Films at the Gate (and Brattle): Fearless Hyena, Come Drink with Me, and The Boxer's Omen

Have I mentioned before that I love Films at the Gate? I do, unreservedly. I missed Saturday's screening, but I think it was raining that day anyway.



I don't know if the lanterns are there year-round, or if that was part of the decoration, but it's a nifty look. I didn't get any pictures of the opening presentations, alas, which is a shame because while I didn't make it for the lion dancing, there was some nifty things. Including an videotaped greeting from Donnie Yen, who stopped by an ACDC event early this year. But did Iceman open in the Boston area the next week? No. It did not. This continuing to happen boggles my mind.

I was also glad to see that Come Drink with Me was one of the selections; I think it was the only one from the Harvard Film Archive's King Hu series from last year that I missed, and while the Blu-ray (or even DVD) wasn't exactly up to the level's of the HFA's 35mm prints, it's still a pretty great movie.

Speaking of great 35mm prints, I got to the second leg of the Brattle's "Reel Weird Brattle" program this week; all of the movies are on 35mm from the American Genre Film Archive, and if they all look as nice as this one, it's a pretty good reason to stay up late. They'll be handing out pins with each one, and I'd say "collect them all", but it's a bit late for that (hey, I can't either; I'm missing at least two by being out of town). I think this is the only Chinese one, but if they're all this nuts...

Xiao quan guai zhao (The Fearless Hyena)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 12 September 2014 in Chinatown Park on the Greenway (Films at the Gate, video)

The Fearless Hyena is noteworthy in large part because it is Jackie Chan's first credited movie as writer and director as well as star, and given that "screenplay by Jackie Chan" never exactly became something that drew people to movies, it's not surprising that the story is fairly perfunctory. On the other hand, Chan's greatest skill as a director - getting out of the way of his own fight choreography - is visible from the start.

In this one, he plays Shing Lung, a lazy young man who would rather gamble that practice the kung fu of his grandfather Peng-fei (James Tien Jun), especially since said grandfather has said not to use it in public. He doesn't quite think he's doing that by running a scam with Ti Cha (Lee Kwan), head of a bogus kung fu school. Still, it attracts the attention of both Yen Chuen-wong (Yen Shi-kwan), the warlord determined to eradicate all practitioners of this style, and beggar "Unicorn" (Chan Wai-lau), secretly a master himself.

There are a lot of movies with the basic template of The Fearless Hyena - establish the villain, establish the student, make it personal, train under an unyielding master, and then build up a big fight for the finale. A lot of kung fu movies from the 1970s look like this - not studio-bound like Shaw Brothers films, but often taking place in big empty spaces, or likely-reused town sets - and have the same rhythms. Jackie Chan being in charge means that this is done with slapstick bits, even when things take the inevitably more serious turn.

Full review at EFC

Da zui xia (Come Drink with Me)

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 14 September 2014 in Chinatown Park on the Greenway (Films at the Gate, video)

Cheng Pei-pei was cast in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because Ang Lee remembered her fondly from the films she made as a young woman, with several articles specifically mentioning this one, also a signature film of King Hu. It would be Hu's last for Shaw Brothers before moving to Taiwan, regarded as both a pivotal moment in the wuxia genre and a great film in its own right. It is not an undeserved reputation.

It starts out with a caravan being ambushed, with government official Zhang Buqing (Wong Chung) taken prisoner by rebels including "Smiling Tiger" Tsu Kan (Lee Wan-chung). In response the their demands, his father sends his other child, the Golden Swallow (Cheng Pei-pei), to negotiate his release - that is to say, rescue him. She takes up residence in the local inn, although the other non-bandit guest - "Drunken Cat" Fan Tai-pei (Yueh Hua) - may prove ally or hindrance.

Hu made a number of films set in inns - most notably, Dragon Inn - and sometimes entirely constrained to them, although Come Drink with Me is rather open. It still has some of the moments that Hu (and others) would return to off and on, generally playing more as straight-up action with relatively little intrigue, including not making a big deal out of folks initially thinking Golden Swallow is a man. In some ways, Hu is doing what the greats often do in influential movies, presenting things with a casual confidence that later imitators don't quite have.

Full review at EFC

Mo (The Boxer's Omen)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 27 September 2014 in the Brattle Theatre (Reel Weird Brattle, 35mm)

The Boxer's Omen seems like two extremely different movies made into one, much as one character is... No, that metaphor is not quite right, and I am not going to spoil one of the more jaw-dropping moments of complete insanity that this movie offers up, even though that would likely still leave several dozen for the viewer to discover. It is a downright strange movie wrapped in something conventional and almost unrelated, a fine midnight movie if there ever was one.

The boxer is Chan Hung (Phillip Ko Fei), who challenges Thai kickboxer Bu Bo (Bolo Yeung Sze) after the latter's dirty and illegal moves seriously injure Chan's brother. That will be in three months, which is good: Both before and after coming to Thailand to issue the challenge, Chan Hung has had visions which lead him to a Buddhist temple where the monks tell him that their abbot was his twin in a former life, which means that he must become a monk and fight the black magician who cast a killing spell on the abbot for slaying the magician's student...

To say this makes no sense is more than a bit unfair; there is actually a pretty simple "you killed someone close to me and I shall have retribution!" logic going on with all the back and forth, so all the motivations are easy enough to buy into. As to all the reincarnation, transformation, and the evil wizard who seems to be hanging out in the same room as his arch-nemesis... Hey, I don't know that much about Buddhism; this could make at least as much sense as the exorcisms in western horror movies! In all seriousness, On Szeto's screenplay seems to run on completely arbitrary rules, seeming less the result of one or two writers than something handed off between four or five each instructed to the nuttiest thing he or she could come up with. Somehow, he and director Kuei Chih-hung make this flow better than it has any right to.

Full review at EFC

The Prey (La Proie)

What a random booking this was: A French thriller from 2011 (heck, it was actually released on French-language Canadian DVD over a year ago), somehow sneaking into a few theaters across the country (Box Office Mojo says five), and in Boston, it's not the boutique-ish place in Kendall Square, but the big AMC multiplex in Boston Common. Granted, that's sort of where it belongs - if it weren't in French, it would be seen as a pretty good thriller with plenty of running and jumping and shooting and fighting. But, for some reason, folks don't come out to see them; I think I even saw a couple of people walking out once subtitles started popping up.

Not that I initially connected it with subtitles; I was just thinking "really, guys, you need to hit the restroom now?" See enough foreign-language films as a matter of course, and it becomes easy to forget that a lot of people don't go for non-English-language movies. I don't blame them, really; Hollywood puts out more entertaining movies than most folks have time to watch, so why make things more difficult by having to deal with a foreign language or subtitles?

Well, here's the funny thing - as I noted a couple years ago, the French do this sort of mid-budget action thriller better than anyone else right now, and there's not really a whole lot like it out in theaters right now. Now You See Me would be the closest (it's directed by a French guy for what it's worth), but it's trying to be something bigger. Fast & Furious 6 is spiritually similar, but that's a nine-figure blockbuster (which shares a fight choreographer with The Prey). There's not a lot of actionout there right now that isn't looking to overwhelm you, and that makes The Prey hit the spot.


