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Lu Chuan’s latest film about the rape of Nanjing may be in black and white, but his characters most definitely are not…

It was over three years ago when I spoke to Lu Chuan about his fabulous second movie Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, then about to begin a limited theatrical release in the UK courtesy of Axiom films (despite the fact it had previously been released by Sony on DVD). At the time I asked him what his next film would be, and without any hesitation the answer came back that it would be ‘Nanjing! Nanjing!’ (the original Chinese title of the film). Of course, while it’s usual to ask directors their future plans it’s all the more exciting when they actually come to fruition…

Introducing the film to an audience at the London Film Festival, Lu Chuan revealed the film had been in production for over four years, with much of that time taken up with meticulous research into the situation not only from a Chinese perspective, but also from that of the occupying Japanese soldiers. Unsurprisingly, it makes for grim if undeniably compelling, viewing.

With the Japanese Imperial Army at gates of Nanking, from vignettes the story builds up a broader picture of the travesties committed and motivations of those involved: from the doomed Chinese resistance leader who leads a group that includes children against the might of the Japanese forces (Liu Ye, Curse of the Golden Flower, Purple Butterfly); to the Japanese soldier confused into believing a real relationship could develop between him and a –so-called ‘comfort woman’ (Hideo Nakaizumi); to the anxious Chinese secretary of a German missionary, forced to compromise loyalty to his own nation in order to keep his wife and child alive (Wei Fan, A World Without Thieves).

As you might expect from Lu Chuan’s previous work Kekexili, the picture he paints is not a simplistic version of events where Chinese are the persecuted and heroic, the Chinese secretary effectively sells out his own nation to keep himself alive, while the Japanese soldier is overwhelmed by his own forces merciless treatment of the Chinese. Yes, the film may be in black and white, but when it comes to conflict, Lu Chuan’s loyalties are decidedly grey.

Of course, this has made the film rather controversial in China, where neither a sympathetic Japanese nor a dishonourable Chinese character are particularly favourable. But of course, that’s Chuan’s point – in war we do what we must to survive. It’s not a judgement but an honesty so often missing from films based around war.

Lu Chuan candidly admitted in a Q&A after the LFF screening that his choice to shoot the film in black and white came from his dislike of the sight of blood. He felt it would be too distracting against carnage that was, frankly, horrific enough. (Ironically the same was true of another film screening at the 2009 London Film Festival, Polytechnique, based on the Montreal Massacure of 1989.)

This can’t help but bring Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, but those hoping for a similar uplifting final segment to truly lift the soul won’t find that kind of simplicity here. City Of Life And Death is a haunting but elegant take on the monstrosities of war.

City Of Life And Death will be released by High Flyers Films on 16 April at Curzon Mayfair and selected cinemas around the UK.

(Shame it’s not all four hours plus??)

From the same novel that spawned John Woo’s Red Cliff comes Three Kingdoms, surrounding the legend of Zhao Zilong who became known as The Undefeated General. But do we need another hysterical – I mean historical – drama…?

(And no, it’s not about resurrecting that dragon – they haven’t found a way to bring back Bruce Lee… yet!)

Zhao, played by Andy Lau, is a commoner who joins Liu Bei’s forces in the hope of helping end the wars between the three kingdoms in China. With his courage and exceptional martial art prowess Zhao soon rises through the ranks, becoming of of Liu Bei’s five generals (who also include 70s Shaw Brothers star Ti Lung as Guan Yu) – particularly when he saves Liu Bei’s baby son from the forces of Cao Cao (in an all-too-fleeting cameo by Damien Lau) – a scene also shown in Woo’s Red Cliff, where Jun Hu played Zhao.

Several years later Zhao finds himself still fighting for new leaders, the country still torn apart by war. Deceived into a trap that brings him full circle to the outpost where his calling began, he finds himself up against Cao’s daughter Ying  (Maggie Q, Die Hard 4.0, Mission: Impossible III, Gen-X Cops 2), and an inevitable showdown…

Guanzhong Luo’s 14th century historical novel, Romance Of The Three Kingdoms is said to be one of the four classic Chinese novels, alongside Journey To The West, The Water Margin and Dream of the Red Chamber. (And yes, I admit even I had to look up that last one…) Unlike Woo’s more recent Red Cliff, director Daniel Lee’s (Black Mask, What Price Survival?) script and direction does little to honour that novel, encompassing both too little of the source material, and too much of Zhao’s life span. (And it’s nothing to do with Lee’s loose take on the material, either, Woo was just as free with the details.)

