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Film: Last Life In The Universe
Release date: 22nd November 2004
Certificate: 15
Running time: 109 mins
Director: Pen-ek Ratanauruang
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Sinitta Boonyasak, Laila Boonyasak, Yutaka Matsushige, Riki Takeuchi
Genre: Drama/Romance
Studio: Artificial Eye
Format: DVD
Country: Thailand/Japan
Fusing three different languages and a variety of genres, Last Life In The Universe looks to provide a fresh twist on the familiar tale of ‘boy meets girl’.
In a meticulously neat, book-lined apartment, desperate Japanese loner Kenji contemplates suicide by numerous different methods. His death seems inevitable until he meets Noi, a beautiful Thai hostess.
Having witnessed the tragic death of Noi’s sister, Nid, the two characters are drawn together. Despite their lack of shared language, Noi helps to bring Kenji back to life as the two lost souls give meaning to each other’s existence…
The film opens with in the colourless interior of Kenji’s apartment. Given the potential horror of what is about to occur, the scene is remarkably serene and quiet, as Kenji narrates his reasons for wanting to take his own life over blue-grey shots of neatly ordered bookshelves and draining boards stacked with plates and knives.
Just as Kenji is about to hang himself, his obnoxious brother arrives on the scene. Although never said, it is implied that his brother is involved in organised crime, and having destroyed Kenji’s contemplative peace once, things become even more traumatic when a gunfight breaks out in the apartment leaving his brother dead. Still worse, Kenji instinctively shoots his brother’s murderer dead. After concealing the bodies, Kenji is about to throw himself off a bridge when he witnesses a fatal car accident, which kills Nid.
Kenji accompanies Nid’s sister Noi to the hospital, and is thus drawn into her life. The two characters communicate in a hybrid of Thai, Japanese and English, and their stilted exchanges add to the air of vulnerability which engulfs each character. The reserved Japanese and the more outgoing Thai have little in common initially, a fact which is beautifully and wordlessly articulated as they eat together for the first time: Kenji produces his own chopsticks and meticulously cleans his plate whilst Noi smothers her meal in spicy condiments and shovels it into her mouth with a spoon in traditional Thai style.
Thanks to the clever cinematography of Christopher Doyle, colour seeps into the movie gradually as the action moves from the ordered world of Kenji’s fussily tidy home to the shambolic mess of Noi’s country house. As the vibrant hues of Noi’s life seep into Kenji’s his melancholy dissipates, seemingly insignificant moments, such as the ruffling of his own hair and failure to clean up his own coconut husk, are huge steps in the abandonment of his fastidious ways.
Equally, the order and stability which Kenji brings to Noi’s life are never explicitly stated. Instead, we see the lowering of her guard as she sees the plates he has cleaned and a stoned dreamlike sequence in which Kenji magically tidies the house without ever appearing in the scene. It appears that the quiet presence of Kenji is exactly what Noi needs as she grieves for her sister. It’s fitting that the hazy, serene nature of the cinematography is echoed in the gentle unravelling of the plot, as the two characters seek solace from their problems in each other.
Although there are hints at Kenji’s shadowy past in a couple of sudden bursts of violence and a mysterious tattoo, the Yakuza subplot which crashes into the film in the second half does seem somewhat incongruous. Although the stylised violence of the film appears largely off-screen, the cartoonish perpetrators are completely at odds with the style of the film up to that point. Perhaps Ratanaruang felt he needed to inject a change of pace or dynamics in his introspective work, but it doesn’t quite sit properly in the overall context of the movie and comes so late that it feels like it was tacked on.
There are literally thousands of ‘boy meets girl’ films available, many of which feature the well worn themes of opposites attract and love as a redemptive force. Most of them even feature a jealous or violent ex-lover and a tragedy which brings the protagonists together. Last Life In The Universe contains every one of these well worn clichés but to categorise it alongside such films would be to miss the point.