One other thing I recalled as a result of watching The Prey: This is the 20th anniversary year of The Fugitive (recalled by both this movie's "man-on-the-run" plot and seeing a bald, menacing Harrison Ford in the trailer for Paranoia). That movie deserves a theatrical re-release. No need to 3-D-ify it like Jurassic Park got, just find a relatively quiet weekend and put it out there. I mean, I suppose we'll see it here in five years when the Brattle does their annual reunion weekend shows, and I see Warner is putting an anniversary-edition Blu-ray out in September (necessary, as the BD/HD-DVD edition from a few years ago is not great), but I want to see it on the big screen again.


La Proie (The Prey)

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 8 June 2013 in AMC Boston Common #3 (first-run, 4K DCP)

The Prey isn't a big summer blockbuster by American standards; for all I know, it wasn't a big deal when it played its native France as "La Proie" two years before its American release. It is a lean, mean, no-messing-around entry in the genre, and if you're not averse to people speaking French as they play a nifty game of cat-and-mouse, it's well worth checking to see if it popped up in your area.

Franck Adrien (Albert Dupontel) is in prison for bank robbery, and does not have many friends there: One of his partners-in-crime, Novick (Olivier Schneider), would really like to know where Franck hid the money; his cellmate Jean-Louis Maurel (Stéphane Debac) is in on molestation charges and his claims of innocence (backed up by his accuser recanting her testimony) give a bunch of prisoners and guards who want him beat to a pulp no compunctions about going through Franck to do it, as they don't like his attitude anyway. He does have a beautiful wife (Caterina Murino) and daughter (Jaïa Caltagirone) waiting for him on the outside, and has Maurel pass them a message on his release - which may not have been a good idea according to an obsessed detective (Sergi López). When Franck can't get Anna on the phone, he escapes, and the gendarmes put a crack team led by Claire Linné (Alice Taglioni) on his tail.

There are crime movies that are about examining the complexities of seemingly amoral characters who live by their own code, and there are ones where the characters are who they are in order to get the audience from confrontation to trap and back again. The Prey is unequivocally in the latter category; writers Laurent Turner & Luc Bossi and director Eric Valette don't quite feed one action scene straight into another, but while things will sometimes decelerate just enough for the characters to plot their next move, it almost never shows down enough for actual introspection. That can sometimes be looked at as a weakness, but it works here, in large part because Turner & Bossi have come up with a villainous master plan that is genuinely diabolical without getting stretched to the breaking point by the finale. Part of this is because they don't overcomplicate things, allowing characters to be opportunistic rather than anticipating specific details; part is just that French guys are not inclined to have something come out of nowhere to force them to pull their punches.

Full review on eFilmCritic.

New from China: Flying Swords of Dragon Gate and The Bullet Vanishes

Amazing - two Chinese movies playing a theater in Boston at once, both good, and a holiday weekend giving people a little extra time to see them. It's a Labor Day miracle! Everyone living near a place playing these movies should go be a part of it!

I mentioned last week that I'd hoped to see the Chinatown audience come out to support these movies more, but that really didn't seem to happen for the shows I attended. Flying Swords had a few people scattered, although I admittedly saw that at a bit of an odd time - they let me out of work at 3pm, so I was able to make a 5pm show; The Bullet Vanishes was very quiet, with people going in and out at points.

I don't generally look at box office stuff or get too concerned about the business side of things, but I kind of wonder whether these two got a fair shake. I am pretty sure Flying Swords had to scramble for screens at the last minute - the original plan was to open in NY/LA this week and expand to other cities on the 7th before more or less getting swept out by Resident Evil 5. Then Paramount claimed the weekend of the 7th for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and though I'd been getting publicity emails about this one, I didn't realize it had gotten pushed back to the 31st everywhere until the last minute, and while I haven't seen that many movies at Boston Common lately, none had a trailer for this thing that, to me, sells itself (Jet Li! crazy action! IMAX 3D! Look at this thing!!!). Similarly, China Lion often seems to do a terrible job piggybacking one release to the next. The Bullet Vanishes had a trailer for Bangkok Revenge, but there was nothing for it on Girlfriend Boyfriend, and their websites for both Bullet and Bangkok are empty shells (Bangkok doesn't even have IMDB or AsianWiki pages).

The price doesn't help; I paid a combined total of $28 to see these movies, both before 6pm and in less-than-packed theaters, and I suspect relatively few people in the target audience can do this. Unfortunately, both of those movies were more or less locked into Boston Common - Indomina went IMAX-exclusive with Flying Swords rather than try and get it on other 3D screens or even premium ones like RPX; China Lion has a deal with AMC. And it is practically in Chinatown, so even if AMC still had screens in Harvard Square and Copley Place (that maybe charged reasonable prices), it still wouldn't really make sense.

I'm a broken record on this, but it frustrates me. I've long been one to argue that movies, while the price has gone up, are still pretty good entertainment value for your dollar, but I really can't say so anymore without adding a caveat of "if you know where to look". Maybe I'm missing the good crowds these get at the 11am shows because I really do try to support these things with my dollars, but booking these movies on the most expensive screens in town despite their being a bit of a risk for the general audience and a good chunk of the expatriate audience not having a lot of money, without much advertising support, just does not seem like a recipe for success.

Anyway, as I said up top - these movies are quite a lot of fun, and I hope like hell that somebody local plays Vulgaria when it supposedly has a U.S. release later this month and that we get Jackie Chan's Chinese Zodiac pretty close to day-and-date this December. Honestly, Flying Swords of Dragon Gate and The Bullet Vanishes are two of the most entertaining movies playing right now, pretty darn slick and mainstream (other than being in Mandarin). If you're going to buy a movie ticket this week, you'll get your money's worth and cast a vote for decent movies no matter what the origin.

Long men fei jia (Flying Swords of Dragon Gate)

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 31 August 2012 in AMC Boston Common #2 (first-run, Imax-branded 3D)

Foreign movies often take a while to open in the United States for a number of reasons, and while the eight months since Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (Lee Men Fei Jia) opened in Hong Kong actually isn't terribly egregious, the reason in relatively unique: Distributor Indomina was looking to for a window when the movie could play in Imax 3D, a plan that was nearly foiled at the last minute. Happily, that didn't happen, and those who like crazy Hong Kong action should catch it while they can; it will be fun on video, but Jet Li kicking butt on the giant screen is a rare treat.

As the movie opens, Zhao Huai'an (Jet Li) isn't headed to Dragon Gate Inn; the rebel swordsman is fighting the forces of the East Bureau (one of two separate unchecked government authorities), specifically Eunuch Wan Yulou (Gordon Liu). This attracts the attention of the West Bureau's Eunuch Yu Hautian (Chen Kun), who is also tasked by the Emperor's first concubine to track down pregnant maid Su Huirong (Mavis Fan), who is rescued by Ling Yanqiu (Zhou Xun), although she claims to be Zhao. A curious Zhao follows Su and Liang to Dragon Gate (the best way out of China), where the West Bureau intends to cut them off. Most of the guests are leaving because of the threat of a once-in-three-generations sandstorm, but not Cheng Xaiwen (Kwai Lunmei) and her gang of Tartars, while treasure hunters Gu Shaotang (Li Yuchun) and her partner "Wind Blade" (a dead ringer for Hautian) are late arrivals.

