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Jimmy Wang Yu played the top student at a kung fu school. A disgruntled former student returned after learning judo and roughed up a bunch of students and then was promptly dispatched when the master showed up. The master explained that while kung fu was used for sport and self defense, karate was used for killing. Later, the former student showed back up with a crew of Japanese karate experts led by Lo Lieh in a bad wig. The karate experts went on a killing and eye gouging rampage in the school only leaving a few wounded alive, including Jimmy's Lei Ming. The karate thugs seized the opportunity to take over the town and made it into an illicit gambling den.
The familiar plot ensued. After Lei Ming recovered, he secretly learned the Iron Fist technique and light body skills. Then it was his turn to to on a bloody rampage. The fights were okay, Jimmy wasn't a martial artist and it showed. Blood spurted a plenty and the movie sported a high body count. Lei Ming taking on a bunch of katana wielding samurais in the the tall grass was entertaining. Too many of the fights were chop and block and not terribly fast. Lo Lieh, as always, had great screen charisma even if he wasn't on screen much and was required to do some screaming that seemed out of place.
The sets were all very nice and most were nicely destroyed with fists, kicks, and bodies thrown through them. Fake snow and real snow abounded. It's one of the few final fight scenes I've seen where there was snow and ice on the ground which seemed hazardous for the actors and crew. You could tell where they cleared a few areas off down to the dirt to provide a better place to spar.
It was fun to see these actors when they were very young, aside from Wang Yu and Lo Lieh, Chen Sing, Yuen Woo Ping, and Chen Kuan Tai, among many well known martial artist bit players were in the background.
There was an unnecessary rape scene that took away from the movie for me. Also several birds were killed which left a bad taste as well.
Jimmy's acting wasn't as stiff in this movie as in others I've seen him in and his directing was quite good. As a first entry into the "modern" kung fu era it was a respectable entry and worth watching for the historical implications at the very least.
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The basic plot is the evil eunuch desires a magic red pill created to heal the emperor and grant him immortality. In the process of stealing it and securing his position he secretly pits the Wu Dang clan against the Lunar clan. The white-haired witch belongs to one clan and the impetuous fighter who falls for her in the other. A few misunderstandings and an astonishingly high body count later and you've got the gist of the story.
The acting was fine for what was required of the actors. Most weren't on screen long enough to form any real bond or hatred of. The actual running time was probably closer to an hour, making it shorter than some drama episodes which means there was a dearth of character development. At one point I wasn't really sure who belonged to which clan because there hadn't been enough of an introduction for me to identify the characters in even the most vague way. Not to give too much away, but by the time I figured out who belonged to which team it was pretty much irrelevant anyway.
The CGI was good for a film that felt low budget and the fights were entertaining. I'm always happy to see a strong female protagonist who can wield a sword and long, lethal hair. There were some creative fight elements and magical weapons and abilities which kept the fights interesting.
I wouldn't put this movie high on a kung fu watchlist but it was an entertaining hour of CGI fights, betrayals, and a little romance thrown in for good measure.
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The best part of this movie for me were the villains, especially the dastardly Dr. Hu and his plot to use Kong to dig Element X from under the North Pole. Given that in the dubbed version I watched the voice actor was Paul Frees who voiced many characters in Rankin Bass Christmas stop action movies (the Berger Meister Meister Berger!) I fully expected to see Santa's castle in the mythical land. Dr. Hu with his great teased white hairdo, magnificent cape and malevolent voice was easily the most entertaining part of the movie. His cohort in crime, Madame Piranha/Madame X, played by Mie Hama, a bond girl in You Only Live Twice, played a great femme fatale.
The Good Guys were a bland and mostly ineffectual lot, although I enjoyed seeing Takarada Akira who performed in several Toho productions going back to the original Godzilla. The object of Kong's affection/friendship in this movie, played by Linda Miller, isn't afraid of Kong and tries to help him out of trouble as I guess Kong speaks English or Japanese depending on the version you watched. Maybe he's multilingual?
MechaKong definitely looked cooler than King Kong although lacking in weaponry like MechaGodzilla. Kong's fights with Gorosaurus and MechaKong were okay. The fight with MK was far too short. The doll he carried around at times which was supposed to be the blonde female had red hair which was funny.
This is silly escapism that requires checking your adult brain at the door because little of it makes sense. Depending on how well you can do that will determine how much you might want to escape with Kong from this movie.
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When two young Shaolin monks are kicked out of the temple and have to find their way in the world, one chooses evil and one chooses good. The friends' choices, of course, put them on a collision path to betrayal and destruction.
