Revenge of the Green Dragons

Very glad I got to see this in a theater - as I think I mentioned before, this was originally scheduled to play the Boston Film Festival about a month ago, but during a slot when I was flying back from Austin. So, when it got pulled at the last minute and later announced as the opening night film of the Boston Asian American Film Festival, I was a happy camper.

And, hey - guests!



(For as often as I'm forced to use the "horrible photography" tag, that is some accidentally awesome composition, no?)

From left to right, that's executive producer Alan Pao, co-stars Geoff Lee, Celia Au, and Carl Li, directors Andrew Loo & Andrew Lau, co-star Shing Ka, and Devon Diep, who performed the title song. Pretty good turn-out, probably in part because the film is getting a limited theatrical release starting this weekend (it's also available on demand via DirecTV).

It's a pretty great get for BAAFF, because it's probably one of the highest-profile movies made with a primarily Asian-American cast in some time, at least since the last Harold & Kumar entry. It's pulp, but it's pretty good as pulp goes. And as much of the cast attested, that's something they don't necessarily often get the chance to do, as opposed to playing a lot of restaurant workers or grad students.

They also all mentioned that director "Andrew" Lau Wai-keung worked fast, getting one or two takes and then moving on. Lau was kind of the big draw for me; he co-directed Infernal Affairs, which got remade as The Departed, making it only fair for Martin Scorsese to executive produce this movie. It's not his first American movie - he did something called The Flock a few years back, although the American version had reshoots directed by someone else - but what I like about it is how much it feels like something from both America and Hong Kong, which is as it should be.

Also cool: He seemed to dig the Brattle Theatre; apparently the tour has had them screening Dragons in a lot of slick new venues, and he really seemed to dig playing it in a theater that was actually around during the time when this film took place. He seemed to stumble on getting it out in just that way - he seemed to be telling Creative Director Ned Hinkle that he liked the place because it's kind of old and run-down, but we can see it as him being glad the Brattle isn't trying to be something it's not and losing its personality, right?

The other interesting thing that came up was that they did a lot of open auditions in New York, and a lot of the older immigrants they talked to said that if they had it to do over again, they probably wouldn't have come to America, what with the danger, near-slavery, and prejudice they face. Something you hate to hear, but given some of what you see in the movie and can learn about elsewhere, not exactly surprising. It ties in with the short film that played before the feature (and similar ones which played during Films at the Gate), which talk about a real feeling of isolation until people find specifically Asian-American groups to connect with.

Revenge of the Green Dragons

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 23 October 2014 in the Brattle Theatre (Boston Asian American Film Festival, DCP)

Don't let some of the pedigree that Revenge of the Green Dragons can whip out fool you - executive producer/"presenter" Martin Scorsese and co-director Andrew Lau have made some transcendent gangster movies, but this one is more or less the sort of lurid fare its name suggests. This is not an argument against it, mind you; what better way is there to tell the story of an Asian-American street gang than by bringing some Hong Kong style to old-school grindhouse?

The Green Dragons recruited Steven Wong and his foster brother Sonny early, when they were middle-schoolers fairly fresh off the boat in 1982. Seven years later, they've moved up; Sonny (Justin Chon) is handling collections, while the more fiery Steven (Kevin Wu) brandishes a knife. It roughly parallels the gang's leaders, clean-cut Paul Wrong (Harry Shum Jr.) and his right-hand-man Chen Chung (Leonard Wu), who know that if they keep things relatively clean, the NYPD will mostly assign rookie cops, even if one guy at the FBI (Ray Liotta) is starting to sniff around due to a general belief that immigration is a ticking time bomb.

The film is based upon actual people and events, but it doesn't really need to be; while it may not follow the gangster-movie template exactly, there is not a lot to the movie that audiences have not seen before. If anything, the screenplay by Michael Di Jiacomo and co-director Andrew Loo primarily distinguishes itself via exceptional cynicism: There is never much effort made to build the Green Dragons or other gangs up as social structures offering some sort of honor, unity, or camaraderie; they are assemblies of thugs from minute one, appealing mainly because the alternative seems to be exploitation that is tantamount to slavery.