In fact, the battle for Red Cliff itself is not even eluded to, perhaps due to Lee wanting to distance himself from Woo’s long promised and undoubtedly epic take on the novel. Yet by trying to show us how Zhao first became a legend, cover the battles he fought and bring us to his disillusioned end, Lee simply glosses over his characters, providing none of them with any depth to like, let alone get caught up in the sentimentality heaped on us.

I’ve begun coining the phrase ‘hysterical dramas’ (rather than historical) for films like this, the mounting levels of melodrama and hysteria having become so over-the-top. It’s something The Warlords did, which also starred Andy Lau, but did well, and Red Cliff, somehow, managed to avoid. Yet Lee even makes a mess of that. We don’t care about the one-dimensional characters, or what happens to them. He lazily inserts flashback after flashback to attempt to pull at our heartstrings, yet only infuriates as they often come within minutes of being originally shown. Gone are the days when we’d get a classic Woo cum Peckinpah flashback of friends in happier times, before seeing them blown to pieces one last time. You can’t help but feel Lee would have been better placed concentrating on the latter part of Zhao’s life.

It’s heavy handed, simplistic and somehow very patronising – I can’t help but feel like Lee is aiming his sights purely on the Chinese market, and that says something rather sad about how sophisticated an audience he considers them. At best it’s a misguided attempt to recreate the simplicity of the Shaw Brothers classics of the 70s that starred Ti Lung and Damien Lau.

It’s also strangely nihilistic. Having fought so many years and given up any happiness of his own, only to find himself in exactly the same out that his heroic journey began, now betrayed by his oldest friend, and even used as a pawn by the great strategist Zhuge Liang. This is the part of the film where the lead is supposed to find a resolution, a meaning for his life, and the true elevation of dying with honour (I hope I’m not spoiling the plot here) yet as with director Lee’s sweeping generalisations, this rings as hollow and unconvincing. There is no discernable victory to be found, let alone moral high ground. (Zhao doesn’t even honour his own words to die defending the outpost.) Could this be deliberate – probably not, and hardly has the desired result.

On the positive side, the action choreography by co-star Sammo Hung and fellow Peking Opera student Yuen Tak, who both attended the same school with Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao, is outstanding. (Even if the scale is dwarfed by Woo’s production several times over.) The cinematography is also impressive, the great, dusty, desolate golden-saturated landscape created by director of photography Tony Cheung mirrored in a main theme that is more than slightly reminiscent of a spaghetti western.

The cast, however, get such a bum deal with the script there’s little for them to sink their teeth into. Andy Lau, initially rather miscast as the young Zhao, is disappointing and rather unconvincing in the lead role. Just compare with his recent performances in Protégé, or even the similarly themed The Warlords – this is more an actor simply going through the motions, but with this script who can blame him. Similarly, Sammo Hung’s support is fine, but not exceptional.

Instead it’s Maggie Q, whose casting was heavily criticised when the film was released in Asia, who actually makes quite a promising appearance as the daughter of Cao Cao, as does Andy On as Zhao’s second-in-command Deng Zhi. It’s just with such a short amount of time devoted to their part of the story, we don’t see enough of them!

Yep, this might sound a bit harsh, but you’re better off trying to catch the theatrical release of Red Cliff while it’s still playing in cinemas. Overall this is a disappointing ‘historical drama’ that should be left to true fans of the genre.

Three Kingdoms: Resurrection Of The Dragon (cert. 15) is released today on DVD (£17.99) and Blu-ray (£24.99) by Icon Home Entertainment.

Oh boy, here we go again…

Read the full story on the Guardian Online »

Starring an under-utilised Donnie Yen, Leon Li and Kelly Chen, it’s an historical melodrama. Yep, another one. And sadly it doesn’t delight in the way you might hope from the director of Hong Kong 80s and 90s classics like the Chinese Ghost Story and Swordsman series of films, or from his collaborations with Zhang Yimou – Hero, House Of Flying Daggers and Curse Of The Golden Flower.

