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

Mother

Andrew Heskins — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:00:47 +0000

A masterful piece of cinema from Bong Joon-ho, director of The Host and Memories Of Murder…

A single mother and practitioner of alternative medicines, Hye-je’s (Kim Hye-je, Mayonnaise, Late Autumn [dir. Kim Soo-yong] ) world revolves around her son, Do-Joon (Won Bin, Taegukgi , My Brother) a naïve and gullible young man with the mind of a child. When the body of a young girl is found in a derelict building, Do-Joon quickly becomes the first and only suspect by a police force seemingly only too happy to wrap up the case quickly, even if the evidence is hardly substantial.

With little help from her apathetic lawyer, Hye-je becomes determined to find the girls real killer and prove her son’s innocence.

The plight of the wrong man is a common theme in film, from the majority of Hitchcock’s main pretexts to Lu Chuan’s The Missing Gun and Roy Chow’s Murderer. It’s not often we see it from the perspective of the accused’s own mother, though.

It’s a clever spin that brings director Bong Joon-ho’s recurring themes of family – continually coming back to perpetual love/hate relationships and misplaced loyalties like some warped Yasujirō Ozu – to the fore once again to centre on the topic of unconditional love. Just how far will Do-Joon’s mother go to find the truth, and will she like what she finds?

Only his fourth feature length film, Joon-ho’s confidence as a director grows as he follows the blockbuster and box office success of monster film The Host with a far more subdued and personal journey that doesn’t necessarily play out as you might expect. But then even from his first film, Barking Dogs Never Bite, Joon-ho has been an expert at subverting audiences’ expectations.

With typical Korean black humour Hye-je’s journey quickly descends into darker tones. Her encounter with her lawyer and his friends in a karaoke bar, surrounded by escorts, for instance, swirls around in an increasingly surreal world reminiscent of Hitchcock’s often underrated and forgotten The Wrong Man. It’s a similar decent into an underworld far out of the control of it’s leading participants, or perhaps the real key is that Hye-je has spent her life distanced from reality to avoid mistakes she’d rather forget. The superb cinematography by Hong Kyung-Pyo matches this descent, following Hye-je’s journey to darker and more unpleasant environments.

It’s a poignant, heady mix that explores her devotion to the hilt, to conclusions that will force the audience to ask disagreeable questions of themselves and their own relationships. Last year in conversation Joon-ho admitted that he’d shown the film to his own mother and she’d not spoken to him about it since. Indeed, it shows just how horrific that devotion can become.

Veteran actress Kim Hye-je is superb in the lead role, whom Joon-ho saw as a ‘mother figure’ in Korean TV and film. In the role of Do-Joon, he amused himself and audiences casting heartthrob Won Bin (something co-star Jin Goo, in the role of Do-Joon’s iffy friend Jin-tae, thanked him for as audiences saw his role as far sexier). Indeed, Won makes a good job of not playing his character over sympathetically, but making him more realistic – full of flaws that can be exploited by those who wish to.

A fine cinematic experience by a master storyteller that stands up to repeated viewings.

Back in November 2009, Bong Joon-ho spoke at the BFI Southbank in London, which we reviewed here.

Mother is released by Optimum Releasing and ICO in cinemas from Friday, 20 August, and will be released on DVD by Optimum Home Entertainment on 20 September.

The Storm Riders

Andrew Heskins — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:00:29 +0000

With the long-awaited sequel The Storm Warriors out next Monday, we look back at the original adaptation of Ma Wing-Shing’s comic book Fung Wan, directed by Andrew Lau (Infernal Affairs)…

In ancient China, the appropriately named evil Lord Conqueror (played by Sonny Chiba, The Streetfighter, Legend Of Eight Samurai, Kill Bill, on particularly fine raucous, bellowing form) learns from a Buddhist prophet that his future as ruler lies in two children, Wind and Cloud, and sends his legions out, King Herod style, to find and bring them under his wing and kill anyone who gets in his way.

