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Saturday, April 26, 2008Be-Sharam Release Year: 1978Country: India Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Amjad Khan, Nirupa Roy, Deven Verma, Bindu, Helen, Urmila Bhatt, Uma Dhawan, Dhumal, A.K. Hangal, Iftekhar, Imtiaz, Jagdish Raj Director: Deven Verma Writers: Nerupama, Rahi Masoom Raza, Nayyar Jehan Cinematographer: A.K. Nigam Music: Kalyanji-Anandji Producer: Deven Verma If you wanted to, it seems like you could draw up a sort of family tree of the films Indian superstar Amitabh Bachchan made during his late seventies to mid eighties prime, tracing each of those movies' origins along three very distinct lines, each leading back to a particular career-defining blockbuster that provided the template for much of what was to come. Of course, while Bachchan would star in films that were virtual remakes of Deewaar, Sholay and Don over the course of his career, the lines leading back to those three classics would not always be perfectly straight. For one would also have to consider films like 1978's Be-Sharam, which draw upon elements of all three. Be-Sharam probably bears the strongest resemblance to 1978's Don because, like that film, it's a tale--set against a funky urban backdrop--of a peaceful innocent masquerading as a suave underworld figure. At the same time, like the "angry young man" movies that descended from Deewaar, it includes the theme of the martyred father--his life taken and good name tarnished by the forces of corruption--whose fate motivates the actions of the main character. Finally, as in Sholay, Bachchan is faced with a larger-than-life, seemingly unstoppable villain, who is here played by the very same actor who essayed that role in Sholay, Amjad Khan--who here makes just one of the numerous bad guy turns his iconic portrayal of Sholay's Gabbar Singh appears to have doomed him to.     Now, what Be-Sheram does with these combined elements is nothing original, but it does distill them quite nicely--making the violence nice and bloody, the men's wear as funky-hideous as you could ask for--and wraps them up in a nice, fairly tight little package. In fact, while lacking the sheen and dramatic flair of its more crafted antecedents, it may exceed some of them in terms of consistent--by Bollywood standards, mind you--energy and pacing. All of which is to say that, yes, Be-Sheram is a by-the-numbers Amitabh action movie, but it's also a very good by-the-numbers Amitabh action movie. In Be-Sheram, Bachchan plays Ram, a humble insurance agent whose father, a righteous man and dedicated pacifist, manages to get elected to public office despite ample interference from the aforementioned forces of corruption. One of these shadowy figures behind the scenes is Prince Digvijay Singh (Khan), who, like the seedy remnant of monarchy that he is, finds the idea of adapting his lifestyle to one amenable to the rule of law and democratic will distasteful. Singh dispatches his sister, the Princess Rinku (Sharmila Tagore) to insinuate herself into young Ram's life by posing as a slumming college student, and thus keep tabs on the family's movements. Of course, Rinku quickly falls in love with Ram in earnest, leaving the Prince to consider plan B.     Since no honest man can survive long in such a hotbed of malfeasance, the enemies of Ram's father soon succeed in embroiling him in a manufactured scandal and driving him from office, after which he dies in an apparent suicide. The grieving Ram is promptly called to the office of the police commissioner (played by Iftekhar, who played a virtually identical role in Don), who informs him that his father's death was actually a murder, and that it was perpetrated by the forces of a mysterious drug smuggling kingpin known only as Mr. Dharamdas. Furthermore, the commissioner tells him, the authorities have reason to believe that Mr. Dharamdas and the Prince are one in the same, but have yet to find the proof, since the base of his smuggling operation remains hidden. Being that the grieving son of a murder victim who has no training in law enforcement is the ideal choice to take part in a delicate undercover operation, the commissioner asks Ram to pose as a fellow smuggler in order to gain the Prince's confidence and get the information needed to bring him in. The commissioner makes some reference to giving Ram some kind of "training" which we don't actually get to see, but the next time we see Ram, it's obvious that that training mainly involved him learning how to be a seventies-style badass. Posing as a South African diamond smuggler with the very un-South African name of Chandrashekar, Ram glides through the upper reaches of the underworld swathed in hip-hugging seventies finery with fists always at the ready to do his talking. Of course, everyone is fooled, including--initially--Princess Rinku (because, I suppose, exact duplicates of people are always turning up in these movies, and hence pose no particular cause for concern). Now armed with professional police training in suavity and sweet talk, Ram/Chandrashekar sets about romancing both Rinku and the Prince's mistress Manju in order to gain access to the inner circle, thus setting the stage for his confrontation with the Prince.     And the Prince, as portrayed by Amjad Khan, is a winning amalgam of all of that actor's most time-tested villainous tics--blessed with a sweaty brow, leering eyes, and a tendency toward bouts of unhinged giggling. Khan is a master of a particular style of slow-burn, maniacal tantrum, which starts out quietly and tentatively, with a hint of wounded sincerity, then subtly becomes more taunting until, suddenly, like a Pixies song, it burst into full blown homicidal rage. In fact, just as Be-Sharam is a workmanlike distillation of a certain type of Amitabh movie, Khan's performance in it is a workmanlike distillation of the type of performances he typically gives in those movies. Which is not to say that the Prince is a generic character, by any means. For one, his obsessive fondness for snakes and trademark use of cobras to dispatch his enemies both sets him apart from his peers and makes for some of the film's best moments. Scattered among the cobra killings, fistfights, and Amitabh's modeling of the latest fashions, Be-Sharam, of course, features musical numbers. Lucky for us, these are all written by Kalyanji-Anandji, a team that has become a staple of hipster Bollywood music comps thanks to their hard hindi-funk soundtracks to movies like Don, Qurbani, and Bombay 405 Miles. In addition to their driving, wah-wah drenched instrumentals, the duo also had a knack for writing extremely catchy, Western pop flavored songs, of which many of the songs in Be-Sharam are fine examples. The song "Mere Kis Kaam Ki" in particular will stick in your head for days. But, in terms of presentation, my favorite number has got to be "Iraade Dil Tumhara", a climactic piece featuring Bollywood dance queen Helen. Leading us into the film's explosive final act, this bit follows something of a tradition for such numbers, in which the hero sits impassively listening while an anonymous item girl sings about all of the bad things that are about to happen to him. Strangely enough, this song follows not too far on the heels of one in which Ram similarly watches Princess Rinku performing in a pageant and is struck by the fact that she is singing about how she has seen through his disguise. Helen, similarly, sings of how Ram's cover has been blown--and with much more at stake--but this time the message is lost on him. Without spelling out too much, the consequence of his heedlessness leads to a prolonged brawl involving a hidden lair beneath a cemetery, a tiger pit, snake wrestling and, of course, Ram's mom (played, as is so often the case in Amitabh's films of this vintage, by Nirupa Roy).     While comparatively lean, Be-Sharam still bulges in places with the type of padding that we've come to rely on from Bollywood. (How else, after all, would the film reach its full two-and-a-half-hour running time?) Probably the most obvious example of this is the screen appearance by the film's director, Deven Verma, who--anticipating Eddie Murphy's midlife career by a good thirty-odd years--not only plays Ram's comic relief buddy, Laxman, but also Laxman's comic relief mom and comic relief dad, none of whom seem to have much utility in terms of the actual story--and whose comedic necessity in a film where a grown man wears a polka dot tuxedo with a straight face is doubtful at best. Despite this, however, Verma deserves credit as a director for his efforts elsewhere to streamline Be-Sharam, especially in his treatment of the film's elements of family drama--usually something of a narrative log-jam in these action films--which are here nicely integrated within the larger plot. Further serving to grease Be-Sharam's narrative wheels is the fact that, while it cribs elements from some of Amitabh's most iconic films, unlike those films, it doesn't seem to have much in the way of larger themes of its own that it's trying to put across. As such, it can simply use it's resemblance to those other films as a terse signifier of those themes (the fetters of family honor, the value of friendship and community, etc.), while it goes briskly about its real business of being a violent and somewhat trashy little potboiler. This, of course, gives the movie something of a throwaway feel, but that just contributes all the more to it being such a fun experience. After all, if you're reading this review in the first place, you're well aware of the fact that a movie doesn't need to be a classic to be great. And while Be-Sharam is certainly no substitute for Deewaar or Sholay, there is something to be said for how it so compactly serves up the undiluted joys of Amitabh at his most funky and fightingest. Labels: Action, Bollywood, Stars: Amitabh Bachchan, Year: 1978 posted by Todd at 9:24 PM | 2 Comments Thursday, March 27, 2008Tahalka Release Year: 1992Country: India Starring: Dharmendra, Amrish Puri, Mukesh Khanna, Javed Jaffrey, Ekta Kapoor, Aditya Pancholi, Naseeruddin Shah, Prem Chopra, Sonu Walia, Pallavi Joshi, Shammi Kappor, Shikha Swaroop, Bob Christo Director: Anil Sharma Writers: Bimla Sharma, Shyam Goel Cinematographer: Anil Dhanda Music: Anu Malik Producer: K.C. Sharma The lines between good and evil in Bollywood movies tend to be pretty broadly drawn, but never so broadly, it seems, as when the great Amrish Puri was cast as the villain. Deep of the voice, wild of the eye, and massive of the brow, Puri, though a versatile actor who played many diverse roles in his four decade career, truly made his mark with his portrayals of over-the-top bad guys in countless Bollywood action and masala movies (And yes, yes, I know...as Mola Ram in that Indiana Jones movie. Give it a rest, for chrissakes!). Many of these portrayals were iconic, but, while Puri would star in nearly four hundred films by the time of his death in 2005, there is one film for which he is remembered most of all. Tahalka, however, is not that film. In fact, judging by the paucity of information I encountered when trying to glean such simple facts about the film as the year in which it was made, I get the impression that nobody much remembers Tahalka at all. About an equal number of sites list its release date as either 1982 or 1992, and also spell it's name variably as "Tahalka" or "Tehelka". A couple of filmographies for Puri actually list both a "Tahalka" for 1982 and a "Tehelka" for 1992, though I'm pretty sure that those are both references to the same film. Given this, I think it's safe to say that Tahalka--or whatever it's called--is not held in the same fond regard as certain other of its stars' cinematic vessels.     As for when Tahalka was made, I think it's pretty safe to go with 1992. For one thing, Dharmendra looks really old in this movie. Furthermore, the film's songs--written by Anu Malik--are terrible in that distinctly early 90s Bollywood way, filled with clunky dance rhythms and people shouting out random English phrases like they were Japanese magazine covers with Tourette's Syndrome. (I'm talking Karisma Kapoor terrible, people.) But what nails down Tahalka's vintage most of all is how it so clearly post-dates the 1987 film Mr. India, a fact evidenced by how obviously the filmmakers intended for Puri's character, General Dong, to echo his iconic portrayal of the super villain Mogambo in that earlier film, right down to the endlessly repeated catchphrase. But, this issue aside, what is it about Tahalka that has relegated it to such forgotten status? What could be so wrong with a film--one of a not all that distant vintage and featuring fairly bankable stars--that the record of it could become so murky in the scant intervening years? Perhaps to find out, what we need to do is listen to Tahalka, and by that means let the film itself tell us exactly where the problem lies.     The disclaimers at the beginning of Bollywood movies, which are often in English, are things of beauty in themselves, and they're something that I've only recently learned to pay attention to. Rather than being generic boilerplate drawn up by a team of faceless lawyers, they tend to be a kind of freeform verse that gives us a fascinating window into the psyche of the filmmakers. One of my favorites is the one that precedes Papi Gudia, the 1996 remake of the Hollywood film Child's Play, which states that the movie's intention is to warn children "against blind faith or surrender to alien things be it a doll or computer toys, robots, etc." In the case of Tahalka, the precredits disclaimer reads: "The Story of this feature film 'Tahalka' is imaginary and unfolds in the imaginary environment of imaginary countries. It has nothing to do with India or any other country or their inhabitants, governments, defense forces, or their existing facts and realities." Now, that all seems pretty comprehensive, but apparently out of a feeling that not quite a fine enough point has been put on things, the disclaimer continues: "It is reiterated that all the characters, incidents, places and environments are fictitious and have no relationship what so ever with any person living or dead. If any resemblance to any character or incident appears at any stage, it is just a coincidence."     This conspicuous abundance of caution might alert the canny reader to the possibility that Tahalka's chatty disclaimer might not be entirely on the level. I mean, to paraphrase Shakespeare, could Tahalka hath possibly protested any more? And are we seriously meant to accept that what is depicted in a film made in India by, presumably, inhabitants of India, only bears a resemblance to India and its inhabitants as the result of coincidence, if at all? One gets the sense that Tahalka has something to hide, and perhaps we might get a clue as to what that something might be once the movie proper has started. Tahalka proper starts with a panoramic view of the Himalayas, over which a narrator intones that these are the borders of "the nation that the world calls India". After this a map appears on the screen depicting India, Pakistan and China, with each country clearly labeled, over which the narrator states that beyond these borders lie those countries "whose greed penetrates into ours and crosses its limits", whose inhabitants "wish to color the ground of India red with the blood of Indians themselves and shatter India into a million pieces".     Incendiary talk, for sure. But don't get the wrong idea, because--even though it isn't shown on the map that's being displayed on screen--the country that the narrator is talking about isn't China or Pakistan, but rather the completely made up country of Dongrila. And as we are shown the sights of Dongrila--consisting mostly of crude models of vaguely orientalist structures situated on snowy model train-set peaks, interspersed with footage of a Buddhist monk strolling down a village street--the narrator tells us that Dongrila was once "made prosperous by India itself, nurtured and nourished". Now, however, this remote mountain paradise has fallen into the hands of a brutal dictator, the man known as General Dong. Now, it's not difficult to figure out where all of this is coming from. After all, the late eighties and early nineties were another period during which tensions between China and India were at close to a full boil--fueled in part by the Chinese government's perception of India as interfering in their affairs in Tibet--and the looming potential for renewed clashes along the countries' disputed border region, such as had been seen as recently as 1986, was a daily reality. However, that this is so obviously the scab that Tahalka is trying to pick--and with such rhetorical ferocity, to boot--makes it a little harder to understand the eleventh hour backpedalling that the opening disclaimer seems to be evidence of.     If it was, in fact, the film's director, Anil Sharma, who was reticent about casting stones at China directly, he'd gotten over such circumspection by the time of finally having his first box office success with 2001's Gadar: Ek Prem Katha. That film caused considerable public outcry with its perceived anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistani sentiments--sentiments that were delivered without resort to fanciful pseudonyms or references to imaginary lands. Whatever the case, though, if the makers of Tahalka were trying to exploit what they saw as some deep sense of national injury on the part of their potential audience, they failed miserably, because the inhabitants of India apparently stayed away from the film in droves. Anyway, once Tahalka has established itself as being annoyingly passive-aggressive, it proceeds with an opening sequence that is very similar to Mr. India's, featuring an anxious minion of General Dong's rushing to have an audience with the fearsome general himself. After that minion, Major D'Costa (Sunil Dhawan), is hurried--amid much Hitler saluting and shouting of "Long live Dong!"--through various checkpoints, and down a number of long, heavily guarded corridors, he is finally ushered into Dong's palatial inner sanctum, where. with the portentous striking of a gong, we finally get a look at our already much ballyhooed villain.     And what a villain is our General Dong. Establishing the Mogambo connection right off the bat, Puri is both bethroned and bedecked in a fanciful military uniform, and also comes with a numbingly repeated catchphrase: "Dong is never wrong". But in a departure from his obvious model, Dong also boasts a look in which no signifier of orientalist treachery is spared: the puttied eyelids, the Fu Manchu 'stache and goatee, the long braid, and, just in case you didn't get it, stretching across his bald pate, a tattoo of a Chinese dragon. Though Puri's booming basso profundo was one of his trademarks, when we finally hear him speak as Dong, he does so with a squeaky "ah so" Chinaman voice, peppering his utterances with fits of high pitched giggling. That is, except for those random scenes in which Puri just talks in the deep, threatening tones of Mogambo--indicating that, at some point during filming, a switch was decided upon. Oh, you sloppy, sloppy Tahalka! But we don't actually get to hear Dong speak at first, for it is at this point that the moment which makes Tahalka worth its price of admission occurs. Rather than greeting us, as he normally would, with a richly intoned declaration of villainous intent, Amrish Puri stands... and begins to sing. (And check the playback singers credits; that really is him singing.) And then he dances--not just a half-hearted little jig or two-step, mind you, but honest to God, hip-thrusting, fist-pumping getting down, with an array of swirling, scantily clad back-up dancers to goad him on. To top it all off, Amrish grabs a sitar mid-number and rocks it like Eddie Van Halen.     Of course, the "song" that Dong/Amrish sings can only be called such by the loosest standards, because the lyrics consist only of the word "shom" repeated over and over again. This, completing the odiousness of the portrait that's being painted, is apparently meant as a mockery of the Buddhist chant "om"--assuring us once and for all that Tahalka's makers will stop at nothing, and in turn causing us to anticipate with resignation the moment when Dong will pee in someone's Coke. With the "Shom Shom" song out of the way, Dong gets down to villainy. The unfortunate General D'Costa, we learn, has just returned from leading a failed incursion which resulted in two thousand of Dong's troops dying at the hands of India's defense forces. As punishment, Dong orders D'Costa to perform ritual suicide in the city square in front of all of Dongrila's citizens. But first we get a tour of Dong's suicide bomber farm; this consists of a dank dungeon in which captive young girls, hypnotized into submission by Dong, spend their waking hours walking in dazed circles while chained to a big rock, waiting for the day when they will be called upon to don a bomb belt and die for the greater glory of Dong. Then, with D'Costa dispatched, Dong sets about planning his revenge against India. Not one to delegate a matter of such importance, Dong accomplishes this task personally with the aid of several "duplicate Dongs", who distract security while the real Dong hijacks a tank at an Indian military parade and blows up the general responsible for the Indian counter-attack.     With this, India's defense forces decide that they have had it up to here with General Dong, and it is decided that a commando unit will be sent into Dongrila to eliminate him in a top secret, surgical strike. The bearded and intense Major Rao (Mukesh Khanna) is eager to lead this operation, because he has a quite understandable beef with Dong. A year earlier, while on a fishing trip with his young daughter, he stumbled upon an island that Dong operated as a sort of processing center for the kidnapped Indian schoolgirls destined to become his suicide bombers and sex slaves. Rao managed to aid some of those girls in escaping, but in the process Dong took his daughter captive. To taunt Rao, Dong gave him a year to come back for his daughter, after which he would, um, turn her out--then cut off Rao's leg with a sword and cast him off to sea. Rao is now so eager to go after Dong that he already has a whole plan drawn up, and a hand-picked crew of elite commandos to go with him. But forget elite, what we want to know about those commandos is: are they wacky? And the answer, sickeningly, is yes, with a capital wack. At this point we are introduced to Rao's three male commandos (Aditya Pancholi, Naseeruddin Shah, and Javed Jaffrey) in a series of scenes in which they try to hit on girls by indulging in some of the most spine-chilling instances of male cross-dressing ever committed to film, and then by pretending to be blind. Their dickishness firmly established, we follow the gang as they are introduced to the team's fifth member, Capt. Anju Sinha (Ekta Kapoor). And she's a guh.. a guh.. a girl! Still, the team is not yet complete, for a sixth is needed, despite the fact that everyone keeps referring to the group as "Force Five" (not to be confused with the Americanized Go Nagai cartoon series of the same name--which doesn't really need to be pointed out except to underscore what a complete nerd I am).     Because the territory surrounding Dongrila is dangerous and valley-ridden--and in fact includes a region called "Danger Valley" (which I'm pretty sure is made up)--a veteran with combat experience in the region is needed. Such a man is disgraced former army Major Dharam Singh, who is played by, as I alluded to earlier, a very old and tired-looking Dharmendra. Of course, Dharam Singh was only court marshaled because he was a patriotic super soldier who disobeyed orders in order to save thousands of Indian lives, and he's understandably bitter about it. Getting him to sign on for this mission will take much convincing and passionate appeals to his patriotism, and so the team heads off to Bangkok, where Dharam Singh is living easy--though not so easy that he can't take part in an elaborate night club number where he sings about "Rocking Around the Clock" while shimmying laboriously with a bunch of Thai chorus girls. I won't tell you what happens next, because I don't want to spoil it, but suffice it to say that Dharam Singh eventually agrees to join the mission... Oh, there, I just spoiled it. Anyway, soon the team of six are trekking out across the icy, mountainous landscape, encountering many dangers along the way, including an underground cavern filled with crabs and snakes. (There's a lot that I don't know about zoology, and I'll have to add the Himalayan Cave-Dwelling Snow Crab to that list.) Finally they manage to cross into Dongrila, though not without having to survive many skirmishes with Dong's forces (which include Bob Christo! Yay!). After defending themselves by throwing wasp's nests at the enemy and tricking them into drinking their piss, Force Five finally makes it's way to a safe house operated by a small band of resistance fighters lead by Prince Kao (Prem Chopra, wearing a hat that has little corks dangling from its brim).     Though Major Rau is the leader of the commandos, he also proves to be their greatest liability, thanks to the fact that his prosthetic leg just doesn't want to stay attached to his body. This leads to a scene in which Rau must flee from General Dong's advancing ski troops by skiing on one leg, using his pole with one hand and carrying his prosthetic leg--with the ski still attached to it--in the other. Eventually Rau's stump becomes gangrenous, which means that Force Five must sneak their way into Dongrila's only hospital, located deep within the heavily guarded central city. This may represent the only instance in the history of Bollywood that such an incursion is not accomplished by means of the commandos disguising themselves as a dance troupe. Rather, the soldiers commandeer a truck and costumes belonging to a troupe of Laurel & Hardy impersonators. Now, I have not seen Where Eagles Dare, but I realize that it is a film to which Tahalka owes a considerable debt. Still I'm guessing that there isn't a scene in Where Eagle's Dare in which Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood dress up like Laurel & Hardy and sing a song based on "Old MacDonald". I'm just guessing, of course. Many of Tahalka's exteriors and larger scale action sequences are accomplished by means of some particularly dodgy model work, which means that portions of Tahalka look like an especially half-assed episode of Thunderbirds. In fact, there is a model of a cable car line spanning a mountainous valley that looks suspiciously like the one used in Commando; so if you've seen Commando, you know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, Tahalka misses the opportunity to have someone have a fight with Amrish Puri while dangling from that cable car, which means that Tahalka loses out to Commando on the awesomeness scale by a wide mark.     One convention of 1980s Hollywood action movies that Bollywood embraced wholeheartedly--and it's one that I think is as much inherited from slasher movies as it is an aspect of action movies' function as an exorcist of national demons--is the idea that vengeance cannot be achieved unless we see the villain completely physically obliterated. It's never enough just to shoot the guy; we also have to see him fall off the top of a skyscraper on fire with a hand grenade in his mouth before we can truly feel that justice has been served. Following this tradition, once our heroes have caught up with Dong, Tahalka serves up a long climactic scene in which all of the remaining cast members take turns kicking him repeatedly in the chest--to the accompaniment of that car door slamming noise that always accompanies people kicking somebody in the chest in Bollywood movies--before Dharmendra lifts Dong's broken body above his head and hurls it into a raging fire. These scenes of brutality in Bollywood movies of this vintage always get to me for some reason--partially because they stand out so much from the affable frivolity of much of what surrounds them, but also because, for all their righteous patriotic rage, they present an image of an India that has a gigantic chip on it's shoulder. I have to believe that this is an inaccurate representation, because, otherwise, everyone in the country would be too busy shouting defiant proclamations and firing rocket launchers across their borders for that whole economic miracle thing to have happened in the first place. In the case of Tahalka, what also strikes me is that--just as with the very similar climax of Mr. India--the somewhat elderly Amrish Puri doesn't seem to be using a stunt double while most of this kicking, beating and tossing is taking place. The man is a consummate professional.     And given that he is such a professional, I can't help being a little miffed on Puri's behalf at Tahalka's makers. It's much like the feeling I get watching Lee Van Cleef in the awful Captain Apache; The filmmakers in that case knew that they were working with an actor who would, out of a disciplined professional ethic, do whatever was asked of him, even if that involved croaking out an awful, psychedelic-tinged theme tune and letting people call him "red ass" all the time. That those filmmakers then went ahead and asked Van Cleef to do just that seems like something on the level of abuse, and the same goes for Anil Sharma and company in Puri's case. Puri once said that the reason he didn't pursue further roles in Hollywood films after his turn as Mola Ram was that he didn't like the way that Indians were portrayed in those films. Given that--in addition to reports that Puri, despite his screen persona, was a kindly and gentle man--I'd like to believe that the portrayal of General Dong was not something that he could entirely get behind, and that he undertook it only out of a humble dedication to the practice of his chosen craft. So, in the final tally, singing and dancing Amrish or no, it's difficult to get past the fact that Tahalka is a furiously awful film. Of course, that's mitigated somewhat by all the hate-mongering-- Oh, wait, that doesn't really mitigate things at all, does it? Nope. Tahalka just sucks from top to bottom. Still, it's nice how a derivative film can make you appreciate anew that from which it steals, and Tahalka definitely spurred me to new levels of admiration for the sure-handed direction and comparably high production values of Mr. India, even though Mr. India is one of the goofiest, cheesiest things I've ever seen.     This is not to say that I don't recommend Tahalka, of course. It certainly contains enough retarded insanity and cheapjack spectacle to keep you moderately engaged for the majority of its three hours, even if it does leave you feeling a little soiled. For that reason I'd suggest that, if you do decide to invest your time in it, you do so as a tribute to the late, great Mr. Puri, because that's an act which would almost make Tahalka seem worthwhile. Labels: Action, Bollywood, Stars: Amrish Puri, Stars: Dharmendra, Year: 1992 posted by Todd at 7:28 PM | 0 Comments Friday, February 29, 2008Don Release Year: 2006Country: India Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Arjun Rampal, Isha Koppikar, Boman Irani, Om Puri, Pavan Malhotra, Rajesh Khattar, Tanay Chheda, Kareena Kapoor, Chunky Pandey, Sushma Reddy, Diwakar Pundir, Sandrine Verrier, Sidhart Jyoti. Writer: Farhan Akhtar Director: Farhan Akhtar Cinematographer: Mohanan Music: Shankar Mahadevan, Loy Mendonsa, Ehsaan Noorani Producer: Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani Availability: Buy it from India Weekly. Back in 1998 or so, the Amitabh Bachchan blockbuster Don became the first Bollywood film I ever watched. Or rather, that I ever really watched. Before that, I watched a Ramsay Brothers horror film called Haveli, but it was an nth generation dupe with no subtitles, frequent commercial breaks, and scrolling banner ads on the top and bottom of the picture -- and occasionally through the middle of the screen as well. So I don't think that actually counts. But at some point in 1998, I purchased a DVD copy of Don, knowing very little about the film other than the fact that the theme song, which I'd heard on the "Bombay the Hard Way" compilation, was pretty bad-ass. To say that my mind was blown after viewing it would be something of an understatement. Although technically crude in spots, there was no denying the film's immense charm and unadulterated joy de vivre. Bollywood cinema is certainly as commercial and financially driven as Hollywood, but the desire to make sure the audience has one hell of a good time is so infused into every frame that one can't help but fall in love with an industry product which, while probably no less focus grouped and cynical behind the scenes, is just so full of good natured energy and spirit -- not to mention so full of scenes of a jeury-curl sporting Pran doing backflips, kungfu kicks, and various feats of tightrope walking prowess. With Don as the impetus, I began my fruitful and only very rarely disappointing relationship with Indian cinema. Movies came and went, and I learned more and more about the action stars, past and present, that Bollywood had to offer -- Dharmendra and his son Sonny Deol, the mighty Mithun, and the suave old school guys like Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor when he was all thin and hot and sporting his pencil thin mustache -- but as much as I liked all these guys, and as much as I liked many of their films, Don and Amitabh remained at the top of the heap. Don was my first Bollywood crush, so to speak, and you always have a soft spot for your first.