You can read our full review of An Empress and The Warriors here »

You can read the full article here, which also includes some pearls of wisdom from both men. (Including “Why do hot dogs come in packages of ten, but hot dog buns only come in packages of just eight?” from Chow Yun-Fat in Bulletproof Monk…

Yet another historical drama, over blown, over acted and over long – but it’s still easily the best thing John Woo has done in a long time…!

Heralded for a several years as John Woo’s return to Chinese filmmaking since Hard Boiled, this troubled production took years to make it to the big screen, cost an estimated US$80 million (which would make it the most expensive Asian-financed film to date), included roughly 1000 members of the Chinese Army as extras, had one unfortunate accidental death of a stuntman, had a film based on the same source material (Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon) to contend with and several blips in casting to overcome.

These were namely that it was to reunite Chow Yun-fat and Woo for the first time since both had entered the Hollywood mainstream after Hard Boiled. Sadly that didn’t happen, and Tony Leung Chiu-wai (who also starred in Hard Boiled!) first pulled out due to health reasons, only to come back two days later recast in the role originally intended for Chow.

Such a torturous production puts even greater expectation on the film to deliver, and after a long, sluggish start, that’s exactly what Woo manages…

Set in the last year of the Han Dynasty, Prime Minister Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi, The Emperor and the Assassin, Police Confidential) exploits the naivety of his monarch to start a war with leading kingdoms of the South mainly to further his power and influence in the Royal Court.

When Liu Bei’s (You Yong, Triangle, Election) forces fall against Cao, his chief advisor and strategist Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro, Confession of Pain, House of Flying Daggers, The Warlords) attempts to woo Sun Quan (Chen Chang, Missing, Three Times, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and the land of Wu into joining forces with Lui, before Cao forces their hands anyway. Sun unconvinced, Zhuge tries to persuade his mentor and army commander Zhou Yu (Tony Leung, Lust, Caution, in the Mood For Love, Infernal Affairs), based at Red Cliff, instead.

With Yu on board Zhuge returns to Quan’s scourt to unite forces, only to find Cao’s forces already underway, on both land and sea. With Quan’s sister Sun Shangxiang (Zhao Wei, So Close, Shaolin Soccer, Painted Skin) keen to put her arching skills towards the cause, the allies’ ranks take shape – but will they be enough to overcome Cao’s forces?

After an overlong and literally shaky start, all old-school Zhang Che style close ups with a stilted script and wooden leads – the film seems almost a homage to the historical dramas of Zhang Che like The Water Margin and The Blood Brothers, where John Woo learnt his trade as an assistant director – the film eventually becomes more engaging characters emerge. Leung is customary solid, Takeshi character begins to warm with more to play against, and Zhao Wei her usual feisty, sexy best (though somewhat miscast as she’s far too modern a personality for a period piece).

For true Woo fans, there are plenty of familiar themes transposed to less familiar territory, people sliding backwards in fights, a sword in each hand, doves – one of the warriors even saves a baby while still in combat (as last seen Hard Boiled). In fact you could easily describe it as historic Heroic Bloodshed! (With the mass, almost Python-esque bloodletting reminiscent of Zhang Che at his ‘yang gang’ best.) The rest will be entertained by his fantastically staged battle sequences, skilfully aided by action choreographer Corey Yuen and no doubt just the sheer scale of them, with thousands of extras.

In fact, just as all starts going superbly well, adeptly building up to the Battle of Red Cliff itself, you suddenly become aware of the running time and a ‘To be continued…’ runs across the screen. With the sequel (or rather continuation) Red Cliff: Part II just released in Asia, you wonder just how much patience we’re meant to have for these multi-parters (Death Note and 20th Century Boys spring most readily to mind).

And there’s the rub, there’s simply not enough story to pad out two parts! This isn’t Lord Of The Rings, it’s not even Harry Potter! There’s something inherently wrong with a film or sequel that can’t be enjoyed, at least partly, in it’s own right without seeing what came before or after.

And for once perhaps the West will get a better deal, with Woo allegedly to condense the two parts into one 2.5 hour movie (losing over 2 hours in the process?) A closer rein on content, with Woo (hopefully) editing the right parts could produce a far tighter, even more enjoyable film.

Despite my misgivings about yet another historical drama, even in its extended form Red Cliff is easily a cut above (most) of the rest. Welcome back, Mr Woo!

Red Cliff: Part II is currently on release in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Total Film list Red Cliff’s UK theatrical release as 10 July 2010, IMDB as 23 January 2009(!)