So, yeah, pay attention; those are just the leaders, and many of them have enough partners, henchmen, and soldiers to fill the fight scenes out quite well. Folks impersonate each other, some characters mistake women for men, or just presume based on their fighting prowess (the ladies in this movie are all pretty badass), and to be totally honest, I'm not sure whether "Ling Yanqiu" is that character's actual name or the name of someone else she's impersonating (which apparently ties into 1992's New Dragon Gate Inn, to which this is technically a sequel despite the two not sharing any cast members). It's a busy, busy movie but writer/director Tsui Hark actually makes things fairly easy to follow, mashing the various storylines together with a dispatch that is at once crude and elegant.


Full review at EFC

Xiao shi de zi dan (The Bullet Vanishes)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 1 September 2012 in AMC Boston Common #12 (first-run, Sony Digital 4K)

Lapsed EFC/HBS contributor David Cornelius recently lamented on Twitter about the demise of the mystery movie in Hollywood, and the best thing I could point him to was a Chinese movie that will likely be more considered a martial arts flick than a detective story. I'm not certain the mystery is still a popular genre with Chinese audiences - like Dragon, The Bullet Vanishes (Xiao shi de zi dan) could be marketed as an action movie - but their filmmakers are giving us some good whodunits.

Our sleuth in this case is Song Donglu (Lau Ching-wan), a prison guard in 1920s/1930s China who has made a habit out of investigating prisoners' protestations of innocence even if he has to put his neck in a noose to figure out what sort of ligatures in creates in those early days of forensics. Someone figures out that he'd be better used preventing wrongful convictions than overturning them, and makes him a detective in Tianching. For his first case, he's teamed with Captain Guo Zhui (Nicholas Tse), whose quick draw with a gun disguises a keen mind, to investigate the murder of a foreman at the local munitions factory owned by Mr. Ding (Li Kai-chi), suspicious because the bullet seems to have disappeared after killing the victim. With plenty of suspects/potential victims - including Wang Hai (Wu Gang), whose skill with a gun may match Guo's, and the factory workers who tell local fortune teller "Little Lark" (Yang Mini) a ghost story - Song, Guo, and junior partner Xaiwu (Jing Boran) have their work cut out for them.

Mystery stories were different back in the day, before the likes of CSI made everyone more obsessed with DNA testing than uncovering motives and untangling alibis. The Bullet Vanishes is a bit anachronistic in some regards - the detectives spend more time consulting lady coroner Li Jia (Yumiko Cheng) than may have been likely in the Christie Age, and that's not the only way Guo and Song obsess over physical evidence versus shoe leather. It's still a fun throwback in other ways, with the ultimate solution coming from asking the question "who benefits?". The puzzle of the phantom bullets is a nifty one, too, clever enough for this member of the audience to smile when the detectives figure it out.

Full review at EFC

Kung Fu Weekend: The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Snake in Eagle's Shadow, The Young Master, and Shaolin Temple

I love Films at the Gate. I've mentioned this before, right? But it bears repeating: It's one of the Boston area's coolest events, with the nice properties of being free, specific to its community, and distinctive. The night I saw The Young Master, I think there were about five other free outdoor movies playing at various points around Boston (pretty spiffy in its own right), but all of them were sort of consensus classics that you can likely see with better projection at the Brattle or Coolidge once a year, which can't be said about these.

That said, I kind of wish I'd hit Chinatown on Thursday as opposed to the Brattle; I have yet to see Master of the Flying Guillotine (the Gate film), but was tempted by the 35mm in Harvard Square versus the projected DVD. It turned out to be a bit of a trade-off; the print of 36th Chamber was fairly red, at least for some reels, and Eagle's Shadow looked nice but was dubbed (and not even with Jackie Chan's voice!).

As cool as it is that the turnout for this has become large enough that the vacant lot really isn't large enough anymore, it's kind of disappointing that, in my experience, this sort of crowd doesn't seem to come out when Chinese movies play the mainstream theaters. To a certain extent, I get it - a lot of folks in Chinatown don't have huge amounts of money, and the closest movie theater (AMC Boston Common), while it does pick up Chinese movies every once in a while, is also the most expensive. There's a good chance that they'll be playing two Chinese movies this coming weekend - the Imax 3D presentation of Flying Swords of Dragon Gate and the day-and-date release of The Missing Bullet, but matinee price on regular movies is $10, and an evening ticket for Flying Swords is $18! Given that, I'm not surprised that attendance is often sparse, and when something does stick around for a second week, it's often for one show in the cheap $6 "AM Cinema" slot.

You know what would be really cool, though? If next year, one of the companies trying to do theatrical releases plunked down a small sponsorship and included one of their movies, especially if it's something due out on video soon that might not have played Boston as part of its release. I'm thinking specifically of Starry Starry Night from China Lion, although both Indomina and and Well Go have had stuff only play NYC/LA as well. Or we could get really crazy and ask the Weinsteins to let Dragon or Reign of Assassins or the like out of their vault...

Heck, even if China Lion just put together a trailer package for upcoming movies like The Missing Bullet and Bangkok Vengeance, they could help a couple of community programs a lot and get promotion for their fall slate. It's certainly worth thinking about for next year, I think.


Anyway, more about the movies themselves - it was kind of amazing to watch these four movies, which covered roughly five years, and see how radically kung fu movies evolved over that time period. 36th Chamber is a classic Shaw Brothers Shaolin Temple movie, very much following the injustice-training-revenge template, very much a show piece for star Gordon Liu, but often just as much about athleticism and technique as really telling a story with the action. Then come the Jackie Chan movies, with Jackie moving away from both the Shaws and Bruce Lee with his comedy kung fu. In addition to seeming a lot less stagebound than the Shaw stuff, the martial arts here really seems to come from the character rather than shape him. Then after that you get Jet Li, takes the naturalism Jackie Chan and his group (including Sammo Hung an Yuen Biao) introduced and increased the brutality of it

As much as we know what Hong Kong action is, it's amazing how a relatively short period of time transformed it so strongly.

Shao Lin san shi liu fang (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 23 August 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (International Ass-kicking, 35mm)

Shaolin Temple movies just don't care about traditional dramatic structure, do they? Or maybe it's different between East and West, but it's hard not to get the feeling that if 36th Chamber were remade in America, Gordon Liu's San Te would demonstrate more personal growth through the movie, rather than mostly "leveling up". There would be a chance for him to forsake personal revenge even as he served justice.

For better and worse, though, this really isn't that movie; it's much more about martial technique than Buddhist philosophy. That's cool enough, though; Liu and the various monks he spars with are quite good at that, and there's an enjoyable perseverance in San Te's attempts to best his masters. The big fights toward the end are enjoyable too, even if they do involve suddenly recruiting a whole bunch of new characters.

Of course, that's the case when San Te arrives at Shaolin Temple, too; 36th Chamber occasionally feels like bits of three different Gordon Liu movies stitched together. Not such a bad thing, really, especially as long as you're there for the fights.