Not that celebrating Amitabh Bachchan is anything unusual. He was, after all, the single biggest star in Bollywood for decades, revolutionizing the type of cinema the industry produced and bringing the harder edged, grittier style of 70s era American filmmaking and anti-heroes to India. And he could dance. His now-famous and much referred to "angry young man" -- a character archetype he pioneered in films like Deewar and Zanjeer and continued to inhabit well into the 80s, and a little bit after that, when he was too old to be an "angry young man" -- took the streetwise edge of an anti-authoritarian Sam Peckinpah hero and mixed it with the smooth dance moves of John Travolta. The character tapped into something previously only flirted with by stars like Shammi Kapoor, and Indian audiences flocked to Amitabh and his films, elevating him far beyond the mantle of mere "movie star" into something wholly greater and largely unique to India. Of course, nothing gold can stay, and Amitabh wasn't going to be able to play the angry young man forever, though he was game to try for as long as he could. A series of personal and professional setbacks, including a disastrous run in politics and a financially ruinous gamble on a production and broadcast studio -- tarnished Amitabh's record somewhat, causing him to slum it in some crap films for a while in order to rebuild his empire. But rebuild he did, and while he's not above taking the occasional crap role for a boatload of cash (the man was in Boom, for crying out loud), he has settled comfortably into the role of dashing elder statesman and head of a dynasty that includes his fabulously popular son Abhishek and Abhishek's famously gorgeous superstar wife, Aishwarya Rai. But there was another.
In the 1990s, when Amitabh's star was in decline and Sonny Deol was busy single-handedly defeating the entire Pakistani nation, action films gave way to romantic comedies and dramas as the preferred style of movie. Even Sonny had to take time out from punching out terrorists in order to make a few romantic movies. But the man who emerged during the latter half of that decade as the undisputed king of Bollywood was a guy named Shahrukh Khan. Khan has the same dark, smoldering style of good looks that allowed Amitabh to make women swoon, but he also had an impish charm that Amitabh was occasionally capable of but hardly defined by. Khan had the smirk and the cocked eyebrow that could magically make a woman slink out of her clothes or spontaneously dance in the rain, depending on Shahrukh's whim at that particular moment. And like Amitabh, Shahrukh wasn't afraid to take on risky or controversial roles, perhaps best exemplified by his turn as an obsessed journalist in 1998's terrorist drama Dil Se. Although Amitabh had ushered in an era in which it was possible for the hero to die at the end (rare in Bollywood cinema, which treasured the happy ending), that had gone out of style by the 90s. But Shahrukh wasn't afraid to try and bring it back, along with films that delivered spectacle and entertainment with a heavy dose of politics and social rumination.
I admit that I was late to the Shahrukh game. Romantic comedies have never been my thing, so for years I explored Bollywood film without ever coming into contact with Shahrukh or even being aware of how famous he was. Several years ago, I finally watched Dil Se, and while it is a problematic film in some respects, I was never the less blown away by the film itself -- but not by Shahrukh, who turns in a credible if somewhat unsympathetic performance for most of the film before going all Jackie Cheung over the top at the end in a bit that was supposed to be highly emotional and tense but never quite succeeded for me. I had a few other Shahrukh films in my collection, though -- an ancient world epic called Asoka and a film called Karan Arjun, which I bought for no other reason than I read a review that said nothing more than, "Horrifically violent." I ended up going with Asoka, because I sure do love sweeping costumed epics -- that's my style of romance film -- and it had been directed by the cinematographer Santosh Sivan, who had turned Dil Se into one of the most sumptuously shot films I'd ever seen. As I wrote in the review, it was during Asoka that I "got" Shahrukh. I still don't keep up with current Bollywood news very astutely. I tend to watch older movies, anyway, and new movies that I might be interested in I learn about through reviews (usually bad). However, I did pick up that Shahrukh Khan -- reigning king of Bollywood -- had a bit of a tiff with Amitabh, who wasn't entirely ready to turn over the throne. I'm sure both guys get tired of one being compared to the other, and I understand Amitabh feeling threatened by the young lion, just as Shahrukh is probably desperate to emerge from the long shadow Amitabh casts. At first, it would seem that remaking one of Amitabh's most famous films wouldn't really be a step in the right direction.
When I found out Shahrukh was remaking Don, I was ambivalent but not offended the way some people were (and always are by remakes of famous films). And it seemed like a canny move by Shahrukh to star as the titular king of the underworld and his good-natured doppelganger. Because this Don would be different but the same -- or is it the same but different? Anyway, it would pay homage to Amitabh but also highlight the ways in which Shahrukh -- and modern Indian cinema -- was different from Amitabh and his classic film. It may seem a convoluted conclusion for me to draw, but this is Bollywood, and Bollywood plots are nothing if not convoluted. Shahrukh Khan plays very close to the plot of the first film for abut half its running time. Khan stars as Don, relocated for this version of the story from Bombay to Kuala Lampur. Don is a major player in the India- Kuala Lampur criminal underworld, but he's chafing under the command of men he sees as less intelligent, less capable, and less ambitious than himself. Unfortunately, his drive to excel brings him to the attention of Interpol, who want to take down Don as a way of toppling the entire criminal organization for which he works. Teaming up to bring down Shahrukh Don are Interpol inspector Vishal (played by venerable Indian film icon Om Puri (last seen in these parts coaching Mithun on to superstardom in Disco Dancer), and Indian DCP DeSilva (Boman Irani). But The Man isn't Don's only concern. After offing a lieutenant of his who was hoping to escape with his girlfriend (Kareena Kapoor, in a cameo and filling the role Helen tackled in the original) from Don, then offing the girl as well, her vengeful kungfu-powered sister, Roma (Priyanka Chopra, last mentioned on Teleport City in the review of Asambhav and here attempting to fill the role originated by Zeenat Aman), has decided to kill Don -- or die trying -- by infiltrating his gang.
Don's ambition eventually gets the better of him, as a drug deal gone bad gets busted up by the cops. Allow to pause here to ask, as I have perhaps asked before, how does any business ever get conducted in the criminal underworld if every single deal is a double cross of the, "No I don't think we'll pay you" variety? I mean, we see Shahrukh Don involved in two deals in this movie, and both of them are betrayals. And how many times have we seen similar betrayals in other action films? One dare not even think about it. So how can you get anything done if everyone is always taking the suitcase full of cash or drugs, but then pulling out a gun instead of turning over the other suitcase full of drugs or cash? Just once, a movie should feature two gangs standing face to face. The leader of the one gang slides over a suitcase full of coke. The other side inspects it, then slides over a suitcase full of cash. After that is inspected, both of them say their goodbyes and go their separate ways, looking forward to doing business with each other again. Anyway, Don's drug deal gone wrong, which includes the famous exploding briefcase from the beginning of the original Don, leads to a chase with the cops, which in turn leads to Don being mortally wounded. However, the only person who is aware of Don's situation is the DCP, and he just happens to have once met a street performer with a heart of gold and uncanny resemblance to the dying criminal mastermind...
And it is here that the remake begins to toy with expectations and the plot of the original. The basics are the same. Don's happy-go-lucky look-alike, Vijay (also Khan), is enlisted by the DCP -- without anyone else's knowledge, lest there be a security leak -- to masquerade as Don and collect evidence against the upper echelon of the crime organization. Vijay reluctantly agrees, with DeSilva offering to make sure the orphan boy for which Vijay cares gets a proper education. Needless to say, things are complicated for Vijay. The police don't know he's not Don, so they are still trying to kill or capture him. Roma doesn't know he's not Don, so she's still plotting to assassinate him. And Don's own men waver between belief and suspicion. All these complications were present in the original film, but the remake throws a couple more on for good measure. At this point, I think I'm going to dispense with comparisons to the original, as they are largely pointless, in my opinion. So know that I loved the original. I also loved the remake, though it is a very different type of film, less gritty crime drama and more slick jet-setting adventure. Shahrukh Khan is better in the role of Vijay as Don than as Don himself, but he's excellent all the way around. He also proves that he is a proud member of that exclusive club of men who can successfully pull off outfits that would look utterly absurd on any other man. This club was practically founded by Fred Astaire, and it currently includes David Beckham, Brad Pitt, and of course, Shahrukh Khan. For much of the film, Don alternates between more modern dress -- slick slim-cut suits, hooded sweatshirts, and so on -- and an array of garish polyester (actually, probably silk) shirts from the "Amitabh '78" collection (buy it in the spring 1978 International Male catalog). But the crowning achievement is the innovation of the "inner tie," a brightly colored tie worn around one's bare neck rather than around the shirt collar, and then tucked into the shirt itself at the neck (or, if you have a chest like Shahrukh, a couple inches down from the neck, where you finally get around to fastening some buttons). I know, I know! It sounds absolutely ludicrous, and it is. Go on, try it. I did. See? You look like an idiot, don't you? But look at Shahrukh Don. That's right -- it looks awesome on him. How is this possible? We mere mortal men will probably never know.
Don's look is, of course, just one part of the overall art design of the film, meant to give everything an ultra high-tech, bad-ass, modern sheen. And it really works. This is one cool movie. Relocating the film from Bombay to Kuala Lampur allows Don to take full advantage of Kuala Lampur's glass high rises and excessive luxuries. And unlike many films that strive for a similar style, Don doesn't necessarily have to turn a blind eye to substance as a trade-off. Much of that substance comes from an unlikely place. When last we saw Arjun Rampal here, we were making fun of what a bad actor he was in Asambhav. When I learned that he was the one cast to reprise Pran's role as the unfortunate father of the child Vijay eventually discovers and adopts, I was ready to write that whole portion of the film off. Surprisingly, though, Arjun turns in one hell of a performance as a computer security expert (or so they claim -- anyone who is actually involved in any degree of computer security will be amused and appalled by what passes for computer security) who is forced to commit robbery and, as a result, get busted by the cops, crippled by a bullet in the leg, loses his wife when she is murdered as retribution for the botched robbery, and loses his son, who escapes murder but vanishes (to be adopted, of course, by Vijay). Rampal brings a fierce intensity to the role of which I didn't know he was capable. Sure, I miss his character being a jeury curled ugly guy with a talent for circus performing, but I can always get that from the old film. Priyanka Chopra, another Asambhav alumni, fares slightly less better trying to fill the shoes of Roma. She's perfectly acceptable but ultimately unmemorable when matched up against the always superb Shahrukh and the surprisingly intense Rampal. Her character just seems to lack vitality, an although I said I wasn't going to invoke the original, I have to say that a large part of the problem is that she's taking on a role that was revolutionary in the 70s and originally filled by a revolutionary actress in Zeenat Aman. Zeenat made me believe. Priyanka doesn't, though I will admit that she looks great, acts well, and has a few decent action scenes. I really like her and I think she makes a good action heroine, but as is often the case both in Bollywood and throughout the world, the script doesn't seem to have a clear idea of what to do with her. The biggest problem with her role here is that this is Shahrukh's movie, and trying to outshine Don Khan is strictly a mission asambhav. Balancing out the female end of things is Isha Koppikar as Don's main moll, Anita. She's absolutely perfect for the part, and unfortunately,t he movie has even less for her to do than it does Priyanka. A real shame, because she burns up the screen even with the little she's given to do.
I didn't know a whole lot about Boman Irani before this movie, and I guess I still don't know much about him other than he bears an uncanny and slightly disturbing resemblance to Richard Kind -- you know, if Richard Kind shot people. Anyway, the role of DeSilva gives him plenty to do, and he does plenty with it. The rest of the cast rounds things out nicely, with pretty much everyone turning in a solid performance. As with many modern films, Don packs a few too many herky jerky editing tricks and CGI-powered camera hijinks into its running time than a film probably should. It doesn't reach Asambhav levels of abuse, but you better be prepared for writer-director Farhan Akhtar to rely heavily on split screens, slow motion, CGI vehicle stunts and explosions, rapid fire jump cuts, and that thing where guys walk in slow motion to techno music, then the film suddenly speeds up for like two seconds, then it all goes into slow motion again. Despite those indulgences though, which it seems like we're just going to have to put up with since every goddamn country in the world seems to employ them now, Akhtar's direction is surprisingly sure-handed for so inexperienced a director. I don't know how a guy with so few credits to his name managed to land a directing gig of this magnitude, but he doesn't let the film down. Both his direction and his script are snappy and exciting. The cinematography by K.U. Mohanan is also top notch -- not Christopher Doyle or Santosh Sivan good, but very stylish, taking full advantage of Kuala Lampur's glittering towers, modernist interiors, and gorgeous beaches. Although also possessed of few major credits, he successfully gives this movie the super-hip, super-slick appearance it needs.
The music is neither here nor there and is comprised primarily of generic action film techno and electronic music. The musical numbers are largely forgettable, though Kareena Kapoor's recreation of the famous Helen scene from the original serves primarily to remind us why Helen was such a national treasure. I don't know exactly what goes wrong in that scene, because I love sexy women doing sexy dancing, but I spent most of that number entranced by Shahrukh's inner tie. I didn't have terribly high expectations going into this film, but I did have expectations. I am happy to say that Don far exceeded what I expected from it. I really liked this movie a lot. It's fast paced, super cool, emotionally engaging, and manages to work as a remake, homage, and re-imagining without ever losing the spirit of the original. I don't see any reason one couldn't easily be a fan of both the original and the remake. Given my druthers, I would have introduced Vijay earlier, rather than spring him all of sudden into the film with minimal explanation, but that's a small quibble at best. I don't know what the eventual outcome of the Amitabh-versus-Shahrukh rivalry will be, and I don't really care. I'd be happy to hang out with or accept sartorial advice from either man. Of course, this would probably result in me wearing an inner tie with a jacket covered in flashing disco lights, so perhaps I'm best off as I am, a peon basking in the majesty of the Don and the Khan. Labels: Action, Bollywood, Stars: Kareena Kapoor, Stars: Priyanka Chopra, Stars: Shahrukh Khan, Year: 2006 posted by Keith at 1:50 PM | 3 Comments Saturday, January 26, 2008Shark Hunter Release Year: 1979Country: Italy/Spain Starring: Franco Nero, Werner Pochath, Jorge Luke, Michael Forest, Patricia Rivera, Mirta Miller. Writer: Tito Carpi, Jaime Comas Gil, Jesus R. Folgar, and Alfredo Giannetti Director: Enzo Castellari Cinematographer: Raul Perez Cubero Music: Guido and Maurizio DeAngelis Original Title: Il Cacciatore di Squali Alternate Titles: Guardians of the Deep Availability: Buy it from Amazon  What is it, to be a man? This is the question, indeed, many of us ask ourselves. In this, our post-macho, post-feminist, post-metrosexual era, what then becomes the measure of a man? What is it that defines his life, gives him meaning, makes him a man? Indeed such a question is difficult to answer, at times perhaps even seemingly impossible. And so we enter an era of confusion, of aimlessness, until at last something emerges from the chaos to point the way, to illuminate us, to help us along on our journey and, at long last, make the answer as clear as the crystal blue waters of Cozumel. What is it, to be a man? Let Franco Nero tell you. No, no -- let Franco Nero show you. The first fifteen minutes of Enzo G. Castellari's Shark Hunter play as follows. We meet the titular shark hunter, Franco Nero, looking like he just stumbled out of the jungle and fell into a puddle of crazed hippie biker, while perched on a rock overlooking the ocean. Suddenly a shark catches his eye, causing him to leap up, run down the beach while accompanied by the sounds of Guido and Maurizio DeAngelis, and struggle to haul the thrashing beast to shore. He then retires to his open air beach bungalow to make love to his beautiful Mexican senorita, then goes to a bar where he beats the crap out of half a dozen thugs. Happy that Franco has whooped ass on the goon squad, a local takes him out for a bit of parasailing. I know, I know. You're thinking to yourself that while hauling in a fishing line hooked to a man-eating shark is tough, and making love on the beach to a sexy gal is tough, and beating up half a dozen hired bruisers is tough, there's not much tough about parasailing. That's what sunburned fat Americans do when they visit resorts, right? What's so tough about that? Well, nothing. But Franco, while he does admittedly get a kick out of the parasailing, what makes this tough parasailing is that, while in mid-air, he spies a shark in the water below, let's out a primal whoop of excitement, cuts himself loose from the parachute harness, plunges into the water, and immediately starts punching the shark in the face.
Although everything about the movie, from the title to Franco Nero's seemingly unquenchable thirst for punching sharks in the face, would lead you to believe that this is going to be another in the brief but highly enjoyable line of Italian Jaws rip-offs along the lines of director Castellari's own L'Ultimo Squalo, a film that so closely aped (or sharked) Jaws and Jaws 2 that an injunction was issued against it, spoiling big plans to unleash it in American movie theaters and, in fact, even going to far as to ensure that it would never see the light of day even on home video. However, after the insane opening and Franco Nero's lesson on how to be a real man, Shark Hunter settles down into being a rip-off not of Jaws, but of another American film, 1977's The Deep starring Nick Nolte and Jaqueline "Miss Goodthighs" Bisset as scuba divers who stumble across a fortune in sunken drugs. That film was remade in 2005 as Into the Blue, starring Paul Walker and Jessica Alba. That movie was completely idiotic, but I enjoyed it if for no other reason than it had cool scuba scenes and lots of shots of Paul Walker and Jessica Alba being scantily clad. Plus, it's not like doing a dumb remake of a movie that was pretty dumb to begin with was any great crime against cinematic art. Of course, I also like The Deep, and it used to scare the crap out of me as a kid. You see, I come from a long line of scuba divers, and by "long line" I mean my dad and, later, my sister. But I grew up around diving and diving equipment, and as a kid I used to get into my old man's trunk full of equipment and get gussies up in the way-too-large for me wetsuit and flippers, mask, and dive knife, which I referred to more dramatically as the shark knife. I'd then stomp around the basement, playing Thunderball and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and trying to throw the knife into the bare 2x4s of the unfinished walls. When I got to watch The Deep on our brand new Betamax video machine, it enthralled and terrified me. I loved all the scuba stuff, and even at a young age I know there was something special about Jaqueline Bisset in a bikini. But the one thing anyone remembers about that movie is the moray eels. My dad used to tell me outrageous tales about moray eels, and how the way their teeth curved in meant that once they bit you, it was impossible to remove them. You just had to pull out your knife and amputate your arm. The Deep certainly backed those stories up, and for years, the sight of sharks and barracuda did little to phase me, but I was always wary of eels. Even after I learned that moray eels are basically docile so long as you don't go shoving your arm into their hidey holes, I still get antsy when I turn around underwater and see one of them floating there, staring at me inquisitively with that horrible, evil grin they all have.
Shark Hunter, however, is better than either The Deep or Into the Blue, and Franco Nero looks less like Nick Nolte in The Deep and more like Nick Nolte in his more recent mug shot. But the gist of Shark Hunter is that Nero's character, Mike di Donato, gets pressured by a local gangster into helping salvage a downed plane full of loot. Franco and his parasailing buddy try to figure out a way to get the gangsters off their back and outsmart them. Despite the expectation generated from a title like Shark Hunter, there isn't much shark action in this film other than the beginning and the very end. Most of the action revolves around Franco Nero in his ratty shirt and bell-bottom dungarees getting into fights on the beach, only to have his beloved Juanita (Patricia Rivera) threatened by the gangsters. And there's a lot of scuba diving, sometimes with sharks present, which is a touchy subject for a lot of people. Scuba scenes usually get a bum rap in movies for being somewhat slow moving and boring. They do happen underwater, after all. I actually think a lot of scuba diving scenes are kind of keen, owing to my enjoyment of scuba diving, and depending on how they are filmed. Thunderball, for example, has pretty thrilling scuba scenes. All those Jacques Cousteau documentaries have cool scuba scenes. The Incredible Petrified World does not succeed as well with its many scuba scenes of guys sort of doing nothing for like ten minutes at a time. Anyway, point is that scuba scenes don't have to boring, even if they frequently are. Shark Hunter has pretty good scuba scenes, though one wonders why Nero spends so much time diving in his blue jeans when he later reveals he owns perfectly good shorts and a wetsuit. I don't know if you've ever tried to swim in blue jeans, but it's not pleasant. The scuba scenes are also aided by the fact that Castellari was fond of slow motion action scenes anyway, so you hardly even notice the diving is slow. At least he didn't film them in slow motion.
Castellari and Nero worked together several times before most notably on the superb 1971 poliziotteschi thriller High Crime. Among the many, many directors who made a living in the murky waters of Italian exploitation films, Castellari was one of the best when he was on his game. Like Umberto Lenzi and Antonio Margheriti, Castellari managed to direct some really great action films. He also managed to direct some really awful ones. Castellari, however, directed fewer truly awful films than did Lenzi and Margheriti, possibly because Castellari managed to avoid having to make crappy cannibal movies. Where as other directors skipped from one genre to the next based on whatever trend was at the forefront of exploitation cinema that week, Castellari stayed pretty well grounded in action films. He avoided horror almost entirely. Even when he ventured into the realm of other genres -- most notably a few post-apocalypse Road Warrior rip-offs in the 1980s -- he treated them more or less like action films. The one time he worked almost completely outside the realm of what he was familiar with was 1989's Sinbad of the Seven Seas, and we can see how that worked out for him. By the 1980s, there was no doubt Castellari knew his stuff, even if he wasn't exactly what you might call a visionary artist. He did have his style though, and he seems interested in Shark Hunter, which he keeps moving along nicely and crammed full of action both above and below the ocean surface. If there's anything to criticize in Castellari's direction, it's the choice to use footage of real sharks being caught and killed. This only happens once or twice, and I suppose scenes of shark fishing are more defensible than other scenes of real animal cruelty that pop up in Italian exploitation films, but it's something to warn people about. I understand why they used real footage, though I don't necessarily agree with the decision. But then, I used togo fishing, and lord knows we used to take pictures of ourselves with our fish, so I guess that's why I can't see to getting too worked up about the scenes of a hooked shark in this movie, as opposed to the far more frequent and far more abusive animal killing that goes on in those cannibal films.
Franco Nero is in good form here, looking completely deranged and badly in need of a shower. You'd think a dude who constantly went swimming and shark punching in the clear waters of Cozumel, Mexico, wouldn't have so much soot and crap smeared all over his face, but then you'd also expect that a guy with a girlfriend that pretty would have at least two pairs of clothes. But the only thing he has is his outfit, and then the same outfit with a hat and sunglasses. Nero throws himself headlong into the role though, lending it gravity and a great intensity, and the look is pretty spectacular. Nero made a career out of playing bad-asses, and while he's not as bad-ass here as he was in some of his old cop films, he still punches sharks in the face and jumps out of parachutes to wrestle them. Eventually, the movie gets around to explaining why sharks piss him off so much, but it's pretty uneventful and predictable. He goes on to have family members killed in a traffic accident, but he doesn't run around Mexico punching cars and trying to drag them back to his bungalow. And given how much the guy hates sharks, and how he seems to spend all day sitting around just waiting for a change to sock one in the jaw, you have to wonder they come to his aid all Aquaman-style during the underwater finale. I guess they respect his predatory, killer instinct and knotty tangle of blond locks.
Helping the movie be that much cooler is the music by Italian exploitation film staples Guido and Maurizio DeAngelis. Blending rock, prog, and film orchestration, G&M, who also worked under collective name Oliver Onions for some reason, turn in a great score that perfectly matches the action and fires up the blood. Pairing all that with nice location work in Cozumel -- my dad's favorite dive spot, incidentally -- makes for an all-around thrilling action film that is far different than the Jaws inspired title would otherwise lead you to believe. Labels: Action, Country: Italy, Director: Enzo Castellari, Stars: Franco Nero, Year: 1979 posted by Keith at 11:21 PM | 3 Comments Sunday, November 11, 2007Katilon Ke Kaatil Release Year: 1981Country: India Starring: Dharmendra, Rishi Kapoor, Zeenat Aman, Tina Munim, Amjad Khan, Nirupa Roy, Shakti Kapoor. Writer: Anil and Arjun Hingorani Director: Anil and Arjun Hingorani Producer: Arjun Hingorani Music: Anandji Veerji Shah and Kalyanji Veerji Shah Availability: Buy it from India Weekly Try to imagine that, like me, your life has become a steady parade of disappointments and squandered potential, but then one day, the following happens: having recently been enlightened as to the existence of a Bollywood ninja movie -- a rip-off of American Ninja from the same cast and crew that brought the world Disco Dancer, no less -- you go to your little website forum and theorize that, given the popularity of kungfu films in India and the proliferation of Bruce Lee imitators and crappy "Bruceploitation" films during the 1970s, there was no way Bollywood didn't produce at least one film cashing in on the death and popularity of Bruce Lee. After proffering this notion, however, subsequent searches for Indian Bruce Lee exploitation films yield no results. This does not sway you from your belief, of course, and given how poor the quality and variety of coverage for Indian cult films is, it hardly surprises you. But it does cause you to put your search for such a film on the back burner in favor of tracking down the remaining Kommissar X films or finding a copy of Agente Logan: Missione Ypotron. And then, one day you are emailing back and forth at work with your friend Beth about Mithun Chakraborty's film Dance Dance. You search for, find, and play a clip from the film on YouTube, and then, out of the corner of your eye after the clip has finished and YouTube is displaying those "if you liked this, check this one out" recommendations, you see something titled "Dharmendra vs Bruce Li."
Still your heart young movie fan, you tell yourself as you struggle to click on the clip before it vanishes and is replaced by another recommended clip. But alas! You are too slow, and the clip vanishes. No worries, though. As your trembling fingers fumble at the keyboard, you manage to type "Dharmendra vs Bruce Li" into the search box. Careful, lad! Don't let your giddy excitement get the better of you. This could be nothing more than some lame DJ splicing together disparate clips of the world's premiere Bruce Lee imitator with scenes of Indian action star Dharmendra, all set to some generic techno or hip hop beat out of the German underground. Feeling both fear and elation, you play the clip. And there it is! Dharmendra, with what appears to be a picnic table cloth wrapped around his neck, locked in mortal combat with...no! Not Bruce Li! Not Bruce Li at all! Why that's...no it isn't possible. And yet...yes! Yes it is! That's Dharmendra locked in mortal combat with Bruce Le -- the world's premiere Bruce Li imitator! Finally! After years of disappointment and failure, after watching your dreams crumble and become so many ashes, the world is new and young again, and there is hope yet, you tell yourself. A quick scan of the comments turns up the title of the movie -- Katilon Ke Kaatil, though no one seems able to agree on the number of the letter "a" that goes into each word. Apprehensive, you sneak on over to India Weekly to do a title search, and...argh! No luck! But wait! What if I alter the configuration of a's in the words -- success! And a mere $6.99 and four days later, it is yours.
And then you discover not only does it star Dharmendra -- 70s/80s action icon and father of 80s/90s action Icon Sonny Deol -- it also stars your favorite Bombay bombshell baby, Zeenat Aman. How could this deal get any better, you ask yourself as tears of joy stream from your eyes. And then Dharmendra fights Bigfoot. I've complained, most recently and verbosely in my review of the 1967 espionage film Farz, about the lack of quality information regarding Bollywood films, especially the crazier and older ones. Let me now shift gears and offer up a bit of celebration. I knew nothing about Katilon Ke Kaatil. I had never heard of it, and I had no reason to ever think that I needed to hear of it, let alone see it. And then I found out this Katilon Ke Kaatil featured Bruce Le, apparently getting his ass handed to him by Dharmendra, and I was excited. There were no reviews online anywhere, and as usual, all links led to about a thousand identical webpages that did nothing but list the top two or three actors and the musical composer, surrounded by lots of Flash and Google ads. But no worries. I didn't need to know anything about the film other than Bruce Le was in it, along with Dharmendra. That was more than enough for me. And then I'm sitting there watching the movie and goddamned General Ursus from Planet of the Apes shows up!
That's why I enjoy doing this. After all these years, and after Teleport City has failed to amount to anything other than a tiny niche site that gets no attention from people looking for someone to write liner notes or a book or join their circle of occult-obsessed jaded rich people who retire to country manors for weekend binges of Bacchanalian debauchery and excess, there remains the simple thrill of stumbling across an unbelievably ludicrous movie like Katilon Ke Kaatil. Like many masala films, a simple description of the basic plot hardly does justice to the madness that whirls about it like a raging tornado. If I told you this is a movie about two thieves who pose as the long lost sons of a wealthy woman so they can get their hands on her loot, you'd probably shrug and think to yourself, "Yeah, seen it." And if you know a thing or two about Bollywood films, you'll probably even think, "And I bet in the end, they are redeemed and turn to good when they find out they really are her long lost sons." A plot summary like that hardly leaves room for Dharmendra to fight Bigfoot or punch Bruce Le through a brick wall. But then, if you really know two or three things about Bollywood, you know that they require a simple plot wrapped in fantastically convoluted and outrageous incidents that detour the movie into truly warped territory.