Jet Li handles the fights scenes just as you would expect him to-marvelously. He's fast and believable even in some over-the-top wire scenes. Michelle Yeoh is agile and elegant whether wielding a sword or in a flying table fight. Their characters help each other out in their darkest moments without resorting to a forced romance. It was refreshing to see a friendship built on mutual respect for each other and each other's abilities.
Chin Siu Ho, who plays the friend who chooses the wrong path, does an admirable job of falling down the well into power and greed. The supporting cast of characters were fleshed out enough that I cared about what happened to them.
My only quibble is the comedy/madness portion of the movie which goes on too long even if it results in Jet Li's character developing his new skill set. This isn't a true spoiler for kung fu movie enthusiasts, it's the common formula. Good guy gets beaten, goes off to develop a new kind of kung fu, goes back and confronts the bad guy. In a movie with a high body count, those supposedly funny moments dragged on too long for me.
The cinematography is good but not great. The focus is on the fights and Yuen Woo Ping excels as always in coming up with creative ways to stage fights--even a giant game of kung fu Jenga!
The movie may be dated, but Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh make up for any story deficiencies. Tai Chi Master has spectacular fights throughout the movie featuring two of the greats of the genre, definitely worth the price of admission.
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When Aryoung has to lay low in Korea with a bunch of goofball gangsters, the gangster farce begins. I actually enjoyed most of the comedy, especially the translator's liberal and less than literal translations. The five disparate characters bonded quickly into their own familial gang.
Shu Qi's deadly, fearless, and taciturn character played well off the three stooges of crime. I'm always pleased when the female lead isn't a damsel in distress. In this case, she played the rescuing or avenging hero more often than not and she was glorious when she was fighting.
This is one of those strange mash-ups of straightforward crime story and ridiculous crime comedy. For the most part it worked for me. Shu Qi can conjure up chemistry with just about anyone but I never bought the romance between her and the mullet-headed and not too bright leader of the Stooges, and would have been happy if they had not introduced a romance between them. Other than the forced romance and some of the over the top slap stick comedy I enjoyed this strange amalgam of Hong Kong and Korean movie.
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Shuna Lijima plays Jun who wants to be an actress and is paying her bills by working as a "hostess" in a seedy bar where her boyfriend works. All she has worked for is destroyed in one night with his betrayal leading her to return to the home she hasn't seen in five years. Home is not a safe haven, but she's hoping to get a share of an inheritance to start a new life. She hooks up with an old childhood friend after she returns to the small town. This would seem to be a natural place to infuse some sort of healing instead the hits keep on coming and spiraling ever downward sometimes inexplicably.
Lijima is the highlight of this film as she gives a powerful performance throughout. The male actors are adequate but not much more.
The cinematography and score are excellent, the fault isn't with the technical movie making. There is no breathing room in this film, no moment of light in the dark and tormented places in this woman's life. None of the characters are particularly likeable, including Jun. Her childhood friend, Yuki, makes a bad decision that seems drastically out of character. There is an awful lot of bad behavior from every character in the movie which can make it difficult to watch. The problem I have is that the focus could be interpreted as being around Jun leads to bad things. I'm more inclined to believe that she finds herself drawn to bad people because of her childhood experiences. This doesn't mean she doesn't make some horrendously bad choices, because she does, without ever looking for an answer that wouldn't lead to disastrous consequences.
Bad Poetry Tokyo may not be a bad film but I didn't find it to be a particularly good one either.
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The actors all did a fine job with what they were given. Vincent Zhao handled his fight scenes well, but Zhou Xun was the heart of the movie. The child actor wasn't one of the stronger ones I've seen but he was mostly supposed to cry and yell so I can't lay it all on him. Gordon Liu who played Beggar Su in Young Vagabond made a guest appearance. Michelle Yeoh and Bryan Leung also make special appearances.
My problem with the story was with Su. At first he was unbelievably naïve to the point of endangering his family. At other times he was next to useless, self-absorbed, selfish, or short-sighted. Without giving away any spoilers, let's just say he was never going to make father or husband of the year. His wife, Ying, could see when danger was approaching and also when the time to act was. Her first thought was how to hold the family together and looking for ways for them to survive. For me, she was the real hero of the movie.
The fight scenes were good as one would expect from a Yuen Woo Ping movie when they weren't relying too heavily on CGI. In a 2 hour movie it would have been nice to have had a little more dialogue between characters and some character development. I wasn't given much of a reason to care about any of these people.