Se ying diu sau (Snake in Eagle's Shadow)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 23 August 2012 in the Brattle Theatre (International Ass-kicking, dubbed 35mm)

Ah, it's naive young Jackie Chan, working and living in a martial-arts school that treats him poorly because he's inept at fighting, at least until he befriends a secret kung fu master who teaches him the snake style, making him a target because the practitioners of the eagle style want to eliminate it due to some multi-generational feud.

A goofy premise, but let's face it, fans still have trouble with people who enjoy the same thing in different ways. I, for instance, think the people who enjoy dubbed martial arts movies because they like laughing at things that seem low-rent are monsters for a variety of reasons, but I shouldn't begrudge them the fun they were having with this screening. After all, treating the filmmakers' with respect wasn't going to make Eagle's Shadow a particularly intelligent, multi-layered film compared to the excuse for slapstick and fights that it is.

And it's tough to deny that "slapstick and fights" are things that Jackie Chan and director Yuen Woo-ping do very well. Both Chan and Yuen Siu-tien are fun to watch fight; they project personality amid the punching and kicking as well as anybody has ever done. And there are some moments that are just enjoyably bonkers, such as when the Russian missionary (Roy Horan) is just the first of what seem like countless Eagle-clan agents. There's a joyful sense of abandon even while the technical work is very impressive.

Shi di chu ma (The Young Master)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 24 August 2012 at Chinatown Gate (Films at the Gate, projected DVD)

This is Jackie Chan's first film as writer/director as well as star, and, well, even thirty years later, Jackie isn't really outstanding as a storyteller. He can choreograph and shoot the heck out of a fight, but even for these movies, you need to do a bit more than that. The funny thing is, it's not Chan having trouble with the non-action parts that gives this movie its biggest issues.

Sure, the story meanders in somewhat sitcommy fashion, with Chan becoming a fugitive through a misunderstanding but having more comical misunderstandings with the police chief (Shih Kien), his son (Yuen Biao!), and lovely daughter (Lily Li) than intense chases. Even if The Young Master probably wouldn't work as just a straight-up farce, it's got a fun, pleasant set of characters that makes for a laid-back movie. Chan's not really a bad writer/director here - he doesn't ever forget where the story started as he strings action scenes together - but even for a martial arts comedy, things often feel very lightweight.

In fact, his biggest problem at times to be that he's too reliant on his action skills. Though there are a fair number of entertaining fight sequences here, the ones that bookend the movie both seem very self-indulgent: The lion dance competition at the start seems to need a little more context to justify its length and define the stakes, and the final battle with Whang Ing-sik's character seems like an eternity of Whang beating the crap out of Chan with shoehorned-in comic relief from Feng Tien; as impressive a marathon as the fight is, it kind of dilutes the good stuff.

Shao Lin Si (Shaolin Temple)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 25 August 2012 at Chinatown Gate (Films at the Gate, projected DVD)

And we finish things off with Jet Li's first film, another take on the familiar Shaolin Temple story, although the storytelling, production values, and action choreography are wholly different and more modern-seeming than 36th Chamber, even if it was made less than five years later. It's an impressive-as-heck debut for Li; he's a fully-formed screen fighter and a decent, charismatic actor from the start.

But, wow, his Chieh Yuan character is kind of a jerk here, isn't he? Gordon Liu's San Te at least seemed to be somewhat absorbing the lessons of Buddhism, putting in the work, and convincing the abbots that there was merit in at least clandestinely/indirectly fighting against tyranny; this guy flouts the temple's rules, comes and goes when it's convenient for him, and brings violence and death down upon his benefactors for what often seems less like principle than his own personal feuds. There's one character constantly berating him for being ill-suited to this life, and the blood-soaked finale seems to prove him right more than proving Chieh Yuan noble.

This is the sort of thing that wouldn't really take that much nuance to fix, but that seems to be in short supply here: The production is focused on doing the fights well (which it does) and looking great. The first martial-arts film in decades to shoot in mainland China, and at the actual site of the Shaolin temple to boot, it's kind of beautiful, more than impressive enough to make up for its flawed characterization.

Fantasia Daily for 13 July 2010: Mai Mai Miracle, Le Grand Chef 2: Kimchi Battle, Tears for Sale

I'm sure my friend Laurel, who has occasionally suggested I make this a dinner and a movie blog, will be disappointed with me: I did not have kimchi or even Korean for dinner on an evening when I saw Le Grand Chef 2: Kimchi Battle, instead opting for a stop at m:brgr. They still make a great burger, although I was a little disappointed that the tall, delicious ice cream sodas I washed it down with last year were no longer on the menu.

I don't know whether this is a regular thing, but for Mai Mai Miracle, families with children got bumped to the front of the line. Very cool from a practicality purpose (those tend to be larger groups, so this gives them the chance to sit together without rearranging the rest of the audience) and reaching out to an audience that could probably be easily put off by how much of the programming is pretty violent and otherwise not kid-friendly. They're also offering free admission to kids under 18 for The Land Before Time with Don Bluth and Gary Goldman in person, and good for them.

In a somewhat interesting repeat of a couple nights earlier, the Q&A for Tears for Sale, there was another heated exchange between audience and filmmaker, once again with the unhappy audience member being shouted down somewhat. Again, a pity, because it demonstrated the tendency of people with strong opinions to presume that they are shared. Writer Aleksandar Radivojevic off-hand criticized the Serbian film industry constantly (along the lines of "the government only funds a certain type of film that stinks"), and what appeared to be a Serbian student in the audience took exception, both to the blanket assumption that nobody enjoys the movies being made in Serbia and how generally down on his home country he was.

I don't know that much useful could have come out of the argument, but as an amateur critic and hopefully open-minded fan of film in general, I'm really not comfortable with the "if you don't like it, why are you here?" that got shouted at the young woman. The way I figure it, the person who doesn't like the movie can probably potentially get more out of a Q&A and insight into the director's reasoning, and maybe has more interesting questions to ask. Those things get awfully dull when it's just "how difficult is it making such an awesome film?". Also, it's a good reminder that it's almost unavoidable one can get a very distorted image of the rest of the world; I'm sure that by the end of this festival, I'll get exposed to a lot of "Serbia is miserable", but there are other perspectives. Maybe this person is upper-class and has her own distorted view, but you always need an aggregate to get a complete impression.

Maimai Shinko to sennen no mahô (Mai Mai Miracle)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 13 July 2010 in Salle de Seve (Fantasia 2010)

Mai Mai Miracle is charming. It's a nostalgic memoir about growing up as free-range kids, but we can use all the good ones we can get before we run out of people who grew up that way. Nicely animated by Madhouse, the anecdotes should please audiences of all ages, and the storytelling is sophisticated enough to draw adults in without leaving the kids behind.

Shinko (voice of Mayuko Fukuda) is an energetic third-grader living in rural Japan. Her days are spent running through wheat fields, messing with her little sister, soaking in every word that her grandfather, a former schoolteacher, tells her about their town, and using it to fuel her very active imagination, which she claims is connected to her "mai mai", a cowlick that just won't lay flat no matter what she does. One day, a new girl joins her class; Kiiko (voice of Nako Mizusawa) is in many ways Shinko's opposite - the girl from Tokyo is shy and sad, and lives in a new western-style house - but they become fast friends. Soon there are other kids in their orbit. It's a good life, but not always a carefree one.

