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Virus

Andrew Heskins — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:00:02 +0000

We keep the disaster movie theme going with a look at a near lost pandemic thriller from director Kinji Fukasaku, best known for Battle Royale…

With the release of The SInking Of Japan earlier this week, we take a look at another Japanese disaster movie, this time with a surprisingly Western cast.

The world as we know it is coming to an end, as a virus known only as Italian Flu (now, now, no racist jokes about it’s effects!) spreads amongst the populace. In fact the virus is manmade, designed for germ warfare, no vaccine exists. The only survivors are international groups of scientists based in Antarctica, who must now find a way to work together to build a new world.

Only when scientist Doctor Shûzô Yoshizumi (Masao Kusakari, Black Kiss) discovers that Washington will get rocked by an earthquake, a desperate mission begins to switch off an nuclear automatic retaliation system before it destroys the planet and even their own sanctuary.

My first run in with Virus was as a podcast from Cult of UHF, those exponents of films that have for one reason or another fallen into the public domain, cheekily released amid the highpoint of fears about the H1N1 virus spiralling out of control. Full of several hammy performances from several B-list American actors of the time, it was easy to dismiss as a terrible low-budget B movie.

Only thing was many of these actors could still get reasonable leading roles: Olivia Hussey (Black Christmas, Romeo & Juliet); Glenn Ford; Robert Vaughn; Geroge Kennedy; Chuck Connors; Henry Silva; Bo Svenson. It’s fun to see the revamped Battlestar Galactica’s Commander Adama Edward James Olmos and wonder if he ever looked young?

Then there was the slight unevenness in the story. The Japanese protagonists seemed quite important, but we hardly got to see them. It turns out that this was a Japanese production, directed by Kinji Fukasaku, whose long filmmaking career included Battle Royale, Triple Cross, Legend of Eight Samurai and Tora! Tora! Tora!.

This was, of course, the heavily abridged US cut of the film, which not only loses some 50-odd minutes from the film, mainly from the Japanese subplots, but also rearranges the footage to it’s own (and often confusing) end. This wasn’t helped by the fact the Cult of UHF version rather helpfully left what remained of the parts in Japanese without subtitles!

Yet despite all this, there was definitely some merit to the film. Hell, it might be corny, but not as terrible as you might have thought.

In it’s longer format it recounts far more of Doctor Shûzô’s past, colouring far more effectively his relationship and growing affection for Olivia Hussey’s character Marit. There are title cards detailing the time and spread of the virus. Then there’s Shûzô’s epic journey south to reunite with the rest of the surviviors – completely cut from the US edit which is by default far gloomier.

There are some interesting ideas tackled during the film, not least the topic of a new morality when 830-odd men have survived with just eight women. There’s a certain amount of intelligence applied to the film that survives some of the hokeyness and occasionally melodramatic performances. Masao Kusakari himself, as the lead, is actually pretty good.

Elsewhere even in it’s longer form so of the edits seem a little rough and clumsy around the edges – particularly when Fukasaku tries to show us Japanese society crumbling in the face of this inevitable peril (which seems to involve clubbers stripping off in a disco!). Then there’s the end footage, mainly shots of penguins jumping off into the Antarctic Ocean. Probably the biggest crime of the film, though, is some dire English accents on show by American actors. I mean, Chuck Connors as a British Naval officer? Really?

Those familiar with Terry Nation’s Survivors series, either in it’s original 70s incarnation or the newly revamped version, will be familiar with the prospect of the world wiped out by a disease. (Mind you, Terry borrowed from John Wyndam, so what the hell?) Virus, or Day Of Resurrection as it’s also known, has it’s roots as much in Robert Wise’s adaption of the Michael Crichton novel The Andromeda Strain (and those that followed, like George A. Romeo’s original The Crazies) as it does with the more mainstream disaster movies. Sure, George Kennedy even recites some of the same dialogue he used in Earthquake.

But there’s something else starting to happen in Virus. It mirrors the growing preoccupation with nuclear holocaust, the fear of a third world war that would annihilate us all, and the very real threat of the cold war that dominated the 80s and 80s cinema (having lost the charade of hiding these themes behind alien invasions and gigantic monsters). In that sense it can be seen ahead of the curve. Shûzô’s journey then becomes something of a post-apocalyptic vision, again only really beginning to become widely popular in films like Mad Max.

It’s said film producer Haruki Kadokawa had hoped this would be his breakthrough into the international market. Instead it flopped, and edited up sold to Pay TV states in it’s heavily edited version.

Despite all the DVDs available, the only place you can officially get the full version is as part of the Sonny Chiba Action Set, alongside Golgo 13 and an edited version of The Bullet Train. Which is ironic as Chiba’s screen time is less than 10 minutes, and not even particularly energetic. Ripe for a solo release and wider reappraisal.

Accident

Andrew Heskins — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:00:01 +0000

It’s no accident this has been causing such a stir! Intelligent with a fantastic premise, surely this one of the finest Hong Kong films of the last decade…

Ho Kwok-fai aka The Brain (Louis Koo, Election, Flash Point, Protégé) is a genius assassin who, together with his small inconspicuous team, can make any hit look like an fluke accident. His team are so proficient that they’ve gone completely unnoticed for years, but that doesn’t stop their troubled leader being somewhat paranoid about getting discovered.