Full review at EFC.

The Fantasia Daily, 2012.10 (28 July 2012): A Letter to Momo, Mon Ami, Nameless Gangster, Graceland, and Z-108

Q&A's can get weird, folks.


Cast & crew of Mon Ami: Sound designer Ian Robinson, costume designer Ellie Schultz, producer Joe (last name not legible), stars Scott Wallis & Mike Kovac, and writer/director Rob Grant

The makers of Mon Ami were pretty great, joking with the audience and generally showing the same kind of charm that's one of their movie's assets. One thing that struck me weird, though, is how Grant mentioned that some of the choices made were meant to reflect what sort of choices the characters would have made if they were making the movie, such as using all the slow-motion and classical music for the underscore, because they thought they were a lot more sophisticated and suave than they actually are. I don't know if I really see that - I think part of what makes it work is that Cal & Teddy don't really think they're criminal masterminds, but are in over their head anyway. What works is that these guys are sort of average, know it, and still find their plan falling apart.

Seriously, it's okay to just admit that you used that music because it was free.




Graceland had a lot of folks in town, so much that I should have tried to figure out the panoramic features of the camera-phone. Writer/directer Ron Morales is in both shots, with producers to his left and the festival's Stephanie Treppanier and the musicians to his right. Not pictured: The guys from Resolution doing a great introduction since Ms. T had lost her voice.

The Q&A got kind of weird in the way they do for movies set and shot in a poor country with an audience that wants to be empathetic but sort of verges on the edge of being patronizing. Plus, it got into a real "issue" groove when the producer on the far right said he got involved because he felt it had a lot to say about the exploitation of women and girls. I guess that's sort of true, but I kind of thought that if you wanted to make a movie about that, you might choose one which has women in a substantive role or two. Graceland is a lot of things (I kind of wish I'd been sure enough about the plot of Kurosawa's High and Low to ask about that), but its main characters are men and the conflict driving the plot is class and corruption, not really mysogyny and pedophilia. Those are there, but not really central.


King-wei Chu and director Lonnie Martin introducing his short film "Cougars".

Zombie 108 had a short film before it, and, man, did that ever not need to start later. "Cougars" was cute and clever enough, although the twist cold be seen coming a mile away, but could use a lot of refinement before going to the feature-length version.

Today's plan: The Kick, Quick, Roller Town, The Warped Forest and The Human Race. So, basically just living in Hall all day.

Momo e no Tegami

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 28 July 2012 in Concordia University Theatre Hall (Fantasia 2012 AXIS, HD)

You can do a movie like A Letter to Momo with live-action nowadays, and it's increasingly common, but animation of the traditional variety still seems the best medium for this sort of fantastical but relaxed family entertainment: It makes everything part of the same world and allows for things to slow down a bit, and is especially fitting here, were drawings literally come to life, in a fashion.

After the death of her father, 12-ish Momo Miyaura (voice of Karen Miyama) and her mother Ikoku (voice of Yuka) move from Tokyo to Shio Island on Japan's Inland Sea, where Ikoku grew up. Momo, who carries a note her father started to write her (without getting beyond "Dear Momo"), is not especially thrilled with her new home, and that's before discovering that they are not the only new arrivals - although nobody else can see or hear goblins Iwa, Kawa, and Mamé (voices of Toshiyuki Nishida, Koichi Yamadera, and Cho).

Parents shouldn't worry, though - A Letter to Momo is never in any particular danger of turning into a particularly scary movie. The goblins are more pests and comic relief than any kind of real threat, although it's understandable if Momo initially thinks otherwise. The design and animation of the trio is particularly clever in this regard - despite the resemblance to the Edo-era drawings that inspired them being absolutely unmistakable, the filmmakers manage to twist them into something friendlier. For example, the way Iwa's massive mouth is always open to display his pointed teeth comes across as sort of dumb and vacant rather than intimidating.


Full review at EFC.