UPDATE: As you’ll probably already know, the UK release – an edited version of both parts – is due on 12 June 2009.

Action choreographer on Hero, House Of Flying Daggers, The Warlords and far too many others to mention, Tony Ching Siu-tung is back in the director’s chair for the first time in five years – but is this the triumphant return we were hoping for…?

Kelly Chen (Breaking News, Tokyo Raiders, Infernal Affairs) plays Yen Feier, charged with becoming Empress when her father dies in the fight to save her kingdom. Her devoted aid and loyal commander Muyong Xuehu (Donnie Yen, Flash Point, S.P.L.: Kill Zone, Seven Swords, Hero) begins to train her to take on her role, little knowing that she has more to fear than rival kingdoms – an ambitious cousin Wu Ba (Guo Xiao Dong, The Warlords, Missing) plans to assassinate her to claim the empire as his own.

Saved by a mysterious recluse, Duan Lanquan (Leon Li, Seven Swords, Infernal Affairs III, Three), Yen finds herself falling in love with him and his simpler life. But chaos reigns within her council as Wu Ba intends to use her absence to take over, and warring kingdoms continue to plague her territories. Soon Yen realises she must make a choice between the duty of protecting her subjects, and the dreams of a life she could have had…

Most readers will recognise Ching Siu-tung’s name as action choreographer on recent Chinese/Hong Kong blockbusters such as Zhang Yimou’s Hero, House Of Flying Daggers and Curse Of The Golden Flower, not to mention Peter Chan’s grittier historical vision The Warlords or Stephen Chow’s hilarious Shaolin Soccer, but fewer may be aware of his importance to the Hong Kong New Wave cinema in the mid-80s (unless you’re a regular visitor to the site).

With films like Duel To The Death, A Chinese Ghost Story and Swordsman II, Siu-tung became one of the most prominent directors of the era, continually breaking new ground in techniques, particularly in ‘wire-fu’, but more importantly in how he visualised scenes, creating (often bizarre) visual ideas that simply have no parallel in cinema (though many have been referenced since). By the early 90s he’d become the hardest working action choreographer in Hong Kong cinema, involved in pretty much every notable wire-fu and action film released.

His work more recently for Yimou and Chan has only proved that Siu-tung still has the ability to create exciting and imaginative sequences like no other.

Unfortunately, that only raises expectation on his first film as director in five years, and the bar is unrealistically high. An Empress and The Warriors is yet another ‘historical’, wuxia-powered vehicle in a market increasingly flooded with them…

There are some standout scenes, particularly when the assassins attempt to get to the Empress through Duan’s elaborate interweaving tree house of a home (which from the start always looked a little too detailed to simply remain the backdrop for the romantic bits). Superbly orchestrated and choreographed, it’s exactly what we’d expect from Siu-tung, but the truth is we see far too little of this side of him. The assassins provide much of the more fantastical, wire-fu scenes in the film (rather as they did in Curse Of The Golden Flower), and there’s some nice work in battle fields, particularly when one side of the army armed with shields join up to create ramps to tip the other side’s chariots – but it’s all a little sparing used. Often Siu-tung seems unable to decide whether he’s aiming for the more down-to-earth, gritty style of The Warlords, or the more fantasy led style of Hero. Perhaps the real point is this film doesn’t share the budget of either, leaving Siu-tung unable to pull off the battle scenes in the same way he did during The Warlords.

Instead the film centres on the key roles of Yen, Muyong and Duan, and the rather insipid love triangle that ensues. Never Siu-tung’s strongpoint, it highlights the greatest flaw in the movie: that like much of today’s generation of wuxia-inspired movies it just takes itself too seriously.

Since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, films have become increasingly melodramatic, hysterical, over-acted and unable to do what their counterparts did in the early 90s: namely laugh at themselves. It reflects the opening up for Hong Kong directors and producers to enter the Chinese market, it’s a larger audience, but one that has very different needs. Often the film relies totally on its cast to pull off that melodrama, and it’s here An Empress and The Warriors fails most…

Kelly Chen is utterly unconvincing as either a princess or warrior, Donnie Yen continues to be unimpressive as a lead, and doesn’t get fight sequences worthy of his talents. Leaving it down to the oft-criticised Leon Li to actually give a pretty reasonable performance – but with nothing to bounce off! The attempt to depict the surreptitious politics of power sound naïve, particularly coming so soon after The Warlords, the romance falls flat, and you can’t help but feel the whole thing would have been easier to take had it been a little more tongue-in-cheek.