When a hit goes disastrously wrong and a member of the team is killed, Brain becomes obsessed that it was no accident, and someone is targeting him. He believes that insurance inspector Chan Fong-chow Richie Ren, Seoul Raiders, Exiled, Breaking News) is orchestrating it all. But in a world where there’s no such thing as coincidence, can accidents really happen?

Honed from the finest pedigree in Hong Kong film Accident has arrived to incredible acclaim at every festival it’s played at, including nominations for Best film at the Sitges – Catalonian International Film Festival and Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The credits could hardly read better: production by Johnnie To; written by Szeto Kam-Yuen (whose credits include easternKicks fave The Longest Nite, S.P.L.: Kill Zone, Exiled, Flash Point) and Tang Lik-Kei (Flash Point); and directed by Soi Cheang (Dog Bite Dog).

And does it live up to that? Ooooooooh yes! Cheang’s direction is tight, letting his characters develop on screen, but keeping the running time to an unusually concise (by today’s standards) 90 minutes. There’s a terrific build of tension as Ho Kwok-fai falls deeper into his paranoia, reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation.

Beautifully acted by an ensemble cast including Fung Shui-Fan (My Lucky Stars, Mr. Vampire II, Winners and Sinners), Michelle Ye (Sniper), Alexander Chan (Infernal Affairs 2, One Nite In Mongkok) and Lam Suet (Yep, again!), this is flawless.

Surely the only criticism is that, like many classic HK films (particularly those with such a great premise), the film leaves you wanting more. But heck, that’s one of the reasons it’s so good!

Probably the best Hong Kong film since Infernal Affairs, and yes, a remake has already been mooted. Let’s hope the original gets the proper release it deserves in the US and UK long before any American imposter. (Please!)

Damn fine! My advice: find this, watch this… by any means necessary!

S.P.L.: Kill Zone

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:00:50 +0000

Finally released in the UK – thanks to a tie-up between Cine Asia and Weinstein’s US-based Dragon Dynasty label – one of the best martial arts films of the last decade…!

When Inspector Wa Kwun (Donnie Yen) joins an established crime unit, soon to replace retiring Detective Chan Kwok Chung (Simon Yam, Election, Exiled, Full Contact), he finds a team that have spent too long crossing the line between right and wrong. Chung has become obsessed on bringing down ruthless crime lord and keen golfer Wong Po (Sammo Hung, Fatal Move, The Prodigal Son) at any cost since Po organised an assassination of a witness and his family, leaving only his daughter alive and in Chung’s care.

Ma finds himself at odds with both the criminals he’s sworn to apprehend and the unit he’s meant to be leading when the team augment a piece of evidence to pin a murder on Po. But when Po hires a deadly assassin Jack (Jacky Wu, Fatal Contact, Invisible Target), Ma’s ethics must take second place to keeping both himself and his colleagues alive.

It’s no surprise S.P.L.: Kill Zone made one hell of an impact on it’s original release and that’s namely down to the extended showdown between Yen and Wu, then Hung. Tightly choreographed by Donnie Yen, there’s a ferocity rarely seen before in Hong Kong action and martial art films – it helped bring a new realism away from the incredible wire-fu for which it’s become best known.

There’s no dispute that the pairing of Hung and Yen was one that long overdue for martial arts fans (and so nearly happened several times before), but the preceding dual with Wu also helped put back this star back on the map – having been originally heralded back in 1996 for films like Tai Chi Boxer. And it all leads to a shocking and unforgettable ending.

The film itself is notably lacking in martial arts for much of it’s running time. Director and writer Wilson Yip expends a lot of time building up the characters of Chung and his team, ably played by Liu Kai Chi (The Detective, The Beast Stalker), Danny Summer and Ken Chang (Tsui Hark’s Vampire Hunters), showing them for all faults and merits.

The theme of police detectives crossing the line to get results is by no means new, but here Yip is more judgemental than his peers and predecessors have been. Yip leaves you in no doubt that they have stepped too far over the line, there can be no redemption. Occasionally it’s a little heavy-handed, but overall superbly shot and tightly paced. The setting of the film in the 90s even allows for some playful shots of old technology like video and dv tapes – ah, remember the good old days?

It’s obvious from some of the commentary on the DVD that Yen pushed Yip to include more fight scenes, revealing that he arranged additional funding for reshoots. It’s hard to imagine the film having the same impact without them.

This was, of course, the first collaboration between Yip and Yen. Since then we’ve had Dragon Tiger Gate, Flash Point and the exceedingly likable biopic Ip Man, and what better time to revisit this film with Ip Man 2 soon to be released and that much awaited rematch between Hung and Yip.

Bring it on!

S.P.L.: Kill Zone is released on DVD and Blu-ray on 8 March by Cine Asia.

Ashes Of Time Redux

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:00:20 +0000

Wong Kar-wai returns to his 1994 classic to produce a definite version – but is it really any better…?

When Wong Kar-wai first announced he was returning to his classic wu xia pian genre movie it was always going to ruffle a few feathers.