As summarized above, Dharmendra and Rishi Kapoor star as Ajit and Munna, the two sons of a wealthy family in possession of a sacred, jewel-encrusted gold chariot. Evil bearded villain Black Cobra (Amjad Khan -- Qurbani, Jani Dost, Bombay 405 Miles) takes time out from shooting his own men and obsessively stroking his Blofeld brand evil cat in order to attempt to steal the chariot, a plot which involves him dressing up like a police inspector then berating other police inspectors for not questioning his identity thoroughly enough. As part of the demonstration of how crappy the police are, Black Cobra tells them how easy it would be for Black Cobra to waltz in, steal a cop's gun, and hold everyone hostage. Then he does just that, which is pretty cool as far as super villain bravado goes. In the ensuing fracas, however, Cobra and his men are unable to pull off the heist, so they return later than night to pick up where they left off. You'd think if the most notorious criminal in India was after your jewel-encrusted golden chariot, you'd up the security or something. Now this fracas eventually results in young Ajit and Munna getting separated from their family. Munna is discovered, crying on the road, by...oh no! It's that wacky eyebrow guy who annoyed us so in Farz. Over a decade later, he still annoys. Luckily, the movie doesn't let him delve too deeply into his Shemp-quality shenanigans. While Munna is rescued by an aging odious comic relief actor, Ajit has it slightly worse -- but just slightly -- when he witnesses Black Cobra beating his father to death with a studded leather strap. In an attempt to avenge the murder, Ajit winds up falling off a cliff and into a passing train full of hay, where he lands right next to a slumbering woman who thanks the gods for delivering this child to her. This is going to be the least of the movie's improbably events. Meanwhile, Black Cobra's right hand man, Michael...all right! It's Shakti Kapoor! We last saw him as the evil military commander in Commando. He's still trying to get that damn chariot, because despite all the killing and the whipping and the falling off of cliffs into trains full of hay, Black Cobra still didn't manage to get the chariot. And they still don't get it! Geez! I think even I could have stolen it at this point. Michael, on the other hand, gets blown up in a helicopter explosion.
Ajit is afflicted with plot-convenient amnesia, and is raised by the woman as Badshah, a local thug and all-around bully. Munna grows up to become a hustler and con artist. Good thing these guys always grow up to be cops or criminals. What would Bollywood do if the story was, "Two brothers separated at birth. One grows up to be a helpdesk operator at Dell's call center; the other becomes assistant manager at a record store." Hmm, that sounds like a Bollywood vehicle for John Cusack. Anyway, the movie settles in to an incredibly long and often boring middle section here in which Badshah woos a singer named Jamila (Zeenat Aman -- Don, Shalimar, Qurbani) while Munna plays cat and mouse with another charming thief (Tina Munim). The bad news is that the musical numbers are pretty boring, the comedy is unfunny, and the drama is tepid at best. There is no chemistry at all between Zeenat and Dharmendra, and their entire relationship comes out of nowhere. Rishi and Tina fare slightly better, thanks in part to Rishi being the impish one and Tina having a monkey in sultan pants as a criminal accomplice. But still, this lengthy second act is a chore to get through. It's punctuated by a completely out-of-the-blue showdown between Dharmendra in his hot pink kerchief (somehow, he makes it work!) and Bruce Le. In the years immediately following the death of Bruce Lee, sleazy film producers rushed to crank out an endless series of ultra low-budget kungfu crap that featured a guy who looked marginally like Bruce Lee, or had Bruce Lee's haircut, or thumbed his nose like Bruce Lee, or whatever they could think of to trick people who didn't know better into watching what they thought was a Bruce Lee film. The best-known of the Bruce Lee imitators was a Taiwanese actor named Ho Chung Tao. Ho was nothing special and had no notable career to speak of until producers tapped him to be the stand-in for Bruce Lee as they struggled to piece together a finished film from the footage the real Bruce Lee had shot for Game of Death. Ho declined, but shortly after that he hooked up with producer Jimmy Shaw, who came up with the Bruce Li name and kicked off Li's career as Bruce Lee lite. Li starred in a string of Bruce Lee biopics, films in which he was passed off as a true student of Bruce Lee, or as the official successor appointed by Bruce Lee in unofficial sequels to Bruce Lee movies, or as Bruce Lee himself.
Li's success as Lee meant that other producers were looking for their own Bruce Lee, or their own Bruce Li. Among these was Wong Kin Lung, an actor at the Shaw Brothers film studio in Hong Kong. Wong had starred in, among other things, the Shaw Brothers outrageous sci-fi kungfu epic Inframan alongside Danny Lee (best known for his roll in John Woo's The Killer, but also the star of a couple early Bruce Lee exploitation films, one of which -- Bruce Lee I Love You -- starred Bruce's real-life mistress, Betty Ting Pei, and was based on her version of what happened between her and Bruce). Like Bruce Li, Wong was adopted by another studio and redubbed as Bruce Le in order to cash in on his passing resemblance to Bruce Lee. Le never achieved the acclaim of Li, as ridiculous as all this may sound, but he did have a knack for showing up in films from other countries, often with absolutely no connection whatsoever to the plot. This happened in the ridiculous time travel film Future Hunters, where star Robert Patrick is looking for the Spear of Longinus and thinks this monk might have some clues as to its whereabouts. Exactly why a Buddhist monk would have info on a Christian relic I don't know, but whatever. Anyway, he goes to the temple, fights Bruce Le for no reason, and then goes, "Well, they didn't known anything," and that's the last of it. Le's appearance in Katilon Ke Kaatil is no less bizarre. Dharmendra has attempted to win Jamila's heart by pretending to hang himself out of heartache and disguising himself as a famous singer. When both deceptions fail to convince Jamila that Badshah is the man for her, she wanders off into a garden and walks by a table where Bruce Le is sitting. He jumps up to menace her, and Dhamrnedra shows up to fight Bruce Le, and that's the first and last we see of Bruce Le. He's not a henchman of Black Cobra. He has co connection at all to the movie. He just happens to be sitting there for one scene. That said, even though Bruce Le gets little respect for his accomplishments in shoddy Hong Kong productions, his fight with Dharmendra -- or with an anonymous stunt man (probably from Hong Kong) in a Dharmendra wig -- showcases just how advanced even mediocre Hong Kong fight choreography was when compared to choreography from anywhere else in the world. Bollywood has no shortage of kungfu fights, but while they are often energetic and outrageous, they are also terrible. Even the best of them is pretty bad when held up in comparison to the fights in a similarly budgeted Hong Kong movie. This isn't to sling mud at Bollywood -- Hong Kong in the 80s blew everyone away. But that's really made obvious when Bruce Le shows up to thumb his nose and allow Indian film distributors to sell this as a Bruce Lee versus Dharmendra movie. See India's number one action star beat the tar out of the world's number one martial arts legend! Never mind that Bruce had been dead for over a decade. He was the Tupac of kungfu films, making new movies long after his death. Too bad no one ever tried to hire a rapper who looked a lot like Tupac and have him release new albums under the name Tupak Shakir or something.
Although it has nothing to do with the movie in which it is nestled, the Bruce Le scene is pretty great. The fight choreography is suddenly infinitely better as two seasoned vets of the Hong Kong film industry (again, assuming the anonymous Dharmendra stand-in was Chinese) go head to head, with occasional shots of Dharmendra staggering backward or flying through a wall. Katilon Ke Kaatil has its share of problems, but a lack of people flying through walls is not among them. Then we return to the movie itself, which drags on for a while as we maneuver Munna and Badshah/Ajit into meeting one another and ending up both trying to con their actual mother -- who they do not realize is their mother. We also learn than Michael is still alive, having faked his own death to escape the wrath of Black Cobra (who in twenty years has not aged at all) over failing to get that chariot. And even twenty years later, Cobra is still talking about that goddamned chariot. Surely he could have come up with some other scheme by now. Or at least succeeded in stealing a golden chariot from a solitary woman who is still collapsing with grief over the loss of her sons like it happened yesterday. When Black Cobra discovers Michael is still alive (by happening to pull into the one gas station in all of India where Michael happens to work), he sicks Recha on the poor bastard. And that's where Katilon Ke Kaatil really starts to get weird.
Recha is described by Black Cobra as being the hellish offspring of a woman raped by a bear, but for all intents and purposes, he is a gorilla from Planet of the Apes. He's also bullet proof. While people are scared of him based on his size alone, no one seems all that amazed by the fact that this giant, fur-covered sasquatch of a beast exists. Maybe India is crawling with sasquatch men, or maybe the countryside is full of leather-clad gorillas on horseback catching unlucky humans in their nets. Recha manages to shatter Michael's leg and kill Michael's beloved wife, meaning we now have our villain who can be redeemed by teaming up with the good guys. His interest in the chariot revived, Black Cobra devises a plot that relies heavily on the sort of contrivances and coincidences that only happen in a Bollywood film, where the improbability of anything can easily be explained away with a dismissive wave of the hand and a statement about events being guided by the hand of the gods. Black Cobra's plot hinges on the mother randomly wandering up to a temple to pray for the return of her sons, and this temple will just happen to be the one where Black Cobra and his gang have disguised themselves as priests. Predicting that she will know her youngest son by the trident pendant he wears, he then gives one of the henchmen a trident pendant and sends him off to randomly run into the woman. Naturally, after a bit of wackiness, Munna ends up with the pendant.
It all goes on for a while, until Munna and Ajit have their big revelation and team up to kick Black Cobra's ass. If the middle portion of the movie has been somewhat a chore to get through, at least the investment is paid off for in the finale, in which our heroes, teamed up with Michael, battle Recha in a lengthy and hilariously awesome showdown that culminates in them blowing up a huge vat labeled "Highly Inflammable." They then infiltrate Black Cobra's inner sanctum by disguising themselves as members of a dance troupe Black Cobra has hired to entertain his men and celebrate the successful theft of the chariot, which by this point, is an operation that probably cost him more than the actual value of the chariot. This represents...what? Like the ten millionth time the good guys have infiltrated the bad guy's lair via a troupe of dancers? Why do these bad guys keep hiring dance troupes to come in and perform for them in their secret lair? Doesn't bussing in a bunch of dancers sort of spoil the whole "secret" part of the secret lair idea? And, of course, Jamila and whatever Munna's thief girlfriend's name is are part of the troupe, even though neither has ever been associated with the troupe before and Tina (because I don't know if she's ever given a name in this movie) has never been established as a singer or dancer. Making matters sillier, Black Cobra sits the chariot out in the middle of his throne room/dance hall, and the disguised heroes come out and sing a song that is basically a summary of everything Black Cobra has done to their family. I guess this is a variation of Hamlet, where they stage a play that recreates a murder Hamlet thinks has happened, but it doesn't seem like the best way to maintain your cover. Oh well, it all leads to our heroes killing about fifty million guys Arnold Schwarzenegger style, so that's OK.
Katilon Ke Kaatil has its share of awesome action sequences, but ultimately, they are too scarce to make up for the rest of the film, which rarely rises above the point of being mildly interesting and often sinks below the point that things become tedious. The Bruce Le fight is great, as is Dharmendra's showdown with some Steve Reeves looking bodybuilder in hot pants, and of course the finale is wonderful, but there's an awful long road in between these morsels. Dharmendra doesn't exude much charisma in this film, and at times I'm not even sure he's aware of the fact that he's being filmed. Rishi is more energetic, but really, he's often upstaged by the monkey in shiny sultan pants. The biggest disappointment of all, however, is Zeenat Aman, who here contributes absolutely nothing to the movie. For a woman who built her career on challenging the conventional "damsel in distress" uselessness of a woman in Bollywood films, to see her as a conventional damsel in distress who is completely incapable of doing anything is a major let-down. She doesn't whip out any kungfu, she doesn't use her brains to outwit -- she doesn't do anything but stand there. You could have hired any woman to fill this role? Why cast Zeenat Aman unless you want Zeenat Aman? And having Zeenat means she's gonna kick some ass, one way or another. Not so, here. Rishi Kapoor is better in his role, but like everything in this film, he's underdeveloped. Rishi is part of the Kapoor dynasty that seems inescapable in Bollywood. Raj Kapoor is his dad. Rajiv is his brother. Shashi and Shammi are his uncles. Babita was his sister-in-law. Kareena and Karisma are his nieces. It may be physically impossible at this point to watch a Bollywood film that doesn't star one of the Kapoor clan. Katilon Ke Kaatil represents the first time I've seen Rishi in action, and he wasn't half bad. He's not much of an action star, playing second fiddle to an occasionally bored and/or confused looking Dharmendra in much the same way Shashi played second banana to Amitabh in Shaan. The big difference is that, while Amitabh could make an average film above-average, Dharmendra cannot.
Dharmendra -- who we first met in the excellent swingin' 60s espionage adventure Aankhen -- is best known to modern fans for being the father of 90s action superstar Sonny Deol, though when you see Dharmendra in action here, you might wonder if Sonny isn't his son after all, but in fact a clone. Dharmendra was a big deal with a lot of great films under his belt, but Katilon Ke Kaatil isn't one of them. By the 1980s, it looks like he was floundering a bit and trying to find his way in a cinematic landscape that had been changed considerably by the arrival of Amitabh Bachchan. However, even in his mid-forties, he looks convincing in action and makes a credible tough guy, even if whupping Bruce Le is a bit of a stretch (seriously, compare those physiques and the speed of motion -- and dig Dharmendra's numchuck skills). As with his son, the trouble begins when Dharmendra has to do something other than kick someone's ass. While he doesn't do that nearly enough in this movie, when he does, it's pretty great. I think I failed to mention the part where he fights a guy in blackface. And I mean, literally. The guy's make-up is soot black. Shakti Kapoor is his usual self, always dependable. Black Cobra certainly looks imposing, but Amjad Khan could have played him way more over the top, and that would have made this film better. Rounding out the main cast, Tina Munim has a little more to do than Zeenat, owing primarily to the fact that she has a monkey thief for a sidekick. It's bad news when Zeenat isn't the most memorable woman in your movie, but such is the case here. Tina's performance is by no means stand-out, but she and Rishi show all the charisma and chemistry that Dharmendra and Zeenat lack. She started her career as a pet project of Dev Anand's, and the chemistry she shows here with Rishi must have reached beyond this single film, because they were frequently paired together. Still, her career never really took off, and she eventually left India to attend college in America, returning to marry an industrialist and become a charity events coordinator. Also, the woman is seriously cute.
The musical numbers are also pretty dull. Although you get a couple glittery nightclub scenes, they don't make up for the endless scenes of a holy man wandering into the camera to sing summaries of the plot up to that point. And even the nightclub scenes succeed on the merits of psychedelic set design rather than the merits of the singing, dancing, or even the costumes. We do have the scene where Dharmendra and Zeenat get drunk and dance around Mumbai, playing on teeter totters and then, for no reason other than Benny Hill level comedy, dress Dharmendra up in drag, but even this goes on a little too long, and you'll start thinking to yourself, "Man, I wonder what that monkey in the genie pants is up to." As much as I love the outlandish bits, Katilon Ke Kaatil is ultimately kind of a let-down. There is too much uninteresting filler, and Zeenat is completely wasted in a do-nothing role that is beneath her talents. I have plenty of tolerance for slapdash Bollywood action films, but even I was toying with the fast forward button for part of this. And while there are plenty of films of somewhat questionable taste I may foist upon people, often starring Mithun Chakraborty, I can't see myself doing the same with the whole of Katilon Ke Kaatil, though I will absolutely make everyone watch the Bruce Le stuff and the fight scenes with Bigfoot...err, Recha. Those are why I watched this movie, and they were worth the effort even if the rest of it really wasn't. Next quest: I know Bollywood must have ripped off Santo movies at some point... Labels: Action, Bollywood, Martial Arts: Kungfu, Stars: Dharmendra, Stars: Zeenat Aman, Year: 1981 posted by Keith at 4:30 PM | 5 Comments Friday, April 27, 2007Enter the Eagles
1998, Hong Kong. Starring Shannon Lee, Michael Wong, Anita Yuen, Jordan Chan, Benny Urquidez, J.J. Perry. Directed by Cory Yuen Kwai.
Benny Urquidez vs. Shannon Lee? Sign me up! This is one of those DVDs that has been sitting around on my shelves for years, and it's always on that list of "things I should just sit down and watch this week but then they never get watched." Well, now that I've finally gotten around to it, my initial impression is that I shouldn't have let it sit around for so long, but in a way I'm glad I did. I shouldn't have let it sit around for so long because it was pretty fun; and I'm glad I let it sit around for so long, because watching it now, so long after the fact, it was like a visit from an old friend, provided that friend is "the way they used to make Hong Kong action films in the 80s and early 90s." No CGI (well, no CGI fights), minimal wirework, actors who are better fighters than they are actors -- man, I miss this stuff. Oh yeah, and Shannon Lee fights Benny Urquidez. In an exploding blimp.
But let's begin at the beginning, or at least what will pass as the beginning for our purposes here. First of all, this movie has a pretty impressive Hong Kong action pedigree. Director Cory Yuen was one of the "Seven Little Fortunes," the group of Peking Opera students that included, among others, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, and Yuen Wah. I'm going to assume that readers of Teleport City know who these guys are. If you don't know, then you best turn your computer off and go watch Project A, Dragons Forever, Young Master, Prodigal Boxer, and Eastern Condors. We'll still be here when you get back. Cory Yuen proved himself an able enough actor in supporting roles, but it was behind the camera, as director, that Yuen really found his calling. Although he doesn't have what you might call a recognizable style of direction, what he does do is put the camera in the right place and let the actors do their thing. Few directors were able to shoot the breakneck style of 80s action they way Cory Yuen could. His first martial arts directing job in 1982 with Tower of the Death, retitled Game of Death II and turned into an even more outrageously shameless Bruce Lee exploitation film than the first Game of Death. What gets lost beneath all the Bruce Lee exploitation, however, is the fact that Tower of Death is actually pretty damn good. If you disconnect it from the clones of Bruce Lee movies that plagued the 70s and 80s, then you can appreciate the film for its own merits, which are considerable. From there, Yuen went on to direct a string of what are considered some of the very best and defining Hong Kong action films of the 1980s, including Ninja in the Dragon's Den, Yes Madam, Righting Wrongs, Dragons Forever, Blonde Fury, and She Shoots Straight. From the very first, Yuen's talent really seemed to be for bringing out the very best in female fighters. Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia Rothrock, and Joyce Godenzi were all at the very top of their game under Yuen's solid guidance. At the same time, he became one of the very first of the big names to attempt with some success to cross over into the American market. No Retreat, No Surrender may not be a great film, but it was a well-known movie that pretty much everyone rented at some point. It's most notable, of course, for introducing the world to Jean Claude Van Damme. I know, I know...his big screen debut was actually as the knee-squeezing gay kickboxer with a keen sportscar in Forever Monaco, or as the dayglo spandex wearing dancer on the beach in Breakin', but No Retreat No Surrender is the first time Van Damme got to sell himself as some sort of a martial arts bad-ass, albeit a Russian one.
In the 1990s, Yuen made the switch from straight-forward action to the wire-laden fantasy kungfu that became so popular during that decade, and while many fans lamented the passing of the 80s style of stunt-heavy, wire-free insanity, Yuen never the less continued to crank out a string of mega-hits, starting with the two Savior of the Soul films but really kicking into high gear once he teamed with the 1990s ruler of the martial world, Jet Li. Cory Yuen directed Li in a slew of fan favorites, including two Fong Sai-yuk films, Bodyguard from Beijing (which I thought was awful), New Legend of Shaolin (Jet Li does a kungfu version of Lone Wolf and Cub), and My Father is a Hero (featuring the infamous "tie my kid to a rope and use him like a kungfu yo-yo" scene). It was round about that time, unfortunately, that the bottom fell out of the Hong Kong movie industry. Action films were hit especially hard. They quickly fell out of style, and most of the beloved stars of the 80s and 90s were too old or just too beat up to sustain that style of film making. In addition, a number of the most beloved female stars of the action genre either retired or left Hong Kong to pursue film making elsewhere. And suddenly Hong Kong realized that there were no new Jackie Chans or Michelle Yeohs waiting in the wings, no matter how hard they tried to convince us that Stephen Fung and Nicolas Tse were awesome. Things just weren't the same. But Yuen soldiered on, and the less he could depend on his actors for solid martial arts action, the more he depended on special effects. 1998's Enter the Eagles would be the last film he'd make (for a while, anyway) featuring a cast of able fighters relying on their own skills and the time-tested 80s style of action filmmaking. A couple years later, he would make the special effects laden flop Avenging Fist, originally meant to be a Tekken (some fighting video game) film until someone realized they forgot to actually buy the rights to make a Tekken film. After that, Yuen once again found cross-over success in America with The Transporter, starring Jason Statham, then returned to Hong Kong to resurrect the moribund "Girls with Guns" genre so popular in the 90s. The result was So Close, and while it's hardly Yes Madam or Righting Wrongs in terms of the quality of legitimate kungfu choreography, it's still a damn fun film.
And since he apparently learned nothing from Avenging Fist, Yuen tried his hand a video-game adaptation movie again in 2006, this time with the American film DOA. But we'll talk about that one soon enough. If Enter the Eagles is Yuen's old school swan song (and that's only if you consider the 1990s old school, which they really aren't), then at least he aligned a proper set of players for the going away party. Anita Yuen was one of the most ubiquitous faces in 1990s Hong Kong cinema, though that industry's flavor of the week attitude with many of its female stars meant that she went from A-list megastar to B-list mainstay pretty quickly. But she cut her teeth in dramas like Cie La Vie, Mon Cherie, and comedies like Tsui Hark's Chinese Feast and Stephen Chow's Bond film send-up From Beijing with Love, as well as showing up to do nothing in the Jackie Chan film Thunderbolt. By 1998, she wasn't exactly in demand, but western fans of HK films still adored her, and I was certainly happy to see her back in action, even if she's not exactly believable as an action star (she looks to weigh all of 80 pounds). What she lacks in action cred, though, she certainly makes up for in genuine acting ability.
And then there is Jordan Chan, one of the most promising young stars of the latter half of the 1990s, part of what I like to call the Hong Kong Triad Brat Pack -- that group of young actors who all made names for themselves starring in Young and Dangerous movies. Those films were the bane of my existence when they first came out, largely because it seems like a new one came out every other week, and all of a sudden all anyone was making was "young triad dude" movies. I actually quite like most of them now, and even when I didn't, I liked Jordan Chan. He was a good actor and he had genuine charisma, unlike Triad Brat Pack compatriot Ekin Cheng, who had great hair but not much else. I don't think Chan's ever gotten material that was up to his ability, but I've never the less enjoyed a lot of his movies, including several that no one else seems to enjoy (like Downtown Torpedoes, which is marginally less plausible a story than Enter the Eagles). Both Yuen and Chan deliver pretty much all their dialog in Cantonese, allowing for them to escape the awkwardness of having to perform in a language they don't understand. Of course, this means that people speak Cantonese to English speakers, and vice versa, without any indication that they are speaking different languages. Sort of like how Han Solo can understand Wookie, and Chewbacca can understand English, but you never hear Han speaking Wookie or Chewbacca speaking English.
But Anita and Jordan are only the supporting players here. It became increasingly popular through the late 1990s to "internationalize" Hong Kong action films, most likely because the market for action films was so awful in Hong Kong, but interest in the films was still on the rise in the United States as guys like John Woo and Yuen Wo-ping (no relation to either Cory Yuen or Anita Yuen, who also are not related to one another. Cory Yuen's real last name isn't even Yuen) crossed over into quasi-mainstream recognition (meaning that anyone who paid close attention to movies knew about them, as opposed to just anyone who paid close attention to Hong Kong movies). Unfortunately for Hong Kong, their attempts to internationalize their action films involved two steps: 1) hire a guy who speaks some English to write a bunch of English dialog for the movie, and 2) hire some no-name Caucasian actors to deliver the dialog, or make your Hong Kong cast do phonetic memorization. The end results are, at their best, laughable. The bad writing and amateurish delivery actually did more to keep films from achieving cross-over success. The Caucasian actors were really bad, and many times what passes for understandable sounding English dialog from and to non-English speakers is nearly unintelligible to native English speakers. Ringo Lam's Undeclared War was one of the very early efforts using this model, but that was too early. The first real international efforts came in the form of films all having to do with Jackie Chan: Rumble in the Bronx, Who Am I (both starring Chan), First Strike, Mr. Nice Guy, and the Chan produced Gen-Y Cops. Rumble achieved a decent degree of success, thanks to a domestic theatrical release and some good stunt work, but the film was never taken seriously (and doesn't really deserve to be) thanks to the horrible acting from the Caucasian cast, the completely ludicrous portrayal of Bronx street gangs (they are multi-racial, ride around in dune buggies covered with Christmas lights, and live in giant warehouses filled with pinball machines and refrigerators), and the fact that they try to pass Vancouver off as New York City, even though you can see the Rocky Mountains int he background. It was good enough for other markets, but the film's targeted American audience just didn't buy it.
Similarly, First Strike and subsequent stabs by Chan at Hong Kong produced international hits, like Mr. Nice Guy and Who Am I, failed to garner much of an audience (though I personally like them a lot) because the English dialog and English acting is so bad. when a non-native speaker like Jackie Chan is still your best English-language actor in a film, you're chances of being anything but smirked at by English-speaking audiences is pretty small. Chan wouldn't really achieve American super-stardom until he stopped trying to make cross-over films and just made American films like Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon. The results of Hong Kong attempts to internationalize through sticking more English in their films were, as stated, as bad as you would expect. In the case of the writers, none of them were native English speakers, and their command of the nuances of language one needs to write a script in that language was simply not up to the task. Thus you get a lot of really weird, awkward dialog that uses English words and approximates English without actually being English. People say really stupid things in ways no actual English speaker would say them. Making matters worse was the fact that the Caucasian actors the film hired were, by and large, dreadful. From time to time, they would score an actual B-movie actor (Mark Dacascos, Coolio), but their delivery of the awkward dialog is just as bad. I often wondered why these native English speakers, even if they were bad actors, didn't correct the dialog as they went, but I've since learned that many of them tried, only to draw the ire of writers and directors insisting that they quit deviating from the way things had been written.
Similarly, Hong Kong started turning to the increasing number of foreign-born Chinese actors looking to make it in the Hong Kong film industry (Daniel Wu, Maggie Q, et cetera). Some of them were awful actors, and some of them were good, and some of them started out bad and got better (like Wu). Most had the benefit of being able to deliver dialog in either Cantonese or English with ease, but that still didn't help the scripts any, and the result was that even the good films weren't taken seriously as they undercut themselves with such weird, artificial dialog. But there were still a lot of them being made in this fashion, and if you can roll with the short-comings of the scripts, a lot of the films are pretty good, or if not good, at least enjoyable,a dnt hat's always been far more important to me. Enter the Eagles, for examples, suffers all these woes, but the movie itself remains stupidly enjoyable. In this case, the Caucasian actors include a bunch of stuntmen who are really awful actors, Shannon Lee (daughter of Bruce), Benny Urquidez, and Michael Wong.