But the final part of the prophecy must wait 10 years, as Wind (Ekin Cheng, Tokyo Raiders, Heroic Duo, Forest Of Death) and Cloud (Aaron Kwok, Murderer, Divergence, Saviour Of The Soul) grow up to be the most powerful weapons in Conqueror’s arsenal.

Wind is kindhearted, oblivious to the truth that his father Whispering Prince (Alex Fong, One Nite In Mongkok, Portland Street Blues) was killed during a dual with Conqueror. Cloud, on the other hand, is fully aware of the part Conqueror played in his father Striding Sky’s (Rongguang Yu, Mulan, New Police Story, Musa: The Warrior) death, and has become bitter, a cold and ruthless servant.

When the second part of the prophecy us revealed, that Wind and Cloud will not only make him, but also be his undoing, Conqueror sets about setting them against each other. This only results in backfiring on him, with his daughter Charity (Kristy Yang, A Man Called Hero, The Duel) murdered by his own hands.

Soon both Wind and Cloud have reasons to revenge themselves on Lord Conqueror, but can they work together to do it?

When The Storm Riders debuted at cinemas in 1998 it marked a turning point in Hong Kong filmmaking, the introduction of a high percentage of CGI effects that were (at that point) state-of-the-art. Even now the effects stand up pretty well. And that was kind of the point, co-produced by Hong Kong based Centro Digital Pictures, the film can be seen as much as a calling card for their work as it can a blockbuster, and really proved that HK could match Hollywood special effects.

Still riding the success of the Young And Dangerous series, which turned Ekin Cheng into a star and is attributed with glamorising triad life to teenagers of the time, this one-time Wong Kar-Wai cinematographer invigorated the wuxia genre, which had waned in popularity since the early 90s, setting the scene for Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon a few years later.

Taken from the successful long-running manhua, or comic book series Fung Wan by Ma Wing-Shing, it’s interesting to look back on The Storm Riders and see how reverent it is to what came before. In the same way that Wing-Shing referenced the martial art novels of the 50s and 60s, Lau looked to the big screen adaptions, such as those by the Shaw Brothers studio.

In particular it’s the series of Gu Long adaptations by director Chor Yuen such as The Magic Blade and Death Duel that come to mind, as Each character is announced with text on screen. The later Buddha’s Palm seems quite an influence too, with that films attempt to imbue martial art powers with post Star Wars effects. Lau doesn’t stop there, there’s the casting Chiba with his long history in Asian film; the childhood scenes and stylised vision recall Ronny Yu’s The Bride With White Hair; and the dual between Conqueror and Whispering Prince in a bamboo forest pays homage to that in King Hu’s Touch Of Zen, much as Lee would do a couple of years later in Crouching Tiger.

Yet unlike Lee, Lau brought a more modern sensitivity with him. He pulled on those modern references from Young And Dangerous, with slo-mo action scenes with more in common with pop promos, and fights set to dance music (rather than more classical Chinese influence music), much as The Matrix would do a year later. This was wuxia re-interpreted for the post-MTV generation, echoing Tsui Hark’s early, anarchic take on the genre in The Butterfly Murders, and was probably the biggest step on since Hark’s own Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain and Ching Siu-tung’s A Chinese Ghost Story.

With an all- star cast, including Shu Qi, Michael Tse and Anthony Wong, The Storm Riders is still a highly enjoyable film, reaching the right balance of narrative and action (unlike it’s successor!).

Unsurprisingly, it was immensely popular. Inspiring another Ma Wing-Shing adoption, A Man Called Hero and the similarly themed The Duel, both also starring Ekin Cheng, and setting the scene for Hark to revisit his earliest triumph in the disappointing CGI led Legend Of Zu. Lau then tried an (unofficial) attempt at bringing computer game Tekken Fist to the screen in The Avenging Fist and rebooting the Wisley character (Legend Of Wisley, The Seventh Curse) in Wesley’s Mysterious File, before moving on to the Infernal Affairs series that finally made his name internationally.