The director’s notorious reputation for never being truly happy with his work – think about the stalls and re-editing his most recent films like 2046 and My Blueberry Nights have received, even after being released to festivals (if they hadn’t been pulled first) – seemed to have reached Ridley Scott proportions. (I mean what, yet another cut of Blade Runner?)

And here was a film beloved of fans, a rare step into a genre you’d rarely associate Kar-wai with. But is the Redux an improvement, or sacrilege, as some will maintain?

Back in 1994, the Ashes Of Time seemed a strange project for Wong Kar-wai. The first project for the production company he set up with fellow Hong Kong director Jeff Lau, Jet Tone, the thought of Kar-wai tackling a martial arts movie – at the very height of the wu xia genre’s popularity – may have been deemed inappropriate for a director already gaining recognition for his artistic merit. That the project should be an attempt to bring Louis Cha’s infamous Eagle Shooting Heroes novels (translated as Condor Heroes in the West) – a Chinese epic on a par with J. R. R. Tolkien’s Ring trilogy, and incidentally published around the same time – appeared ambitious in the extreme.

And yet it became a marriage made in heaven for Kar-wai and wu xia fans alike.

Rather than attempt to bring the complex novel to the screen, Kar-wai instead decided to take characters and elements suggested by it. Unsurprisingly for him, the film becomes much more a reflection on lost love and feelings left unspoken than it is on martial arts or so-called wire fu. He layers narrative with a typical disregard for the linear, interweaving his characters as they become as disconnected emotionally from life and loved ones as they are physically in the desert where our lead character presides.

And at the centre of it all is vagabond Ouyang Feng, superbly played by the late Leslie Cheung as the unsympathetic agent for a dangerous league of assassins and swordsmen. Long wounded by a love he neglected and lost, he’s become cold and cynical. Yet as seasons come and go, and friends and enemies with them, he begins to reflect on the origins of his self-imposed solitude.

Mixing the maturity and restraint of King Hu (Touch Of Zen) and some of the more esoteric cutaway style of Wang Hsing-Lei (Escorts Over Tiger Hills) the film takes on even more of a dreamlike quality for Kar-wai’s work, being so much further away from any contemporary reference.

With an all-star cast, the film oozes with class. Each performer excelling in their roles and, crucially, conveying the complex backstories without Kar-wai having to show them. From Tony Leung Ka-fai as Huang Yaoshi, the swordsman trying to forget his past; to Brigitte Lin as Muyong Yin/Yang, brilliantly playing up to her androgynous appearance as Asia The Invincible in Swordsman II and The East Is Red; from Tony Leung Chiu-wai as the swordsman slowly going blind; to Jacky Cheung as the shoeless beggar swordsman Hong Qigong; and then there’s Carina Lau, Charlie Yeung and the celestial beauty that is Maggie Cheung.

Let’s be clear about this, without such stunning performances Kar-wai would never have gotten away with showing us so little and implying so much. (And I’m sure he’d be the first to admit that.)

Despite the involvement of Sammo Hung as action choreographer, even the action sequences seem muted. (More so in the Redux, but we’ll come back to that.) Those expecting the clever to-and-fro of a Ching Siu-tung or Yuen Woo-ping sequence, so typical of the wire fu or the time, may be sorely disappointed. Fancy footwork is definitely the order of the day, as Kar-wai’s focus forces the action to be filmed in an unconventional way. And with plenty of slow motion. We’re not talking John Woo slo-mo here, or even his mentor Zhang Che’s, highlighting poignant moments of fast action. No, nearly all of it is in slow motion, turning the action into poetical, and often confusing, movements. Indeed, one of the more impactful moments, when Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s swordsman finally goes blind and meets his end, is a thinly disguised Lone Wolf And Cub reference from the manga and first live-action film.

Much more a precursor to Hero than the less subjective Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: in fact Kar-wai’s favourite cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who worked on both Ashes and Hero, claims the later could never existed without the former. And not just because of the gruelling location shoots in China, then very unheard of in Hong Kong filmmaking, now a basis for most productions (though mainly due to the financial benefit of Chinese co-productions).

It’s also an important turning point in how such genre movies were considered, suddenly filmmakers remembered that a wu xia movie could also be an art film, for the first time since King Hu’s Touch Of Zen. (An over-exaggeration, admittedly, but even great movies like The Bride With White Hair still focused on the spectacle of cinema.) The genre may have died out within a year or so, till Crouching Tiger revived it, but if you really want to know where wu xia got so serious, this is the defining moment. Which is easy to say with hindsight, but at the time the overrunning shooting schedule in China, which dragged on for over a year, caused the film to be a commercial flop.

It’s easy to see its influence well beyond the obvious work of Doyle on Hero. Look at the grit on Tsui Hark’s Blade or Ringo Lam’s Burning Paradise, both filmed within a year. More recently look no further than Peter Chan’s The Warlords, Kim Sung-su’s Musa or John Woo’s Red Cliff – all direct descendents of Ashes Of Time.