Like many films of its genre, Sunao Katabuchi's breaks up into smaller pieces. It's taken from a book by writer Noboku Takagi, who based it upon her life, and the various individual episodes toward the beginning are both amusing and true-to-life; Katabuchi almost never misses when depicting what's in a kid's head or what they'll do in a given situation, and there's never a situation the feels contrived beyond kids' natural abilities to get into mischief, usually with at least one big laugh to be found in each scenario. The filmmakers also do a fine job of getting into the kids' point of view, only briefly giving us the adults' perspective.

Full review at EFC

Sik-gaek : Kim-chi-jeon-jaeng (Le Grand Chef 2: Kimchi Battle)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 13 July 2010 in Theatre Hall (Fantasia 2010)

Looking at the cast list for Le Grand Chef 2: Kimchi Battle should raise some alarms; the main couple from the first film has been recast and a completely new character has first billing. Given that the plot is in large part a repeat of the first film, this looks like something that would normally go direct to video. And yet, it apparently not only played Korean theaters, but apparently got a small simultaneous release in America.

The basics of the story are the same: After a diplomatic incident with Japan, a nationwide tournament is instituted to celebrate kimchi as a uniquely Korean dish and find the best examples of it on the peninsula. One of the contestants, Jang-eun (Kim Jeong-eun), is returning to Korea from Japan after ten years, during which she had climbed to the level of the Prime Minister's Executive Chef. It's also a chance for her to reconnect with her mother, Soo-hyang (Lee Bo-hee), whose restaurant Chunyang-gak is likely closing in the face of its debts - which is fine with Jang-eun. It sits less well with Soo-hyang's foster son, Sung-chan (now played by Jin Goo), the greengrocer who won the competition in the first film. Prodded by his girlfriend Jin-soo (now played by Wang Ji-hye), he enters the competition, hoping to use the prize money to keep the restaurant open - although even when they were kids, he has never beat his sister in a cooking competition.

Kimchi Battle avoids doing a lot of things that other sequels might go for in the same situation: We don't see Sung-chan particularly changed by his success in the previous film, having to get back in touch with his working-class origins; he's pretty much the same guy he was before. When we first see Jin-soo, she's grumbling on the phone to her boss, asking why he thinks she always knows where Sung-chan is, raising fears that the filmmakers will pull the "they broke up off-screen and now must rediscover their love for each other thing. But, no, they're still together, if not terribly demonstrative, which is about right; romance was never" the thrust of the first one. And while it seems Sung-chan has gotten an entirely new family history in this film, it's okay, because it introduces us to Jang-eun.

Full review at EFC

Carlston za Ognjenku (Tears for Sale)

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 13 July 2010 in Theatre Hall (Fantasia 2010: Subversive Serbia)

The hackneyed phrase that will likely be used to describe this movie is "a Serbian Amélie", which I think does it a disservice because, well, I didn't like Amélie much at all. Gilliam might be a better comparison; after all, Jeunet hasn't had quite so bleak an outlook in some time.

Not to say that Tears for Sale is unpleasant; it's funny, sexy, and even sweet. Sonja Kolacaric and Katarina Radivojevic make for an entertaining comedy team as the sisters sent from their isolated village to bring back more men when the last one in the village dies (it's post-WWI, but the war never stops in Serbia; as the opening narration tells us, boys are sent off to war as soon as they are taller than their rifles, and the rifles get shorter all the time). It's unusual not just in Serbian cinema, but movies in general, to have a cast so full of women who are both unapologetically sexy but also funny, but Radivojevic especially is amazingly brash, playing her character broadly but often hilariously.

We were informed that this was the original Serbian cut; when Luc Besson's company cut big chunks out of the movie. I can't compare the two cuts, but I can see both sides, a bit - the cut described (mainly removing the ghost of the grandmother) sounds like it would be in many ways a more straightforward movie, especially since the thematic weight it added really wasn't there for me until the screenwriter explained it after the screening. But, this cut works very well, and certainly deserves to be seen.

The Kendall calendar & contest: No One Knows About Persian Cats and OSS 117: Lost in Rio

CONTEST

I will give this pass away. Somehow.

It's easy - send me an email or (re)tweet a link to one of my reviews of entertaining foreign movies, like this page (making sure @JaySeaver is in there somewhere so that I can see it), and you're entered. I'll select someone randomly at midnight as soon as I have a day with entries. You get a pass for two to see OSS 117: Lost in Rio Monday - Thursday at Kendall Square Cinemas in Cambridge as soon as I have your email address. Enter fast, and you can use it tomorrow!

/CONTEST

It's Tuesday, which means you can look at Landmark's website to see what is going to stay and what is going to go at their Boston theaters come Friday. That's actually really useful if you like independent film, because a lot of these movies are in and out awfully quick. We're warned that the movies on their calendar are only booked for one week, but some of them do stick around longer - I see OSS 117: Lost in Rio is getting a second week (so you've got four more days to go see it if you claim the pass!).

The current schedule is actually a pretty good one - I'm kind of disappointed that I'll be out of town for Survival of the Dead, but happy to see that Air Doll will be waiting for me when I get back. It's also weird to see that the Cremaster cycle is on the list - I remember that bouncing around the various indie venues a few years ago (if I recall correctly, it started at the Allston Cinema Underground that Clinton McClung programmed, later played the Brattle, and then, maybe, went to the MFA). According to the program, the filmmaker has pledged that these films will never appear on home video.

Anyway, I'm kind of disappointed Persian Cats didn't get a longer run; it's a pretty darn good movie that grew on me as it played and afterward. And while I'm relatively lukewarm on Lost in Rio, it's still funny more often than not, certainly worth a look (especially if you can get in for free, right?).

Kasi az gorbehaye irani khabar nadareh (No One Knows About Persian Cats)

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 18 May 2010 at the Landmark Kendall Square #4 (first-run)

No One Knows About Persian Cats doesn't initially look remarkable; indeed, midway through it, it appears slight of frame but bloated by music videos; interesting, but trying to be two things and doing neither well. But it eventually becomes clear that those musical interludes are not nearly as extraneous as they may at first seem, and that's before director Bahman Ghobadi really drops the hammer on us.

It starts off kind of cute, with a recording engineer talking with a friend about how the man he's recording is planning to make a movie, starring local musicians. He mentions two by name, and we soon meet them: Negar (Negar Shaghaghi) is a singer and songwriter who has managed to keep her record clean. Her boyfriend Ashkan (Ashkan Koshanejad) has not; he's just spent some time in jail for the crime of playing indie rock. Negar has a chance to play in London, but that involves getting a band together and acquiring papers. The DVD/CD bootlegger who copies their demo, Nader (Hamed Behdad), flips for it, and promises to help them put a band together and stage a concert to help pay a document forger to make up passports and visas. It sounds great, but even in countries where rock & roll is not a crime, folks like Nader tend to promise more than they can deliver.

