easternkicks.com » Ching Siu-tung

Kamui: The Lone Ninja

Andrew Heskins — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 09:00:31 +0000

A very enjoyable manga adaption from director Yoichi Sai (Blood And Bones) and starring Ken’ichi Matsuyama (L Change The WorLd, Bare Essence Of Life), but ‘probably the best ninja movie ever’… what, really?

Based on the legenadry series created by Japanese artist Sanpei Shirato in 1964, Kamui: The Lone Ninja tells of it’s eponymous hero, played by Ken’ichi Matsuyama (Death Note, Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler), a young man who has spent all of his life as one type of outcast or another. Attempting to find true freedom away from inherited cast and clan he turns his back on life as a ninja, making him a target for the ninja hunters led by his one time master Dumok (Ekin Cheung, Storm Warriors, Tokyo Raiders).

Kamui finds fleeting solace with spirited fisherman Hanbei (Kaoru Kobayashi, Princess Mononoke, Tales from Earthsea) who invites him to stay with his family. Yet even here Kamui discovers himself face-to-face with a long-forgotten nemesis, another renegade ninja with a deadly score to settle. And all the while the ninja hunters are setting a trap from which there can be no escape…

Director Yoichi Sai (Doing Time, All Under The Moon), together with co-scripter Kankuro Kudo (Ping Pong, Zebraman, Go), keeps the film close to its source, becoming as much about the social commentary that ran through Sanpei’s work as it does of great battles. (And presumably it’s where the storyline gets some of its ‘weirdness’.) The opening titles, perhaps cutest thing in the whole movie, actually use frames from the original manga to set the scene.

Here he greatly benefits from solid performances from a great cast that also includes Suzuka Ohgo (Memoirs Of A Geisha), Koichi Sato (Sukiyaki Western Django, Starfish Hotel), Koyuki (Blood: The Last Vampire, Kitaro) and Yuta Kanai (L Change The WorLd). Ken’ichi proves again just how compelling and increasingly versatile he can be, making sympathetic but believable lead.

Easily one of the better manga adaptions of late, it’s easy to forget beyond the seeming overwhelming trend that there’s something of a long history to live-action adaptations from manga, and from its predecessor martial art novels. A note that brings to mind two of the more successful efforts from the same period as the original Kamui manga, Zatoichi and Lone Wolf And Cub. The former expanded from a minor character in a novel, the later itself very close to the original material.

Arguably Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima’s work picked up where Sanpei left off, itself a well research commentary on social status both then and now. Of course, the film adaptions of Lone Wolf and Cub fell foul of the early 80s video nasties label. Though violent, the films embodied the original manga values and visual composition, making them both poignant and surprisingly beautiful.

With Kamui, Yoichi has created something rather similar, having some for the almost deliberate over-the-top approach of samurai and martial art movies from the late 70s and early 80s, like Lone Wolf, many Shaw Brothers films, and even Ching Siu-tung’s delightful Duel to the Death.

But ‘Probably the best ninja movie ever made’ as critic Tony Ryans said?. That quote may have been somewhat overused (largely by myself) but I admit it gave me high expectations for Kamui which were not quite fulfilled. The overuse of CGI is frankly distracting, as though animating humans may not quite look as bad as it used to, it’s still a bit weird. I’d rather see more clever use of wire work and editing. The recent Goemon did a better job (though admittedly you might expect that from green screen king Kazuaki Kiriya). Then there’s just odd uses of it in other places, like the awkward superimposing of water when the characters are on a calm sea, and so on – it just seems a bit cheap and needless.

Visually the film fails to really find a character for itself. It’s well shot but in quite a mainstream Western action movie bland sort of a way. The aforementioned comparison with those old Lone Wolf movies is not favourable.

So ‘best movie’? Perhaps if your reference point is Ninja Assassin or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but no, I wouldn’t go that far. But enjoyable, and with a deliberately open ended conclusion, I wouldn’t mind betting there’ll be more on the way soon…

Kamui: The Lone Ninja is released on DVD and Blu-Ray by Manga Entertainment on 9 August.