Kar-wai seems to have held a passion for the martial arts novels he must have grown up with. Just a few years earlier he had co-written the script for Saviour Of The Soul with Jeff Lau. Itself an adaptation of Cha’s second novel in his Eagle series (the original Cantonese title literally translates as ‘91 God-Eagle-Hero-Couple) it’s arguably an even looser revision of Cha’s work than even Ashes. Updating the action to the (then) present day, it seems a little incongruous with Kar-wai’s catalogue. The tone often clashes between slapstick and serious, violent action, but the end result is an iconic Hong Kong film, undeniable fun and surprisingly beautiful (The cinematography was by Peter Pau – who would go on to win an Oscar for his work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and also worked on Ashes ‘sister’ movie The Eagle Shooting Heroes

" target="_self">The Eagle Shooting Heroes.) Now it just feels like a rare chance for him to let his hair down.

And the theme would recur in his films, like when the lead character from In The Mood For Love Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) is encouraged to follow his dream and write martial arts novels by the spouse of his neighbour So Lai-zhen (Maggie Cheung). So it’s obviously a film close to his heart, and it was his mission to create a ‘definite’ version of the film, away from the poor DVD versions available, that brought on this revisit.

That, and perhaps penance for foisting 2046 and particularly My Blueberry Nights on his audience (mate, you should have cast Cat Power in the lead!).

So what about the Redux? How does it compare. Well for starters the title is a bit misleading. It brings to mind the Apocalypse Now Redux, where Coppola added an interesting but entirely unnecessary half hour. Instead, as you’ll probably already be aware, it’s shorter – Kar-wai has cut some five or six minutes from the running time.

According to Wong Kar-wai, it was less a case of cutting or ‘leaving out’ certain scenes than he could just not unearth a version in good enough condition to be used. That said, I believe that some of the omissions are less arbitrary. Most notable is the sequence right just after the opening face-off between Ouyang Feng and Huang Yaoshi, showing a future Ouyang fighting against the Beggar Clan, then Huang wiping out the bandits, all completely gone. It accounts for quite a chunk of time. Originally it had seemed too long, almost like an offering to those expecting an action-packed wu xia movie – which didn’t fool anyone at the time judging by the poor box office returns. Without it, though, we lose the poignancy of Ouyang’s clash with the Beggar Clan, revealed later. (Mind you, you’d probably have had to see the film a few times to get that, but that was part of the appeal.) We also lose the concluding montage, hinting at what happens to the main characters in the future. And that brings us back to the muting of the action, the focus on the film draws even more onto the drama and love stories within it.

Generally the cut has better pace. Sure, there are scenes left out. Like after the Blind Swordsman’s death we originally cut back to Huang to find him return to the inn where they used to meet – hoping he’d forgive him without realising (or perhaps wanting to realise) that he was dead. But often these scenes don’t quite fit with the flow of the film. That isn’t helped by the fact that distributors in South East Asia all released there own cuts, extending, adding or dropping as they saw fit. So chances are what we saw probably wasn’t what Kar-wai intended anyway. (Even if he wasn’t something of a fusspot!)

Added to the film are title cards to the seasons. Now I don’t agree with Kar-wai that the references to the Chinese almanac were lost on Western audiences, but their use again disciplines the cut somewhat, evening out the pace for each term over the film.

Much has been made of the digital manipulation throughout the film. I for one am not convinced that the deep saturation wasn’t what Chris Doyle had actually intended, so much of his work is about colour, and the version I’d previously seen are so washed out and grainy it’s impossible to tell. The digital meddling with the opening scene, however, seems to equal that of George Lucas in the ‘unnecessary’ category: new cutaways are made to an eclipse, later referenced; with lens glare effects added to the original footage.

I’m not, by the way, going to list all the differences here. There are new opening and closing titles, and a new score, mixing the original with replayed and expanded orchestral versions and performances by Yo-Yo Ma (again making reference to the new school of wu xia movies). There’s less obvious stuff too, but here we come to the tricky part, is it better, or just an excuse for Kar-wai to mess about with the film again?

Well, with no decent version of the film previously out there, this has to be a good thing. Sure, there are scenes I’d have to have been included, but this is an improvement, the pacing is far better. (Okay, so that might rub so ardent fans up the wrong way, but it’s true!)

This is still a classic! Perhaps even more so now…

Black Belt Jones, the great kung fu soundtrack that never was?

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:00:40 +0000

Get your (rare) groove on with Dennis Coffey’s legendary soundtrack to the equally notorious (for all the wrong reasons!) Jim Kelly vehicle…

In 1974 director Robert Close and producer Fred Weintraub had something of a problem. Their Enter The Dragon had been a huge success, exporting the Bruce lee phenomenon to an international audience – only their star tragically died before it was even released! What could they do next? How about giving his co-star Jim Kelly a chance – you know, the one who gets killed off pretty early? Then you’d not only cover kung fu, but blaxplotation too – get that Mr. Weintraub two exploitation genres for the price of one!

Only there was a reason Jim Kelly didn’t make it anywhere near the end credits. Wooden doesn’t go far enough, the man makes the cast of Stingray look like a National Theatre production! And Close’s direction does little better – combined with such a pitiful script – you quickly realise just how much of Dragon was directed by Lee himself. Subsequent efforts on Lee cash-in Game Of Death and early Jackie Chan crossover vehicle Battle Creak Brawl only went to prove that.