Mon Ami

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 28 July 2012 in Concordia University Theatre Hall (Fantasia 2012, HD)

Mon Ami, despite its title, is in English, so its audience needn't fret about having to deal with subtitles. It's still rather off the beaten path, a buddy black comedy, with as much enthusiasm as gags involving grievous injury; maybe enough to win audiences over.

Teddy (Mike Kovac) and Cal (Scott Wallis) have known each other since they were six, though their lives are in a bit of a rut - they've been working in the same hardware store for a years, with Cal actually crashing in the back room when not in his parents' house and Teddy married to a very demanding wife (Teagan Vincze). When the store's owner Hank (John Fitzgerald) opts to put his sons in charge rather than promote Teddy after retiring, he and Cal decide to take control of the situation: Telling everyone that they're going on a fishing trip, they kidnap Hank's pretty nineteen-year-old daughter Crystal (Chelsey Reist) with the intent of holding her for ransom. They've got a plan, but it's not nearly as foolproof a plan as they think, especially given the fools involved.

Give this movie one thing; the energy level is very high indeed. The characters often talk fast, gags come at a quick pace, and nasty physical comedy produces plenty of blood. There's quick cuts and slow motion, and rather than get bogged down, things accelerate toward the end. The movie relies on this energy, both in terms of keeping the audience with the characters as things get further out of hand and having the characters continually make things worse for themselves when stopping to think might solve a lot of problems.

Full review at EFC.

Bumchoiwaui Junjaeng (Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 28 July 2012 in Concordia University Theatre Hall (Fantasia 2012, DCP)

Can I be honest? I don't really like gangster movies that much. Crime movies, yes, but movies about the mob tend to leave me cold. For me, "the outfit" in Richard Westlake's "Parker" novels is close to ideal - vaguely corporate and threatening, but off to the side of the action.

So I suppose it's both a bit of an achievement that I liked Nameless Gangster but inevitable that I didn't love it. The conflict between distant relatives played by Choi Min-sik and Ha Jung-woo never quite becomes operatic enough to really fascinate, and Choi's character just seems put together wrong: On the one hand, he's a fat stumbler without a subtle bone in his body, but on the other, his apparent strength is that he knows everybody and can network and call in favors like a pro. It's possible to be both, but the movie never really makes a case for it.

Full review at EFC.

Graceland

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 28 July 2012 in Concordia University Cinema J.A. de Seve (Fantasia 2012 Spotlight: Filipino Cinema, HD)

Though a low-fi picture that appears to have scraped every penny together to get made, Graceland has a pretty darn excellent hook - a twistier, more noirish take on High and Low with the chauffeur keeping things from his employer to save his kidnapped daughter - which it plays out just excellently. There are a few gaps in the plot at points, but calling most out would be called quibbling.

What's really excellent is the way it goes from an efficient and brutal setup - it makes you really like certain characters before doing something awful - to a noose that starts out pretty darn tight and only gets worse from there. Things can only end badly in this movie; the question just being how badly things will end.

Very much recommended.

Full review at EFC.

Zombie 108

N/A (but likely low)
Seen 28 July 2012 in Concordia University Cinema J.A. de Seve (Fantasia 2012, DCP)

I can't legitimately grade this, since about half an hour in, the need to get some sleep started acting upon me like a force that could not be denied and I was in and out, doing that head-jerk thing every few minutes. This, despite the iced tea I'd purchased at the concession stands - which, naturally, kicked in after the movie.

Pretty sure I still wouldn't like it, though - the story was choppy and all over the place, and frequently just ugly in ways that tended to push it past my threshhold for such things. The washed-out color palette just made it drearier and harder to keep attention.

Fantasia Day Four: War of Flowers, Ten Nights of Dreams, The Show Must Go On, et Spiral

Updated yesterday's post with The Banquet.

I spent too long writing yesterday morning, and thus didn't get to the festival on time for Wolfhound. On the one hand, it was sword and sorcery stuff, which I don't have much particular love for; on the other hand, it was the one new Russian movie I could fit into the schedule, and I'm bummed to miss it - there's cool stuff going on in Russia right now (and has been for some time).