Now Shannon Lee is the film's main attraction, but in discussing the cast I'm going to start with Michael Wong. I love Michael Wong. I think I may have said it somewhere else before, but if any actor in the world was going to be the spokesmen for and embodiment of Teleport City, it's Michael Wong. This guy has been making movies -- lots of movies -- for decades now. And he is still an awful actor, as bad as he was the first time he ever appeared on screen. He works hard at his craft; he just doesn't get any better. Which is sort of how Teleport City is. We work hard, we really do put some effort into this thing, but after nearly a decade of doing it, I'm not really any better at it than I was when I first started, and despite how many people may read this site, we remain relatively respect-free. We rarely get screeners or comp review copies (in fact, in almost ten years, we've gotten four, two of which were awful "day in the life of a serial killer" shot on video stinkers); we don't get invited to attend or speak at premieres, festivals, or conventions; we don't get book deals; we don't get quoted on DVD covers or asked to write liner notes. We remain and probably always will be the Michael Wong of movie websites. But then, Michael Wong got to have a naked Ellen Chan grinding up and down on him, and we've yet to achieve that, so we're actually one below Michael Wong. Suffice it to say that I think hanging out with Michael Wong would be cool. He probably has a ton of great stories, and even though I have repeatedly said he's not a very good actor, I still like him and I like a lot of the movies he's done. If I could hang out with any veteran of the Hong Kong movie scene, it would be Michael Wong. You might assume it would be Maggie Cheung, but as much as I might crush on her, it'd be way too nerve-wracking. With Michael, I could just sit back, drink some beers, smoke a cigar, and let him tell stories about all the crazy shit he's seen and endured over his years making movies. And while Wong isn't who you think of when you think of Hong Kong veterans, he still is a Hong Kong veteran and an early pioneer at speaking English when everyone expects the cast to be speaking Chinese. Accompanying Wong and lending even more old-school cred to the movie is Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, a welcome face from the glory days of Hong Kong action cinema. Urquidez, who was famous for being an incredible fighter and being one of the creepiest looking gwailo in Hong Kong films (often described as a horrifying amalgamation of Ozzy Osbourne and Christian Slater), was recruited to match up with Jackie Chan in two of the best action films of the 80s -- Dragons Forever and Wheels on Meals (another early attempt from jackie Chan to internationalize his films), both also starring Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung. The fights in these two movies between Chan and Urquidez are often named by fight film aficionados as two of the best scenes ever filmed.
Like many of the Western fighters who made names for themselves in Hong Kong -- Richard Norton and Cynthia Rothrock being the two most notable -- Urquidez was never able to extend his career to much success in the West, where the directors just didn't know how to direct him the way Sammo Hung or Cory Yuen did. He found pretty steady work as a choreographer, though. It's been years since I last saw Urquidez in front of the camera, and having him pop up in Enter the Eagles as the main heavy is a welcome return for an old, scary face. And finally there's Shannon Lee. Her film career, spotty and minimal though it may be, became the source of a fair amount of controversy among people prone to generating controversy over Shannon Lee, with many claiming that she only got parts because she was Bruce Lee's daughter. I'm sure being the daughter of the Dragon and the sister of Bandon helped open doors, as did the fact that she's pretty cute, but once she was through the door, it was up to her to live or die by her own merits. Criticism that she didn't have any real fighting skill is patently ridiculous. Neither did many of the people who became kungfu stars. Michelle Yeoh was a dancer, for instance, and Joyce Godenzi was a beauty queen. What matters -- all that matters -- is what Shannon Lee did once she got the part, and what she did was try really damn hard. Although the era of "no stunt doubles" was a thing of the past by the 1990s, Lee still did most of her own fighting and stuntwork, being doubled only for the especially acrobatic and flip-heavy shots. She worked out extensively with Urquidez, and busted her ass to learn the moves she'd need to appear as a credible force on-screen. And she does well. She looks natural and comfortable in the action scenes and moves fast and gracefully while never lackign the illusion of power behind her punches and kicks. She is helped along both by her training with Uriquidez and by Cory Yuen's panache for shooting and editing non-fighters to look like believable on-screen bad-asses (and somehow make fights comprised mostly of posing still seem fast-paced and action-packed). Her acting is stilted, thanks in equal parts to inexperience and bad dialog, but she has a natural on-screen charisma that is far more reminiscent of her dad than any of the half-witted calls for her to actually mimic her dad (which include making "Bruce Lee face" while ripping a guy's hair out and blowing it in his face). I was able to buy her immediately as a smirking, kungfu powered assassin.
The rest of the Caucasian cast is comprised of guys whose names you won't know unless you know a lot of stuntmen and fight choreographers. Thisis because most of them are stuntmen and fight choreographers, and while that means they know how to handle themselves in the action scenes, the film is perhaps ill advised to have given them so much dialog. Somewhere amid all this is a plot, though to be honest, the less attention you pay to that plot, the more you will enjoy this movie. What we have here is a heist film in which two groups of thieves -- Michael Wong's highly trained group, and the rag-tag duo of Jordan Chan and Anita Yuen -- are after the same diamond. Wong wants to sell it to Urquidez, who in turn will fence it to a really white looking sheik in a fake mustache and goatee. Chan and Yuen want to steal it to show up Wong, who snubbed them when they somehow magically figured out what Wong was planning and how they could find him. Obviously, things go horribly awry, allowing for the film to dispense with plot and go hog wild with outrageous action scenes.
To say the film isn't entirely believable is a gross understatement. Nothing presented in this movie is the least bit plausible, from the ridiculous schemes to steal the diamond to the extended shoot-out and rescue set in a police station (where, among other things, Michael Wong stymies an entire platoon of well-armed riot cops by throwing a potted plant at them), to the finale in an out-of-control luxury blimp (!), but then, Cory Yuen and Hong Kong action films have never been the place to go for solid scripting and plausible events. The heist in particular seems ridiculously easy, and I wish that action films all over the world featuring a heist would stop relying on the hoary old cliche of having the security be a bunch of goof-offs who fall asleep or get distracted by soccer games on television, or just don't make the most basic and obvious of logical connections. For instance, if you are guarding the world's most expensive diamond, and the alarm starts going haywire at the exact same moment there's a mysterious car wreck outside, with a couple of doctors appearing out of nowhere, the most obvious course of action is probably not to disable all the alarms around the diamond then have everyone run outside to stand around. One would also think that, if a thief is caught in the diamond enclosure during the heist, then his claim that "those other people took the diamond" wouldn't be accepted at face value, and that you might, at the very least, search him. But then, you'd also think there's not many places you can hide a giant diamond when you're wearing a skintight cat burglar outfit. Or that the police, upon arresting you, might make you put on different clothes and thus find the diamond even if they didn't bother to search you for it. But none of that happens here, allowing the film to segue into a completely outrageous and even less believable rescue from the police department, which begins with no one noticing an unauthorized helicopter landing on the roof of the police station and disgorging a lot of heavily armed people in tough looking black combat gear. Unfettered by the mooring lines of logic, Yuen allows Enter the Eagles to soar like the out-of-control luxury blimp that will serve as the location for the finale. Shannon Lee gets to beat the crap out of a lot of people and pose with guns (sometimes, unfortunately, held sideways, because that's what people did in the 90s), and there are tons of shoot-outs, including the aforementioned police station setpiece, which ends up being a near thirty-minute long over-the-top action blow-out that includes tons of shooting, kungfu, car chases, people being dragged around on metal ladders dangling from helicopters, and lots of stuff blowing up before our heroes finally make their escape on, of all things, a slow-moving public trolley, where no one seems concerned about the group of heavily armed and bleeding people who just clambered on then got off a stop later without the cops noticing they're carrying guns and wearing body armor. But whatever, the whole sequence is pretty great, and I've certainly enjoyed even less plausible scenarios. The movie attempts to outdo itself during the finale in the blimp, in which Shannon Lee and Benny Urquidez get to shine and steal the show as they engage in a lengthy fight throughout the blimp as it explodes and falls apart around them. It's not Jackie Chan vs. Urquidez, but it's a damn good fight scene. Somewhere in the maelstrom, Michael Wong smokes cigars and punches people, and Anita Yuen hangs upside down and shoots machine guns. She's not the least bit believable as someone who could beat someone else up, but Yuen seems to recognize this, and so instead has the scrawny gal just blow the crap out of anything that moves. When she does engage in fisticuffs, it's with an opponent she obviously couldn't beat, and so after having her thrown around a little, the movie just sort of wanders off and pretends the whole thing isn't happening, returning to it every now and then to show her still going toe-to-toe with the guy despite the fact that there's no way it could have lasted that long.
The final result is a pretty fun action film, even if it's a "bad" film. The dialog is silly and poorly delivered by just about everyone, and people trade lines in Cantonese and English as if they were the same language. But Anita Yuen and Jordan Chan are both good actors (although Jordan is underused here), and Wong and Lee are bad actors with a lot of charisma that compensates for their short-comings. And Benny the Jet is Benny the Jet, looking creepy as ever but obviously having a lot of fun with one of the meatier villain roles he's ever gotten (previously, he never had more than a line or two of dialog). Cory Yuen's direction is crisp and keeps the movie moving along at a fast pace, which makes the obvious weakness of the script easier to ignore. Shot in and around Prague, the film manages to achieve that international feel location-wise, and Yuen never misses an opportunity to indulge in a little sight-seeing. Although the film is shot on the typical cheap Hong Kong budget, it achieves the look and feel of a much more expensive film. The action is largely CGI-free, though the movie does throw in some pretty lame looking CGI explosions. The fights belong to Shannon and Benny, with Michael standing on the sidelines waiting to cold-cock someone if they need it. He's never been a kungfu star, so his action is largely relegated to shoot-outs and a couple straight-up fist fights, which he has always handled well. I think Shannon Lee proves she has the stuff it takes to be a legitimate action star. She can always improve her acting (unless Michael Wong is her teacher, I guess). With the right director and an on-set mentor like Urquidez, she easily rises to the level of many of the best fighting femmes. I'd love to see more of her in films like this. So yeah -- Enter the Eagles. There are no eagles in it, and the acting and writing are nothing to highlight in your acting or writing class, but the cast is fun, the action is plentiful, and everything moves along nicely. I had a lot of fun watching it, and in the end, that's really all that ever matters to me. Labels: Action, Country: Hong Kong, Director: Cory Yuen Kwai, Martial Arts: Kungfu, Stars: Anita Yuen, Stars: Benny Urquidez, Stars: Jordan Chan, Stars: Michael Wong, Stars: Shannon Lee, Year: 1998 posted by Keith at 12:55 AM | 14 Comments Monday, February 05, 2007Shaan
DIGG THIS ARTICLE. 1980, India. Starring Sunil Dutt, Shashi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, Rakhee Gulzar, Parveen Babi, Bindiya Goswami, Johnny Walker, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Mazhar Khan, Helen, Sudhir, Dalip Tahil, Mac Mohan. Directed by Ramesh Sippy. Written by Javed Akhtar, Salim Khan.
Shaan is an over-the-top Bollywood masala film that plays in very much the same vein as Don or The Great Gambler -- which makes sense, since all three of them star Amitabh Bachchan. For me, they work as sort of a trilogy, even though none of the films is technically connected to the other in any official capacity. But they share so much, both in terms of pacing and overall atmosphere (and the fact that Amitabh's character is named Vijay in all three films), that I like to think of them as some great, flared slack-clad, bow-tie sporting, kungfu-packed epic saga. Shaan is actually the least of the three films, but that by no means implies that it is anything less than absolutely sublime. Heck, as soon as the credits start rolling, projected as they are on the swaying rump of a sexy lass, you know you're in for a real treat. Sunil Dutt stars as DSP Shiv Kumar, the top cop of Bombay and an all-around man of action despite his advancing age and tendency to wear pristine white short-sleeve suits with ultra-tight flared slacks. Sometimes, his mere entrance onto a scene is enough to wash out the color. Maintaining proper exposure and white balance must have been a real chore. Kumar is the typical man of honor, happily married and with a lovely young daughter. His brothers, however, are what you might call a couple of rascals. Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) and Vijay (the Big B) spend most of their time hatching elaborate cons and other get-rich-quick schemes. When first we meet them, Vijay is posing as a diamond merchant who has just robbed his employer, an act that requires Vijay to bite down endlessly on the collar of his black trenchcoat, for some reason I can't fully fathom. Suffice it to say that the schemes these two dream up are far more complex and convoluted than the crimes call for -- which will sort of become a reoccurring theme in Shaan. Despite being criminals, both Vijay and Ravi are fundamentally good-hearted guys, and it seems their life of crime is less about being criminals and more about just having some fun.
After successfully snookering a crooked hotel manager out of a huge stack of cash, Vijay and Ravi are themselves snookered out of the very same cash by two more con artists, Renu (Bindiya Goswami) and Chacha (comedian and scotch brand Johnny Walker). The two sets of con artists spend some time trying to out-con one another before deciding to team up and steam a valuable necklace off the neck of a princess -- a scheme that goes awry when yet another thief show sup out of nowhere to sing, dance, and show off a lot of cleavage. That would be Sunita (Parveen Babi). She and Vijay hit things off immediately, and before too long, this chance meeting of con artists and ne'r-do-wells results in the formation of a happy little gang that performs only the most delightful and jauntiest of robberies. It's a good set-up until they attempt their most ridiculously lavish con, which apparently involves renting out the community center pool and posing as holy men to bilk suckers out of cash. I can't imagine that they made any more money than they must have spent on costumes, building an ornate stage, and renting out the swimming pool, but whatever. All in good fun, I suppose. Well, fun until Ravi and Vijay get busted for the ploy, and by their own brother no less! But Shiv has bigger problems to contend with than just his screwy brothers. It seems his effectiveness as a cop has but the serious hurt on a crime boss named Shakal (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). But this is no ordinary crime boss. This is a crime boss who, despite being involved in what sounds like fairly mundane rackets such as gun running, has a secret space-age underground lair on his own private island. He also wakes up every morning and models himself as much as possible after Telly Savalas as Blofeld from the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. When Shakal isn't orchestrating criminal enterprises, he sits in his throne room equipped with a rotating platform of death chairs that can dump victims into a tank containing a giant crocodile! He also has a window looking out onto his vast undersea view, which is realized via rear projection of completely improperly scaled underwater life footage, which results in things like hand-sized fish appearing to be larger than a man.
So basically, what you have for the first hour of the film is a pretty straight-forward crime flick. And then all of a sudden, here we are in a space-age secret lair, looking at a bald guy in his Blofeld jacket, employing a uniformed private army, and trusting the successful execution of his schemes to a quartet of managers that includes that wolfman guy (Mac Mohan) that seems to be the evil henchman in every 70s Bollywood action film and Dalip Tahil, last seen here as the villainous sweater-wearing manager from Commando. Shakal, being a man of impeccable mad villain fashion sense, also insists that his four lieutenants dress equally as swanky, so they all get to wear slick white suits. So at least Dalip gets something better than the holiday sweaters and mock turtlenecks he wore in Commando. Annoyed that Shiv is cutting into the profits of evil, Shakal forces circus performer crack shot Rakesh (Shatrughan Sinha) to assassinate the inspector. I'd like to think that Rakesh works at the same circus as JJ from Don. Considering that Shakal has a space-age underground lair, a crocodile pit, four lieutenants in flared white suits, and an army of henchmen, you would think that he could recruit an ace assassin from the criminal underworld instead of kidnapping a circus guy's wife in order to make him turn to a life of crime. But much like Vijay and Ravi, Shakal is absolutely committed to doing things in the most lavishly complex and overblown fashion imaginable. So why hire a seasoned underworld hit man with no moral qualms about killing a cop when you could devise an elaborate scheme involving a circus sharpshooter instead?
Ravi and Vijay get out of jail and swear to go straight, but it's not too long before the crosshairs in which Shiv finds himself pull the younger brothers and their crew of con artists into the struggle against Shakal. There is very little about Shaan that isn't totally absurd. Shakal is a cartoon James Bond/spy caper villain who somehow wandered into a gritty 70s-style action film. One minute, it's all guys in dungarees and open-neck shirts kicking each other on the streets of Bombay, and then all of a sudden Ravi and Rakesh are fighting gas-mask clad super villains in a pristine white secret lair throne room while Amitabh wrestles a rubber crocodile. Anyone who watches masala from the 70s and 80s has to be prepared for dramatic shifts in tone, but while the tone of Shaan remains fairly consistent, the setting seems to switch for the final hour to an entirely different movie. Not that I'm complaining. I think pretty much every type of movie could be improved by the inclusion of a bald criminal genius with a space-age secret lair and crocodile pit and female assistants clad in mini-skirts and silver go-go boots. But the fact that Shaan is very, very silly doesn't mean that it's not also very, very fun. It's tremendously enjoyable, even if we do spend a little much time with the legless dude on his rolling platform zipping about Bombay at speeds exceeding those of the cars around him. Shaan is basically a Don style Amitabh action film with a James Bond film grafted onto the end, which is really the best of both worlds. You get to watch Amitabh kungfu the crap out of people, then you get to watch him run around in futuristic passageways and battle dudes with machine guns. Plus, yeah, he wrestles a crocodile and kicks down a door. If they'd let him jump a car through the open door of a moving box car, it would have been perfect. By 1980, Amitabh's "angry young man" trend,which he'd started with films like Zanjeer and Deewar, had just about run its course. What had once been something daring and fresh was becoming routine. Everyone knew what to expect, and Amitabh could play these types of roles with his eyes closed. But that doesn't stop him from putting a lot of charm and effort into the film. Vijay is a well realized character, equal parts lovable rascal, suave playboy, and steely-eyed instrument of destruction. He looks great in the action scenes, and though there are fewer kungfu fights than in Don, the choreography in Shaan is much better orchestrated.
Playing second banana to Amitabh is Shashi Kapoor in a harmless role that simply gets lost in the over-the-top glory of Amitabh and Shakal. Ravi gives off a definite "yeah, me too!" vibe as he follows Vijay around. But he fares better than the women in the film. After Zeenat Aman in Don and Great Gambler, Parveen Babi and Bindiya Goswami are a major step down. The movie doesn't really offer them very much to do other than be present and occasionally show some cleavage. They get to throw some chops and kicks and flip some dudes over during the finale, but that's really not enough to make them in any way memorable. I'm not sure what Zeenat was doing. Maybe if she'd been on hand, we would have a better showing on behalf of the ladies. Surprisingly, comedian Johnny Walker is not the least bit irritating as Renu's con artist uncle. I always have major reservations about "famous comedians" in any role, be they slapstick comedy relief or otherwise. This is usually because famous comedians are almost never funny to me. Franco and Cicci, Jerry Lewis -- I'm looking in your direction. But Walker plays it pretty straight for the most part, and only really has a couple scenes. In fact, most of the cast that isn't Amitabh, Shashi, or Shatrughan Sinha tends to disappear for long stretches of film. It wouldn't be hard to forget that Renu, Chacha, and Sunita are even in the film.
As forgettable but harmless as those three may be, with Shashi being only marginally more memorable, Shatrughan Sinha makes up for it as the circus hitman blackmailed into trying to kill Shiv Kumar.He's the only character with any back story (as simple as that back story may be) that explains his motivations. And for being in what is ultimately a silly overblown action movie, Shatrughan brings a surprising level of depth and dignity to his role, even when wearing a billowing black silk circus shirt which I think might have also been worn by JJ in Don. In fact, I'm just going to pretend that not only were Rakesh and JJ in the same circus, but Rakesh was JJ's son (though Rakesh himself does not know this). And it was on his deathbed that JJ bequeathed the flowing black silk Renaissance shirt to Rakesh, his final words being, "Wear it...with pride." But none of this matters. Because no matter how good Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha may be, this movie belongs to Kulbhushan Kharbanda. As the devious and dastardly Shakal, Kharbanda hams his way through a ridiculously over-the-top performance complete with weird twitching, copious amounts of booming evil laughter, and a scene where he inexplicably has his evil villain jacket unbuttoned to reveal his hairy, shirtless chest even though he's in his throne/control room and never takes his jacket off at any other point in the movie. I guess he figured that if everyone else got to wear those big-collared polyester disco shirts unbuttoned to the navel, he should get to show off a little chest as well, despite being clad for the entire movie in a jacket with a high Mandarin style collar. Shakal is not the greatest onscreen Bollywood villain of all time -- it's only right that that honor would go to a character played by Amrish Puri (and that the character be named Mogambo -- but that is another story) -- but he's pretty damn good. I think if he hadn't been quite so serious with it, he would have reached those rarefied airs where only the best and most scenery-hungry villains exist. But while he may fail to attain a state of cartoonish villain manna, that doesn't mean Shakal isn't a bundle of fiendish giggling and ominous flashing button pressing.
Aside from a solid cast, Shaan boasts much that is worth celebrating. The set design, when it kicks into high gear, is really something. Most of the movie takes place on fairly standard locations -- the streets, a garage, a bar, Shiv's living room, so on and so forth. But in two instances, Shaan gives in to its flashier, more decadent art design tendencies. When Amitabh and his crew mount the theft of a diamond necklace, it occurs at a dance club that must be seen to b believed. Beth Loves Bollywood described it as a universe within an inside-out disco ball, and I can think of no better description. And sure, the plunging neckline and swinging hips of Suria's dress are supposed to be the star attractions of the number, but that's not to say one can't become easily distracted by Amitabh's pimp outfit, complete with giant roger Moore sized bowtie and a crystal-tipped walking stick. And I haven't even mentioned the cheerleader go-go girls with the silver pom-poms. Even that pales into comparison the instant we're transported from the familiar sights and sounds of the Bombay streets to Shakal's pop-art lair. There's no excuse for a villain of his caliber to have such a lavish lair. You should only get lairs like this when you are blackmailing the entire world or stealing nuclear power plants or teleporting the entirety of Washington DC onto the moon. Shakal seems to be running guns and hassling a dude from the circus. But whatever. Since Shaan was made in 1980, I assume that the market for opulent 60s-style villain lairs had really bottomed out, so he probably got the whole package off Craigslist for super-cheap. Shakal's lair is a dream -- very Ken Adams on a Bollywood budget, or even more accurate -- it looks like they somehow got access to the same sets Toho Studio used for the Planet X space base in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero. One -- should one be like me -- half expects Amitabh to run into Akira Takarada and Nick Adams while they're all prowling the same halls. Now that would have been one hell of a team.
As far as musical numbers go, you have two spectacular ones, and other acceptable ones. The dance club/necklace heist scene has a great number, and the finale is a spectacular blow-out that reminds me of the finale of Jewel Thief. Vijay, Ravi, Rakesh, and the gals somehow employ a entire gypsy dance and acrobat troupe and use it to infiltrate Shakal's fortress -- because as much as bald megalomaniac super villains love the privacy of a private island space-age lair, they love a sumptuous floor show even more. The whole number turns into a wild, action-packed free-for-all that includes kungfu, shoot-outs, Rakesh and Ravi fighting supermen in gas masks in a chamber filling with poison gas -- in which Shakal himself is sitting without a gas mask! -- and, of course, Amitabh wrestling a crocodile. The other musical numbers are all right. The number with the legless Abdul (Mazhar Khan) zipping about town is pointless and overlong, but the awful blue screen projection should help you get through. The other numbers are the usual "wooing the chick" and "conning the masses" type of numbers, and while they're perfectly acceptable, they just can't compare to that dance club number or the big show at Shakal's place. This was director Ramesh Sippy's first film after the spectacular career-making Sholay, and despite the all-star cast, Shaan didn't do that well. It was sort of on the tail-end of the trend that allowed for this sort of 60s-inspired mod-meets-psychedelic pop art fantasy. A couple years later, Sonny Deol would be running around in ugly, padded jackets and parachute pants, blowing up warehouses that lacked any of the panache of Shakal's lair. So perhaps Shaan is just a 70s movie at the dawn of the 80s. Whatever the case, Sippy's direction isn't as crisp and expertly paced as it was in Sholay. If there is a flaw anywhere in Shaan, it's the usual problem of certain scenes that wouldn't be that good in short form being drawn out much longer than they need to be.
I already mentioned Abdul's overly lengthy roll about town, but there's also the midway assassination attempt on Shiv that consists of nauseating scenes of Ferris wheels and rides spinning around. Later, after Shiv is kidnapped by Shakal and escapes from the secret lair, he is mercilessly pursued down the beach by Shakal's dogs and armed gunmen in a helicopter. Now that in and of itself is a fine scene. It just goes on way too long. Plus, umm, the dogs are beagle puppies. Not Dobermans. Not German Shepards. Beagles. And little beagles at that. It just proves my point that Shakal was a cut-rate chump villain who just lucked out at some supervillain's estate sale. Some of the comedy drags on, too, but I find that to be the case in almost all films, especially comedies. But those are nitpicks, at best. For the most part, Shaan is nothing but one big rollicking ball of ridiculous action, energetic songs, kungfu, guns, car chases, crocodile wrestling, disco shirts, laughing villains, secret lairs, and stuff getting' blowed up. Labels: Action, Bollywood, Director: Ramesh Sippy, Espionage, Musicals, Stars: Amitabh Bachchan, Stars: Sashi Kapoor, Year: 1980 posted by Keith at 6:54 PM | 7 Comments Monday, November 27, 2006Boom Digg this article. 2003, India. Starring Amitabh Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Gulshan Grover, Padma Lakshmi, Madhu Sapre, Katrina Kaif, Javed Jaffrey, Zeenat Aman, Seema Biswas, Bo Derek. Written and directed by Kaizad Gustad.Whenever someone names a predictable title like Plan 9 from Outer Space or Robot Monster or Yor, the Hunter from the Future as one of the worst movies of all time, my inevitable response is that if they think that's one of the worst movies of all time, then they obviously haven't seen enough movies. Certainly not enough to be making such bold proclamations such as naming it one of the worst of all time. Now as you can imagine -- I've seen some bad films in my time. Not just, "so bad it's good" bad, or "guilty pleasure" bad; no, I mean "gnaw your own paw off to escape the trap" bad. I mean "I'd rather gut myself and strangle myself with my own innards than watch another second of this film" bad. More than all that -- I mean "boring" bad. As I've said before, there is no greater sin in cinema, in my opinion, than being boring and tedious. I can take pretty much anything else. Hit me with your worst shot. But boring? That takes me out of the game almost instantly.
The 2003 mega-budget disaster Boom has a reputation as one of the worst movies in Bollywood history. That's one hell of a claim, I tell ya what. And Boom is certainly an utter and complete fiasco of a movie. There isn't a single competent second in the entire overlong running time. Despite a bloated budget, international locations, the glam and glitz of the fashion world, and ample displays of writhing female flesh, the movie still manages to look ugly and grubby. The cinematography is mishandled, the direction never attains any sense of pacing, and the script seems to have been assembled in cut-up Burroughs style using the scripts of the complete filmography of Andy Sidaris as the source material. And the acting? Man, there's no word to even describe it. No adjective has yet been invented that satisfactorily expresses just how phenomenally atrocious the acting is. It's somewhere below the worst acting in micro-budget horror films -- and not the relatively competent (by comparison) modern micro-budget horror film. I'm talking, these people may one day achieve the level of acting we saw in Splatter Farm. You can see where I'm going with this, can't you? Everything in this movie is so inexpressibly, mind-blowlingly awful that Boom becomes one of the greatest movies I've ever seen. When I reviewed Asambhav, I said that as bad as the film was, I still thought fans of bad action films should see it because it was so absurd. In the case of Boom, however, let me state straight-out: absolutely, under no circumstances, should you take my advice regarding Boom. Do not listen to me. No matter what you hear, no matter how much I scream and beg, you must not listen to me, because I'm going to say, "Dude, you haven't seen Boom? You have to see Boom. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's awesome." It's the equivalent of, "Oh man, this milk has gone sour. It's awful. You have to smell it." Boom is that foul yet enticing carton of spoiled milk that gets shoved to the back of the refrigerator and forgotten until one day, you notice it there behind the half-finished jar of BBQ sauce and the half-dozen Coronas, can't help but open it and take a whiff, and then realize with horror that the rotting, curdled stench overpowers all else in the house and demands, as if possessed by some otherworldly power of mind control, than you immediately rush out and find others to share in the putrid rot. Boom is the cursed video from Ring. Once you've seen it, you will feel the overwhelming urge to make someone else see it, lest your head explode, the last image in your mind being a buff guy in giant nylon raver pants doing the pelvic thrust and shouting, "come on, baby, yeah!"
What really pushes Boom into the realm of the sublime and makes Krishna himself weep sweet, sweet tears of humiliation, is the fact that the film is stuffed with brand name talent. Eternal king of Bollywood cinema and de facto Prime Minister of India, Amitabh Bachchan, is on hand looking resplendent in his white suits. Queen of Bollywood and the unchallenged queen of 70s Hindi cinema, Zeenat Aman, came out of retirement to appear in this film. Jackie Shroff took time out to appear in the film as well. These are actual actors -- which is more than can be said for the rest of the cast. Seeing these proven, seasoned veterans showing up in this film, some after a fifteen plus year retirement, only to have the film be so jaw-droppingly horrendous is, honestly, as sweet as magic gumdrops. The goofiness begins right at the concept: during a flashy fashion show, two models get into a cat fight, resulting in a pile of stolen antique diamonds falling out of the hair of one of the models. You might think that if you were smuggling stolen diamonds, you wouldn't stick them in your hair and bring them to your fashion show, but really, that'll be the least of your concerns once this film gets rolling. The smuggler-model flees and goes into hiding, which means the gangsters who stole the diamonds have only one lead to finding them: the other model.