Only the inclusion former Bond girl and general Blaxpolitation queen Gloria Hendry goes any way towards regressing the misdemeanour. But Black Belt Jones’ reputation is well deserved, it’s even featured in the 2004 documentary, The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made. (Surely not – I mean however bad, there are a LOT of other bad movies in the world!) But enough of the film itself, we can leave that to a future ‘Guilty Pleasure’ (maybe!) – no, we’re here to talk about the soundtrack!

And what about it? It’s really the classic Blaxplotation soundtrack that never was, with only the Theme From Black Belt ever making it to vinyl. Dennis Coffey was best for his 1971 instrumental (and popular hip hop breakbeat) Scorpio. A member of the legendary Motown Funk Brothers, Coffey had played guitar on dozens of hits for the label long before going solo.

The Main Theme is a rare groove classic the song owes less to Coffey’s guitar playing than the distinctive overlaid scatting that make up the majority of the tune. The effect is not unlike 80s German producer George Kranz’s massive electro classic Trommeltanz aka Din Daa Daa, and it would be nice to think Kranz was influenced by Coffey.

So there’s no doubting how ‘unofficial’ this release is. For one thing, much of the soundtrack seems to be taken straight from the film, complete with dialogue – which at least gives you a chance to enjoy how bad that is! That may go much of the way to explain why this is only available on vinyl, most likely to cover up just how bad some of the recording is.

There are two versions of the main theme, with a second complete with kung fu cries, fantastic or what? There’s also some great additional music, particular the variations on the Love Theme. Elsewhere there are jazzier or just plain dramatic scores.

It would have been nice, however, if this release had a least gone someway to show which parts were Dennis Coffey and which parts were responsible by Luchi De Jesus. It would be easy enough to guess Coffey was just the Main and Love themes, but even that might not be true?

Is it a match for Lalo Schifrin’s Enter The Dragon score? Well, not quite… But one thing is for sure – this is fantastically Kitsch fun!

Magic Monkey, the original Monkey TV series soundtrack

Andrew Heskins — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:00:24 +0000

As Damon Albarn’s latest collaboration with Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett, the opera of Monkey: Journey To The West, draws to a close at London’s O2 dome, and we await the release of the new Monkey Magic film on DVD, is there a better time to remember the soundtrack to show that started it all. Come on now, you all know the words: ‘Born from a rock on a mountain top…’

Long before Brit Pop supremo Damon Albarn decided to take his Gorillaz creation back to the source, the cult Nippon TV series inspired by Wu Cheng’en’s classic Chinese novel Journey To The West, the show itself Monkey, ruled UK Friday nights back in the late seventies.

From it’s opening disco theme to the hilarious characterisations of Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy (mistakenly attributed to the British redubbing by actors like Miriam Margoyles and Andrew Sachs, better known then for being the waiter in Faulty Towers than for the messages left on his phone by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross) the show captured the hearts of a generation now in their mid-30s: running around the playground, pretending to call clouds to fly on and beating each other up with a magical staff, all the while humming Monkey Magic under our breath.

(Not now, I mean. Back then. Though some of us never really left those days behind, creating websites devoted to all things Asian, ahem…)

Much of the appeal to that series was the soundtrack, provided by Japanese pop band Godiego, formed of Japanese and American musicians Mickie Yoshino, Takami Asano, Steve Fox, Yukihide Takekawa, and Tommy Snyder. They’d already enjoyed some success performing the English language version the the theme of the other great Nippon TV import of the decade, The Water Margin, which even squeaked into the UK top 40. Though singles from Monkey itself, issued by the BBC, surprisingly didn’t fair as well.

Magic Monkey was released in Japan in 1979 (and subsequently as the Monkey soundtrack by the BBC). Fans of the series will recognise most of tracks used as music cues on the soundtrack throughout, though you may be unsettled by the vocals (or to be more exact, the lyrics)…

Aside from Monkey Magic and the closing theme Gandhara, there’s Havoc In Heaven (used for the fight scenes), Thank You, Baby (used for the romantic or contemplative sequences), A Fool (used for for, um, the more idiotic moments) and so on. The pop vocal style is typical of the period, sounding at best like a cut-price Steely Dan, but it’s the lyrics that often leave you squirming, as the guys try desperately to include the themes of the series – in English – often making you wish they’d left the tracks as instrumentals. There’s even a track called Asiatic Fever, for feck’s sake!

Despite this, it’s worth hearing just for the full length version of the theme (even with that dodgy second verse), a fantastically funky little disco tune with great riffs and instrumental breaks.

Strangely, getting hold of a copy outside of Japan – where Godiego are still massively popular having reunited in 1999 – is near impossible. (And if you’re thinking of picking up the BBC release, you are gonna have to search hard!) Those looking to get hold of a copy best head towards Asian online retailers like YesAsia. Considering the enduring popularity of the series, it seems odd no one has licensed the album to reissue it in the UK and Australia.

At the very least it might put an end to the countless cover versions that do little than sully our fond memories.

Full Alert

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:00:09 +0000

Lau Ching Wan (Mad Detective, The Longest Nite) and Francis Ng (The Bride With White Hair, 2000 AD) star in this superbly paced thriller from writer/director Ringo Lam (Full Contact, City On Fire)…

There’s always one, lurking there at the bottom of the pile. A great movie that’s been waiting patiently for you to get round to watching it. Often, one way or another, we never do. And that’s one of the reasons we’re starting this new series of Lost Classics, to rectify our mistakes.