There's independent film, and then there's what Persian Cats represents: A film made with what I presume are mostly non-professional actors and shot without permits in a country where expressing some of the views espoused can get you thrown in jail or worse. I initially presumed that it was shot in some relatively safe country, like Jordan or Morocco, using stock footage to create an illusion that the characters were in Tehran. It appears to be the real deal, though, which I guess explains why one of the music video segments opts not to show the singer directly, but instead either has the camera pointed off to the side or focuses on the extreme foreground, leaving her an obstructed blur. I'm kind of amazed that other musicians didn't demand similar treatment, especially the rap group.

Full review at EFC.

OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus (OSS 117: Lost in Rio)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 21 May 2010 at the Landmark Kendall Square #7 (first-run)

I was pretty fond of filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius's previous comedic revival of the OSS 117 franchise and character (Cairo, Nest of Spies); it did a lot of things right and did them in ways that an American audience almost certainly wouldn't expect. The followup, Lost in Rio, isn't bad; it remains amiable and funny despite stumbling into most of the traps waiting for comedy sequels.

This time around, it is 1967, and after a mission "protecting" a Chinese princess in Gstaad, France's top secret agent, OSS agent 117 Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (Jean Dujardin), is being dispatched to Rio de Janeiro. Escaped Nazi Doktor Von Zimmel (Rudiger Vogler) is blackmailing France with a strip of microfilm that contains the name of wartime collaborators, and Hubert is being sent to pay him off. Of course, he's not the only secret agent on his way there - there's his American comrade Bill Trumendous (Ken Samuels), and beautiful Mossad agent Delores Koulechov (Louise Monot), and a whole slew of Chinese assassins, whose involvement Hubert can't quite figure. Their best lead is Heinrich Von Zimmel (Alex Lutz), the Doktor's hippie son.

Early on in the previous movie, we learned that Hubert was a bit past being a politically incorrect guy who liked the ladies; the version in this film series is casually sexist and racist, and utterly oblivious to just how insulting his off-hand comments were. It was surprising at first, but also a deviously reflexive joke, the hero of a revived franchise serving as a rebuke to nostalgia - a reminder that in the simpler times people supposedly pined for, that sort of behavior was common. It's not quite such an effective bit in a sequel, especially since Hazanavicius and co-writer Jean-François Halin are a bit more clumsy with it; rather than settling for the awkward pauses and looks, the joke is drawn out, occasionally too far.

Full review at EFC.

This Week in Tickets EXTRA (with contest!)

I don't think I missed anything big in the regular TWIT post. There are a couple of notable events at the FEI Theater chain: The Somerville Theatre is offering swag bags for the first 50 people to come to 8pm show of Sex and the City 2 on Thursday (27 May 2010); the Arlington Capitol has HD presentations of Norma (Saturday, 22 May 2010), part of an Opera In Cinema series, and Psycho as part of a weekly "Capitol Classic Films: Hitchcock in HD" series (Sunday, 23 May 2010 at 3pm with a repeat Thursday 27 May 2010 at 7:30pm).

(The notable bit there being that Universal is pushing a bunch of HD Hitch transfers good enough to be shown in theaters; hopefully Blu-ray releases aren't far behind!)

But, the main reason for this post is that the good people at Music Box Films have provided me with a pair of tickets to OSS 117: Lost In Rio to give away. They're good for any showing of OSS 117: Lost in Rio at the Kendall Square Theatre in Cambridge, MA on Monday - Thursday during its run. Since Lost in Rio is only scheduled for a one week run, that basically means 24 May 2010 - 27 May 2010, unless you want to gamble on it being held over another week.

This is my first giveaway, so I'll keep it simple and non-judgmental: If you're not doing so already, follow me on Twitter (@JaySeaver) and (re)tweet a link to a review of a fun foreign film (either here or at eFilmCritic); I'll randomly select one at 11:59pm Sunday and contact the winner for his/her email address, so that Music Box can send you tickets in time for a Monday matinee.

Open to everyone except @seaverm and @GastroJunkie (or other family members), because I'm not wholly corrupt and would like to do this again after next week.

IFFB 2010 Day Four: Pelada, War Don Don, The Freebie, I Am Love, and The Good, The Bad, The Weird

Graphing the number of films one does/can see at a film festival generally reveals Saturday as the most potentially exhausting day; you can start early and end well after midnight. Everyone I talked to who was maxing out a pass saw five movies on the 24th, but a brief look at the festival's schedule indicates that six may have been possible: Start the day in Somerville, but after War Don Don, do Putty Hill instead of The Freebie, then head to the Brattle for Dirty Pictures and Philip the Fossil. It's a much riskier plan, one that sort of depends on the T being prompt and Dirty Pictures maybe starting a bit late, but it gets you away from The Freebie and I Am Love, although for all I know, Saturday afternoon/evening was going to be a disappointment no matter what.

The Freebie wasn't actually bad; for a lot of its time it's actually pretty good. For most of the movie, the central premise being kind of dumb doesn't really bother me, but I suspect that I'm immune to the screenwriting technique of "hanging a lantern on it" - having the characters acknowledge something is unlikely or unexplained doesn't make me excuse its improbability, it just makes the shortcoming fester. So when Annie's sister tells her that trying to add spice to her marriage by taking a night to sleep with other people is a bad idea, it simply becomes impossible to think anything other than "come on, you know this is foolish" for the rest of the movie.

Director/star Katie Aselton was there for a Q&A afterward, and she once again proved that, should I ever be involved in making a movie that goes on the festival circuit, I should be kept far away from any microphones. I, myself, would be unable to keep from yelling "of course the end is meant to be ambiguous, and, no, I'm not going to clarify anything or offer any hints, because if I wanted you to know, I'd have made it definitive in the film!" Fortunately, Ms. Aselton is far nicer than me.

I Am Love, though, was just miserable. It was co-presented by Chlotrudis, so the host pointed us out while thanking sponsors and such, meaning that everybody in the audience knew who was to to blame. To them, I just want to say: I was not consulted. I started wanting out in the middle of the interminable arty sex scene with cutaways to insects and flowers, and actually muttered "you've got to be ----ing kidding me" when the climactic moment turned out to be a main character slipping and banging his head. Sadly, I was surrounded, and escape was impossible.

My immediate response was that I had to get to the Brattle to see The Good, the Bad, the Weird right away, because after I Am Love I had a tremendous need to see some shit blow up. Kim Ji-woon did not disappoint, and I highly recommend anybody in the Boston area reading this within a week of it being posted get themselves down to Kendall Square and enjoy this "kimchee western", because it is almost pure fun.

The only minor disappointment I have from seeing that is that seeing it involved skipping Drones and Cell 211 at the Somerville, which do not have scheduled openings in the Boston area. It comes down to a matter of how I've got no problem walking home from the Brattle at 1:30am, but getting home from the Somerville Theatre involves a much longer late-night walk or a cab, and that just wasn't happening.