The other model, Anu (beauty pageant veteran Madhu Sapre) lives with her two model friends, Sheila (model turned Salman Rushdie wife and spice food spokeswoman, Padma Lakshmi) and Rina (Katrina Kaif). There is, however, absolutely no reason to remember their names. Just remember that there's the tough one, the smart one, and the dumb one. Of these three characteristics assigned to each of the women, only one of them is communicated onscreen with any hint of believability. I will not be handing out any prizes for correctly guessing which one it is. The brainy one communicates her braininess by continuously yammering out figures to the tenth decimal place, though they stopped short of having her constantly pushing up a pair of big-rimmed glasses (she does wear glasses in one scene, though). The tough one communicates toughness by emoting as little as possible. And the dumb one effectively communicates her idiocy by, it seems, just being herself. All three of these women are models. None of them are actresses. It shows. The gangsters (middle man Jackie Shroff, whose character consists of "he snorts coke," and big cheese Amitabh, whose character consists of "he reads comic books") send goofball muscleman Boom Shankar (Javed Jaffrey, the only legitimately entertaining part of the whole movie) to kidnap the models and give them a choice: either they perform fashion shows until the cost of the diamonds is paid off, or they become whores until the price of the diamonds is paid off. The girls, of course, decide for a third option which consists of using their incredible talents to beat the most dangerous criminal in the entire world at his own game. Keep in mind that the last plan they hatched was to keep anyone from finding out about the fashion show debacle by sending their maid out to try and purchase every single issue of the India Times in Mumbai before anyone else saw it. Another of their plans will involve robbing a bank while wearing masks of their own faces, which I have to say, is absolutely fucking brilliant.
A lot of the criticism that was leveled at Boom in the Indian press at the time of its release dealt with how foul-mouthed and crude the movie was, and I guess by Bollywood standards, it is foul-mouthed and crude. But I'm an American, damnit, and I say to the people who though the worst thing about this movie was that it was a tad dirty that there are plenty of other things that make this movie worth ripping to shreds. So many, in fact, that I'm almost overwhelmed, like a kid in a candy store, if the candy store didn't stock Now and Laters and Laffy Taffy but did have shelves stuffed with giggling killers in raver pants and Amitabh Bachchan in a little novelty kiddie car. I'll start with the writing, assuming any of this movie was actually written down at any point. Back in the late 1990s, there was a trend in Hong Kong action films of filming the movie, or at least a large chunk of it, in English. Ostensibly, this was done to give it a hip, international edge. Practically, speaking, however, it resulted in films packed with some of the worst acting and most nonsensical dialogue ever as actors who often had limited English-language skills read English-language lines written by scripters with limited English-language skills. The result, perhaps best epitomized by Gen-Y Cops and China Strike Force, was the creation of an entirely new language, one comprising of English words but not English sentences. Everyone was stilted in their delivery (often because they were unsure of their language skills, but just as often because, although the actor was a native English speaker, they were just really bad, or didn't give a damn), which only augmented the fact that the dialogue completely failed to reflect any semblance of actual spoken English. No one talks like that, or says those things. And English speakers listening to the English dialogue actually have a better chance of deciphering the meaning of the Chinese language dialogue. It was even better when these lines were read by people you know speak English fluently. Michael Wong (the world's most dedicated bad actor), Daniel Wu, Mark Dacascos, Coolio -- these people speak English. But I guess they just weren't that interested in reading the lines and changing them on the fly to something more akin to real English. And so a new and baffling mutant language has been born, with roots that can be traced back to bad English subtitles in old Hong Kong films and the similarly baffling mangling of English that happened when Italian films got dubbed.
At no point is the lack of understanding of the nuances of the English language more evident that when the characters start cursing or talking in slang. Back in the day, I worked at a college bookstore that served as the headquarters for the university's "English as a second language" courses, so everyone had to buy their books from us. One of the titles required for an advanced English class one year was something like, "Speaking Real English," and it was meant to teach students who had learned formalized "language class" English how to speak and understand the real thing as used by real people. And I felt so, so sorry for any poor kid from China or Ghana who picked up this book and went to a party a week later spouting off hip, 1990s slang like, "Hey my jive turkey brother, what's rad with you, Holmes," (actual sentence from the book). It was like some horrible joke a bunch of racists played. "If we publish a fucked up book of slang, then Chinese kids will get their asses kicked at parties." Anyway, whenever one of these movies starts to have their characters curse in English, it sounds like something out of that book (and I'm sure my "How to Speak Saucy Japanese" book is just as bad in the other direction). Effectively cursing requires an intimate knowledge of the language. I know people who are offended by cussin' fall back on the tired old, "it's a sign of a limited vocabulary, my jive Holmes street brother," chestnut, but I disagree. Being an effective curser is a sign that you have truly mastered the nuances of a language. I don't mean just blunt "screw you" stuff; I mean the really complex, foul-mouthed poetry. Listen to a cranky old Chinese woman curse out another cranky old Chinese woman who snaked her seat on the subway. That's a stream of misanthropic beauty that rages with the poetic grace, unbridled rage, and stinky pollution of the Yangtse River itself. I could never do that. At best, I can muster a feeble, "Hwai dan" or "ma bi," but that's mostly going to amuse people rather than infuriate them. Hell, I'm not even sure I'm saying it right. I don't speak Chinese fluently, and as a result, I can't curse in Chinese. It's no different for English.
But that never stops these movies from trying. And Boom really tries hard, peppering the dialogue with a steady stream of inappropriately used inappropriate words. throwing English words and sentences into the mix has been common in Hindi cinema for decades, but this is the rare instance where English is the primary language of the film. It's like a bunch of little kids who have just learned some bad words but haven't mastered their proper application, but that doesn't stop them from using them non-stop in the most comically unsuitable fashion. It's also kind of desperate, like when a comic book proves it is mature and adult by having superheroes who say "fuck." Rather than being cool or tough, it just sounds pathetic, like a meek whimper for attention. Look at me! I'm tough! I am! Far from setting the film apart as edgy or international, the foul-mouthed English-heavy dialogue in Boom is the spoken word equivalent of a greasy fat kid with a bowl haircut and "fat guy lisp" showing off his bo staff skills at a comic book convention. I know some of the people in this movie probably know some English (actually, I assume that Amitabh knows everything about everything) but none of them show any skill with it in their acting. Which brings us to the acting. Our three female leads are dreadful. It's almost inconceivable that stars in a major, professional film could be this bad. I mean, I know you people think Tom Cruise is bad, or Paul Walker, or even Paris Hilton. Forget it. This is a whole different level of game. Watching these three idiots try to act is going to make you realize how good those other supposedly bad actors really are.
But these gals have an excuse, right? They're models. They were cast for their looks, not their talent. Even this baffles me, though. Because, as I said to a friend, only in Bollywood could you eschew your usual pool of actresses, cast three supermodels in your movie, and still come up with women who are less attractive that your average Bollywood actress. Come on, man. Bollywood actresses are hot. I don't think there's any other film industry in the world that can boast so many gorgeous, and often genuinely talented, actresses as Bollywood has at its disposal. Bollywood has so many beautiful actresses from which to chose that it almost becomes humdrum. Yes, we know Aishwarya Rai is the most beautiful woman on the planet. We get it. Let's move on (actually, Manisha Koirala is the most beautiful woman in the world, but that's another debate entirely). Given that, why would a casting director even think to look to the throng of wannabe supermodels for their leads? I mean, nothing against these three women, but why go for second-rate looks and acting talent when you have so many better prospects? Maybe every name actress in Bollywood read this script and turned it down. Well, every one of them except Zeenat Aman. Zeenat ruled the 70s, and a good portion of the 80s, starring as a kungfu ass-kicker alongside Amitabh in movies like Don and The Great Gambler, along with being an industry-challenging pioneer who fought for substantial, strong female roles, and even starred in some of the first non-arty Bollywood productions to not feature musical numbers. She was a risk-taker and an ass-kicker, and she looked better than anyone else while she was doing it. In 1989, she retired from filmmaking (though she is credited with an appearance in the 1999 film Bhopal Express, but I have no idea how substantial her role in that film was). Whatever the case, that's more or less a decade and a half of virtual absence from movie screens.
And then, in 2003, someone -- or something -- convinced her that she should make a glorious comeback, and that this movie would be the one. It's sort of like if Hank Aaron came out of retirement in 1982 but did it by playing for the Toledo Mudhens in a game against the Norfolk Tides. Seriously, what the hell? What was it about this movie that suckered Zeenie Baby in? I can only assume that her old buddy Amitabh approached her with piles of cash, keys to a new Aston Martin, and a gun to the head of her firstborn. Nothing less than that could explain her agreeing to appear in this movie. I mean, Amitabh may be the emperor of the universe (a throne vacated upon the death of Testuro Tanba earlier this year), but he's also got a case of the Michael Caines (or the Tetsuro Tanbas). He'll appear in any damn movie. They probably could have gotten him to be in Splatter Farm if they'd asked. Amitabh, especially Amitabh from the late 1990s on, is a seemingly permanent fixture in awful movies, the go-to guy when you want to trick people into thinking there might be some redeeming factor to your movie. So seeing him in Boom was embarrassing, but it certainly wasn't unexpected or out of the ordinary. But Zeenat? She got out of bed for this? Notably, however, in her one brief musical scene (she slinks around a posh office to the tune of Hare Krishna Hare Rama, from the movie of the same name, which also happens to be the one that made her a cinema icon), she manages to be sexier than all three of the vapid young leads combined. Zeenie Baby, you're still tops in my book.
As for Amitabh, the former coolest man in Hindi cinema still looks cool, with his white hair and white suits, but he was apparently bitten at some point by a radioactive Robert DiNiro, giving him the proportional strength and speed for destroying prior respectability as the actual Robert DiNiro. Boom is Amitabh's Bullwinkle. Watching the scenes where he tools around a toy store in one of those novelty kiddie cars, or when he frolics down the beach shouting "Bo!" as an imaginary Bo Derek emerges from the water (played by the actual Bo Derek, in a pointless five-second cameo), and you'll start to wonder why anyone thought this guy was cool. Trust me, he is, and one need only return to the Fertile Crescent that is Don to be reminded of how cool Amitabh is when he's not in a movie as wretched as Boom. Jackie Shroff just sort of mumbles his way through his lines. The only guy really putting any oomph into his role is Javed Jaffrey as Boom Shankar (is that a Young Ones joke?), the shiny-shirt wearing professional hitman who is easily the least professional professional hitman I've ever seen. He bugs out his eyes, barks nonsensical lines, and generally seems to at least be enjoying the time he gets to spend in the company of three supermodels, one of whom (Madhu Sapre) looks sort of like a tired, past-his/her-prime transvestite in many scenes (shallow insult, but frankly, if you are going to try and get by on your looks, then I get to criticize you based on those looks).
Shankar's not even that likable, but he's still the most likable character in the movie. The three leads are nightmares. I can't imagine anyone having the slightest bit of sympathy for them. They're annoying, shallow bitches when the movie begins, and when it ends, they're still annoying, shallow bitches. Every time they open their mouths, the results are shrill and grating. I spent the whole movie wishing that Boom Shankar would just kill all three shrieking harpies, and we could move on to some other movie that was merely "incredibly bad," instead of "nightmarishly atrocious." And the scene where the three girls get in their post-robbery tiff -- that's got to be one of the single worst scenes ever filmed. Oh man. You know, I thought I was going to end up telling you that this movie is so awful, you really should see it. I was wrong. This movie just irritates me. It's sloppy and boring, and nothing makes any sense. The cinematography is ugly and awkward -- scenes that should be well-framed are always a bit off, so that everything looks like it was shot by a first time camera operator with a permanent crick in his neck. The lighting makes everything look grubby. And what's the deal wit the sound recording? Not that I really want to hear it, but come on! If you're going to have dialogue, even idiotic and nonsensical dialogue, at least mix it in a way that it can be heard. All the dialogue sounds like it was recorded with the actors standing across the room from the microphone.
This movie cost a ton and ended up being one of the most expensive films in Bollywood history. I have no idea where that money went. It's certainly not on the screen. The costumes are boring. There's nothing lavish about the production. The sets are dull and plain. I assume that a vast amount of the cash went to convincing Zeenat, Jackie, and Amitabh to show up for it. Otherwise, I have no idea where all that money went. Oh, it's just awful. Everything is awful. The bank robbery? It's the worst. Somehow, we're supposed to be convinced that these girls have been transformed into bad-ass robbers by Boom Shankar, despite all the evidence to the contrary in the movie. And come on, this movie was made in 2003 -- there is absolutely no excuse for having your characters hold their guns sideways. That's so 1999. The bank robbery is also the moment in which the film indulges in its one full musical number, and it's as sloppy and poorly staged as everything else in the movie. I'm starting to lose myself in just how bad this movie really is. Let's come back to the major criticism leveled at this film by many members of the public in India and the Indian film industry: it's dirty. And yes, it does feature the rare on-the-mouth kiss. And yes, there are a lot of poorly-used English curse words. And yes, boom Shankar makes dick jokes. But the girls aren't as hot as the average Bollywood actress, and there's not nearly as much sexual suggestiveness or skin on display as you can get from the average Bollywood masala. If you are going into the film looking for cheap titillation and skin and all that lewd perversion some people seemed to see, you're actually going to be pretty disappointed. Likewise if you are looking for action. The only action scene is the bank robbery, and the action there consist of nothing but three models wobbling in on high heels and yelling "Everybody get the fuck down!" over and over until they finally make a clean getaway via a slow-moving RV. The rest of the movie is just a bunch of people sitting around in an office or a living room, having conversations that don't make any sense. At no point is there a pay-off to any of the tedium. Even the finale is a total bore.
Boom -- it's really just incredibly awful. I like to always try to think up something positive to say about any movie, and with Boom, about the best I can come up with is, "It's only an hour and forty minutes long." That's practically non-existent by Bollywood standards, and even at that brief running time, you're going to be checking the watch and hitting the fast-forward button. I thought, when I began writing this review, that I was going to tell people this movie was so awful that you should see it, but now, you know what? Fuck Boom. See this movie if you need a solid example of how bad a movie can be. I alluded earlier to this being sort of the Bollywood equivalent of an Andy Sidaris movie without actual nudity, but that's not being fair to Andy Sidaris. Boom wishes it could be as bad as an Andy Sidaris film, but it's so much worse. Someone watched Boom at some point and must have realized how awful it was, because the movie was quickly retooled to be marketed as a "comedy." This smacks of a preemptive attempt to derail inevitable criticism by hiding behind the aegis of "parody." But it's not parody. It's just a really, really horrible failure of an action film that was ret-conned into being a comedy. But just as it's not a successful action movie, it's also not a funny comedy. It's not anything but a dreadful, boring mess. I can hardly even believe a professionally made movie can be this bad. Labels: Action, Bollywood, Stars: Amitabh Bachchan, Stars: Jackie Shroff, Stars: Zeenat Aman, Year: 2003 posted by Keith at 6:25 PM | 15 Comments Wednesday, November 15, 2006Streets of Fire
1984, United States. Starring Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan, Willem Dafoe, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Richard Lawson, Rick Rossovich, Bill Paxton, Lee Ving, Stoney Jackson, Grand L. Bush, Robert Townsend, Elizabeth Daily, Mykelti Williamson. Directed by Walter Hill. Written by Walter Hill and Larry Gross. Buy it now from Amazon.com
 .Somewhere on the great big globe we call home, Michael Paré is sitting down for lunch. He's glancing around the room as he takes his seat, wondering if anyone in the restaurant recognizes him. One woman, maybe in her mid thirties, glances his way and does a quick puzzled double take, as if she is trying to decide whether or not he might be someone she recognizes. But the memory is a phantom, and a second later she shakes off the feeling and returns to her conversation. As Michael Paré orders a light appetizer from the menu, the door opens, and a lean man of roughly the same age strides up to Michael's table pulls out the chair, and sits down. He, too, glances briefly around the room and thinks, perhaps, he heard someone, maybe that hipster guy sitting with a girl in the corner, say "Wasn't that guy in The Warriors?" But he can't be sure. "How's it going, Michael?" he says to Michael Paré. "All right. How are things for you, Michael?" Paré returns, for his lunch partner is Michael Beck. The two Michaels. Way cooler and more obscure than making obvious, played out jokes about the two Coreys. Michael Beck and Michael Paré -- these two guys were both pegged at the beginning of their respective careers as the next big thing. Both sported a brooding, introspective air of mystery and toughness much like James Dean. Both were good looking, but not too good looking. And they were both pretty good actors when they inhabited a certain type of character. Beck swaggered into national consciousness in 1978, clad in a leather vest and bopping his way through one gang after another as he tried to lead his Warriors back to their home turf at Coney Island. A few years later, in 1984, Michael Paré burst onto the scene in similar fashion as the mysterious 50s rocker Eddie, who may or may not have faked his own death to escape the harsh lights of fame.
Both men turned heads, and critics were thinking that these were the guys who would be ruling the 1980s. And for a while, it looked like that just might be the case. Beck was quickly cast in a couple of big-budget starring vehicles. Unfortunately, those movies were Megaforce and Xanadu, and before Beck's star had even ascended, those monumental flops sent it crashing back down to earth. Michael Paré went from Eddie and the Cruisers straight into a couple big-budget disasters of his own: the acceptable but unspectacular sci-fi time travel film The Philadelphia Experiment and the impossible to categorize subject f this review, 1984's Streets of Fire, or as it's known by it's full title: Streets of Fire: A Rock and Roll Fable. Both films have a lot in common in that they present a highly stylized, almost fairytale like vision of an urban fantasy world. Both feature outlandish gangs with only the most tenuous reflection of anything a real gang might be like. Beck's Swan and Paré's Tom Cody are both very similar men. Both men, as well as the bulk of the other characters in each film, were more symbols than they were individuals. Both movies featured a lot of violence. And perhaps not coincidentally, both Streets of Fire and The Warriors were directed by Walter Hill. It was the end right at the beginning for both men, though, through no real fault of their own. Plenty of guys had survived bad or misunderstood movies and gone on to rule the roost regardless. But not the Michaels. For some reason, their bombs were like so many anchors lashed about their necks, and they pulled the men down into the shadowy nether regions of the movie making world and cleared the way for Arnold and Sly Stallone, who somehow managed to stay superstars despite Raw Deal and Over the Top. Beck found himself toiling in the Italian action exploitation market before settling in to a steady but uninspired career playing one-off characters on television shows. Paré followed suit and ended up in the domestic direct-to-video action and sci-fi film market. Both men were all but forgotten by the people who once heralded them as the next big thing. Well, not entirely. Both Michaels would have the last laugh, in a way. The Warriors proved to be an enduring cult phenomenon, culminating in a massive explosion of popularity around 2003-2006 which saw special edition DVDs, video games, and ugly action figures hit shelves. People who had never heard of the movie were suddenly rallying around it, and on all the promotional materials, there was the visage of Michael Beck, looking proud and defiant and kind of irritated. Michael Paré, on the other hand, became one of the biggest cult stars in Japan. His popularity continues to this day, and Streets of Fire is one of the most influential films for a huge number of modern Japanese film makers, especially those working within the realm of anime. But we'll come to that in due time. Back in 1984, I saw Streets of Fire in the theater. There was no particular reason we went to see it; we were just looking for a movie, and it happened to be playing at the right time of day. I remember my reaction was that I had no real reaction. I neither liked nor hated the film, was neither bored nor excited by it. It was all just sort of weird, and a couple days later, all I could remember about the movie was some ugly guy in overalls that looked like they were made of trash bags. Oh, and some guys in grey Commodores-style suits singing about moving sidewalks Beyond that, the movie was a vast blank in my memory, and although I told people the movie was all right, I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was about. And so Streets of Fire passed from my conscience in much the same way it passed from the collective conscience of America as a whole. In general, people seemed to have tepidly complimentary things to say about the movie, but the general public couldn't really make heads or tails of the thing. Before long, it was almost entirely forgotten. And so it stayed for me for some twenty-two or so years. But starting in 2006, the name began popping up again, partially because I started listening to some podcasts about anime, and mentioning Streets of Fire was a running joke among many of them. Then I ran across the DVD and decided it was high time I got reacquainted with the movie. But from what I could remember, which was very little indeed, Streets of Fire was not a movie to be studied in the solitary confines of one's den, a glass of fine vino nobile di Montepulciano sitting within easy reach. No, this was a different sort of movie. So I invited over friends from Krel Studios and the Ninja Consultant podcast and ordered a sixty-four count of mixed hot and BBQ wings, baked beans, and dinner rolls. The remains of my "Adirondack Trail Mix" of beers from New York state microbrewery Saranac was close at hand, and The Ninja Consultants donated a bottle of Suntory shochu to the cause (which I managed to drink half of, apparently). This, I felt, was the only good and proper way to watch Streets of Fire.
The movie wastes absolutely no time letting you now exactly where you stand. Title cards announce that the film is set in "Another Time, Another Place" which is my favorite time and place. Fist pounding rock 'n' roll spills over the soundtrack, and onto the stage steps a young Diane Lane as Ellen Aim, clad in a sexy red and black dress and bathed in splashed of red and blue neon. The song, "Nowhere Fast," was written by Jim Steinman, who wrote songs for Meatloaf, so you know what to expect. He specializes in anthemic, bombastic, and dangerously catchy songs that seem to exist in some disjointed universe comprised of throwback fifties sensibilities mixed with theatrical seventies/eighties overkill. In short, there was probably no better man in the world at the time to pen the songs for Lane's rocker songstress, because Streets of Fire exists in very much the same alternative universe. The clothes are a mix of fifties styles, only more so. Everything is slightly exaggerated, sort of like what you expect from a fifties themed stage show at an amusement park. The cityscapes are all back alleys and elevated train tracks (Hill scouted locations in Chicago, then recreated them in a more stylized fashion on sets), and no one has ever heard of a car that wasn't a Studebaker. At the same time, however, the fifties style is presented within a very eighties context. Everything is drenched in flashing neon. The stage performances -- and there are several in the film -- boast a slick eighties look. And something about the fifties style seems more like the fifties as interpreted by eighties retro band The Stray Cats. Just as Walter Hill created a fantasy New York for The Warriors, so too doe she created this sort of mythical version of Chicago (though unlike The Warriors, where New York locations are central to the plot, Chicago serves as the stylistic influence for Streets of Fire but is never named as the actual location). And just like the Warriors, this movie wastes absolutely no time in clearly communicating almost every single thing you need to know about the setting. Dealing as it does in broad Americana archetypes and symbols, it only takes this pre-credit sequence to grasp the context of the film. These images -- the elevated train tracks, diners, Poodle skirts, pompadours, leather-clad biker gangs, Studebakers -- are burned into our national psyche, and they are as integral and easily identifiable icons of American mythology as the cowboy. Hill's city is a composite of every image of "the city" that appeared in the noir films of the forties. The population is comprised entirely of poodle-skirted or pompadoured rock 'n' roll fans, cops, street gangs, and smart-aleck bartenders. It always seems like it's nighttime, even during the daytime scenes. Although there are cops around, they don't seem to have much power. Whole neighborhoods are controlled by street gangs, and no one seems to have much problem with a bunch of guys running around with shotguns. It's also a city without racial divides. The Richmond -- as close to a good neighborhood as this movie comes -- seems to exist in a version of the fifties that didn't suffer from segregation (shades of the multi-ethnic street gangs in The Warriors). Since Streets of Fire is all about American symbols and myths, this makes perfect sense since we tend to see all that was cool about the era -- the style, the music, the cars -- without seeing what was bad -- specifically, segregation and a brutal response to a burgeoning civil rights movement. Streets of Fire is the fifties we wish we had -- where Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream was a reality and people weren't divided by race.
As Ellen Aim and the Attackers burn through the opening song, the movie cuts to scenes of an arriving biker gang. Doors are flung open, and the gang stands framed in blinding white light. As the song wraps, the gang storms the stage, kidnap Ellen, and punch Bill Paxton in the face. Would you do anything less than kidnap Diane Lane and punch Bill Paxton in the face? I didn't think so. A riot breaks out. Police cars flip over, windows get smashed, and a dude gets dragged behind a motorcycle. All this before the credits even roll (or flash, as the case may be). How you will react to the entire film can be ascertained by how you react to this pre-credit sequence. If the style immediately strikes you as corny or unbelievable, then you're not going to click with the rest of the film, because like many films and shows of the eighties (I'm thinking primarily of Michael Mann productions here), the style is every bit as important to communicating the plot as the plot itself. Without the style, there would be no story here, at least not one worth watching. Without the look, this would be just another action movie. But the look is there, however, and that elevates it into the realm of a sort of pop-art fantasy film. For me, given my stylistic sensibilities and fondness for fifties rock 'n' roll, I have to say that I think this opening sequence is one of the absolute coolest scenes in any film -- rivaling Hill's previous "coolest intro ever," which was the opening sequence in The Warriors of all the gangs traveling to Van Cortland Park up in The Bronx, accompanied by Barry DeVorzon's utterly bad-ass "Warriors Theme." Structurally and stylistically, the intro of Streets of Fire is almost identical, right down to the important of the opening song and the transition to the credits. The action proper picks up during the credits, as former soldier Tom Cody (Michael Paré) shows up and beats the crap Maurizio Merli style out of a bunch of punks in a diner. Michael Paré's "blue work shirt with the sleeves ripped off" and suspenders look is equal parts goofy and tough, but like everything in this movie, it's taking a style and extending it to right about the point where the illogical extreme begins, though nothing is illogically extreme as Bill Paxton's towering pompadour. Only Ronnie Spector's hair could ever give it a run for its money. Within the first few minutes, we learnt hat Cody has been called back to town by his sister, Reva (Deborah Van Valkenburgh, the chick from The Warriors), to rescue Ellen, who also happens to be his ex-girlfriend. To accomplish this task, Cody enlists the aid of tough girl and fellow ex-soldier McCoy (Amy Madigan), and Ellen's current boyfriend and obnoxious manager, Billy Fish (a wonderfully cast Rick Moranis). And that's it. Hill keeps his plot as lean and quick-moving as a welterweight prize fighter. There's an invigorating simplicity to the events that make up the movie. If it was remade today, the kidnapping of Ellen Aim would have to be part of some giant conspiracy involving corporations and multi-national record companies, and there would be backstabbing and double-crossing and all that other needlessly complex window dressing. Not here, though. Everything is exactly as it appears. Ellen is kidnapped by biker gang The Bombers and their leader, Raven Shaddock (Willem Dafoe, brilliant as always), for no other reason that he wants her. There is no ulterior motive, and their actions are not part of a sinister bigger plot. The bad guys start out and remain bad guys; the good guys start out and remain good guys. In between, shitloads of motorcycles explode.