Ringo Lam’s Full Alert is just that sort of movie. Watching it, it’s easy to see why – like so many of Lam’s films – it gets overlooked. The action keeps the emphasis on the real, rather than near superhuman, but with superbly understated performances by Ching Wan and Ng, this police driven thriller is comfortably a cut above most Hong Kong and American films.

When an architects body is found in a water tank, the police soon track down his killer, Mak Kwan (Francis Ng). Inspector Pao (Lau Ching Wan) soon establishes that this is part of a bigger heist that has yet to take place. A cat and mouse game between the two, with Pao trying to track down Mak’s partners on the outside, his brother and a Taiwanese gang, before they break him out and execute their robbery.

From their first face-off in the interrogation room, Ching Wan and Ng’s characters are perfectly pitched as equals. Lam’s script intelligently fills out their background, the ghosts of the past that haunt them, the wives and children they care about in the present. It’s a recurring element of Lam’s work, from City Of Fire – which became the more simplistic Reservoir Dogs – where he showed us how much Chow Yun-fat’s character could lose as an undercover cop, to the comic book roller coaster ride Full Contact, there’s always been a far more grounded, realistic edge the roles he creates.

Ching Wan and Ng reflect that in their portrayals, avoiding histrionics or overacting they stick closer to the reality of their situation. For Lam there is no black and white, absolute good and evil. Indeed, his City Of Fire pretty much defined the grey area of police work and the morals at play for all thrillers to follow since, from Tarantino to John Woo and Andrew Lau.

Yet if Lam avoids judgment of his characters, he values their lives above any other director. For him no life is lost comically or without consequence, and therefore without leaving a deep resonance on the piece. As such guns and their use always seem far more serious than in many of his peers films. Such use brings him more in line with Western themes, and, if anything, British and European films, rather than those of Hollywood.

Full Alert is well paced, moving quite naturally from scene to scenes rather than jumping. The tension builds nicely as the atmospheric film leads towards the inevitable confrontation between Ching Wan and Ng. The obvious reference material is Michael Mann’s Heat, with their roles echoing those of Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino – yet if anything Lam makes something more interesting out of it. (A street shootout early on is particularly reminiscent of a similar scene in Heat.)

In many respects with extended scenes set in an interrogation room, and pitting of cop against suspect in a cat and mouse game, it’s easy to see the film as a precursor to Lam’s later, equally atmospheric near-horror The Victim. That time roles were reversed with Lau Ching Wan cast as suspect, Tony Leung Ka-Fai as police detective.

It seems somewhat appropriate to kick off our new series of ‘Lost classics’ with a Ringo Lam film. Despite a highly regarded catalogue of movies, the acclaim of other Hong Kong directors – such as peers Tsui Hark and John Woo – has eluded him. Yet his films have always held a greater complexity than either of those directors work, in a sense a far more European sensitivity that is so easily underrated. Indeed, you can’t help feel that Full Contact both made him on the international scene, and ruined him with regard to what both producers and audiences expected of him.

His attempts to crossover to Hollywood may never have gotten past the inevitable Jean-Claude Van Damme stage, yet you can’t help but feel his work in equally underrated in Hong Kong. Films like City On Fire and Wild Search helped define a much more grownup approach to storytelling in Hong Kong action films that laid the groundwork for films like Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs and Johnnie To and Wong Kar-fai’s Mad Detective.

With his recent collaboration in the film Triangle easily the most successful segment, the time has come to reappraise Lam’s work, and right here’s a good place to start.

Mad Detective

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:00:24 +0000

An inventively twisted tale from directors Johnnie To and Wong Ka-Fai (Fulltime Killer, Running On Karma, My Left Eye Sees Ghosts). Finally the Hong Kong thriller is back on form – Korea watch out!…

Part of a long-running series of collaborations between directors Johnnie To (Election, Exiled, Heroic Trio) and Wong Ka-Fai (Peace Hotel), Mad Detective is the latest of their inventive takes on genres following such films as Fulltime Killer, My Left Eye Sees Ghosts and Running On Karma. And with one of their favourite stars, Lau Chin Wan (Lost In Time, Victim, The Longest Nite), at the helm, it’s perhaps their most successful partnership yet…

Lau stars as retired Inspector Chan Kwai Bun, a once brilliant detective with an exceptional track record for solving case, but his increasingly peculiar methods and behaviour saw him leave the force soon after offering a superior officer (Eddy Ko in a welcome cameo) his ear, Vincent Van Gogh style.

Years later Inspector Ho Ka On (Andy On, Invisible Target, Election 2, Fatal Contact), who served with Bun shortly before the incident, tracks him down to ask for his help on a case. Police detective Wong has been missing for 18 months since he and his partner Ko Chi-Wai (Lam Ka-Tung, Election, Exiled, Infernal Affairs) confronted a suspect. Since then Wong’s gun has been used in several armed robberies.