Most egregiously, the final act seemed completely unrelated to the rest of the movie in style and tone dragging out the story in what appeared to be more of a political statement.
The fighting in True Legend was exhilarating, if exhausting. It just needed a little more heart, and some better editing, to make it memorable.
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I love a woman who has a sword and knows how to use it, but it helps if she knows how to use her brain as well. It took a long time for her to figure out who the mastermind behind the plot was. I knew in an instant who it was. If this guy is on the screen hide the jewelry, don't turn your back and refuse anything he offers to eat or drink.
Shu Pei Pei did a fine job with all of her fight scenes. Every time Tang Ching showed up they played music very similar to The Man in Black's (Clint Eastwood) theme evoking an American Western feel.
Unfortunately, the plot felt inconsistent and disjointed with fight scenes going from being indoors to on the top of a mountain in an instant. There were no emotional consequences to any of the events that occurred on screen. The prop department must have maxed out their credit card at Buckets 'O Blood and Trampolines 'R Us. While I don't mind some leaping around and filming jumps backwards this one seemed to over use the technique.
This was Wu Ma's first directorial experience and he choreographed the fight scenes as well. Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung have said Wu Ma is the one guy they wouldn't want to face in a fight because he's the real deal. I'll have to watch for other movies of his to see if he improved as a director. This one wasn't bad, but it wasn't very good either.
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Once I accustomed myself to the 20-year-old Hong Kong production values, I settled in and enjoyed this energetic romp complete with minions on bungee cords and rollerblades. The bad guy was a tall, skinny version of Dr. Evil who did everything but cackle maniacally. Silver Hawk has to save a kidnapped scientist with the help of a cop she meets on a plane, Richie Ren. The actors all looked like they were having fun and put a lot of energy into their roles as they fought with each other and the baddies.
This is not a movie for everyone because the movie is dated and comes across fairly low budget. Aside from Michelle Yeoh, the acting is sometimes not as strong as it could be from the supporting cast, but not horrible. The movie feels like a mash-up of 1970’s kung fu movies, James Bond, and Batman if Batman acted like he was actually having fun. If you can loosen your critical eye for 90 minutes it makes for some silly diversionary entertainment.
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The only highlight in the movie was Michelle Yeoh who had about five minutes on screen with which she outshone everyone else in the cast.
The police corruption story was merely in the background and the excuse to put the main leads together. The Hong Kong police officer was a dead ringer (pun intended) for the Japanese woman's deceased fiancé. The rushed romance comes across a little creepy given that she falls for him because he looks like her dead lover and he knows this. The police story was convoluted to the point of being ridiculous.
I would have scored it lower, but Michelle Yeoh's scenes had me feeling slightly merciful.
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The story is a thin borrowing of Dr. No, complete with a villain having a metal hand who carries around a white cat. Bruce works with the Hong Kong police to bring down this evil drug lord who had a hand in the death of his sister. The bad guy’s lair is on an island of course, with traps and lots of minions. Bruce is headed there to join the tournament where the Big Bad looks for new recruits and new victims.
John Saxon plays an American guy in deep debt looking for a score at the tournament. Jim Kelly’s character is there because he likes to fight and win. Sadly, John Saxon has most of the dialogue and while he is engaging enough, his fighting skills are sorely lacking. I would have preferred more dialogue from Bruce Lee and the charismatic Jim Kelly (who was a real karate champion).
Sek Kin, who was around 70 years old when the film opened seemed to take great delight in his villainous role and fought with vigor. Bolo Yeung picked up his stage name from this film. He often played the bad guy the hero fights to show his ability but I always find him interesting to watch. Sammo Hung had a brief scene at the beginning sparring with Bruce.
Bruce Lee is incredibly fast and usually slows his moves down for the camera, but in one scene he goes at full speed and it looked like one move, but if you slow it down you can see it’s several. And of course, Enter the Dragon has THE iconic kung fu fight scene where Bruce Lee and the Big Bad fight in the mirrored room.
What I liked most about the fights is instead of landing several hundred blows that the opponent shakes off, this time the fighting was quick, brutal, and often deadly.
The production values were higher than the standard kung fu movie. The music was much better than most kung fu movies and the sets were nice if a little heavy on the red lacquer and dragon imagery. The language was dated and women are mostly there for the men’s pleasure. There are also scenes with racism in them. It’s not a perfect film.
What it did well was raise the bar for kung fu movies in how they were shot and how fight scenes were choreographed. Bruce Lee’s moves are legendary for a reason and as an actor he is compelling to watch. The movie earned $350,000,000 world-wide against a budget of $850,000 proving that Western audiences were open to what he was offering.
