DVD run for this movie - and if it prompts new converts to check out some of Yen’s superior back catalogue, then so much the better.
Given the talent involved, it was not unreasonable to expect something of a classic. This is far from it, but its set-pieces still contain more genuine imagination and excitement than is likely to be found anywhere else - especially in the thrilling prologue sequence, which prompts hope from this reviewer that, someday soon, the conscripted Chinese soldiers in World War One get the cinematic tribute they truly deserve. JN