What I love most about this movie -- and believe me, I absolutely love this movie -- is that every single scene, every single pose, and every single line of dialog, is so expertly staged. It's like a series of themed photographs. Hill is meticulous to the point of obsession with staging and writing Streets of Fire. The dialog is stilted and phony, but in a weird way that is totally believable. It's fifties tough guy slang, but with the rapid-fire panache of the eighties, or maybe of a really good forties film noir. So really, not so much how tough guys talked as it is how we think tough guys talked, playing once again to the concept of American mythology. Hill's rock 'n' roll tough guys stand as tall and symbolic as the cowboys of a John ford western. Every line is a carefully crafted homage to the concept of rock 'n' roll rebel. It's corny in spots, but never unintentionally so -- and even though that stilted corniness may be intentional, it's never ironic or overly wink-wink the way modern films are. Hill never makes the mistake of being self-deprecating, and instead plays the material completely straight, which allows you to smirk at how over-the-top it all is while also having to admit to yourself that, regardless of all that, it's really fuckin' cool. And don't think that it's easy to stitch together a coherent script where every single piece of dialog is a one-liner. The plot of Streets of Fire makes sense, possibly because it trades in American stock characters and iconography, but the dialog also makes sense even though there is never a single actual conversation in the entire film -- and that includes scenes where characters are supposed to be having a conversation. I wouldn't be surprised if Hill created the dialog by harvesting tough guy lines from the films of the forties and fifties and reassembling them here. While you're caught up in the fun and laughter of the ham-fisted dialog, you might lose sight of just how clever and effective it is. People have lost sight of what terms like "satire" mean -- these days, it's applied to pretty much any movie that isn't very good and thus tries to deflect criticism by claiming, "it's bad on purpose! We're goofing on the whole thing." This just doesn't fly with me. A movie like Streets of Fire is a perfect example of what satire should be. Streets of Fire is definitely a satirical look at American tough guys, action films, and rock 'n' roll rebels, but it doesn't let satire get in the way of still being a damn good action film full of tough guys and rock 'n' roll rebels. A movie with such a highly stylized approach to the sets and the dialog demands an equally stylized approach to the acting, and Walter Hill has assembled a cast that executes the job to perfection. Michael Paré oozes world-weary tough guy charm. I can't imagine anyone else in the role. Ditto Willem Dafoe, in what I think might be his first major role (he'd been in a few movies the previous two years, but never in a role this meaty). Clad in black leather and the aforementioned trash bag overalls (it was pointed out to me later that they are probably leather or rubber, but I'm sticking with trash bag) and topped with the most insane ducktail hairdo ever, Dafoe's unique look is exploited to the fullest as he hisses, grins, and glares through the entire film. If Paré is the stoic man of action, then Dafoe is his equal and opposite: the evil, scenery-chewing villain -- and man, is he ever good at it. And those names! It's actually pretty hard to come up with an action hero or villain name that works perfectly without straying into the realm of silliness (just wait until I unleash Rock Slabchest on the world). But Tom Cody? You know exactly what kind of dude he is when you hear that name. Little things like that never really get noticed, but I think it's an incredible stroke of brilliance to come up with a name that is so iconic yet still within the realm of believability. And when you see Michael Paré throw off his jacket and kick ass during the credits, you can't help but nod and go, "Yep, that's a guy named Tom Cody, all right." Same with Raven Shaddock. The name is just weird enough to be cool, but not so weird that you can't imagine some guy actually having the name. And when you see Willem Dafoe in his trash bag overalls, standing in front of the flaming wreckage of a motorcycle and snarling, "I'll be coming for her…and I'll be coming for you, too," you can't help but think the same thing you thought about Tom Cody: yep, that's a guy who would be named Raven Shaddock. Only Stringfellow Hawk and Brock Samson can compete.
As good as Paré and Dafoe are, though, this movie really belongs to the supporting characters. Amy Madigan isn't just a tough chick, she's a tough chick, and once again you can't imagine her being named anything but McCoy. And Rick Moranis? Forget it! Almost everyone knows him as the lovable loser nerd guy, but cast here as a scheming, obnoxious, condescending prick, he is absolutely brilliant. He walks that line where he's just prick enough to be a prick, but not so much a prick that you don't actually like him. As with everything about this movie, Rick Moranis knows exactly how far he can go without crossing the line. I've never seen so many characters that were both completely over-the-top yet imminently believable -- once again, I imagine, because Hill and Streets of Fire play to our archetypal expectations. Moranis may have been at his funniest in Ghostbusters, but I think Streets of Fire remains the best job of acting he's ever done. Even the lesser characters in the movie have been cast with the same degree of attention. As soon as you see them, you know exactly who they are and what they're like. In small parts as the struggling band The Sorels, Stony Jackson, Grand Bush, Mykel Williams and a "mere days before his fame" Robert Townshend look every bit like The Commodores as interpreted by a 1980s sensibility. It helps that each of these actors would go on to careers that may not make them household names, but certainly made them familiar faces to people who watch a lot of movies. It works perfectly for Streets of Fire to have so many people you see and say to yourself, "Yeah, I sort of know that guy." The same goes for Richard Lawson and Rick Rossovich as the cops. You know these guys when you see them, though you might not remember from where. But you have no doubt about them as soon as they step on screen. Bill Paxton also has a small roll as...well, the same guy Bill Paxton always plays. But man, does anyone do that guy better than Bill Paxton? When you need Eddie Deezen, you call Eddie Deezen. And when you need Bill Paxton, Bill Paxton is your man. He's got that shit-eating grin, sneering attitude -- oh, he's just the one character in every movie, but he's just so damn good at it! And his pompadour here is epic. Matching Paxton is Elizabeth Daily, who you might remember from Valley Girl or Pee Wee's Big Adventure. With rare exception, she played pretty much the exact same character in all her movies, too, and she plays that character here, but she's perfect at it. Completely irritating, but not overexposed. She's there just enough for the viewer to cheer when Cody walks in, sees her, and says, "Why are you still here?" You may be wondering why I haven't gotten around to Diane Lane yet. Well, here we go. I've always thought that Diane Lane was (and still is) one of the hottest dames to ever grace a movie screen, and she's never been hotter than she is here. Unfortunately, her character, despite being the impetus for everything that happens, is really just a supporting player. She's good when she's on screen, but her character just isn't good enough to avoid being lost amid the towering symbols that surround her. Although she's not top billed, Amy Madigan is your female lead in this movie. Diane Lane is the Helen of Troy of the story. But she burns up the stage during the musical scenes. Which is as good a segue way as any into talking about the soundtrack, which is as integral to the film as everything else mentioned so far -- obviously, considering the movie is subtitled "A Rock and Roll Fable." The score itself was composed and performed by Ry Cooder, and is exactly the sort of twanging, dirty blues-country-rock hybrid you'd expect from him. It fits perfectly with the on-screen action. Cooder's score is punctuated by several pop songs, including the movie's runaway hit, "I Can Dream About You," by Dan Hartman. Hartman may look like an eighties amalgamation of that guy from A Flock of Seagulls and that guy from simply Red (it's the floppy permed bangs), but his song here is a weirdly effective and catchy embodiment of the overall style of the movie. It's definitely eighties, but there's a throwback undercurrent to it, something that suggests Motown or old Northern Soul -- a suggestion that is increased when the song is placed within the context of the film, being performed by The Sorels in their slim-cut gray suits and Wayfarer sunglasses.
Diane Lane lip synchs a couple Jim Steinman penned theater-rock numbers with vocals by frequent Steinman collaborator Holly Sherwood. Like most of Steinman's songs, "Nowhere Fast" seems like it's comprised of three catchy songs all crammed into one, and while it never became a big hit, it's still pretty good and, as mentioned way back at the beginning of this review, fist perfectly with the tone of the film. And damned if I can get through the song without getting caught up in all the fist-banging bravado. I'm a big proponent of the idea that what's wrong with rock 'n' roll these days is that there aren't enough bombastic anthems about fiery hearts and rain-streaked streets, performed by a hot lead singer banging her fist in the air. The other stand-out performance comes courtesy of a Stray Cats style retro band called The Blasters, who perform two swing-infused rockabilly numbers at Torchy's, the rough and tumble dive bar that serves as the headquarters for The Bombers. It should be pretty evident at this point just how enthusiastic I am about this film. I can't believe I let it sit dormant in the back of my memory for so many years. Besides everything mentioned above, let me just point out quickly that it's awesomely violent. Motorcycles explode, people get thrown through windows, Cody socks Ellen in the jaw, Lee Ving from the old punk band Fear socks Rick Moranis in the jaw, Amy Madigan socks Bill Paxton in the jaw, and Cody and Raven fight each other with those sledgehammer-pick axe things railroad workers and John Henry used to use. While the movie isn't nonstop action, it is fast-paced and plenty action-packed. Hill knows how to make an action film, and he's at the top of his game, here. I'd be remiss, though, if I didn't mention other essential crew members. As this is a movie where every single little part is important to creating the over-all vibe, you can't overlook the contributions of the cinematographer Andrew Laszlo (who worked with Hill on The Warriors and perfectly captures the rain-and-neon soaked fantasy landscape) and editors Jim Coblentz, Freeman A. Davies, and Michael Ripps, who expertly cut the film to keep a high-energy rock 'n' roll beat without becoming overly frenetic or jump-cut addicted the way many modern films are. Like a good rocker, they simply know how to find the rhythm that works. Streets of Fire may have been DOA at the American box office, but something about the movie clicked with audiences in Japan. It was embraced enthusiastically there, perhaps because it plays to the same sort of aforementioned American mythology as westerns, something that appeals to the pop culture impression of America in Japan. The United states and Japan have a complex relationship with each other that isn't unlike, in my opinion, the relationship we have with England (both one-time bitter enemies who have since become close allies). Like England, Japan is both instantly recognizable as something similar to the United States, but also something somewhat exotic. If we're closer and more understanding of England, it's only because we share the same language. For decades, Japan has thrived on American pop culture, just as the States have proven ravenous for many aspects of Japanese pop culture. And both countries have a highly stylized ideal of each other that is based at least as much on fantasy and pop culture perception as it is on reality -- maybe even more so. Which is why a movie like streets of Fire would play so well to a Japanese audience. It is quintessentially American without actually being an accurate reflection of what America is really like. Like westerns, Streets of Fire is pure pulp-pop culture Americana.
Plus, it's coated in a slick veneer of neon signs and cool outfits. The art design of the movie wasted no time in becoming a huge influence on the eighties anime scene in Japan. Many television shows and OAVs drew their look and inspiration from Streets of Fire -- and some went as far as to include animated versions of the film playing in the background of a scene. The opening sequence of and many other scenes from Bubblegum Crisis draws so heavily from Streets of Fire that one enterprising anime fan edited scenes from Bubblegum Crisis to the audio from the Streets of Fire trailer, and the results are amazingly similar. And tell me that the various villains in Fist of the North Star don't owe as much or more to Raven Shaddock as they do to the guys from The Road Warrior. Heck, Megazone 23 is completely blatant about the influence Streets of Fire has over it. And the Streets of Fire influence isn't limited to anime. It seems like every hip Japanese director cites Streets of Fire as an influence on their work. Watch the opening scene in Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive. Isn't it just a more violent distillation of everything that goes on in Streets of Fire? Well, whatever. In this case, the Japanese got it right, because Streets of Fire is one of the coolest movies ever made. The streamlined story and stylized hardboiled antics might cause you to miss just how artfully put-together the package is, but even if you don't spend the entire movie dissecting it, you can do what we did, which was open a few beers, eat a lot of hot wings, and howl with sheer, unbridled joy. There seem to be some quiet rumblings that might point to a revival in interest pertaining to Streets of Fire. If any movie from the eighties deserves to be rediscovered and championed, this is it, because it's rare that a movie is this much fun. And Michael Paré, if you are sitting out there with Michael Beck in some street corner diner beneath the elevated train tracks, wondering if people still remember: hell yeah, we remember. Labels: Action, Director: Walter Hill, Rock and Roll, Stars: Bill Paxton, Stars: Diane Lane, Stars: Michael Pare, Stars: Willem Dafoe, Year: 1984 posted by Keith at 5:34 PM | 12 Comments Friday, June 02, 2006Abhay Release Year: 2001Country: India Starring: Kamal Hassan, Raveena Tandon, Manisha Koirala, Shri Vallabh Vyas, Milind Gunaji, Kitu Gidwani, Anuradha Hasan. Directed by Suresh Krishna. Writer: Kamal Hassan Director: Suresh Krishna Cinematographer: Tirru Producer: Kalaippuli S. Thanu Alternate Titles: Aalavandhan There are, of course, serious and contemplative films from India. There are some modern Indian films that are subdued, intelligent, and thought-provoking. It is highly unlikely we will ever review any of those films. Within the confines of the type of film I'm likely to review from Bollywood (which would be any film that is as silly or fantastical as the films we review from any other country), it's almost redundant to describe them as "somewhat over-the-top." If the average Bollywood film is always over-the-top, then a Bollywood "cult" film -- action, horror, martial arts, or something of that genre nature -- is going to be twice as over-the-top as its more mundane but still over-the-top peers. With me so far? So it is no small claim when I say that, even within the context of over-the-top Bollywood cult films, Abhay manages to be still more over-the-top than the rest of the pack (technically, this is a Tamil rather than Bollywood film, but let's not nitpick at this juncture). I don't know what film classification happens above and beyond over-the-top. Perhaps there isn't one, in which case "Abhay" is destined to become an adjective, a descriptive term for a movie so completely nutso that even over-the-top film shake their head in admiring disbelief.
Abhay first came to my attention when I was flipping through the meager selection of Indian films for rent at the local underground video store. Yes, yes, I know. World of Apu and Langaan and all that. Not what I was looking for. Suddenly, I was greeted by a cover featuring a screaming bald man, covered in tattoos and brandishing a huge knife, flying down the side of a skyscraper. At the top of the box, an employee of this particular video store had slapped a white label then scrawled a simple message in black Sharpie: "Completely Bonkers!!!" I was sold. In my world, there's no greater critical endorsement than "completely bonkers" followed by three exclamation points. It's an even better public relations blurb than when all those punk bands would take out an ad in Maximumrocknroll adorned with fake critical slagging to the effect of "'Filthy and horrible' -- Our Moms." With considerable glee and a jaunty song in my heart (something by Kraftwerk, I believe, probably from the Computer Love years), I trotted up to the counter, paid my rental fee, and rushed home giddy with anticipation. Unfortunately, the disc looked like a team of hyperactive cats had been tap dancing on it. I don't even know what you can do to a DVD to get it as scratched up as this one. Without much optimism for the outcome, I put the disc in my DVD player and confirmed what I feared: this disc wasn't going to play. Putting it in the DVD drive of my computer yielded slightly more encouraging results, but not wanting to watch half the movie only to find it sputtered and died on this player, too, I advanced forward a little bit and confirmed that no matter which player I used, it was either going to not play at all or freeze up around the hour and a half mark.
With great sadness weighing down my heart, I returned the disc the next day, and the store confirmed that they too could not play the disc (though that didn't stop them from putting it back out for rental). I used my free rental credit to rent something uplifting and spiritual (probably something where Paul Naschy turns into a werewolf), then returned to my humble hovel to seek out my own personal copy of Abhay. Heck, Indian DVDs only cost a few bucks anyway, so it wasn't like I was taking a huge gamble. The tiny bits and pieces I'd seen as I tested the rental disc seemed to support the notion that I wouldn't be disappointed by owning my own copy. A couple days and $8.99 later, I was filled with a sense of euphoria once more as the package showed up from India Weekly, this times sans thousands of gashes and scratches on the surface of the disc. Imagine my shock and woe, then, when after an hour and half of absolute joy, the disc sputtered and died in the exact same spot as the rental disc. "What sorcery be this???" I exclaimed incredulously. How could such a thing be? A little research on the internet soon turned up the answer: The disc, released by a company called DEI, was defective. Or rather, most of them were. The vast majority of people who bought the disc found that it died at exactly the same spot as my rental and purchased copy. Despite the fact that Abhay, from the half of it I saw, is prime material for release in the United States, no domestic company had snatched it up, presumably because they were saving their money for more movies about heroic cricket players. Thus, it was looking like there might be no way of ever seeing the second half of the movie short of buying a hundred Abhay discs and hoping one of them would turn out to be playable.
Oh, misery! I cried out to the heavens! Why have the Gods forsaken me? Why does the cruel, cold universe not want me to see Abhay? Dismayed at this disheartening turn of events, and reconciled with the fact that I would perhaps never get to finish a movie that freezes up right when the main character turns into a cartoon and starts spinning a slutty pop star round and round on his big Jim Bowie knife, I curled up with a bottle of rum and watched Odin instead, but its salve did little to assuage the pain. Some days later, the sun dared peek once more through the grey lining of clouds obscuring my horizons. Tease me not! I cried out to the sun, for twice now he had let the warming rays of Abhay fall 'pon my face only to snatch them away at the last second. Or more specifically, around the 5,400th second. On this day, a haggard man wandered out of the desert and, in between ingesting peyote and disappearing inside a sweat lodge covered in old cowhide, he said to me, "Why don't you just buy the Tamil DVD? It's the same movie, only in a different language you can't speak." Anxious yet dubious, I cashed in my defective DVD credit with India Weekly and ordered the Tamil release of the DVD, which goes under the name Aalavandhan. And lo the clouds did part and angels blew 'pon trumpets of gold, for I was finally able to watch the entire movie without the specter of a defective disc throwing ice cold water down my back when I least expected it.
But even then, there was a single tear rolling down my cheek. For although the disc worked and I had finally managed to watch this movie, I noticed that the non-defective disc was a slightly censored version that had been trimmed of several moments that were present on the watchable parts of the defective disc. Once more I threw my arms toward the heavens 'pon high and bellowed with frustration and rage as the heartless Fates looked down from above and laughed at me as they pelted my face with cold, cold rain -- but nary so cold as the coldness of their hearts. I don't usually go into a review of a particular DVD or aspects of that DVD, focusing instead on the film itself as something independent from its presentation on a disc. In this case, however, I feel like I should preface the proper review with some quick notes about the differences between the disc you can watch and the disc you probably can't (a few copies play fine, some play fine for a while but suffer severe "rot" and become unplayable a couple months later, and most like mine are simply defective right out of the box), if for no other reason than I seem to have spent so much time trying to get a playable copy of the damn thing.
The first notable difference is in the spoken language, though it you speak neither Hindi nor Tamil this is going to be of minor concern. Given the multi-lingual make-up of India, either language could be considered the "correct" language. It's a Tamil film, but the Hindi audio track is just as authentic. The difference is in the English that appears throughout the film, which is slightly better in the defective DEI/Hindi version than on the non-defective Tamil version. The English subtitles are also better on the DEI version, both grammatically and aesthetically. But these are pretty minor quibbles with which one could live, especially considering the fact that the whole "disc will self-destruct at the 90 minute mark" thing overrides benefits like "subtitles marginally better." It's the trimming on the Tamil disc that really steams my monkeys. There are several scenes of drug use that are central to the plot but edited out of the Tamil version. It fouls up one's comprehension of what's going on in a film that is already pretty bizarre. The notable edits come when title character Abhay (called Nandu in the Tamil version) seeks medication from a drug dealer and is instead shot up with heroin (leading to the film's lengthy, highly entertaining freak-out and hallucination sequence) and when slutty pop star Sharmilee gets him all coked up. In both instances, the actual use of the drug is excised from the film, causing it to jump abruptly. It’s not like you couldn't figure it out, but it's still really irritating. There's also a point in the Abhay-Sharmilee sequence where Abhay discovers he has been given a container of Ecstasy and offers it to Sharmilee. This too has been cut, along with a few lines of dialogue associated with the exchange. These seem like small cuts, but each moment is crucial to explaining what happens next. Without them, the film suffers and seems poorly edited rather than just poorly censored (similar to how criticism of jarring edits in John Woo's Bullet in the Head are, in fact, short-comings of random cutting aftr the fact to fit the film onto one laser disc, rather than deficiencies in Woo's original editing, which is quite fluid and smooth and doesn't do things like randomly jump to a car-chase and shoot-out at the end without explaining what the heck happened to get us to that point). If there are additional cuts beyond these, I can't say since this is where the DEI disc stops playing.
So there you have the frustrating circumstances. You can either have the uncut movie on a disc that won't play, or you can have a disc that will play but contains a censored version of the film. I'm thinking of cobbling together my own version comprised of the first 90 minutes of the Hindi disc and the last 90 of the Tamil disc, but then that sort of seems silly since I have them both lying around anyway. I'd like to see DEI either repress and re-release the film or just have a US company pick it up and distribute the uncut version. Until then, unfortunately, the trimmed Tamil version is the best we have. Which is a shame, really. Silly technical hitches like that shouldn't mar what is an otherwise completely mind-blowing, thoroughly bonkers, and immensely enjoyable mind trip of a film that manages, as I said earlier, to be even more crazy and insane than the usual crazy and insane films India has to offer. Kamal Hassan stars as heroic moustachio'd Vijay (always with the heroic Vijays, aren't they), commander of a crack squadron of commandos who specialize in combatting terrorism. More important to the story, however, is that Vijay is about to marry gorgeous newscaster Tejaswini (Raveena Tandon, of Ziddi infamy). On this joyous occasion, Vijay decided he should visit his psychotic brother, Abhay (Nandu in the Tamil version) in the mental asylum and tell him the good news. I'm not sure what sort of reaction Vijay was expecting from the gibbering, bald nutcase (also played by Kamal Hassan, thanks to cinematic and shaving magic) who murdered their stepmother when he was twelve years old, but Abhay doesn't take the news too well. In fact, he immediately proclaims Tejaswini to be a man-eating succubus who must have her throat slit in order to save Vijay. All things considered, Vijay decides against inviting Abhay to the wedding, obviously afraid of what sort of Best Man speech the guy would make. Abhay is obsessed though, and he soon orchestrates his escape from the asylum and begins a completely bizarre and violent quest to track down and murder Tejaswini.
Director Suresh Krishna and writer/star Kamal Hassan set lofty goals for themselves. Abhay was to concentrate heavily on the world as perceived through the eyes of its titular drug-addled psychopath, which means that there are ample opportunities to ratchet up the weirdness. To realize Abhay's hallucinations and insanity, as well as facilitating Hassan playing dual roles without relying on age-old split-screen trickery that can give us so many Amitabh Bachchans in a single film, they tapped the visual effects wizardry of Das Chinmay, Sylvan Dieckmann, and George Merkert -- who between them have logged major special effects work on big-budget Hollywood films like Serenity, Superman Returns, Poseidon, Starship Troopers, The Ghost and the Darkness, and Total Recall. Regardless of what you may think of those movies, there's no denying that Hassan and Suresh Krishna were calling in some visual effects big guns, putting forth a vision that far exceeded anything ever attempted in Indian cinema, where effects work is often crude. The result made Abhay one of -- if not the -- most expensive Indian movie of all time. A huge amount of hype surrounded the film and the many special effects it would boast. Expectations were sky-high, and Abhay was poised to be the biggest release of 2001. And it might have been, if many people had bothered to see it. Apparently, to be a big release, people have to actually show up for your release. Instead, and for a variety of reasons at which analysts can only guess, audiences shied away from the film, and it wasn't long before the biggest film in Indian history became one of the biggest flops in Indian history. Like Megaforce, except that the effects are better, the movie is actually good, and Kamal Hassan never kisses his own thumb and thrusts it lovingly toward the camera. Still, box office failure and critical and audience puzzlement at just what the hell Hassan was trying to do doesn't mean the film isn't spectacular, especially from the viewpoint of a cult film fan. It packs in a ton of breakneck action, some quality acting, and some absolutely inspired freak-out scenes. In particular, viewers go along with Abhay on a protracted heroin binge that is realized on screen by everything from a seven-foot-tall Ronald McDonald wise man to Abhay turning into a cartoon character so he can engage in a bone-jarring kungfu fight with a animated version of Tejaswini. It's absolute delirium, and for the most part the film manages to keep the frantic pace. Only once, during a lengthy flashback detailing the events that lead up to Abhay murdering their mother-in-law, does the film stumble. The flashback is interesting and essential, but far more drawn-out than it needs to be. The highlight of the overlong flashback scene is a prancing, dancing half-naked village idiot who keeps you thinking that the film is going to delve into weird pedeophile territory, though it never does. The guy is just a harmless weirdo. Hassan could have chopped this sequence in half and had an even stronger film. As it is, it serves as a bit of interesting backstory in a sequence that gets tedious, but at least it recovers for a blowout of a finale.
The special effects range from competent to outstanding, and though the film obviously revels in visual flash, it seems for the most part to be justified by the plot. And even when it's just indulgence, it's still pretty fun. The bulk of the effects are up to the standards of Hollywood productions of the time (2001), and they set a new benchmark for the quality of effects work in Indian films in much the same way Star Wars did in the United States and Zu Warriors did in Hong Kong. The animated sequences are also a real treat, though the animated versions of Raveena and Manisha koirala aren't nearly as sexy as the real things. The martial arts choreography isn't spectacular, but it's still pretty good, and there are a couple stand-out action sequences, such as a car chase that sees Abhay leaping from vehicle to vehicle and the final showdown between the two brothers, that really make Abhay a stand-out action film as well as a screwed-up acid trip of a movie. Highlighting the action is the fact that the cast performs quite solidly. Top Tamil star Kamal Hassan is wonderful in his dual role, creating two chracters so individualistic and unique that you never once even realize you're watching the same actor in dual roles. Vijay is stable, caring, but determined to protect his bride form his brother. Abhay is a scenery-chewing madman with a tendency to turn into a cartoon. Hassan is hardly a typical matinee idol. He lacks the rock-hard abs and sculpted male model body that so often passes for "tough guy" in the movies. Anyone who's been in a scrap knows that most of these preening pretty boys are useless in a pinch. What you want is a guy like Kamal Hassan, boasting the same sort of body Joe Don Baker had in the 1970s. Yeah, sure, he ain't got a six-pack. There's a bit of a spare tire around the waist. But you never have any doubt in your mind that this guy could kick your ass while downing half a dozen beers without spilling a drop. He's not buff, but he'ssolid, and you know he's tough. That he's an engaging performer only sweetens the deal.
Raveena has little to do other than be occasionally stalked and menaced by Abhay while she looks ravishing, but one of my favorite actresses, Manisha Koirala (Dil Se, Company) has a hilariously grotesque part as a sleazy, sex-crazed, cokehead popstar who tries to bed Abhay before ending up on the bad end of one of his drug-induced hallucinations. She appears in a weird musical number, then shows up for the hotel scene, which she plays out almost entirely in English. I love Manisha. Love her to death, but man, acting in English is not what you might call one of her strong points. I have no idea what she thought she was doing. Bad as it is, though, it's still pretty entertaining (and not as bad as all the English-language acting in the Hong Kong film Gen-Y Cops). Kitu Gidwani appears in flashbacks as the manipulative mother-in-law, while Anuradha Hasan plays the saintly real mother of Abhay and Vijay, who appears frequently to Abhay as a sort of ghostly Ben Kenobi hallucination. The music is a non-entity most of the time. There are a couple run-of-the-mill numbers that simply wash over you and are rapidly forgotten. The only musical scenes that matter or are in any way memorable are Abhay's hallucination about dancing with Sharmilee, and then Sharmilee's utterly bizarre African-themed stage performance. The background score is...well, I don't remember a thing about it, honestly. I don't suspect audiences were coming (or not coming) to Abhay for the music.