This was Bruce Lee’s last movie, not counting the ones that were spliced together with old footage and look-a-likes, and it makes you wonder what more he could have accomplished. He worked to be a bridge between East and West and this movie took a small first step in doing that.
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This review may contain spoilers
This was one cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs little drama, but it was entertaining. At the Aino Mating Agency the ringmaster of this circus is a former ethologist who dresses in outrageous suits and breaks into song and dance at least twice an episode. Every move is exaggerated for dramatic effect. On the plus side he has a nice voice, unfortunately the rest of the cast that often join him doesn’t.
His assistant is a Catholic nun because...well, why not? As she falls in love with every client I don’t think she will be one for long.
The agency has a 100% success rate of relationships leading to marriage. Aino Shingo repeatedly says there isn’t a more wicked emotion than love and that love is data so he tries to take that variable out of two people getting to know each other. The couple isn’t allowed to meet in person until they agree to marry.
In each episode Aino practices a strange alchemy of ethology observation techniques and logic, insight, and a little magic to match two seemingly disparate personalities. He then guides them on their way through various obstacles to marriage. The fun is in figuring out how two people fit and what threatens to keep them apart.
The Aino Mating Agency is a zany, feel good comedy, often bordering on the ridiculous. If you are feeling blue this singing and dancing ethologist and matchmaker with his nun sidekick just might lift your spirits.
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Instead of joining his child with his new won wealth, Gi Hun becomes obsessed with finding those in power and ending the games. Armed with 45.6 billion won he hires his old loan shark to locate the games’ recruiter. Officer Hwang now works in the traffic division with most of the police force thinking he’s lost his mind when he rambles on about the murderous games. With the help of a fishing boat captain, he searches for the elusive island. Eventually, the two survivors of S1 find each other and devise a plan to bring down the cruelly sadistic creators of the deadly competition. Gi Hun ends up back in the games and as before there are those who want to go home and those who want to see how much money they can win regardless of how many people must die.
The players this year included an influencer in a disastrous crypto business, a drug addicted and psychotic rapper, a mother and son, a pregnant young woman, a trans woman, an old friend, a deranged shaman, and an obvious plant. This time around there were people who had lost billions of won/millions of dollars. There was one mole known to all who watched the first season with plenty of hints for the clueless players to put together. The second secret plant was overly obvious from early on for the audience. As before there were unexpected heroes and cowards. The focus shifted slightly more to the players and their teams as people picked sides of whether to vote to stay or go. There were new games and an old one, all as insidious and barbarous as S1 for those who need their daily dose of gore and carnage.
Gi Hun could be a difficult player to root for. By the time he made a catastrophic choice I suppose he saw everyone as already dead. He certainly wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. Hwang also didn’t choose his allies too wisely. There were only a handful of characters I hoped would make it through to the end, and that’s if a person has small hands. S1 taught me to not become too emotionally attached to any of them.
The acting ranged from excellent to over the top to barely had a pulse. There were characters who were killed that scarcely made a ripple in the puddles of blood. The production values were once again of a high quality and the writing was nicely paced. I wasn’t bothered by the cliffhanger knowing there was a S3 scheduled. Sometimes it takes a third installment to take down Sauron or Darth Vader.
While S2 didn’t have the element of surprise that S1 had, it was still a solid effort. The characters who valued life, theirs and others showed the quandary of wanting to stay alive and also of having a life to go back to. As the money poured into the giant translucent pig other players’ greed and gold fever broke out over them in a lascivious sweat. Traitors lurked in the open and in the shadows. The games of the “have nots” on full display for the “have everythings” once again showed the disparity between the desperate and the bored. I wasn’t sure SGS1 needed a sequel but I’ll stick around and see how the writers decide to conclude the multi-tentacled story.
31 December 2024
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"If you leave something behind, you gain something, too"
Writer/Director Celine Song brought out the Kdrama tropes in her directorial film debut Past Lives. She took such tropes as childhood connection (destiny!), lovestruck second male lead, and the much-maligned love triangle and used them in fresh ways. The film I was expecting and the film that played out before me were quite different.Na Young and Hae Sung are best buddies at the age of twelve. Then her family emigrates to Canada separating the two children. Twelve years later Na Young, now called Nora, looks up old friends on a lark, including Hae Sung. The two reconnect via computer and begin conversing. Hae Sung wants her to come to Korea for a visit and she wants him to come to New York City where she lives. Feeling at an impasse in her life she goes on a break from Hae Sung. Twelve years later, now at the age of 36, Hae Sung comes to NYC to visit the married Na Young.