Pelada

* * * (out of four)
Seen 24 April 2010 at the Somerville Theater #5 (Independent Film Festival of Boston)

"Pelada" means "naked" in Portuguese, but this is not that kind of movie. Instead, the title refers to a slang term for pick-up soccer, fitting because when played that way, it's often the game stripped down to its essentials: Kicking a ball around whatever open space is available, improvising goal markers. Because of the game's fervent and worldwide popularity, there are peladas going on all the time - and the filmmakers were looking to get into as many of them as they could.

(Yes, I'll be using "soccer" despite the fact that the game is called "football", "futbol", or some variation wherever they go. I'm American, and so are they. Laugh at us now, everyone else, and get it over with.)

As the film opens, Luke Boughen and Gwendolyn Oxenham are self-described has-beens despite only being in their mid-twenties. They were star athletes in college, but injuries and the end of the WUSA kept the pros from calling their names. Gwendolyn is pursuing writing and Luke is hanging billboards while contemplating law school, until discussions with filmmaker friends hatch the idea of a world tour, seeing how soccer is played by people around the world. The project comes together, and they're off, first heading to South America, then Europe, Africa, East Asia, and finally Iran.

This is an awesome thing to do, and the only people who don't wish that they'd done something like it when they were younger are the ones who were who actually did or don't have very much "when they were younger" to look back on. They've done their research, so they know about some games that they can't miss, such as a regular Sunday afternoon game in Rio played mainly by folks old enough to be their fathers. Other times, though, they'll be caught by surprise, such as when they find a bunch of folks capable of some fancy footwork in Shanghai (China does not have a very distinguished history in the international game).

Full review at EFC.

War Don Don

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 24 April 2010 at the Somerville Theater #2 (Independent Film Festival of Boston)

"War Don Don" was what they shouted about ten years ago in Sierra Leone to announce that a vicious civil war (one barely reported abroad) was over. The end of a war, however, is seldom accompanied by an outpouring of magnanimity by the victors. Someone is going to pay for all the blood spilled, and whether that blame and punishment is meted out fairly is very difficult to determine, even when a great deal of effort is being made to do it right.

In Sierra Leone's case, the first person in line was Issa Sesay, a battlefield commander of the Revolutionary United Front. The RUF waged a bloody campaign against the government for roughly a decade, and their list of crimes is all-too-familiar for those familiar with recent African history: rape, murder, use of child soldiers, cutting off the limbs of civilians. The RUF's primary leader was Foday Sankoh; Sesay's brief command was marked by surrendering and dismantling the group. Since Sankoh died in prison, Sesay was the highest-ranked RUF leader to be tried for war crimes in the new courthouse built in the capital of Freetown at great expense.

Chief Prosecutor David Crane describes Sesay by recounting how he looked into the accused's eyes and saw a man with no soul; his defense attorney Wayne Jordash finds him personable and intelligent. But Rebecca Richman Cohen's documentary is only tangentially about Issa Sesay; it is, rather, about the process of prosecuting war crimes. It is, according to the defense, an unfair process, concerned more with politics than actual guilt and innocence: The (primarily) American and British donors who spent hundreds of millions of dollars on building the court did not do so to see acquittals, and it is very much in the country's interest to project stability by convicting the leadership. The prosecution also has much more funding, and can take extraordinary measures to protect its witnesses' anonymity.

Full review at EFC.

The Freebie

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 24 April 2010 at the Somerville Theater #3 (Independent Film Festival of Boston)

The Freebie is one of those DIY-style movies (it's too well-spoken and clean-looking to be referred to as "mumblecore") where no writing credits appears; the cast is working from producer/director/star Katie Aselton's outline. Everyone's got their own process, I guess, but a screenplay might have avoided the awkward situation where an improvised scene has a supporting character saying "this is a stupid idea" and the film having no actual response for that.

The stupid idea in question is married couple Annie (Aselton) and Darren (Dax Shepard) deciding to give each other one night to go out and have sex with another man/woman. They are, you see, generally happy, love spending time together, and still find each other attractive; they just haven't made love in months. This, they figure, will put some spark and excitement back into their marriage.

It is obviously a stupid idea. The ways in which it can go wrong are numerous and immediately obvious to anyone with half a brain, and even if you buy that these characters have to do something to spice things up, one would think that they'd try things that involve them actually sleeping with each other first. But, no, the outline apparently runs (1) awkward dinner conversation (2) talk about having one night with other people (3) the big night (4) afterward, and the parts of the story that would really tie things together were never really puzzled out.

Full review at EFC.

Io sono l'amore (I Am Love)

* * (out of four)
Seen 24 April 2010 at the Somerville Theater #3 (Independent Film Festival of Boston)

Star ratings are an arguably necessary evil, but should be the last thing on a critic's mind as he or she writes a review, let alone watching a film. So I'm not just chagrined, but kind of ashamed, that while I was watching I Am Love, I was thinking something like "four... three... two (three... two and a half... two)... and only because it looks so nice." Still, being aware of a film becoming a crushing disappointment isn't nearly as bad as actually being a crushing disappointment.

It starts off well enough. Emma Recchi (Tilda Swinton) is overseeing a Milano dinner party being held in honor of her father-in-law. There is much preparation downstairs in the servant's quarters, and some upstairs, as Emma's husband Tancredi (Pippo Delbono) teases their son Edoardo (Flavio Parenti) about losing some sort of athletic competition to a chef. The chef, Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini) stops by later, making an impression on Edo - who wants to open a restaurant with him - and Emma, who is emboldened when she learns that her daughter Elisabetta (Alba Rohrwacher) is finding herself attracted to women... Especially since Tancredi and Edo find themselves busy after their grandfather steps down from the family business.

I Am Love starts out strong, with luxuriously extended and stylized opening credits that evoke a different era, right down to how the serifed "MILANO" fills the entire screen. There's a beautiful contrast between the busy preparation of the servants and the regal, almost decadent leisure of the wealthy hosts and guests - so wealthy that Edo's new girlfriend, Eva (Diane Fleri) is looked upon with some disapproval because her family is merely rich. There's a certain fascination in seeing how these two worlds interface, with Emma managing the household staff and trusted, longtime maid Ida (Maria Paiato) serving as a confidante for the entire Recchi family.

Full review at EFC.

Joheunnom nabbeunnom isanghannom (The Good, The Bad, The Weird)

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 24 April 2010 at the Brattle Theater (Independent Film Festival of Boston: IFFBoston After Dark)

A few years ago, I saw a movie called A Bittersweet Life at Fantasia and loved it, saying it was the sort of action movie John Woo and Chow Yun-fat used to make before they came to Hollywood and got all neutered - and that was without realizing that it was from the same filmmaker who made the excellent A Tale of Two Sisters, Kim Ji-woon. It didn't even show up on US home video, but I figured that maybe that would be rectified when his big-budget, smash-hit follow-up, The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, got its theatrical and Blu-ray release. I was offered a screener in September '08, but said, no, let someone else have it, I'll see it when it hits the big screen in a few months.

Then MGM's lawyers got involved, saying it was too obvious an homage to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Still, the story has a happy ending: A year and a half, a dropped conjunction, and who knows what other concessions later, Kim's "kimchee western" is finally hitting U.S. theaters, and it is well worth the wait.