The Storm Warriors is released Monday 12 July on Blu-ray and DVD by Cine Asia.

Breaking News

Andrew Heskins — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 09:00:03 +0000

A great thriller by Johnnie To and wry look at how 21st century news is broadcast all rolled into one – Hong Kong filmmaking at it’s best…

When a police operation to catch a ruthless gang of bank robbers goes wrong, live cameras broadcast footage of a police crying and begging for his life on Hong Kong television.

Deciding to turn the gangs capture into a public relations exercise, police Commissioner Rebecca Fong (Kelly Chen, An Empress and the Warriors, Infernal Affairs, Tokyo Riders), engages the press to watch Hong Kong’s finest successfully and efficiently bring down the gang, now hiding in an apartment block with father Yip (Lam Suet, Exiled, Election, Mad Detective) and his two children hostage.

Things don’t go to plan, though, as the apartment block also contains two assassins, soon holed up in the same flat, and the tenacious detective in charge of the original operation, Inspector Cheung (Nick Cheung, Exiled, The Beast Stalker), who refuses to give up even when ordered.

Soon the gangs’ leader Yuen (Richie Ren, Accident, Sniper) gets the better of Rebecca’s plan and starts turning the tables on the police’s version of events. In this game of wits, can the police win the publics confidence, let alone capture the criminals?

Undoubtedly one of Johnnie To’s finest works, shamefully it was the Russian language remake Newsmakers that brought me to it – a film that stands alongside Infernal Affairs as one of the best Hong Kong movies of the last decade. As fine as remake was, it really doesn’t compare to the original.

Utterly enthralling from the start, it’s in the sort of film that can totally engross you in moments, the kind that can make you forget where you are watching it in chucks on a tiny screen. (Trust me, I’ve tried!)

The infamous opening tracking shot beautifully sets the pace. Mellow music plays while To follows the action spiralling from a peaceful if lively street with cops staking our their intended arrests, to an all out gunfight and even a bazooka explosion.

All the time the camera weaves in an out of buildings, up and down the street, from above and below, in the sort of perfectly choreographed way that would make Brian DePalma jealous. He forces us, the audience, to be constantly one step behind, eternally a spectator.

(It also brilliant sets a core theme of one level of cops inadvertently stepping into larger operations, the beat cops step into Cheung’s operation as he does exactly the same later.)

A wonderfully wry observation of our modern consumption of news media, flippantly played out like a reality TV show, it’s hard not to draw parallels over the authorities inability to control the media with China’s own habit of wanting to control the Internet (an observation that can’t have been lost on its original Hong Kong audience).

With superb performances by the cast, including Johnnie To favourites Nicky, Suet and Richie, Breaking News is a superb thriller, even if you don’t like thrillers!

A genuine Hong Kong classic!

The Sky Crawlers

Andrew Heskins — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 09:00:27 +0000

Ghost In The Shell director Mamoru Oshii returns with a typically cerebral but nonetheless spellbinding gaze at an alternative future where eternally young fighter pilots clash in a seemingly endless and pointless war…

In an alternative near-future reality, specially bred soldiers named ‘Kildren’ fight an unspecified war, seemingly fabricated by rival conglomerate companies in order keep the mass population happy and obedient – a ploy that appears to have worked for years. Groups of fighter pilots engage in dogfights against the neighbouring nations forces high above the clouds, the only casualties of this conflict, they never age or grow up.

When a new pilot Yuichi Kannami (Ryo Kase) joins one of these groups, he struggles unable to remember anything of his life before save his intensive flight training. The mystery deepens when his new female commander, Suito Kusanagi (Rinko Kikuchi), another ‘Kildren’ who has unusually crossed over from being a fighter pilot herself, refuses to discuss the fate of pilot Yuichi was brought in to replace, or why his plane is in such perfect condition.