It did give me a chance to poke around a couple of book/magazine shops and discover that Canada/Quebec/Montreal doesn't appear to have the same love for pencil puzzles as America. There weren't even a lot of French-language crossword magazines for sale, let alone English ones, and even Sudoku/Kakuro was tough to find. I wonder why that is.

Today's plan: Oxide Pang's Diary, then Korea for the rest of the night - Once in a Summer, Roommates, and Aachi and Ssipak. This means making darn sure I wrap tourism up early on Friday, because that's the only other time I can catch The Unseeable.

War of Flowers (aka Tazza: The High Rollers, Tajja)

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 8 July 2007 in Théatre Hall Condordia (Fantasia 2007)

It's probably not a good idea to try to learn about a game by seeing a movie about it. Based upon War of Flowers (aka Tazza: The High Rollers), I'm dumbfounded at the idea that hwatu could consume someone's life - it looks like poker, only with smaller hands, fewer cards, and no discards. That said, with the right characters and story, you could probably make an exciting movie about flipping coins.

Kim Goni (Cho Seung-woo) starts out as a man with a gambling problem, and leaves home in shame after stealing and losing his sister's alimony payment. Driven practically to the edge, he gains the attention of of Pyeong Gyung-jang (Baek Yun-shik), who claims to be one of the three greatest gamblers in Korea (but lives modestly because he is much better at judging cards that real estate). Pyeong teaches Goni how to cheat... er, "use tricks" rather than "play the traditional way", but makes him promise to leave the life after he's achieved his goal of repaying his sister five times over. That's not happening, especially after Pyeong introduces him to grifter Madame Jeong (Kim Hye-su), the "Flower of Gamblers". Goni joins her operation, but winds up on his own after he and new comrade Gwang (Yu Hae-jin) escape a police raid. Even if Madame Jeong didn't still need gamblers for her scams, though, Goni has made enemies of vicious scarred gambler Agwee (Kim Yun-seok) and gangster Kwak Cheol-yeong (Kim Eung-su), which could place his and Gwang's new girlfriends, sisters Hwa-ran (Lee Su-kyeong) and Seo-ran (Kim Jeong-nan), in danger.

War of Flowers has the makings of a caper epic, as Goni starts at the bottom and then works his way up, if not to the top, than to the point where he's on his own. It hits a lot of familiar targets - the mentor character who teaches the audience along with the star and has an effect on the story well after his initial exit, the femme fatale, the motormouthed sidekick, the taste of a normal life, the schemes spelled out for the audience that get twisted into something else. Writer/director Choi Cong-hun (working from a comic by Ha Yeong-min) does a great job of keeping it interesting, telling the story in flashback with Mme. Jeong as our guide. Other narrators contribute toward the end, but Jeong's seductive voice adds a hint of glamour to the world of gamblers even as Goni starts out in the dirt, and the cuts to her being interviewed in an expensive dress hint that Goni will eventually transcend his humble origins to become a big deal.

Full review at EFC.

Ten Nights of Dreams (aka Yume Ju-ya)

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 8 July 2007 in Théatre Hall Condordia (Fantasia 2007)

The bit that opens this film has legendary Japanese novelist Soseki Natsume admitting that the book "Ten Nights of Dreams" is meant to be a mystery, one which might not be solved for a hundred years. He says this in 1906, and the maid he's addressing comments that she'd have to reincarnate to see that. A hundred years later, ten notable directors have each made a short film based on one of the book's surreal stories, and while the results must often be quite far from what a Meiji-era writer imagined, they are nearly all fascinating.

The first dream is realized by the late Akio Jissoji, and gets the anthology off to a suitably surreal start: It features Soseki himself, speaking to his wife (Kyoko Koizumi) and, in true dream-like manner, feeling unstuck in time. Jissoji frequently pulls the camera back to show that Soseki's home is nothing more than a pair of sets on a stage. It's a theme that other directors will come back to - that Soseki not only wrote about fantasies, but was himself somewhat disconnected from reality.

The second dream comes from Kon Ichikawa, in which a samurai (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) is briefly visited by a wise man who challenges him to find enlightenment on a deadline. Presented as a silent film pastiche, it playfully tweaks the idea of enlightenment and understanding as something that can be strived for.