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.

Dororo

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:00:09 +0000

Osamu Tezuka’s (Astro Boy) Dororo gets the live-action makeover, from director Akihiko Shiota, starring Memories Of Matsuko’s Kou Shibasaki, but spoiled a little by wishy-washy CGI and under-par action from legendary Ching Siu-Tung…

Legendary and prolific manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka’s work continues to hold an appeal for modern filmmakers. The most famous of which is Astro Boy, which is not only attributed with creating the Anime aesthetic but also brought it to an international audience, and it’s also due for a big Hollywood 3-D makeover this Autumn. Other works to be more recently reinterpreted include his Fritz Lang inspired Metropolis, Kimba the White Lion, Black Jack, and now Dororo.

Dororo started life as an ongoing manga that Tezuka himself never completed in the late 1960s. It quickly made the transition to an animated series in 1969, when it seemed like an heir apparent to Astro Boy, but the series concluded after 26 episodes. More recently it resurfaced as a Video Game, proving the source material still had an appeal for fans (even if it wasn’t a monumental success), so why not a live-action version at last?

A hapless thief, Dororo (Kou Shibasaki, Memories Of Matsuko, One Missed Call, Battle Royale) befriends the mysterious Hyakkimaru after he saves her from a demon in a bar fight. Hyakkimaru (Satoshi Tsumabuki, The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift), as it turns out, had most of his body parts replaced as a baby after his warlord father Daigo Kagemitsu (Kiichi Nakai, When the Last Sword Is Drawn, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles) made a deal with 48 demons which involved promising them most of his vital organs and limbs.

Only Hyakkimaru isn’t aware of all that. Discovered by a numinous physician who has managed to replicate most of his organs synthetically, he roams Japan only knowing that each time he dispels one of these demons, armed with his mystical blade for a left hand, a real organ is returned to him. Dororo joins him on his quest, but Hyakkimaru is about to discover his true origins, and a real reckoning is coming for the pair.

An enjoyable slice of fantasy, this live-action version of Dororo seems to pull heavily on the recent resurgence of such programmes as Monkey (even if the movie version of the new series, Monkey Magic, didn’t fair so well at the box office). In hindsight, you could even argue that the original 70s Monkey series was partly inspired by the Dororo series, its depiction of Demons seems so familiar. (And then you could just plane turn that argument on it’s head, and suggest that perhaps Tezuka was inspired by the early 60s Shaw Brothers productions of the Journey To The West – but enough already!)

Dororo and Hyakkimaru’s world is nicely brought to life by director Akihiko Shiota (Canary, Harmful Insect), allegedly shoot on location in New Zealand. (I guess there’s nowhere else for fantasy films to go since Lord Of The Rings?) It’s a nice looking film, with some interesting ideas. There’s the moth demon and her caterpillar offspring); and the physicians Edward Scissorhands style laboratory where he creates Hyakkimaru’s new limbs and organs.

However, often the standard of CGI lets it down. It seems rough and simplistic, but not in any sort of stylised way, and with little effort to blend it with the filmed shots. It feels rather cheap, not helped by, shall we say, ‘real’ demons (or at least not CGI) whose masks seem equally as shoddy – not even a match of the original Monkey series, let alone the recent film.(If there’s a big budget to this film, you wonder where it’s gone?)

Surprisingly, the involvement of legendary action choreographer (not to mention director) Ching Siu-Tung (Curse Of The Golden Flower, An Empress And The Warriors, House Of Flying Daggers, A Chinese Ghost Story) does little to raise the quality. Sure, the action scenes are well directed, but not outstanding by any means, let alone inspired. And considering how many films he was involved with during the height of the ‘wire fu’ craze, it’s hard to put that down to Ching being stretch too thinly with his own projects and other films like Kung Fu Dunk. It’s almost as if he just couldn’t get how the green screen action would play out – but again, it’s not as if he hasn’t worked with CGI before.