Those unfamiliar with director Mamoru Oshii’s previous work may be surprised by how little The Sky Crawlers conforms to Anime clichés. Indeed, even though his best known work Ghost In The Shell (and Blood: The Last Vampire, on which he worked as supervising producer) are as close to being typical of the genre as he has ever gotten, yet like all his work hide more complex themes often little more than hinted at.

But perhaps that shouldn’t be a revelation at all. Oshii co-founded Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, but left soon afterwards due to creative differences. Though Oshii’s work has always been more adult in content, the directors share a distain for simplistic, exploitative Anime that panders to an adolescent audience, and have done more to lift our preconceptions of the genre than any other filmmakers.

Sky Crawlers is itself no exception, taking author Hiroshi Mori’s first book of many on the ‘Kildren’ and dealing with it in a typically subverted fashion. The true nature of the ‘Kildren’ is only partly revealed in an after-title sequence, but even then there are no simple answers here, more hints and subtexts of themes. Like much of Oshii’s work, it bears comparison with Ridley Scott’s take on Philip K. Dick’s ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ (or Blade Runner to you and me).

As with his early series Patlabor, Oshii concerns himself with the ‘little people’ caught up in the conflict. Powerless to change anything around them, they are mere pawns in a war or power struggle far beyond their comprehension. In tone it greatly resembles the last part of Oshii’s Jigoku no banken trilogy, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade – its effectively slow pacing paying tribute to films of the past. A reference which seems almost deliberate, as the name of the pilot Yuichi replaces is Jin-Ro.

But if Jin-roh looked to Hitchcock and the mesmerising Vertigo for inspiration, here Oshii looks to aerial combat movies like Battle Of Britain and The Dawn Patrol. Rooted in two World Wars, the film is as much about the endless waiting between those dogfights as it is the exciting aerial action. If anything, Oshii seems obsessed with that tedium, treating it in a detached, almost hypnotic fashion.

It bleeds a quality rarely seen in live-action films, with a strong voice cast including Oscar-nominated Rinko Kikuchi and cameos from famous Japanese actors such as Kill Bill’s Chiaki Kuriyama and prolific Naoto Takenaka, whose numerous roles include Shall We Dance and Ping Pong.

It’s glorious stuff, and though this might not appeal to every Anime fan, it should find an audience far beyond the genre. A beautifully shot, intelligent tale of innocence lost.

The Sky Crawlers is released this Friday, 23 April, by Manga Entertainment and will open at selected UK cinemas, including the ICA in London, and there’s a special preview tonight at the BFI Southbank ahead of their Anime Weekend in May.

The Sky Crawlers will also be released on DVD and Blu-Ray by Manga Entertainment on 31 May.

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.

Blood: The Last Vampire – the original Anime

Andrew Heskins — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:00:24 +0000

With the upcoming release of the live-action version, what better time to revisit the original that started it all…

In retrospect on the original anime of Blood: The Last Vampire, it’s still an impressive looking piece of film. Essentially a follow-on from Production I.G.’s Ghost In The Shell, both in terms of themes and production, Blood broke new ground in the film was entirely digital – being inked, coloured and animated on computer rather than using animation cells – yet without losing old-fashioned quirks. A revelation that garnered praise from mister CGI himself, James Cameron (who was also a very public fan of Ghost too). It was also one of the first series to be filmed almost entirely in English, no doubt spurred on by the success of Ghost and the financial involvement by UK/USA distribution company Manga Entertainment.

Working for a dubious US government agency, the eternally young Saya hunts down demonic bat-like creatures intent on causing some, undisclosed, havoc on the world. Tensions raised between her and her employers – they refer to her as the last ‘original’ – she is sent undercover as a schoolgirl on an American Air Base in Japan shortly before the start of the Vietnam war. Armed with just a samurai sword that has seen better days, Saya must flush out and destroy these creatures before they fulfill their nefarious plans – but Saya’s allegiances seem strained – she has more in common with them than her human employers…