Takashi Shimizu is up next, and as you might expect from the man behind the Grudge franchise, his third dream is a nightmare, as a grotesque child leads Soseki through his wife's dream about broken idols and miscarried children being reincarnated in her womb. Shimizu draws upon Soseki's life from after the publication of Ten Nights to add an extra level of eeriness, and also demonstrates that he's well able to create scares without relying on his usual standbys. He also has room for a little wit, as his Natsume ponders that he cannot remember his own childhood clearly, and his own children sometimes seem alien to him.

Full review at EFC.

The Show Must Go On (Wooahan Segye)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 8 July 2007 in Théatre Hall Condordia (Fantasia 2007)

Being a gangster sounds cool until you try to make a career out of it. Maybe the money's okay, but the hours stink, it's awkward when your daughter's teacher asks you what you do for a living, and the lack of insurance really causes trouble when getting beaten or stabbed is an occupational hazard. It's no wonder Kang In-gu's wife wants a divorce.

In-gu (Song Kang-ho) isn't thrilled with the way his life is going, either - his daughter hates him, the boss's brother is a screw-up, and the construction job he's just muscled his gang into controlling is causing problems, both with a rival gang and with the workers (though he gets along well with his opposite number in the other gang; they've been best friends since elementary school). He'd quit, but he also wants to buy one of those Western-style houses in the suburbs, but can he really afford it if he goes straight? Being a gangster is all he knows.

Someone coming to The Show Must Go On expecting a comedy will probably be a bit disappointed; although it functions as a sort of parody of the gangster movie genre, writer/director Han Jae-rim opts to rely less on jokes and more on simply sucking the glamor out of the activity. Someone like In-gu is likely never going to become chief, so he's basically stuck in a middle management position, with all the aggravation that entails. One of the funniest sequences has In-gu trying to handle a labor dispute only to find that the contractors know full well that the mob needs them working more than they need publicity, and that their construction equipment trumps the knives and bats the gangsters bring to intimidate them. The audience winds up just feeling sort of sorry for In-gu, especially since the incident leads into another trip to the hospital. A life of danger and violence seems much less sexy if there's a good chance of one's wife and daughter waiting outside the emergency room door becoming a regular event.

Full review at EFC.

Spiral

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 8 July 2007 in Théatre D.B. Clarke (Fantasia 2007)

Spiral is about as thin as a feature film can be, to the point where I think that maybe there's not a feature's worth of material to it. I wonder if it wouldn't drift into obscurity, even by festival-circuit standards, if programmers didn't find it to be an interesting counterpoint to Hatchet, a slasher flick with which it shares a star and director that has been doing the midnight-movie rounds at the same time.

While I'm told Hatchet is a funny, high-energy piece, Spiral is fairly somber. Mason (Joel Moore) works in an insurance company call center, his only friend his boss and high-school classmate Berkeley (Zachary Levi). Mason likes jazz, and painting, and is carrying some bad memories around. His last relationship has just ended, but a new girl has taken interest in him: Amber (Amber Tamblyn) works in the same call center, likes the spot that Mason had staked out for eating lunch by himself, and certainly doesn't mind that Mason lets her chatter on without complaint. She seems oblivious to how creepy everyone else finds Mason. It doesn't escape the audience's notice, though, that the sketches and paintings Mason starts making of her after they start dating are eerily reminiscent of the ones he removed from his apartment earlier.

The film is a nice calling card for Joel Moore, who stars, co-wrote the script with Jeremy Boreing, served as an executive producer, and directs along with Adam Green (since Moore is in nearly ever scene, Green served as the on-set director with Moore handling the rest of the work). Mason is a good character for him; Moore's hangdog face and deep voice hint that there's something tragic hanging over him that makes the audience want to understand why he's so cut off. Most of the people at his workplace are put off by him, but one can see where people would occasionally be drawn in, too. As the movie goes on, there's an occasionally scary edge of anger in his voice, and he's got a line at the end ("how can you tell the difference?") that drives home what kind of anguish his particular troubles must be.

Full review at EFC.