Since leaving the force Bun’s methods have become no less bizarre, indeed he now believes he can see peoples ‘inner personalities’, or hidden ghosts, that reflect their real traits and motives. He also speaks to his ex-wife, a construct of his own imagination, as his own wife left him months before. Suspecting Chi-Wai from the start, he sees seven different personalities surrounding Chi-Wai, from the gluttonous ‘Fatso’ (Lam Suet) to the cunning brain (Jay Lau).

Ho becomes gradually more concerned about Bun’s sanity, fearing him completely deluded he begins to doubt all his theories and ignore his warnings. But just because Bun is insane doesn’t mean he not right…

It’s by no means the first time we’ve been presented by an unhinged detective with an uncanny knack to solving cases – from Sherlock Holmes through Zero Effect’s rock and roll wannabe to TV’s agoraphobic Monk, ticks and quirks have been exploited to create characters whose very detachment from humanity makes them its most perceptive judges. Only rarely have their methods been so dangerous, or played with such aplomb!

Certainly it’s another fine performance by Lau Chin Wan, who for too long has long gone seemingly unnoticed by audiences in the West. He presents us with such a fully-formed character as Bun it’s hard not to want to see more of him, pitching his character note perfect to convey the dark humour of the script with his peculiarly under-developed social skills. (And for that reason alone you may well find the conclusion a little unsatisfying!)

Undoubtedly the finest character actor in Hong Kong, and therefore by default a contender for the world, Lau has often cut a less photogenic lead than Tony Leung or Chow Yun-Fat. Yet from the very beginning, even in his smallest or most unlikely roles, he has stood out with exceptional performances – often far more worthy than the films themselves. Think of him as a latter day De Niro – when he was still good!

Don’t look for any major revelations in Wong Ka-Fai and Au Kin-Yee’s script. It’s not about the ‘cleverness’ of last minute twists, but rather a study in characterisation with an almost nihilistic view of humanity and how little it can take to corrupt a seemingly morale person (especially when their career is on the line) – a recurring theme in both Ka-Fai and Johnnie To’s work. It is, however, a delightfully rounded script, full of great lines and imaginative ideas. Together To and Ka-Fai bring it to life with nice, claustrophobic cinematography by Cheng Siu-Keung. And like most of Johnnie To’s movies, the editing is tight with an under 90 minute running time, though again, you may well ultimately wish it was longer.

Noticeably it steers clear of the sentimentality so abundant in Asian cinema and particularly in Hong Kong. Indeed, with it’s Canto-pop-ballad avoiding soundtrack, you almost feel that the directors are definitely targeting a wider international audience, namely the West. Despite that Mad Detective performed very reasonably at the Hong Kong box office, even though it was rated a Category III – that death knell for audience figures much like an 18 in the states – as there was one cut Johnnie To refused to make.

Mad Detective is a superb, inventive thriller that proves that Hong Kong can still call the shots against upstarts like South Korea – even if it doesn’t quite fulfill it’s potential and definitely leaves you wanting more!

(But – without giving too much of the plot away – if Hong Kong cinema has proved nothing else, there is very little that can get in the way of a franchise…!)

Mad Detective opens at the ICA, London on 18 July and is on limited release around the UK, with a DVD release later in the year. Click here for more details on where it will be shown.

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 10:00:29 +0000

Little Red Riding Hood retold as a psychological thriller from the director of Ghost In The Shell and Patlabor – but just who exactly is the wolf?

That’s the thing with Anime. You think you know exactly what to expect, all the clichés, expect that so often not what you get. Take Jin-Roh, for instance, easily not what you’d imagine from an Anime – a psychological thriller that has more in common with Vertigo than Akira…

In a time of political unrest Kazuki Fuse is a member of special armed police force unit who becomes traumatised when a young girl bomber, a ‘riding hood’, blows herself up in front of him.

By chance he meets her sister, and begins to fall for her. But while his superiors argue over the future of his special force unit, all is not as it seems. Can a wolf ever be a man? And just who here has the big teeth?

A follow up to Jigoku no banken: akai megane (The Red Spectacles) and Jigoku no banken: kerubersu (Stray Dogs), both written and directed by Mamoru Oshii (Ghost In The Shell, Ghost In The Shell 2), Jin-Roh returns to the focus of those stories, the paramilitary police force, for one last script by Oshii.

Oshii obviously draws on memories of the political riots in Japan of the late sixties that would have taken place while he was a teenager, like so many of his contemporaries, yet here decides not to elaborate on the motivations of the terrorists, who appear to come from normal backgrounds. Instead he centres on those of the special force, and both those who want to keep and lose the unit within the force itself. Indeed, this parallels much of his work, from Ghost In The Shell through Patlabor. And it’s all wrapped up in a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

It has the intelligence you’d expect from Oshii’s work, but the behind-the-scenes discussions won’t suit all viewers, particularly those expecting more Manga-esque action. Instead the blossoming romance has the resonance of some of Hitchcock’s work, such as Vertigo. You become aware that all is not as it seems, a game is being played, but not who holds that cards. It’s tremendously effective, without the need for excessive violence or sexual content.

Long-time Oshii collaborator Hiroyuki Okiura gains one of his few credits as director, but it’s hard not to see the guiding hand of Oshii all over this production. Lushly animated with a soft focus effect much as Hitchcock used on his leading ladies, and with a soundtrack to match, this beautiful film is well worth a viewing. Particularly if Anime is not usually your bag.