At less than 50 minutes long, Blood: The Last Vampire was something of a deliberate tease for audiences. Intended as something of a multimedia release, with the story continued in a light novel, and a two-part video game – with hindsight an extremely savvy and forward-looking concept. Of course, for most of those of us unaware of those other release, or even just unable to get hold of them, it was hard not to be somewhat disappointed…

I remember its DVD release coming at quite an opportune moment. I’d just gotten round to watching the original Ghost In The Shell, and spurred on by a love of that film (as well as a new-found knowledge of how much of a rip-off The Matrix was!) I was keen to absorb any similar cutting edge Anime I could lay my hands on, particularly from the same producers. That was in the days when DVD releases were easily over £15 in retail price. Honestly for less than an hours worth of film, however beautiful the animation, that seemed a little steep.

(It’s notable that the original trailer, which we’ve included above, includes several shots that weren’t only not in the finished film, but don’t even appear to be from the same situations shown.)

But the animation itself is truly stunning. It inhabits a murky gray/brown world of golden tints, not unlike Production I.G./ Hiroyuki Okiura’s earlier Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (except without the Hitchcock-styled soft focus). The studio had used a mix of CG and old-fashioned animation styles for years, but despite the digital conception kept the style full of character, and avoiding the soulless flaws of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Unlike other films of the time, here the 2D and 3D techniques don’t jar against each other, despite some of the backgrounds and objects almost looking too real.

The style is as reminiscent of artist Gene Colan’s work on Marvel’s Tomb Of Dracula in the 70s as it is of previous Vampire-themed Animes like Vampire Hunter D. Perhaps that’s not coincidental, considering that series originally launched the Blade character, which had only recently been turned into a successful movie franchise. Half-human, half-vampire, intent on wiping out vampire-like creatures, the characters have a lot in common. Dressed as a schoolgirl, you could also argue the influence of Buffy. (Director Guillermo del Toro returned the ‘compliment’ by referencing Blood in Blade II.)

The scenes within the school have a superb, tangible tension, as Saya waits for the creatures to expose themselves. Indeed, considering the length this section could have been longer. Like most of the Anime coming from Production I.G. at the time, the pace neither rattles along nor brakes, finding a natural rhythm within the simple, effective plotline. Here the unresolved aspects of Saya’s origin, the government agency she works for and the creatures she hunts down help to cover the flaws in the script.

The action is well shot, if lacking the speed or surprise you might expect from an action/horror. Possibly the most memorable scene is where we first meet Saya, in a subway train leading up to a kill, (fairly) faithfully recreated in the new live-action movie. It obviously left a mark on the Pang Brothers, borrowing much the style and look for an assassination scene in the original Bangkok Dangerous. Elsewhere the Halloween party has obvious potential, but again doesn’t seem fully explored.

Despite the English language the acting in generally good, if occasionally stilted. Its greatly helped by Youki Kudo’s performance as Saya, her career far outstretching the occasional Anime voice-over, previous roles had included Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train and Snow Falling on Cedars, she’s gone on to appear in L: Change the World, Memoirs of a Geisha and, ahem, Rush Hour 3. Joe Romersa, voice of lead agent David, also has had a somewhat unexpected career, an engineer, singer and songwriter for over 30 years, he’s more recently become known for his Anime voice-over work. (And his singing can be heard on Silent Hill.)

There’s a promise of so much more in Blood: The Last Vampire, that without any sort of resolution in its Anime form, doesn’t quite deliver. Fans of Ghost In The Shell should perhaps look first to the earlier Jin-Roh. However, it’s easy to see the enduring attraction to Blood, having inspired mangas, an Anime series Blood+, and now a live-action film. Perhaps we might finally get that decisive conclusion we’re been waiting for…

The new live-action version of Blood: The Last Vampire is released around UK cinemas on 26 June 2009 by Pathé. We also exclusively interviewed director Chris Nahon and lead star Gianna Jun.

**There’s still time to enter our competition and you can win an exclusive Blood t-shirt and this original Anime version on DVD! Click here…**

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!

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

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