Hassan's script wastes no time, and even at three hours, he keeps the film skipping effortlessly from one crazy moment to the next. Hassan has a reputation as one of Indian cinema's bolder and more unconventional risk-takers (placing him in the company of men like Ram Gopal Varma), and Abhay was certainly a risky movie. It's equal parts psychological horror, Hong Kong action film, fantasy effects film, and musical comedy -- even Indian audiences accustomed to seeing every genre imaginable crammed into a single film didn't really know what to make of Abhay's gloriously madcap combination of ingredients. Although it's a financial failure, as a piece of mind-blowing phantasmagorical entertainment, you'd be hard-pressed to find a film more enthusiastic and strange than Hassan's big-budget ode to schizophrenic kungfu insanity. It's a bit bloated, definitely way over-the-top, wildly imaginative, and as a result, an absolute joy to watch -- if you get to watch it at all. Labels: Action, Bollywood, Stars: Kamal Hassan, Stars: Manisha Koirala, Year: 2001 posted by Keith at 4:33 PM | 4 Comments Tuesday, March 14, 2006Oldboy Release Year: 2003Country: South Korea Starring: Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yu, Hye-jeong Kang, Dae-han Ji, Dal-su Oh, Byeong-ok Kim, Seung-Shin Lee, Jin-seo Yun, Dae-yeon Lee, Kwang-rok Oh, Tae-kyung Oh, Yeon-suk Ahn, Il-han Oo. Writer: Jo-yun Hwang and Chun-hyeong Lim Director: Chan-wook Park Cinematographer: Jeong-hun Jeong Music: Yeong-wook Jo Producer: Seung-yong Lim Availability: Buy it from Amazon  2003, South Korea. Starring Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yu, Hye-jeong Kang, Dae-han Ji, Dal-su Oh. Directed by Chan-wook Park. Written by Jo-yun Hwang, Chun-hyeong Lim. Purchase from Amazon.com .Mainstream Korean films seem dedicated to one goal above all others: to be more Hollywood than Hollywood. To be bigger, faster, more technically accomplished, more slickly produced. There is little on display in most big Korean films that isn't complete cliche, very little that could be considered in any way original. On the surface, that may sound like a criticism. But what Korean films do with genre convention and cliche, much of the time, is execute it with such astounding panache and skill that it's still remarkable despite the lack of originality. Every cliche is executed as it should be, with absolute precision and skill. Take Shiri, for instance, the film that really sparked interest in Korean cinema over here in the United States (well, that and Yongary). Shiri is a pat and predictable film from beginning to end. Nothing in it is unexpected, and no genre requirement goes unfilled. But damn, it just executes those cliches so well! Oldboy comes to the west with a considerable amount of fanfare, having garnered awards at Cannes, as if such awards mean anything at all these days. I think at some point, every single film ever made will have won some sort of an award. Suffice it to say, there hasn't been a Korean film with this much stateside buzz surrounding it since Shiri and My Sassy Gal stormed the scene a couple years ago. And once again, what we have on our hands is a very cliche film in which everything that needs to happen does, but is presented so expertly that the end result is a hugely entertaining foray into an increasingly twisted tale of revenge. If Shiri was the Korean film industry doing the Hollywood action film several magnitudes better and more violent, then Oldboy is the same industry's response to the popularity of the genre-bending master of the sicko revenge film, Takashi Miike. Drunken oaf Oh Dae-su (Shiri's Choi Min-sik) is bailed out of jail one night by a friend. On the way home to see his little daughter and wife after his night of carousing and doubtlessly drinking a lot of Hienekin and wrapping his tie around his head, Dae-su simply vanishes. He wakes up in a fortified hotel room, with absolutely no idea where he is, why he's there, or who is doing this to him. He is there for fifteen years until one day, the very same day he has finally completed a tunnel to the outside through his wall, he is given a new set of clothes and a fat wad of cash and simply released without any explanation whatsoever. Completely lost as to what has just happened to him, he vows to track down the people who did this to him and extract some answers by any means necessary. It's a lean but exceptional premise for a film, indeed something that would seem right at home in a Miike or Hitchcock film, or even a Raymond Chandler novel. Oldboy possesses the same kind of quirky lack of balance that inhabits those works. It isn't long before Dae-su has managed to trace his way back to the hotel prison, and it doesn't even take that long to go fromt here to the person who paid to have him imprisoned. Oldboy's central mystery isn't who, but why. Dae-su must find out why he was imprisoned, first because the need to know is burning him up, and later because a sushi chef with whom he has struck up an awkward romantic relationship is placed under threat of death. Slowly, however, the film shifts focus even from that quest and we discover that Dae-su's revenge against his captors is secondary to the complicated revenge plot that has been hatched against him for reasons he can't understand. As he progresses from one clue, one fractured memory to the next, the revelations create an increasingly twisted and sick picture of what's happening.
Oldboy draws its strength primarily from the atmosphere. The slick direction by Chan-wook Park (JSA, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) not only result sin a gorgeous, colorful film, but it greatly augments the feeling of bewilderment and anger engulfing Dae-su. The slow move from a simple tale of revenge into territory that is truly bizarre is perfectly accomplished, once again illustrating that the best way to unsettle someone is to take a very familiar world and subtly, slowly warp it into something alien and grotesque. Oldboy does this so well that you hardly even notice that the film is getting increasingly sicker with each fragment of a clue that is recovered. Although Miike would seem to me to be the obvious inspiration for this type of film, Park's steady approach resists the gory excesses and lack of focus that identify Miike's films, which is why I feel it's apt to say Oldboy falls somewhere between Miike and Hitchock, or a particularly surreal old hardboiled detective novel. The web of ever-more perverse characters and realizations wouldn't be entirely out of place in a Raymond Chandler novel, populated as they were by pornographers, drunks, lecherous scumbags, and decadent California aristocracy. When the final pieces of Dae-su's torture snap into place, it isn't entirely unexpected -- I'd guessed what the revelation would be already -- but it's unsettling and effective regardless. Although there is action in the film, it's hardly an action film. Having nothing better to do while locked in a hotel room for fifteen years, Dae-su decides to get into shape. One of the central elements to the overarching themes of the film is the transformation that takes place in Dae-su. When we first meet him, he's not necessarily a bad guy. He's just a useless chump. As wrong as what happens to him is, it's never the less responsible for transforming him into an entirely different type of person: physically fit, focused, determined. At the same time, we get the sense that this transformation has been engineered for him specifically so that he'll have so much more to lose when the hammer falls. His sudden explosion from being more or less entombed alive to being free means that every emotion, every feeling, every event is possessed of much greater power than would otherwise be. One of the first things he does upon obtaining his freedom is go to a sushi bar and order something, anything that is alive. So although this is a character study more than an action film, the nature of Dae-su's heightened awareness of everything around him means that he's going to explode into fits of rage from time to time, especially when someone is standing in the way of him obtaining the next level of truth. There are a few fight scenes, and a couple particularly sadistic torture scenes that don't quite plumb the gratuitous depths of Takashi Miike at his most insane but are never the less grueling to behold. But, as with the series of increasingly twisted revelations, none of the violence seems out of place. The man has been locked up for fifteen years, after all, in solitary confinement, with no explanation as to why. He's bound to be a little frazzled, and within the context of his character, everything he does makes sense. Still, dental work performed by hammer is pretty intense. When the hammer does fall, it's precisely because Dae-su is now focused and driven that he gets deeper and deeper into the secrets that lie behind his imprisonment and, consequently, the revelations that will conspire to destroy his present. These revelations never come across as contrived or happening simply because something needs to happen to propel the script along to its climax. The screenplay by Jo-yun Hwang and Chun-hyeong Lim is perfectly paced and presents each layer as an organic and entirely believable outgrowth of the previous, even during the end when things begin to get exceptionally complex and a little far-fetched. Within the confines of the film's internal logic, however, they make perfect sense and remain solidly believable. The film is peppered with bits and pieces of comedy, but it never dominates the situation, and the film remains for the most part, tensely paced and hauntingly grim. It's obvious almost from the beginning that no good is going to come of anything that happens in the film, and Dae-su is a sympathetic enough character that the knowledge that this is all going to end badly for him keeps you involved in the story. The villain of the piece, Woo-jin Lee (Ji-tae Yu) is acceptably freaky, but the film relies largely on the talents of Hye-jeong Kang as cute, beleaguered sushi chef Mi-do, who finds herself thrust into Dae-su's life seemingly at random, though the viewer knows it's very unlikely that anything happening to Dae-su is happening at random. Her career is really only just beginning, but she turns in a strong performance here, matching up very well with the far more experienced and accomplished Min-sik Choi. You know bad things are probably going to happen to her as well, and you really just don't want them to. All in all, quite a nerve-wracking though enjoyable film. I really like Park's direction in this movie. It's slick without indulging into overkill. The color palette goes for the over-saturated, ultra-rich look that is enjoying increasing popularity, a welcome change for me from all the washed-out or blue/yellow tinted films we've been suffering through the past few years. It works to make the very normal world around Dae-su seem not quite right, as if there is something off-kilter and sinister and somewhat fairytale-like about it, albeit one of those fairytales where everyone ends up cooked by witches or eaten by trolls. After watching a string of really awful Korean sci-fi films that looked beautiful but were almost impossible to watch (Yesterday and Natural City), it was nice to see another Korean film that doesn't skimp on cutting edge production but also remembers to wrap it around a compelling, intensely tragic, and haunting movie. Labels: Action, Country: Korea, Netflix Diary, Year: 2003 posted by Keith at 11:28 PM | 1 Comments Monday, February 20, 2006Asambhav
2004, India. Starring Arjun Rampal, Priyanka Chopra, Naseeruddin Shah, Sharat Saxena, Milind Gunaji, Mohan Agashe, Mukesh Rishi, Tej Sapru, Chetan Hansraj, Tom Alter, Arif Zakaria. Directed by Rajiv Rai.
Here at Teleport City, we are not exactly what you would call experts on Bollywood. In fact, with only a few recent films, a passle of actioners from the seventies starring Amitabh Bachchan, and a couple insane Ramsay Brothers horror films from the eighties under our cinematic belts, we're still more or less neophytes lost amid the swirling colors and opulent song and dance numbers. But that doesn't mean we haven't done our theoretical research, read up on the subject, marveled at the number of academic books that have been written in English on the Indian film industry, and gasped at how few non-academic, popular entertainment books have been written about a cinema that considers popular appeal so vastly important. In short, we've done some homework, but we're not yet at the stage where we cease to be dazzled by the simple display of vibrant color, overblown spectacle, and writhing, scantily clad Bollywood beauties. Originally, the term Bollywood referred to a very specific, albeit large, category of film, that being commercial pop movies made in Bombay (Mumbai if you're nasty) and filmed in the Hindi language. The term has lost much of it's original selectiveness, however, and is now often applied to any film from India, be it arthouse or popular, be it filmed in Hindi, Tamil, Bengalese, or what have you. In a weird way, this is almost appropriate. Though India is a vastly diverse country with equally diverse cultures reflected in regional cinema, the overarching goal of the original Bollywood films was to create sort of an "uber-India," where the various cultures and people came together and existed in a quasi-real or completely fantastic India. So it is no big surprise that the term now refers to pretty much anything that comes from the Indian sub-continent. While we may not be seasoned veterans of the Bollywood scene the way we are with old Hong Kong films or the collected works of Bruno Mattei (my goal is to make a Bruno Mattei joke in every single thing I ever write, from this moment on), and while I myself may at least still be swayed toward enjoyment by the bright colors and pageantry of a Bollywood production, that doesn't mean I'm completely blind to a film that takes missteps. Case in point: Rajiv Rai's high-tech terrorist thriller, Asambhav. It's been said that in an effort to appeal to as massive a population as possible, the average Hindi film tries to cram every film genre into a single movie. Asambhav is the rare entry that maintains a relatively narrow thematic focus -- this is an action film, stripped of the romantic comedy and estranged mother that appear in almost every other film, be they action or horror or whatever -- but it makes up for its lack of schizophrenic genre-hopping by trying to cram every single editing and camera trick from the last ten years into one film, and often into one scene, and occasionally into a single shot. The result is a dizzying nightmare of over-direction that turns an otherwise average action film into a complete wreck that could almost amuse you if it wasn't so busy inducing seizures. Arjun Rampal plays Aadit Arya, super-duper Army commando and part-time international spy. When evil Kashmiri Muslims hatch a scheme to kidnap the President of India while he is in Switzerland, it's up to Arya, and for some reason only Arya, to foil the dastardly scheme. You might think that the kidnapping of a country's president would inspire a slightly more forceful reaction and better security, but I guess the security here is orchestrated by the same people who arranged the security for the transport of weapons-grade plutonium in James Glickenhaus' The Soldier. And I also thought the whole evil Pakistani/Kashmiri Muslim thing was played out in Indian cinema a few years ago. Didn't Sonny Deol single-handedly defeat the entire Pakistani army and all radical Muslim terrorists groups simply by staring at them in an intense fashion with a flag waving behind him in slow motion? Years after the fact, however, Rai returns to that seemingly eternal well, though frankly, the whole Kashmiri/Pakistani thing is really little more than window dressing by this point. It doesn't feel like the movie's heart is really into it, not like it was in Border or Maa Tuj Salaam, which if I'm not mistaken, actually had evil Pakistanis twirling their moustaches and relishing the thought of blowing up Indian women and children. Now there was some jingoistic idiocy you could really get behind. Trotting out the evil Pakistanis again, especially during a ceasefire, is sort of like if John Milius had just gotten around to making Red Dawn this year. I mean, it's not like tensions have dissipated, but the timing just seems way off. But it doesn't really matter, because this film really has nothing to do with politics. It is even less informative about Indian-Pakistani-Kashmiri conflicts than the glut of "dastardly Pakistani" films that came out in the late nineties and early part of this decade. I reckon they assume you pretty much got the gist of things at this point, so they throw the Kashmiri terrorists in as a way to get the ball rolling without having to explain motivation. In Switzerland, Arya poses as a reporter and meets the obligatory hot female pop star, Alisha (Priyanka Chopra). Since this is a Bollywood film, we can't have just one plot. So Alisha is the unwitting drug mule for slick Switzerland-based Indian criminal Sam Hans (Naseeruddin Shah, who steals the film, though that's no big feat considering the rest of the cast), who works with her handlers to hide the drugs inside musical instruments. Having Alisha in the movie means that we now have our excuse for gratuitous musical numbers, though in all honesty, they're pretty tame by comparison to many musical numbers. Most of them are just passed off as club performances or video shoots, which is kind of weak even if it is more "realistic." None of the songs are all that catchy, and the choreography is pretty listless. In an effort to add to the realism, we frequently cut from people who do look hot and are able to dance to people who don't and can't. Seeing big hulking gangster henchmen beaming big, goofy smiles and doing that "I can't really dance" dance is pretty funny, though. Eventually, we learn that Sam is involved with the terrorists who kidnap the president, but he's hardly in the scheme for political reasons. And since he's the coolest character in the film, you can also figure that he'll be the one with ulterior motives and depth of character that allow for the obligatory "moment of redemption." There's another subplot that unveils the fact that someone in the Indian Embassy has betrayed their country as well and is in league with the terrorists. Incidentally, the Indian Embassy in Switzerland is apparently staffed by a number of incredibly leggy bombshells in micro-skirts and cleavage-revealing tops. Let's pray they never discover the boxy, ill-fitting pantsuit. Will Arya be able to uncover the truth of this conspiracy? Can Alisha team up with him to escape the grips of her drug-meddling, murderous captors? Will Arya be able to kungfu so many different villains? Naseeruddin Shah seems to be channeling a bit of Gary Oldman crossed with Graham Norton's wardrobe in his portrayal of Sam Hans. He's almost flamboyant, but stops just short of scene-chewing or going needlessly over-the-top, though he does wear lots of lavender silk suits and whatnot. Whatever the case, he turns in a good performance made better by the fact that everyone else is pretty bad. The hitman in the long shiny blue trenchcoat is just silly, and he looks sort of like Benny Urquidez mixed with Christian Slater, but with none of the menace such an abomination would actually exude. Our hero Arya is pretty much a non-entity through most of the film. He shows up from time to time to kungfu the crap out of people, but Arjun Rampal really isn't much of an actor at this point in his career. He looks good, he handles action believably, but his character is thoroughly uninteresting. Villains are always the better and more complex characters, and it takes an actor of tremendous talent or a very good (for the hero) or bad (for the villain) screenwriter to make the hero more interesting than the villain. Compared to Sam Hans, Arya barely even registers. For long stretches of film, you'll forget that he's even in it. As if often the case in an action film from any country, Priyanka Chopra has little more to do besides tag along, get captured, and look hot. She does all these things well, and also handles most of the movie's musical numbers. The one that doesn't involve her is also the only one that isn't set in a club and grounded in some daft semblance of reality. Upon successfully kidnapping the president, the vile terrorist organization retires to their lair of villainy to celebrate with a musical number that involves a very hot, very scantily clad woman singing and dancing with a whole cast of bald gay guys in short shorts, combat boots, and chain mail. It's like these terrorists pack an entire dance troupe of Right Said Fred clones with them. Maybe they should have just unleashed their nightmarish Right Said Fred army on the world. No one would be expecting some Islamic Fundamentalist to stand in front of a camera and broadcast through Al Jazeera that he's "too sexy for this Jihad!" But then, this terrorist organization does have a martial arts hitman in a shiny blue trenchcoat, and a squad that drives around Switzerland in generic "mercenary" fatigues, including a woman in camo booty shorts and a halter top. And you thought the revolution was all chadors and guys with scraggly beards. This is by far the battiest musical number, and as such, the best. Alisha's first and third numbers are OK, but her duet with Arya (again, in a club where they have been urged to sing together) is completely lackluster. To his credit, Arya looks like he can't wait to get the musical number over with so he can go kick someone's ass. There are a couple things this film does differently than the average Bollywood film, and even the average Bollywood action film. Most noticeable is the more or less complete absence of a romantic subplot. Oh sure Alisha and Arya are going to fall in love, but the film spends hardly any time at all on this. There's not even a musical montage of them set against the various famous landmarks of the world. No, they simply meet, and then we assume they're in love because this is a movie and they're the male and female leads. Some Bollywood films would spend a good hour on a romantic comedy subplot, but Asambhav is content to simply take the well-worn path all action films take, and just say, "Look, they fall in love, OK?" Then it's on to some kungfu. There's also precious little comic relief. Arya gets saddled with a comic relief sidekick agent in Switzerland, but his mugging is graciously limited. I mean, it's still never funny when he does get to do his comic relief shtick, but that's the same for action films the world over, and at least this one is quick to shut the guy up. Even with all that, the director must have thought that the real star of the film was the director, because he crams every cheap trick and technique he can into the film. It's like watching distilled essence of 24 mixed with Mission: Impossible, which seems to be this film's main inspiration, especially since "mission asambhav" translates more or less to "mission impossible." Or if that's too good for you, then Mission: Impossible 2. For starters, this film can't go ten seconds without a split screen. Sometimes, it's five or six different frames in one shot. And it's not just in scenes where split screen might heighten the tension or give us an alternate point of view. No, much of the time, it happens when something as mundane as a guy reaching for a tissue is all that's going on. Need to pick up a pencil? Show three different angles, and make sure one of them is in slow motion with thumping techno music in the background. This movie also loves that thing where you start in slow motion, then the action speeds up to super-hyper fast motion for a second, then goes back to slow motion. Once again, this is used at the drop of a hat, often with no meaning at all. Walking down the street? Why not shoot it slow-hyper-slow? And it's not like anyone is walking to a fight or anything. They're just walking down to the mailbox to see if their new issue of India Times has arrived. There's also the tendency to have "ghost images" of a person appear, again for no real reason. Rather than augmenting or working with the action in the movie, all these goofy tricks simply distract you. They muddy the waters. They stink of a first-time music video director getting final edit on a feature film, though Rai is not a first-time director. He's just a bad director, apparently. The one thing I will say in his defense, however, is that as far as I remember, there was not a single instance of "bullet time." And let that be a lesson to all other directors: if bullet time is too tired even for Rajid Rai, who has never seen a stupid editing trick he didn't like, then it's really past its prime. So let bullet time go, people. Let it go. Rajit Rai did, and he replaced it with doing four-thousand split screens in one shot. Or roughly around that number. It's amazing just how crippling over-direction can be. The Bourne Supremacy was an excellent thriller made nearly unwatchable by an awful director who couldn't stop quick-editing and shaking the camera around. Asambhav would not be an especially good film even if it had a good director, but Rajid Rai's relentless over-indulgence really pulls the carpet out from under what was otherwise an unimpressive-but-enjoyable action film. At the same time, I might have been bored if this movie had been competently directed. The sheer insanity exhibited by Rai does, I must admit, turn this film into an absolute disaster, but one that is largely entertaining. I don't like to pull the "so bad it's good" card all that often, but it sort of applies here. You have an average film. It's made awful by an over-indulgent director. But then, it becomes so over-indulgent, so awful, that it comes full circle and manages to be sort of entertaining in a way. It's by no means much of a recommendation, but it's the best I can do. The fight scenes are solid but uninspired. The acting is mostly below-average. The musical numbers are largely unengaging. But you know, the whole thing is such a hideous eyesore that it kept me watching. Plus, Sam Hans was all right. Every single time he shows up on screen, no matter how mundane his appearance, the soundtrack blares with "O Fortuna." And it can't bear to stop the song. They thought it was so cool that even when Sam talks, they keep "O Fortuna" rolling, only at a nearly inaudible level. As soon as Sam pauses, the song volume rockets back up, then back down if he speaks again. So Asambhav really has few redeeming features (Naseeruddin Shah's hamming is the only one I can think of at the moment. Well, that and Priyanka Chopra's midriff, and that crazy-ass hard gay musical number the terrorists put on). It's a crummy action film with awful direction. It's a completely soulless, paint-by-numbers action film that could have been churned out by a computer. It's never thrilling, and the lead male and female character disappear for large swaths of film, and you don't even notice or care because they were pretty boring anyway. This movie is a total bomb, and that didn't stop me from enjoying it for the same reasons that I enjoyed Gymkata and Treasure of the Four Crowns and Pray for Death. That reason: complete, twisted sickness. Don't listen to me, because I'm going to tell you to go ahead and see Asambhav. The near universal chorus of bad reviews this movie received are right, and I am wrong. Don't do it. I told you to watch Zombie 4: After Death, and now I'm telling you to try Asambhav. Why do you even trust me any more? For God's sake, man, that's the road to madness!!! Asambhav -- pretty much the greatest movie ever made. Labels: Action, Bollywood, Espionage, Musicals, Netflix Diary, Stars: Priyanka Chopra, Year: 2004 posted by Keith at 3:46 AM | 3 Comments Friday, September 23, 2005Lethal Force
2001, United States. Starring Frank Prather, Cash Flagg Jr., Patricia Williams, Andrew Hewitt, Patrick Collins. Directed by Alvin Ecarma.