I dreaded Nora’s husband, Arthur, being portrayed as the rich, abusive or disinterested white guy standing in the way of the sacred childhood connection. I laughed when Arthur said their situation would make a great story, “I would be the evil white American husband standing in the way of destiny. I’m the guy you leave when your ex-lover comes to take you away.” In reality, Arthur was a loving, generous husband, who was learning Korean to better connect with his wife. He didn’t throw a jealous hissy fit when Hae Sung came to town. He respected Nora enough to let her do what she needed to.
Hae Sung arrived in town, obviously still in love with Na Young. Or was he only in love with the idealized version of her? He hadn’t spent any time with her since she was a child. He still lived with his parents and considered himself too ordinary. Despite working, he hadn’t made enough money to marry and had recently broken up with his longtime girlfriend. It didn’t help that handsome Yoo Teo looked his age (42) and not 36 which further made me wonder about his hesitancy with life choices.
The star of the film was Na Young/Nora. She had always had dreams and goals and was highly competitive. She was a playwright and working out her own destiny. The choices she’d made weren’t easy but she knew where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. That didn’t mean she was cold and calculating. She’d loved Hae Sung as a child and maybe even as an adult. But she also loved her husband and was funny and affectionate with him. Nora made the choices that were right for her, no excuses, and actually seemed satisfied with her decisions. After making the painful decision to go on the break with Hae Sung she never showed any regret. That didn’t mean she didn’t miss him or Seoul, and maybe more importantly, who she was in Seoul. As an immigrant, she had two selves, and both were authentic and important. Hae Sung helped her remember the little girl from Seoul she’d left behind.
Greta Lee gave a lovely nuanced performance as Na Young/Nora. Without tears and histrionics, she delicately showed her character working through where she wanted to be, who she wanted to be with, and more importantly---who she wanted to be. Joe Magara made Arthur a sympathetic three-dimensional character subtly playing out a variety of emotions. Yoo Teo brought a vulnerability to Hae Sung as a man who had to take one last chance to see his childhood love.
This film was far less a love triangle and more one of Nora’s self-discovery and reconnecting with her past and ethnic identity. Many people have that “what could have been” someone in their life. But often that person is in the perfected past of memory and not the imperfect reality of the present. Past Lives gave us mature, honest adults coming to the realization of what doors needed to be closed, opened, and left slightly ajar.
25 August 2024
*********************spoiler******************
Dude, 24 years? That is why you ended up the second lead. Luck and love favor the bold!
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"When you have it you don't want it, when you don't have it you want it"
Hello Ghost is a remake of the 2010 Korean movie by the same name. It is a comedic movie with the dark thread of gut-wrenching loneliness running through it for one man.Ah Wei has been alone his whole life. On his 21st attempted suicide he briefly stops breathing. His life is saved by a pretty EMT on the way to the hospital. When he awakens, he can see four ghosts who refuse to leave him alone. A shaman tells him he must grant their wishes before they will leave, not an easy task for these ghosts. There’s the older woman, crying woman, smoking man, and mischievous little boy. The four lead him on a merry chase getting him into all sorts of trouble. He also keeps running into Yu Xiao Yin, the EMT.
Unlike so many ghost stories, there was no threatening entity, no mystery to resolve. The ghosts appeared to want to have a good time. The only external threat was to Xiao Yin’s brother who was deeply in debt to loan sharks which also made her life miserable.
The comedic moments often bordered on cringe-worthiness although there were some genuinely funny scenes. The slapstick didn’t feel as over the top with this version. Aside from trying to make you laugh Hello Ghost also tried to touch your heart, deeply enough to hear it beat. This story would have benefited from more backstory for Ah Wei, and why he never created a family or friends for himself. Why would a hospital kick a suicidal patient out without any mental health counseling, especially after he admitted to hearing voices? Why was Xiao Yin so attracted to Ah Wei who had attempted suicide multiple times and talked to people who weren’t there? As with the Korean version, the ending saves this movie and gives it meaning. Even knowing how it ended, I still teared up.
As good as parts of this movie were, like with the original, it left me disappointed that the rest of the film wasn’t as moving as the final ten minutes. Hello Ghost is a movie that with more character development and either less or better slapstick might have been as deep as it wanted to be. Overcoming hopelessness is not an easy fix. Despite its shortcomings, if you’re prepared to be patient, Hello Ghost is a movie worth trying.
2 February 2024
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