A beautifully made film which ploughs its own furrow, impeccably acted, wonderfully shot and accompanied throughout by the enigmatically hypnotic music of Hua-lampong Riddim. RW
Film: Zatoichi
Release date: 26th July 2004
Certificate: 18
Running time: 111 mins
Director: Takeshi Kitano
Starring: Beat Takeshi, Tadanobu Asano, Gadarukanaru Taka
Genre: Action/Adventure/Comedy/Drama
Studio: Artificial Eye
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Acclaimed actor and director, Takeshi Kitano (Beat Takeshi) proves he is a true master with this tongue-in-cheek entry in the Zatoichi series.
Wandering blind masseur Zatoichi makes his way to a village terrorised by gang boss Ginzo (and his suitably unnerving mob), who has hired ronin Shinkichi as his bodyguard in an effort to dispose of a rival gang-leader and assert total unruly control.
Zatoichi befriends one of the put-upon villagers, Aunt Oume (at the start of the film we see her being threatened by Ginzo’s gang members, who insist protection must be paid daily), her loser nephew (whom he impresses with his gambling skills), and two geishas (brother and sister), who are seeking to avenge the murder of their parents some ten years earlier.
As we learn, via a number of flashbacks, what has brought these characters to this time and place, Zatoichi soon becomes the only hope to save them from the merciless gang...
Takeshi clearly revels in the role of the infamous Zatoichi – a wonderfully charismatic actor who has the necessary presence, despite a very humble and understated performance, to allow suggestion very often to be more than enough (when he draws the blade concealed in his cane it says as much as decapitating an opponent – in fact, when he swiftly takes hold of his cane this makes enough of an impression before even revealing the deadly weapon inside).
Zatoichi is ruthless, and without weakness (even when he loses hold of his cane he can quickly outwit opponents to regain possession). At the start of the film, we see him dispose of wrong doers who had followed him on his travels without breaking a sweat, whilst his heightened senses as a blindman have made him a master gambler and intuitive of a person’s character (used to good effect when the geishas originally planned to murder/rob him and the nephew).
Though he shows no remorse in disposing of enemies in sometimes sadistic ways, the violence is delivered in such a blithe manner that it borders on comical – OTT squirts of blood and unrealistic penetration ensure this never weighs too heavily, and, more importantly, that the viewer’s warmth towards Zatoichi is never lost. He may be a lethal killer, but he’s also willing to help an old lady home with her groceries and chop wood for her.
It’s no surprise then that although there’s plenty of action and swordplay on offer, and some fairly heavy subject matter is tackled (the male geisha turning to prostitution as a child to support his sister), this is equal parts a comedy (highlighted by its jovial soundtrack), whether overtly via the useless nephew (from trying to improve his luck gambling by imitating the blind Zatoichi to dressing up as a lady “to be beautiful”), a number of neat touches (the sharecroppers who work to a tune), or in illustrating Zatoichi’s powers (when one gangster wants to try out his new sword on the “hopeless old blind man” passing by, he soon finds this prized possession has been cut in two), and asserting his better sense compared to his adversaries (in one early scene, when Zatoichi is under attack, an enemy draws his sword only to slice the arm of one of his accomplices). Takeshi looks to be having a blast throughout, and you may spot his difficulty in trying to hold a straight face on more than one occasion.
The intense Tadanobu Asano is perfectly cast as the merciless ronin, and although he is ultimately only taking work as a bodyguard out of necessity to pay for his ill partner’s medication, you never sympathise – he’s the perfect bad guy contrast (even if his showdown with Zatoichi, built up throughout via beautifully choreographed dispatches, could have been more spectacular).
You do wonder why there’s an idiotic neighbour running around screaming in some scenes (other than giving Zatoichi the chance to knock him over with a piece of bark), and it seems out of sync at times with otherwise beautifully shot images (the use of the elements in particular impresses), but this doesn’t slow the film’s momentum, building to a well executed conclusion that offers a few unexpected revelations.