Three films by Tsai Ming-liang

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:30:58 +0000

An introduction to the work of director Tsai Ming-liang, both beautiful and confrontational. We look at I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone, The Wayward Cloud and Goodbye Dragon Inn. Just don’t expect a lot of dialogue…

From it’s opening scene, I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone is typically a Tsai Ming-liang film, only more so…

A ghettoblaster plays opera, while a paralysed man can only listen. The camera lingers for an uncomfortable amount of time, Tsai trademark style, forcing you to stare at this poor man. And stare. And stare. And unlike in real life, you can’t turn away. It’s the sort of confrontation with his audience that Tsai seems to enjoy.

There’s a disconnection, a distance between you and his creations that echoes the same disconnection his lead characters often have within their own worlds and lives. Little is ever said. In fact, that again is typically Tsai.

A poetical film, I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone shows us two men, both played by frequent collaborator Lee Kang-Sheng. One the son of a coffee shop owner, completely paralysed and looked after by his beleaguered carer Chyi (Chen Siang Chyi), the other Hsiao-Kang, an immigrant who is beaten and left for dead on the streets.

The implication is that one is dreaming the other. The beaten man is found and nursed back to health by another immigrant, Rawang (Norman Bin Atun) who still returns to the shell of a building he was involved in constructing, despite the work having been long abandoned. Kang soon falls for Chyi, unaware that his own carer Rawang has begun to develop feelings for him.

The directors’ characteristic lack of dialogue -which underlines his own ongoing agenda to compel his audience to ‘watch’ his movies, rather than be told their plotline -finds new meaning in a world where his protagonists are unable to communicate in words to each other. In a fast cut world, Tsai enjoys a leasiurely pace all but unheard of now.

It’s well known that Tsai Ming-liang toned down some of his initial ideas when he cast a Muslim in the role of Rawang, but the resulting fact subjectivity only adds power and tension to that attraction.

With a masterly eye for composition, giving an impression of control both over his cast and their environment, and how he wants his audience to fell. It’s ironic, then, that the most iconic scene in the film, where the butterfly lands on the lead characters shoulder, then flies off again, used a real and quite unpredictable butterfly. (After a long day filming hundreds of live butterflies!) The result is quite the most beautiful scene you might see in cinema this year.

It also features one of the funniest sex scenes you might see , as Chyi and Kang attempt to make out against the smog filled streets of Malaysia, their only vaguely protective surgical masks becoming obvious obstacles to their goal.

But then Tsai seems to find a lot of humour in the act of sex itself, even though he never shies away from candid, controversial and often quite explicit scenes – and The Wayward Cloud is one heck of a good example of that.

With Taiwan in the midst of a water shortage, the public are told to drink watermelon juice. Shiang-Chyi is secretly bottling water from public toilets in plastic bottles. Quite by chance she meets Hsiao-Kang, who she once bought a watch from when he was a street vendor, and a romance – of a sort – blossoms between them.

What she doesn’t realise is that he has quite a successful career now as a porn star, working in an apartment upstairs from her.

Despite its relatively explicit sex scenes, Wayward Cloud is perhaps one of Tsai’s most accessible movies. It’s a great introduction to his work, with the narrative interjected by fun lip synced dance routines to Taiwanese pop songs from the 50s and 60s, their innocent lyrics given new meanings.

Some of the biggest laughs in the movie come from the sex scenes from the porn movies filmed upstairs: from the first scene featuring a watermelon, to a shower scene faked due to the draught with bottled water (and then when they run out, who knows where it came from?), to Japanese porn actress who ‘losing’ a bottle cap.

Yet this tone dramatically changes when Chyi finds the Japanese actress unconscious in a lift, ultimately exposing Kang’s career. Having tried unsuccessfully to wake her, the Adult filmmakers decide they should get ‘back to work’, whether the actress is conscious or not. Their attitude is shown as grotesque, literally treating another human being like a piece of meat.

Tsai film is a eulogy for love in the 21st century, when anything can be bought, but strangely Kang cannot share the same sexual intimacy with Chyi as he does with his on film partners. Are love and sex truly different things, he asks?

Sexual relations also take a twisted form in Tsai’s Goodbye Dragon Inn, about the final performance at a cinema frequented by gay cruisers and ghosts. The box office girl pines for the projectionist, once again both leading seemingly solitary existences – a common thread to Tsai’s work.

Against the backdrop of an old wuxia movie – King Hu’s Dragon Inn – the director pays tribute to a dying for communal theatre going, and the sort of films that where once seen there.

There’s more than a slight comparison to be made with fellow Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee. Lee may have catapulted himself into the US mainstream with Jane Austin and Marvel comic adaptations (indeed his output was always mainstream, even when dealing with tricky subject matter), but has used this to give hive him greater freedom in his other work, especially his latest film Lust, Caution. But perhaps the nearest similarity is with Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, whose repeating of themes and characters mirror that of Tsai.

Tsai’s work demands much from its audience. He deliberately makes his films sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes confrontational, but often funny and always rewarding. And with the recent season at the BFI Southbank, he’s finally getting the recognition he deserves in the UK.

easternkicks.com » Cinema Club – The finest in Asian film

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