An Empress and The Warriors is not a terrible movie, it’s better than his least feature, the straight-to-video Steven Seagal vehicle Belly Of The Beast, but however unfair the comparison (and I know it’s because I’m such a fan) it’s not the return to form from Ching Siu-tung we’ve been waiting for.

An Empress and The Warriors will be released by Cine Asia on 23 March 2009.

Oh dear, Angelica Lee’s (The Eye, Re-cycle) seeing dead people again. Again. This time Tsui Hark’s at the helm in this rather convoluted psychological thriller…

Some people never learn, do they? Take Angelica Lee (also known as Lee Sinje, Divergence, Koma, The Eye, Re-cycle), if you’ve told her once, you must have told her a million times – try to avoid situations where-in you might see apparitions of one kind or another. Does she listen? Does she heck…

Take the latest state of affairs. Angelica stars as Dr. Gao Jing, a psychologist still trying to come to terms with a tragic diving accident that took her fiancé, successful photographer Dave Chen (Guo Xiao Dong, An Empress and the Warriors, The Warlords) when he tried to show her the mythical ancient city of Feng Lai. Unconvinced that the headless body found by the authorities is really him, despite his sister and close friend Chen Xiao Ka (Isabella Leong, The Eye 10, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor) being convinced otherwise.

Gao desperately wants to find out what really happened, and befriends patient of hers, Simon (Chang Chen, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Three Times, Red Cliff) who believes he can see her departed lover, as well as his own wife. It seems the drugs meant to subdue his condition allow him to see these ghosts, and Gao wonders if it can help her – but she’s in no way prepared for what she sees. Particularly a white-haired girl also lost at sea who seems to want revenge on Gao.

And (of course!) nothing is as it seems…

Sound familiar? There’s even a creepy scene in a lift! Produced by Peter Chan, this even had a working title of The Eye 3 before the more inventive Sam hoi tsam yan (which roughly translates along the lines of ‘The deep sea looks for missing persons’) was coined.

But the films problems go way beyond the uninspiring casting of Angelica Lee – it’s the convoluted plot that takes in psychological thriller, with fleeting appearances by Tony Leung Ka-fai as Gao’s boss (you always know there’s going to be trouble when the psychologist is seeing a psychologist), horror and then, for the last third of the film, an über-mushy version of Ghost – as if that wasn’t mushy enough.

It shares the Pang brothers’ interpolation of Buddhist beliefs into the horror, but this isn’t the Pangs, it’s director Tsui Hark, the godfather of modern Hong Kong cinema, creator of Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, Time And Tide and Peking Opera Blues, and however much he may have ‘dropped the ball’ over the years he’s not brought us anything quite as lame as Forest Of Death or Bangkok Dangerous (the ‘what were you thinking?’ 2008 version). Until now…

It’s a beautiful looking film. It’s no surprise to find this released on Blu-Ray as well as DVD, Japanese cinematographer Yoshitaka Sakamoto‘s work is wonderfully sharp and picturesque, and you can’t help but wonder if Hark hides yearnings to be David (not Richard!) Attenborough on the next series of The Blue Planet. (And that’s on the DVD – god knows how good the Blu-Ray looks!) The sound design is full of atmosphere, the production slick. If only that was all it took…

It’s not just that the film doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be – thriller, horror, mushy romantic-mush – it that it doesn’t do any of them well! At all but two hours long, the film lacks the tightness of the Pang Brothers, it also lacks their lasting impact – if Re-cycle fell into a flawed fantasy, at least the first half hour was taut horror, the horror here is at points almost laughable. And just when you feel like going along with it, suddenly it’s gone all Ghost for the last third and you’re dreading a potters wheel turning up. (Thankfully it doesn’t!)

Most of the performances are fine, but somehow Angelica Lee never convinces you that she’s really, in any way, a professional doctor. Tony Leung is horribly under utilised. Isabella Leong does what you’d expect. But it’s Chang Chen who truly shines as Simon, making a potentially ridiculous character sympathetic and believable (as much as he can with the script).

Any film that looks this good is never a complete waste of time, but it’s hard not to be disappointed by such a misfire.