Thankfully the leads are pretty likable in their roles, with Shibasaki’s feisty Dororo (a male role in the original manga) playing up her tough but cute persona. Tsumabuki is strong too, despite being remarkably sanguine about his predicament and abandonment by his parents. There’s a solid supporting cast too.

Like the recent equally enjoyable if a little better played out) Ichi, Dororo suffers from being a little too long for it’s own good. There seems to be a lot of time spent on exposition, explaining Hyakkimaru’s origins, too much for my tastes, and the plot often seems to stall. Contrast that with very little time spent on the eponymous character herself (though perhaps that’s deliberate, considering two sequels are slated and we end the film already halfway through the 48 demons?)

Dororo is a fine fantasy film, but ultimately you wish it was a little quirkier. It lacks the ‘super-cuteness’ of Osamu Tezuka’s original manga, let alone his distinctiveness, and that seems a shame to me.

Released today: Dororo – win the DVD!

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:30:47 +0000

Out today, Akihiko Shiota’s entertaining live-action update of the Dororo manga, by Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka – and there’s still a chance to win a copy on DVD…!

Based on a 1960s manga series by Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy, Dororo stars Kou Shibasaki (Memories Of Matsuko, One Missed Call, Battle Royale) as the eponymous lead who crosses paths with Hyakkimaru (Satoshi Tsumabuki, The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift), a samurai intent on regaining 48 body parts from the 48 demons his father promised them to, joining him on a journey to face and destroy each and every one.

Directed by Akihiko Shiota (Canary, Harmful Insect), the film features action choreography by Ching Siu-Tung (House Of Flying Daggers, Hero, A Chinese Ghost Story, An Empress and the Warriors). Special Features on the DVD include: “Road To Dororo” featurette; deleted scenes; trailer gallery; stills gallery.

The DVD is released by MVM on Monday 7 September, but you can win one of three copies just by filling out the form below. The competition closes midnight Sunday 13 September 2009.

Any information given is purely for the purposes of this competition. No information will be held after the competition closes and will not be shared with any third parties. The winners will be drawn at random when the competition closes. Please note that only UK residents can enter.

This competition has now closed, but you can also enter our competition to win Chanbara Beauty on DVD here.

Win copies of Dororo on DVD!

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:00:06 +0000

We have three copies of the live-action version of Osamu Tezuka’s (Astro Boy) Dororo to give away on DVD…

The DVD is released by MVM on Monday 7 September, but you can win one of three copies just by filling out the form below. The competition closes midnight Sunday 13 September 2009.

This competition has now closed, but you can also enter our competition to win Chanbara Beauty on DVD here.

The Eagle Shooting Heroes

Andrew Heskins — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:00:28 +0000

Shot back-to-back with Ashes Of Time and sharing much of the same cast, the stars get to let their hair down in a very different take on the same Louis Cha novel…

Set in the ‘wild youth’ of Louis Cha main characters from his novel Eagle Shooting Heroes, this shares the same cast, crew and even character names as Ashes, but as a broad comedy played it could hardly be more distant.

The dastardly Ouyang Feng (this time played by Tony Leung Chiu-wai) attempts to usurp the kingdom from the Princess (Brigitte Lin). The only thing that can save it, she must find and learn the Book Of Yin. But who can she trust…?

Directed and scripted by Jeff Lau, the co-founder of Jet Tone productions with Wong Kar-wai, The Eagle Shooting Heroes seemed a neat way to make the most of a great cast and crew being put through there paces on Kar-wai’s own Ashes Of Time. Indeed, despite being shot back-to-back with Ashes, it still managed to get released a year before it. A rather telling footnote to Kar-wai’s troubled production, he even managed to direct and release Chungking Express – one of his best and most-loved films – before Ashes was completed.

With the current crop of stern, mainly humourless wu xia movies, it’s easy to get caught up in the bravado sleeve notes and see this as an enjoyable spoof of the genre – but let’s clear this up, the films of the late 80s and early 90s were by no means as earnest. The tone had been set by Ching Siu-tung’s enormously successful A Chinese Ghost Story, starring Leslie Cheung and Joey Wang, with dazzling if bizarre set pieces of action, horror movie references (particularly The Evil Dead) and knowing in jokes. At the height of the genre’s popularity, when films like Swordsman II, New Dragon Inn and Mr. Vampire were amongst the most popular films of the genre, few films took themselves that seriously.