Comedy, mystery, martial arts, adventure… A brisk and riotous reimagining of an age-old character that film fans of any idiom would lap up. DH
Film: Ichi The Killer
Release date: 9th November 2009
Certificate: 18
Running time: 120 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori, Shinya Tsukamoto
Genre: Crime
Studio: Cine Asia
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Based on Hideo Yamamoto’s manga, 2001’s (reissued on DVD at the end of 2009) Ichi The Killer has become infamous for its excessive graphic violence (few extreme asian films have come close), but does it offer anything more to viewers with a strong enough stomach, or those with a (worrying) craving for grotesque brutality?
Sadomasochist Kakihara is searching for his Yakuza boss, Anjo, who has disappeared along with 300 million of the mob’s yen.
Kakihara, who we discover has an intimate and disturbed relationship with Anjo (which he later attempts to recreate with a potential new girlfriend - but she is unable to inflict beatings with the necessary ferocity), heads an aggressive search for his beloved keeper that includes brutally torturing a rival Yakuza on the strength of a mysterious tipoff.
With the mentally imbalanced, and responsible vigilante Ichi continuing his Yakuzu killing spree with increasing spectacle, however, it’s not long before Kakihara is on the right track, disturbingly excited by the prospect of facing off with a man capable of such repellent actions…
The plot is simple enough, but director Takashi Miike manages to stretch proceedings out to over 120 minutes, all the time confusing viewers with experimental cinematographic techniques (although he thankfully tires of his initial penchant for altering the film’s speed), unnecessary sub plots, and the introduction of countless characters, who we know little to nothing about, and who either disappear or are quickly sacrificed to titillate gore fans. With the director cramming so much in unnecessarily, fairly vital flashbacks, seamlessly incorporated, could easily be missed and only compound the perplexity.
With the film-makers focus on blood splatter, following any kind of story is hard enough, and violent scenes are either sickeningly realistic (the mutation of the captured Yakuzu is distressing – hung on large hooks by the skin on his back whilst Kakihara pierces his face with giant needles, before pouring boiling oil onto his back – whilst his apology, to cut off his own tongue, is no less upsetting), or over-the-top and laughable (an arm is wrenched out of a socket following a long, entertaining struggle; a man is tortured inside a TV set; coagulated blood sprays out from neck wounds; a face is taken clean off, which we see sliding down a bloodied wall; a blade concealed in Ichi’s boot splits a man clean in two…).
Sexual dysfunction is a theme throughout (we see dripping semen during the title screen), and whilst you can laugh off Ichi chopping up and disembowelling criminals, the rape scenes are particularly unforgiving – in one scene, we see a Yakuzu boss beating a prostitute’s already ghastly swollen face.
As violence fluctuates between comical and depraved, and the film mixes abuse with some genuinely deft humour (the team bemoaning the mess they have to clean up after one of Ichi’s early massacres), the film lacks a coherent mood, but whether you’re ridiculing some fairly out there film-making or turning away, this is a twisted ride all the way – with the musical score, at least, consistently demented.
With two such outlandish characters as Ichi and Kakihara, both actors, Tadanobu Asano and Nao Omori respectively, have a hoot, and both creditably manage to standout.
Despite the excess, Ichi is the hero of the piece (illustrated by his leather ‘costume’), brainwashed and manipulated by former cop Jijii, and disposing of evil criminals. Although you never really warm to him, as the trembling wreck he is (we see him cowering under a blanket at his games console), not because of Tadanobu’s performance, but because the carnage doesn’t allow any connection.
Kakihara, of course, revels in it all. Facial piercings hold his extended mouth together (slits either side allow him to blow smoke out to good effect, although when he removes these to gnaw on a man’s fist the special effects are atrocious), whilst his facial scars and punk attire present the archetypal “bad boy”. There is no back story, or any hint of remorse or a sympathetic side to his character – he is pure evil (this is the cartoon element of the film).
When the film pulls everything together, you realise what an intelligent and thought provoking piece this should have been, with some neat revelations and strong messages, but by this point any potential impact has been lost.
Such a manic rollercoaster of a movie is always going to be worth a look, and there are several startling must-see scenes for any serious film fan, but this is hard going – and surely no sane person would enjoy viewing two hours of serious physical violence at the levels depicted here. DH