The story starts off sounding complicated, but it's really not. It's the 1930s, and a Chinese bank has promised to turn a map to Manchuria's greatest treasure over to the occupying Japanese forces. Of course, the bank is run by weasels, so they hire a nasty Korean bandit, Park Chan-yi (Lee Buyng-hun), to rob the train transporting it and steal it back. What they don't figure on is another bandit, the eccentric Yoon Tae-goo (Song Kang-ho), robbing the same train. Though, to be fair, they should have expected bounty hunter Park Do-won (Jung Woo-sung), who has pursued Chan-yi all the way from Korea, to interrupt. Now, there's treasure to be found, uneasy alliances to be made and broken, and a whole lot of bullets to be shot.

And good lord, is there a lot of amazing action along the way. Let's start with the train robbery. Some filmmakers will quietly give us the lay of the land before launching into the action; others will present us with a disjointed mess. Kim Ji-Woon frog-walks us through the train, jumping right into the action while giving us just enough time to know what's where. Then things start happening at a frantic pace; you've got two bandits, a bounty hunter, the folks transporting the map, and a Mongol horde in, on top of, and around the train, which is moving, then not, then moving again. Things are happening fast, but the action is always clear. That's no small feat, considering just how much Kim is throwing at us.

Full review at EFC.

Kagemusha

There's still a few days left of Kurosawa at the Brattle - a double feature of The Lower Depths and Dodes'ka-Den on Friday and Saturday and The Hidden Fortress on Sunday (sadly, no 9pm-hour show for any of those, as the Brattle is wasting using that time on Twin Peaks), and a Yojimbo/Sanjuro double feature on Wednesday and Thursday. I'm kind of disappointed that I couldn't get to more, between BUFF during the first week and things running longer than I thought on other days.

I encourage folks to get to as much as they can. I don't push Kurosawa on people very much, and it's probably for the reason that many people shy away from his works today: It's easy to sound like a snob when doing so. When I describe Kurosawa's work, it starts to sound more and more pretentiously arty: After all, the guy's foreign. He made a lot of period pieces. His films were not just old, but often in black and white. Many were long. Many were adaptations of Shakespeare, transposed into medievel Japan. Now, I'm cool with that; if you're reading this, you probably are too. But imagine running down this list with a friend whose moviegoing habits are more or less restricted to new releases - can't you feel them backing off?

Which is a shame, because Akira Kurosawa made tremendously entertaining movies. Even Kagemusha, which at times moves away from the large-scale action sequences in a very deliberate, artsy manner, is far lighter than it might be in other hands. It's funny and energetic, and it's not really a surprise that George Lucas was an executive producer on it. The common thought process on Lucas being inspired by Kurosawa is often that he cribbed characters and stories but dumbed them down (especially since hating on Lucas became a national sport in the last decade or so), but a look at Kurosawa's work shows that, yes, there's a level and type of artistry more often associated with the film's other America producer, Francis Ford Coppola, but the sheer entertainment that Lucas at his best creates is there too. It's easy to see both being inspired by Kurosawa, and returning the favor by helping him mount this production.

Kagemusha

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 3 April 2010 at the Brattle Theatre (The Warrior's Camera: Akira Kurosawa Centennial)

Akira Kurosawa would have reached the century mark this year, and while one needs no excuse to dive into this master's work - that so much is fantastic is reason enough - the anniversary is providing us with opportunities and reminders to do so. Hopefully, many will take advantage of the chance to not just revisit favorites, but to perhaps experience some of these films for the first time, as even potentially intimidating films like Kagemusha are brilliant for all, not just some elite.

It does hit the audience with a little exposition right away, on how in 16th Century Japan, three leaders' factions sought to take the capital of Kyoto and unite the nation under their rule: Shingen Takeda (Tatsuya Nakadai), Nobunaga Oda (Daisuke Ryu), and Ieyasu Tokugawa (Masayuki Yui). Shingen's brother Nobukado Takeda (Tsutomu Yamazaki) bears a striking resemblance to him, and frequently serves as his double on the front lines. Quite by accident, Nobukado finds a man whose resemblance to the king goes beyond "striking" to "uncanny", and brings the uncouth thief (Nakadai again) into the palace to be trained to imitate Shingen. He is meant to only serve as an occasional decoy, but when a sniper's bullet strikes Shingen, his dying command is that his death not be announced for three years, lest Nobunaga and Ieyasu attack the Takeda clan while it is weak - and, perhaps, lest his son Katsuyori (Kenichi Hagiwara) seize power as the designated heir's guardian.

There's a fair amount of history and politics to this film (more in some cuts than others - 20th Century Fox removed twenty minutes present in the Criterion DVD/Blu-ray; this review is of a Fox print), and it's impressive how clearly it is presented. Kurosawa and co-writer Masato Ide put a lot of balls in the air - not just one, but two rival lords, as well as the contention between Katsuyori and the rest of the court - but it's never overwhelming. Kurosawa is also very respectful of that history; he doesn't suggest that the fate of the nation turned on his fictional creation, although he does build a compelling story around him.

It's the sort of story that's frequently used for comedy, and Tatsuya Nakadai gives a wonderfully comic performance as the nameless thief. It's not broad of buffoonish, but there's always something amusing going on in his eyes: The look of an eager student at moments when the real Shingen would show wisdom, occasional panic, and simple pleasure at playing with Takemaru (Kota Yui), the grandson that was frightened by Shingen. But he also manages moments of dignity and tragedy, both as Shingen, whom we can see as both ruthless and noble, and later on, when the thief begins to feel like an important part of the clan, though he is not.

The thief doesn't quite serve as the audience's eyes into this world, but it's interesting the sort of remove Kurosawa puts the audience at. At times, we may identify best with the spies Nobunaga and Ieyasu send to observe the Takeda clan; like the thief, they aren't sure what the big picture is but do their best to process their part of it. We just see glimpses of the court politics that go on after Shingen's death; it's up to us to interpret a move by Katsuyori as a power play, since the generals don't describe it that way. And though some of the battles that play a part of the plot are epic in scope - such as the one at the end, 1575's Battle of Nagashino - there are few scenes of swords clashing; instead, we see the march to battle, snipers shooting from behind cover, and the carnage afterward. We see the thief's horror as he watches from a distance, and his fear as it threatens to escape its bounds.

It's an unusual epic that way; though it takes place over a period of years, and features kings, treachery, and battles, it is one where small moments are often the most memorable, and where the main character being a pawn in a much larger game is never in doubt. That's part of what makes Kurosawa's accomplishment, returning to film after a decade away, so remarkable; in a lesser filmmaker's hands, this could have been dour or somber. Instead, it's exciting from the get go, with a spirited exchange between Shingen, Nobukado, and the thief before the title and a messenger running to deliver news after. There's little chuckles in the middle of dramatic scenes. And between Kurosawa and the excellent cast, we seldom get a sense of simplistic heroes and villains; just people doing what comes naturally until, in the end, we see the effect that the experience has had on the thief.

Those last few scenes arguably come after the emotional climax, but that's part of what makes an epic (along with its length) - it's still finding interesting angles all the way until the end. What Kurosawa does so well is make the audience feel the scale while also making it fun.

Dead link to review at eFilmCritic