In fact, apart from Ashes Of Time, it wasn’t until Ang Lee successfully rebooted the wu xia film genre with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that the more humourless, overly melodramatic (and sometimes unrelentingly hysterical) films of today were born. Even back in the late 80s they were something of a target, parodied (in passing) courtesy of another film starring Leslie Cheung, the classic (and well-worthy of a proper UK/US release) Rouge.

Wong Kar-wai and Jeff Lau had already set the scene with an earlier adaptation of a Louis Cha work, Saviour Of The Soul. A very loose rendering of the second Eagle Shooting Heroes novel, know as The Return Of The Condor Heroes in the west, Kar-wai and Lau’s version updates the action to modern day, but leaves all the heroic martial arts and magic in place. (Even the literal translation of the films title is ’91 God-Eagle-Hero-Couple.) Mixing action, violence and slapstick, the tone of the film seems often messy, and definitely incongruous with Kar-wai’s better-known work – but hell, can’t the guy have a little fun sometimes?

If Ashes Of Time is a homage to the martial arts novels Kar-wai and Lau grew up with, then The Eagle Shooting Heroes is more of an ode to the films of the 60s, particularly the Shaw Brothers, complete with over-the-top (though expertly choreographed) fight sequences by Sammo Hung, bright gaudy costumes and sets, and musical numbers. Like the dazzling rooftop fight sequence neatly makes fun of such scenes in Shaw Brothers films (and in later movies like Yuen Woo-ping’s Iron Monkey) with its utter outrageousness.

The humour is typically broad – as Cantonese comedies usually are – often descending into farce, running in and out of but it’s fun to see the crème of Hong Kong actors hamming it up. (No doubt letting off steam from their gruelling Ashes shoot, this may well have given them the emotional energy to be so restrained in Kar-wai’s film.)

Leslie Cheung and Joey Wang (who’s scenes were cut from Ashes) are particularly entertaining as the martial arts couple, performing Flirting Eyes and Mushy Love Sword Styles. There’s a Match Of The Day reference (complete with the theme tune) with Tony Leung Ka-fai’s head as a football. (Don’t ask!) Carina Lau takes a more central role the frankly confused Master Zhou, leader of a martial arts school. Maggie Cheung, Veronica Yip and Kenny Bee (who appeared in Saviour Of The Soul) also appear. And Jacky Cheung? Well he appears as Hong Qigong again, even wearing much the same costume.

It’s all pretty silly, but rather fun – and a million miles away from Ashes Of Time…

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…

On DVD today: An Empress and The Warriors

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Director/action choreographer Ching Siu-tung’s solid if slightly disappointing movie An Empress and The Warriors is released on UK DVD today.

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 »

On DVD today: The Warlords

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:00:48 +0000

Peter Chan’s The Warlords, starring Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kineshiro, is released in the UK on two-disc DVD and Blu-ray today by Metronome.

You can read our review here »

DVD: An Empress And The Warriors

Andrew Heskins — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:55:55 +0000

Veteran Hong Kong director Tony Siu-Tung Ching (director of classic “A Chinese Ghost Story” and the “Swordsman” trilogy and the action choreographer for “Curse Of The Golden Flower”, “Hero” and “House Of Flying Daggers”) makes a dazzling return to vintage form with the epic, AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS, starring Donnie Yen (Flashpoint; Dragon Tiger Gate; Seven Swords; Hero), Kelly Chen (the Infernal Affairs trilogy; Tokyo Raiders) and Leon Lai (Seven Swords; Infernal Affairs 3). You can read our review here »

AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS (cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£15.99) and Blu-ray (£19.99) by Cine Asia on 23rd March 2009. Special Features include: Making Of featurette; Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo audio options; theatrical trailer.

easternkicks.com » Ching Siu-tung

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