The world of low-to-no budget features is like a vast desert full of saber-wielding whirling dervishes who will capture you, slice your tendons, then stake you down in the sand, leaving you to die of thirst, bake in the heat of the sun, or freeze in the dead of night. Sometimes, however, the whole desert torture thing may actually be slightly more bearable than another frame of someone's homebrewed video concoction. And yet, like the desert, if you spend enough time dwelling within the wasteland, you cannot help but develop a respect - albeit a grudging one at times - for the madmen who inhabit it. After all, you've learned from experience what a harsh environment it can be. Rewarding, yes, but also punishing. Like one of those cigarette-smoking, beret-sporting, World War II French resistance guys with the pencil-thin mustache and goatee, sometimes all you can do is heave a world-weary sigh and mumble, "Well, you disgusting bastard, we meet again," as you toss a bottle of liquor across the room and raise a small glass to bid "salut" to suffering. Exactly why a World War II French resistance fighter would be in the deep desert with a bunch of dervishes is a question best left to History's Mysteries. Point is, as awful as these films can be, once you've lived among them, it's hard to come down hard on any but the very worst and most lazily made of the population. As I've stated numerous times, I think we're pretty fair to these films, and a lot easier on them than most critics would be. We've made some of our own, and now that we've watched so many, it's a simple matter for us to adjust our perception and not judge these films by the same criteria we would judge big budget studio productions, or even low budget studio productions. We may not always be kind, but I do believe we're always fair. I'm always pleased when a small film comes our way that makes the job easy by not requiring us to explain away all the bad points with verbose rambling about the woes of archaic analog video editing equipment and whatnot. Most recently, The Adventures of El Frenetico and Go Girl delighted us to no end by being a shot-on-video film with no budget but plenty of energy and skill behind it that made it a lot of fun. Our winning streak continued when we took a look at Lethal Force, a tremendously well-done action spoof/homage that serves up tons of violence, fighting, wit, and style -- all done in a tongue-in-cheek fashion which, unlike a lot of so-called parodies and tongue-in-cheek films, works well because the attitude is there to augment the film, not cover up the flaws. Pulling source material from black action films, gritty 1970s action, slick 1980s Hong Kong productions, and even Spaghetti Westerns, Lethal Force is the straight-forward tale of a super bad-ass hitman who gets double-crossed by his best friend and spends a lot of time beating the unholy hell out of people, or getting said unholy hell beaten out of himself. Looking like a more attractive version of Don "The Dragon" Wilson, star Cash Flagg Jr. (A tribute to one of the great patron saints of no-budget indy filmmaking, Ray Dennis Steckler, who always billed himself as "Cash Flagg" in his films) kicks, punches, shoots, and grimaces his way through one action piece after another, with nary a moment spent or wasted on exposition. The movie operates on the assumption that you are familiar with the sources and don't need the conventions and cliches explained to you. Flagg plays Savitch, a cold-as-ice, hard-as-steel hitman who will kill anyone for the right price - men, women, kids, nuns, whoever. He's certainly not one of those "heroic bloodshed" type hitmen with a heart of gold. When Savitch's best buddy, a gangster named Jack, finds his wife and son have been kidnapped by crime lord Mal, who looks like a cross between Peter Fonda and wheelchair-bound Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove, he calls upon his gun-toting best friend to lend him a hand. It's a set-up, of course, as Jack is being blackmailed by Mal, who wants Savitch dead in retaliation for the time Savitch once annoyed Mal by hiding in a mailbox and doing that comedy bit where every time Mal put a letter in the box, Savitch popped it back out. Oh yeah, Savitch also shot the guy. In one of the script's funnier spoofs on bad action film writing (I give them the benefit of the doubt), Jack taunts Mal with the line, "You should have died when he killed you!" In an ode to the old manga series Crying Freeman, all of Mal's thugs where sharp black suits and masks, providing us with the first of what will be many dissections of how things that look unspeakably cool in some movies and comic books just look goofy in real life. Being shot with very low (but well-handled) production values, Lethal Force works as sort of an experiment of taking cool, stylish things out of the glitz of well-produced 35mm feature films and recreating them in a way that, because of the video medium, looks far more "realistic." The result is that you get to see just how fruity some ideas are. For instance, the guys in masks. Okay, they look quite cool, but Lethal Force makes you think about them in the context of real life, and then you suddenly realize just how silly it all is to have well-dressed men in opera masks running around modern-day cities doing your killing for you. They're not exactly inconspicuous, and opera masks aren't exactly a boon to things assassins probably need, like ease of breathing and peripheral vision. That's why all those Mafia hitmen to their job while wearing jogging suits instead of getting all spiffed out like the Phantom of the Opera. During a fight between Jack and another one of those bad guys who only exists in action films (the dude with the receding hairline, sharp suit, overcoat, bowtie, and sunglasses - you know the one), we also get to see just how silly over-choreographed kungfu fights are. Sure, they look good in Hong Kong films, but stripped of a little surface polish, and grown men doing backflips in suburban homes and striking cool action poses becomes pretty funny. Try watching a movie like Jet Li's Bodyguard from Beijing, which isn't a very good movie to begin with. There are scenes where Jet Li has to check out a noise or something, so rather than walking over to where he needs to be, he insists on flipping over couches and cartwheeling over coffee tables to get to the other side of the living room. He just looks goofy, and any prospective burglar or killer is probably happy that this guy insists on flying all around the living room like an out of control june bug, thus alerting everyone to his presence. That the movie makes these sort of otherwise cool, stylized action bits seem goofy isn't to say that the action in Lethal Force is poorly choreographed or shot. Quite the contrary. While there are no Jet Li's, and really not even any Mark Dacasco's in the cast, each scene is shot well, highlighting the strengths of each individual cast member while covering up their weaknesses. None of the fights are all that intricate, but they're tightly edited and paced, making them seem a lot more complex than they actually are. From time to time, you notice the relative sluggishness of some of the fighters, but the camera never stays static long enough for you to dwell on it. Some fight scenes opt for cleverness rather than competence, and works out pretty well. For instance, one scene has Savitch surrounded on all sides by mask-wearing thugs. All we see is everyone's feet. We see Savitch's feet leave the ground, followed by fifteen seconds or so of dubbed in impact sounds, then we see Savitch's feet landing again as all his assailants collapse. It's a witty, enjoyable way to work around some short-comings, and much better than approaches I've seen in the past, the worst of which was in the otherwise cool little film Kungfu Rascals. In that one, our heroes are cornered by some bad guys, smile about the ass kicking they're going to do, and then the next scene is them in some inn talking about the ass kicking they just did. You know, sort of like how Rudy Ray Moore and his cronies teleported to Los Angeles in Human Tornado. When Savitch finds out his best friend has sold him out, he shows little sympathy for his former partner in crime, although the movie does take time out for an amusing John Woo style flashback scene (complete with music stolen from A Better Tomorrow!) to all the fun the two had mowing down hundreds of people in "the war." They even spoof the famous "Chow Yun-fat lights his cigarette with a burning counterfeit hundred dollar bill" scene from A Better Tomorrow. The remainder of the film is basically people trying to kill Savitch as he battles his way through kungfu strippers, a giggling woman in a fez, dozens of mask-wearing henchmen, and a tough female ex-cop working undercover to wipe out Savitch, Mal, and any other criminal who gets in her way. Savitch gets thrown down seven stories or so, and staggers off with only minor disorientation. When the bad guys catch him, drive steel blades through his hands, and drill holes in his skull for torture, it pisses him off, and he leaps into action, using the blades upon which his hands are impaled as weapons! The finale sees Savitch challenge Jack's ten year old son to a Sergio Leone-style showdown! Truly, Savitch is a hero for the new age! This movie has a lot going for it. First off, it's well-written. Scripts are always the bane of no-budget video films, and most people mean well but deliver mythically inane scripts. While the dialogue here is minimal and meant to conform to all the expectations of overblown action film prose (you know, from those movies where the bad guys always have to quote Shakespeare and Milton), the lampoon nature of it is handled well, something even most big-budget scriptwriters can't seem to handle. They're idea of clever parody pretty much boils down to, "Wait, what if we spoof that slow-motion time-stopping effect from The Matrix! I bet no one has done that!" Lethal Force showcases a pretty intense knowledge of the world of action cinema, especially from the 1970s (when action cinema was at its best). It's pretty pedestrian to spoof blockbusters, so Lethal Force sticks to far more entertaining (at least to me) spoofs of drive-in, low budget, and foreign action films. Sometimes, they'll throw a forgotten big budget film into the mix. I'm still chuckling about the inclusion in the Lethal Force trailer of a reference to The Man Who Would be King, one of my all-time faves. That they are so familiar with the ins and outs of obscure (in the US, at least) action cinema from across continents and decades means the satire here is a lot smarter than most action satire, not to mention a lot funnier for us fans of the source material. A Matrix spoof may not be funny to me, but I'll crack every time I watch the scene between Savitch and Jack where they stare with great emotion into each other's eyes, and all of a sudden, the A Better Tomorrow harmonica music kicks in. On top of writing that, if not sparkling, at least doesn't make you ashamed for the entire race of man, the movie is tightly put together, avoiding most of the sloppy pitfalls common in these sorts of movies. Most of the time, bad lighting, camerawork, editing, and sound are the direct result of a couple things: lack of experience and lack of money, which also means lack of good equipment. As I've covered in past reviews of homemade films, bad editing runs rampant in them, and while lack of skill at a job as surprisingly difficult as editing is certainly a major contributor, the lack of decent editing equipment has also been a bugbear to the would-be independent filmmaker. Lethal Force is one of the growing number of films to benefit from the drop in cost surrounding newer desktop editing systems. For an initial investment of a couple thousand dollars, tops, you can get yourself a decent video editing system. You'll spend even less if you already have a good computer and a friend from whom you can borrow a copy of Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro. You know, for evaluation purposes. While editing on one of these non-linear systems is by no means a laugh-a-second day at the nude beach, it's a hell of a lot better than the old days, and a film poorly edited on a non-linear system will almost always look better than a film poorly edited in some analog fashion, simply because it's easier to make cuts and arrange things. Granted, if you really suck at editing, a non-linear system can't fix that for you, but it can facilitate you learning the tricks of the trade faster and being able to do them with less frustration and less of the, "Fuck it, we'll just leave it in!" attitude that invariable bubbles to the surface after you and your friend have spent three hours trying to edit something on crappy old analog equipment. Luckily for us viewers, the people behind Lethal Force had access to good equipment and good eyes for editing. Although actors and, to a lesser degree, directors get all the credit for making a film good, all it takes is one badly edited film for you to see just how important a good editor is to the process (to say nothing of a good cinematographer). The only justice for editors rarely getting any credit for making a movie good is found in the fact that a poorly cut film is often blamed on the director as well. So let us not make the same mistake. Good job, Ronald Edwin Hunkler. Bad editing in a homemade movie is usually far worse than bad editing in a bigger budget film. The most common offense is the ol' shot of someone standing around listlessly while they wait for a cue or an effect to occur. I'm also a fan of the one where someone is supposed to interrupt someone else, but when the first person reaches the point at which they're supposed to be interrupted, the second person is a second or two slow with their cue. So you basically end up with someone abruptly halting their sentence for no reason, a second long pause, then the interruption. How often do you stop speaking the very millisecond someone interrupts you, let alone in anticipation a few second or two before? Granted, that has more to do with bad timing on the actors part, but I felt like bring it up anyway. Editing is especially crucial in an action film, and astoundingly important in a martial arts film. Forget the skill of the actors and the choreographer. Editing is what can make or break a kungfu fight regardless of who's involved. As important as it is in a martial arts fight, it's even more important when you're staging a martial arts fight between actors who aren't very good at martial arts. Ching Siu-tung and Yuen Wo-ping may be able to employ thousands of dollars of wire tricks and pulley mechanisms to hoist actors around, but most films have to rely on the editing to pick up the pace when the actors can't. As I said earlier, the editing and camera placement in Lethal Force does a spectacular job of covering the deficiencies in the fights. It keeps things moving fast even when they're actually moving slow, and it makes the fights seem intricate when it's really people doing the most basic of exchanges. Not that everyone is bad, mind you. Star Cash Flagg Jr. is actually quite adept at the kicking of ass, kungfu-style. With some more money and more polished choreography behind the scenes, this guy could shine. He's already more fun to watch than Don Wilson or Olivier Gruner, and with some practice, he could be on par with Mark Dacascos, the best b-movie fighter on the American scene right now. It'll definitely be interesting to see what sort of success he's able to attain in the future. Attached to the well-done (despite their limitations) fights is a staggering amount of violence, much of it quite grisly. Since these guys are pulling off spoofs and drawing influence from Hong Kong's heroic bloodshed to gritty Italian cop films to splatter, there's a truly epic amount of violence on the screen. Some of it's bloody, some of it's brutal, and some, of course, is just plain silly (like when the female cop bites a guy's tongue out and spits it at him). Although not a horror film, Lethal Force certainly has enough gleeful gore to keep the horror-hounds howling. Savitch crushes skulls with his kicks, causing blood to gush out of eyeholes. After he is angered by his own experiences with trepanation and crucifixion, he slashes his way through an army of thugs, resulting in geysers of blood no doubt inspired by the old Lone Wolf and Cub films of the late 1970s. People are shot, crushed, beheaded, tortured, stabbed, and toward the very end there's even some head exploding action that would make Gianetti di Rossi proud. All things considered, Lethal Force, despite the many comedic elements, is one of the most violent action films around. Not to say that's it's gruesome, although you can't really say that a movie featuring trepanation and explosing heads isn't at least a little gruesome. Like Peter Jackson's early work in films such as Bad Taste, the gore and violence is so over-the-top and delirious that it never comes across as hard-hitting or grim. It's purposely undercut by the humor, and it's so insane and exxagerated that you can't really consider it shocking. It's a rolicking good time that just happens to feature crushed skulls and drills to the skull. Speaking of all that, I should also mention that the effects are pretty damn good. I've seen much worse in multi-million dollar productions. The blood flows freely, and not once did the special effects strike me as poorly done. Hey, they even invested in a dummy to throw down seven stories that doesn't do the thing where one of the legs flops backwards. Everything else is top notch, and not just for a film with a very low budget. Having pulled off a lot of good stuff, the movie stumbles predictably when it comes to the quality of acting. To be fair, it's better than you'll see in a lot of bigger, studio-produced action films, and even the most average actor hear could still teach a lot about the craft to Liv Tyler. No one here is going to win an award for their acting, unless that award has been inspired by the collected performances of Michael Wong. Cash Flagg Jr. mumbles all his line in steely-eyed Clint Eastwood fashion, which is okay. Jack sounds not unlike a whiney relative complaining to you about something a co-worker did to him. The female cop and Mal are both competent, though the former does go through some rough deliveries. Then, she also gets to bite a guy's tongue out, so who's complaining? Since everyone is basically a broadly drawn caricature, the acting is secondary to how well they fulfill the various action film stereotypes, and at that they are all aces. As the credits role after a truly twisted and glorious finale involving exploding heads, stolen Ennio Morricone music, and Savitch forcing Jack's ten-year-old son into a shoot-out (even John Woo didn't do that - although he did once make a kid chew the torture stitches out of his own father's eyelids), I'm left with the conclusion that Lethal Force is definitely one of the best, if not the best homebrewed movie I've ever seen. It's cleverly written and brilliantly executed. Because the writer(s) know a lot about the genres they're spoofing, and because they obviously love them, the satire works well rather than being a crutch upon which they can rely if things come out weak. I know the makers of the film have really been pushing it hard, and they deserve whatever good attention they draw. Hopefully, someone will give them some money to make a sequel or redo this one with more lavish production values. It's rare that I enjoy a homemade movie as much as I enjoyed this one. Usually,these types of things are only entertaining to the people who made them, and to weirdos like me who delight in just about anything. Not to be a jerk about it, but Lethal Force truly outclasses the pack by distances unmeasurable. It's hard now to look at a sloppy, poorly-thrown-together mess like any of those Alternative Cinema stinkers (which, although bad, at least compensate for it with high levels of Misty Mundae nudity) or any of the ten thousand crappy horror films and list them as classmates of Lethal Force. They can't even come close. That's not meant as an insult to them - it's meant as another of my many compliments to Lethal Force. In fact, with a buget closer to $20,000 than the $20 I think goes into most of those productions, it's not even fair to compare them. Money can't buy you a good movie though (case in pointL the collected works of Michael Bay), but being willing to spend so much on such a weird, over-the-top wonder is proof that the people behind it were really willing to sacrifice everything to get the movie made. Lethal Force exists closer to the realm of all those direct-to-video action films, and you know what? Even at a fraction of the cost, it still manages to kick their asses without breaking a sweat. With this movie, Ecarma and his crew have set the bar for low-budget movies very high indeed. If any one film can be half as much fun and exhibit half as much skill and cleverness as Lethal Force, then we're in for a gaggle of treats. If not, oh well. I can always watch Lethal Force again Labels: Action, Martial Arts: Kungfu, Microbudget, Year: 2001 posted by Keith at 11:59 AM | 0 Comments Tuesday, October 05, 2004Once Upon a Time in Mexico
2003, United States/England. Starring Antonio Banderas, Johnny Depp, Selma Hayek, Willem Dafoe, Eva Mendes, Micky Rourke, Cheech Marin, Ruben Blades, Danny Trejo. Directed by Robert Rodriguez. Available on DVD from Amazon
Well, if Scream and Scream Again seemed not to make much sense until the very end, and even then only tenuously, here's a movie that fails to make sense from opening to closing credits. Robert Rodriguez' third film in his Mariachi trilogy has the feel of a half-baked concept that was scripted out on a series of dinner napkins on the way to the first day of shooting, and even then half the napkins must have blown out the window. El Mariachi was quite an enjoyable little film that relied on wit and comedy to carry an otherwise heavy story about a mariachi who is mistaken for an assassin who carries the tools of his trade in a guitar case. The bigger-budget follow-up (but at just around $3 million, still miniscule in comparison to the $100 million or more behemoths that were emerging during the 1990s) to the micro-budget sleeper hit was Desperado, replacing star Carlos Gallardo with bigger star Antonio Banderas, then adding bombshell Selma Hayek to the equation along with bigger explosions, bigger arsenals, bigger shoot-outs, and even goofier comedy. Although overblown and perhaps too big budget for its own good, Desperado managed never the less to emerge as an entertaining actioner with more sex appeal and wit than just about any other film in the genre at the time. Which brings us, some eight or nine years later, to the third film. By this point, Rodriguez is not the scrappy young underdog he once was. Though still fiercely independent in his demand to write, produce, edit, direct, and sometimes score and do special effects for all his films, the riches of three Spy Kids films have the maverick Mexican director's coffers overflowing with cash. So he decided to take it and make the third mariachi film even bigger than the second, though once again at $30 million amid $200 million globe-busters. Banderas, sexy as ever, returns once again as the brooding guitar-playing mariachi who decides if he's going to keep getting mistaken for a killer, he might as well become one. But when we meet him here, he has retired and gone into seclusion in a small town with a towering old crumbling church you just know he's going to spend a lot of time posing on top of before he leaves to pursue whatever action will propel the film forward. We learn through a series of flashbacks that his beloved Carolina (Hayek) has born him a lovely daughter, but neither of them is on hand anywhere but in flashbacks, if you get my meaning. As is always the case with legendary gunslingers, the Mariachi is forced back into action once again when screwball CIA agent Sands (Johnny Depp) employs him to stop a renegade general (the same one responsible for the film's low Hayek content) from assassinating the president of Mexico. The plot is simple enough, but there are so many characters and so many odd moments and twists that one can quickly get lost in the labyrinth. Characters and logical plots have never been Rodriguez' strong point, and we see here that they still escape him. It doesn't really matter, however, because as the title of the film suggests, this is his ode to the westerns of Sergio Leone. After revolutionizing the western with his "Man With No Name" trilogy, Leone went on to direct the colossal Once Upon a Time in the West, a film far more interested in the epic myth of the West and in creating godlike statues out of its characters, turning their every appearance into formations as grand as the Monument Valley locations that served as the film's backdrop. Leone was unconcerned with complex characterization or well-sketched story. His characters were Greek gods, archetypes, symbols more than they were humans, and the story was only a skeleton upon which he could hang this grand visual epic. Likewise, Rodriguez' Once Upon a Time in Mexico is more concerned with bold strokes that subtle lines. Like Leone's masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is littered with character actors doing what they do best: playing characters. Where as Leone had Fonda, Bronson, Robards, Claudia Cardinale, and Ferzetti, Rodriguez has Banderas, Depp, Hayek (sort of), Willem Dafoe, Mickey Rourke, Ruben Blades, Eva Mendes, and perhaps my favorite modern character actor of all time, Danny Trejo - also known as the version of Edward James Olmos who looks like he could kick the ass of pretty much anyone in the world. Cheech Marin and Enrique Eglesias round out the cast of very familiar faces playing types rather than actual "human" characters. Blades is the depressed, retired FBI agent whose "one big bust" got away from him. Dafoe is the creepy, posh drug baron, while Rourke is his good ol' boy sidekick looking to get out of the life. Mendes is a sexy Mexican cop with a secret, and Johnny Depp is…well, he's Johnny Depp. What more do you want? Once Upon a Time in Mexico does plenty right, enough to keep me liking the film even when parts of it frustrate or simple lose me altogether. Needless to say, the cast oozes with talent, and putting Depp, Hayek, and Banderas on screen in the same film is just about the sexiest thing any film could ever hope to achieve. Unfortunately, Hayek appears only briefly, but you can't have everything. We men who like to look at the pretty ladies get lots of films to stare at, so it's no shame that an action movies wants to give you a gaggle of hot guys to check out, then puts them all in tight black jeans on the dusty, sun-drenched Mexican landscape. The movie makes plenty of room for hot guys walking in slow motion while carrying guitar cases. I don't know that I'd call Dafoe or Cheech Marin sexy (though some would disagree with me), but Eglesias we all know, and I've always thought that Reuben Blades was much hotter than anyone seemed to give him credit for. And Eva Mendes? Forget it! She may not be the bombshell that Selma Hayek is, but then who is? As for former sex symbol Mickey Rourke, well I think he's supposed to look weird and disturbing here, which for the best. Both he and Dafoe aren't really given enough to do, but when they are on screen they perform as well as audiences have come to expect from them. I've never been a big Rourke fan, but his turn here, although limited, warmed me to him a little, much in the same way I've warmed to the previously unlikable (to me) Alec Baldwin since he stopped being so serious and started having a little fun as a character actor. Maybe age has something to do with it. Rourke seemed really insufferable as a young, sexy lead. But now that his star has faded, along with some of his looks, and he's put on a few pounds, he seems to be a much better actor. The film, not just because of the cast, is gorgeous. Super-saturated with the vibrant reds, yellows, greens, and blues of Mexico, Once Upon a Time in Mexico definitely stands out in a time when people still seem addicted to tinting all their action films blue or brown and draining them almost entirely of any sense of color or visual energy. No more gray-blue or green-yellow films! Rodriguez knows that Mexico is a colorful country, and that the color lends his film strength. To mute it would be like making a dreary monotone-colored film about India. The entire film was shot digital, and if nothing else it's a valuable promo reel for the advances in digital film technology. Where previous directors working in the digital realm relied on an overly "computerized" look, like in those crummy new Star Wars films that have lots of color but still reek of artificiality and drabness, Rodriguez is able to make the medium seem warm and human and, if not as cozy as traditional celluloid, at least close. For a movie that has ten times the budget of the action-packed second film, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is surprisingly low on the action quotient, though when the action does kick in, it's suitably wild and corny. The best scene, besides the repeat of the "what do these guitar cases shoot" joke from Desperado (it was funny then and is still funny now), involves a flashback in which Banderas and Hayek escape from a gang of pursuers while chained together and swinging one another up and down a wall as they repel out a window. The finale, in which a coup attempt takes place during the Day of the Dead festival, is as fantastic as it sounds, especially when Depp shows up in a strange sparkling black vest. Banderas almost seems lost amid so many characters, but he still shines when he gets the chance. It probably won't surprise anyone to hear that Johnny Depp is the most memorable thing about the movie. His character continues his streak of playing completely off-kilter anti-heroes, this time a murderous CIA agent who is as evil as he is heroic, and who also has strange taste in disguises - my favorite being the one where he wears shorts, a fanny pack, and one of those baggy t-shirts that says "CIA" on the front. Rodriguez seems to have pretty much let Depp show up on location and do whatever the hell he wanted, which seems a pretty sound strategy these days. Depp crawls into a quirky character like no one else can, and 2003 was a particularly strong year for him with this and Pirates of the Caribbean. It's one thing to play a quirky character. There are tons of those. Every movie tries to have one, and most of them aren't half as interesting as they hope. It's quite another thing to play a quirky character uniquely, not to mention fabulously, and that's what Depp can do. He thinks of things to do with a character that wouldn't have occurred to anyone else, except maybe Jack Nicholson before he simply started appearing in every film as Jack Nicholson. Although the script is complete chaos, it's still an admirable attempt to inject some brains into an increasingly brain-dead genre. Action films haven't exactly been firing up the sinews lately, and while Once Upon a Time in Mexico isn't a work of genius, it still manages to have something to say, however muddled that something may be. Themes of loss and redemption, common in action films, actually have some weight and meaning, partially because although broadly drawn, Banderas is such a charismatic actor. Like Russell Crowe without the blazing real-life obnoxiousness and chubbiness. The film's political messages are equally broad, but that there is anything political at all is worth cheering for, especially if it ends up with a well-armed Banderas in the ceremonial coat of the president of Mexico. As far as "visual feasts" go, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is one of the films that falls into such a category while still having something a little more going on than pretty pictures. The film's biggest drawback is that, while each individual piece is glorious, they are never assembled into the masterpiece they should be. Although patterned in the spirit of Once Upon a Time in the West, this is not the "mythic epic" that film became. Although individual sequences could be called grand, Rodriguez fails to assemble them into the film they deserve. As such, Once Upon a Time in Mexico feels much smaller and more low-key than it should, a feeling that isn't helped by the uneven pacing that plagues the movie. Parts of the film really seem to stumble, and from time to time it seems as if Rodriguez is aware of this fault and so trots Johnny Depp out again to liven things up. Whenever Depp is on screen, the scene can't help but crackle with his bizarre charm. Banderas should be more engaging here than he is. Although plenty likable, he tends, as I said, to become lost amid the various players and conspiracies swirling about him. It's by no fault of Banderas'. The script simply short-changes him in favor of the more outlandish Depp. I'm as impressed as anyone by Rodriguez' one-man-band approach to film-making and his ongoing proof-by-example that one need not have the crew of thousands to make a movie. Sometimes, though, it seems like maybe he needs to step down and ask for a little assistance with putting his sundry cool scenes together into, if not a cohesive or logical film, at least one that is as cool in its entirety as it is in its pieces. Once you have the basics of the plots sorted out and know who's who, it's best to simply let it all flow over you. Rodriguez makes movies because he loves making movies. He loves everything about it, as evidenced by the fact that he tries to do everything behind the scenes. And what ultimately saves Once Upon a Time in Mexico from being a disaster is the sheer exuberance on display. Every frame is filled with the joy of filmmaking. Robert Rodriguez has fun, and he manages to translate that onto screen even if his film has a lot of bumps. They're the sort of faults that result from a guy being too genuinely excited about what he's doing, and I can forgive those even as I point them out and even as they move the film from "must see" to "see if it it's around.". Once Upon a Time in Mexico pays tribute to old spaghetti westerns and Hong Kong action films without ever seeming to be a retread, and without ever resorting to the self-referential irony that has become the bane of my existence. Ultimately, this means that despite a cluttered and half-conceived script and despite the grim back story, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is something of a celebration. It is, in many ways, the Day of the Dead parade we see in the film's own finale. Never perfect, hardly polished, rarely as engaging as it should be, and at times seeming to collapse under its own weight, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is never the less a welcome, clever piece of popcorn entertainment that benefits from the fact that action films have become so awful that even a slapdash one like this that at least attempts to be something different comes across as a little special. Labels: Action, Netflix Diary, Year: 2003 posted by Keith at 11:55 PM | 0 Comments Wednesday, May 05, 2004Warriors
1979, United States. Starring Michael Beck, James Remar, Dorsey Wright, Brian Tyler, David Harris, Tom McKitterick, Marcelino Sanchez, Terry Michos, Thomas G. Waites, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Roger Hill, David Patrick Kelly, Lynne Thigpen, Ginny Ortiz, Mercedes Ruehl. Directed by Walter Hill. Available on DVD (Amazon).
As you know, I always try and set the stage for you. If you have been keeping up with our ongoing history lessons in the Italian cop film reviews (and you should), you know we've been concentrating a lot on edumacating the people about the social and political climate during the late 1960s and 1970s. We've been doing this partly to try and shed the light of reality on the shady misinformation that is 1970s nostalgia. But mostly, we've just been doing it because a lot of the movies we review are from that era. It was, after all, the Golden Age of exploitation film making. So okay. 1979. New York is a mess. The United States is still trying desperately to pull itself out of the social nosedive that took place as a result of the Vietnam War. Crime is totally out of control in many of the nation's major urban areas. Jimmy Carter is proving to be one the most ineffectual presidents of all time. The gasoline and energy crisis serve to augment his failure to control exploding inflation, expanding poverty, and rampant crime. This is to say nothing of his horrible international policy. No place in America embodies the madness quite like New York. The city was a wreck. A fire in the South Bronx burned for days because the fire department refused to go into the neighborhood to put it out. Those who could afford to lost themselves amid the mindless drug-enduced haze of the disco club scene, content to let society self-destruct around them as long as they could do a little dance, make a little love, and get down while wearing abysmal gold lame pantsuits and funky-ass medallions. Even punk rock was still in it's largely nihilistic, somewhat mindless phase, having not yet rooted itself in he more socially and politically active style of punk that would rise up during the 1980s, thanks in no small part to having targets as massive and glaring as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Ahh yes, where would punk rock be without them? Everything was, in a word, insane. So imagine, if you will, that you are walking home one night. It's late, and you are in a hurry. You know you shouldn't, but you decide to cut across the park to make your walk shorter. You slip from the safe orange glow of street lights into the enveloping shadows of the park. Trees and darkness. You quicken your pace a little, and suddenly realize someone is behind you. Your stomach turns; the bottom seems to drop out. You hurry, take a few turns here and there, and they are still there. Definitely following you. You try to cast a quick glance back without being too obvious. There seem to be five of them. Maybe more hiding in the night. You try to shake them, try to find spots you think might have other people in them. No luck. Finally, you find yourself cornered. They are right behind you, and you must turn to face them. They stand there, silently, clad entirely in baseball uniforms, wielding bats, faces painted up like multi-colored mimes. You realize with horror that you are not just in trouble, you are in The Warriors. The Warriors is a difficult film to figure out. On the one hand, few films have plotted out New York's geography as well and as accurately as this. You have films like Ultimate Warrior starring Yul Brynner where he walks out of the New York Public Library and is down by the Canal Street subway station. I guess if you don't live in New York, it's no big deal, but for those of us who are here it's a source of annoyance and amusement. The Warriors understands New York geography in a way that could only be expressed by a native. No one else can understand how incredibly difficult it can be to get around in this city, how it can take an entire day of trains and walking to get from one end of town to the other, let alone from The Bronx to Coney Island. It's even more impressive when you learn that almost all the underground subway shots (they run above ground in Brooklyn and The Bronx) were done in one spot (72nd street on the West Side). The Warriors turns New York's layout into a character. That's very clever. This movie could only happen in New York. It's similar to what was done in Across 110th Street where the film depicts how incredibly difficult, for both physical and sociological reasons, it can be to simply cross the street into another neighborhood. New York is full of invisible walls. Most of the time, there is no buffer zone. The ritzy upscale neighborhoods of 86th and Park are no more than a couple blocks, just a few minutes walking time, from the Harlem ghettos. Yet never the twain shall meet. The barriers are there, even if you can't see them. In that sense, The Warriors is a work of absolute genius. No other film has so perfectly captured the feeling of frustration and helplessness that comes from something as simple as waiting for your train or getting dumped in a completely unfamiliar part of town. If you don't live here, you can't understand how huge the city is and how it can make what would be a simple, five minute drive anywhere else into a day long journey into the bizarre. On the other hand, no film is as outlandishly unrealistic as The Warriors when it comes to depicting street gangs. I mean, the gang of purple pimps? The gang of mimes? The Gramercy Riffs all in their silk pajamas and kungfu shirts? The Baseball Furies? Granted, I wasn't living in New York in 1979, but I have a feeling some of these gangs might be just a little off the wall, even for New York. Anyway, to really dig into this film, you can go way beyond New York and look at Ancient Greece. I know, I know. Right now, you're going "Watchoo tawkin' 'bout, Keith?" in your best Gary Coleman voice. But dig it, baby: this cat named Homer wrote himself a couple yarns called The Iliad and The Odyssey. Or so they say. Fact of the matter is that the two stories are so amazingly different from one another (one being a very straight-forward historical war story, the other being a wild hallucinogenic fantasy) that a lot of learned elders doubt they are both the work of Homer. It possible that Homer, blind epic poet that he was, was a master of multiple genres. It's possible that he wrote The Odyssey while suffering from a terrible fever or after licking toads or something. And it's possible that the stories were written by two completely different people. We may never know for sure. As you should all know, no matter what country you are from, The Odyssey is the story of Ulysses, a soldier who is returning home with his crew from the Trojan War, where they did this really cool thing with a giant wooden badger. On the way back to his home turf, he gets sidetracked (the heroic way of saying "lost") and ends up going on an ... ummm ... well, an odyssey where he has to fight all sorts of fanciful creatures, flirt with harpies, you know -- Greek hero stuff. Eventually, he makes his way home with the survivors of his crew, only to find himself a changed man. The Warriors is the story of Swan, a soldier who is returning home with his crew from a big gang meeting in The Bronx. On the way back to his home turf, he gets sidetracked and ends up going on an odyssey where he has to fight all kinds of fanciful gang members, avoid The Lizzies, you know -- New York gang guy stuff. Eventually he makes it back to his turf with the survivors of his crew only to find himself a changed man. If it isn't a direct retelling of the classic tale,it's certainly inspired by it, and a testament to how ingrained Homer's epic has become in our society. The 1970s were full of "weird trip" movies like this and Apocalypse Now in which seemingly recognizable surroundings slowly melt away and become nightmarish alien landscapes, just familiar enough to us to be that much more unnerving. Of course, this could also be because the writers were dropping lots of acid, but I like to think it was Homer, who -- if you read The Odyssey -- may have dropped a little acid (or the ancient Greek equivalent) himself. And plus, by connecting The Warriors to The Odyssey, you can thus claim that in an indirect way, The Warriors is an adaptation of James Joyce's classic novel Ulysses, which was based abstractly on the journeys of Ulysses from The Odyssey. This can come in really handy if you have a serious literature paper to write but feel like writing about The Warriors instead. But wait! There's more! The real source material for The Warriors is yet another ancient Greek story, The Anabasis by Xenophon. This one tells of a small platoon of Greek soldiers who are hired to fight in the Persian War. When their benefactor is murdered (his name, I do believe, was Cyrus), they must fight their way back to their territory against seemingly insurmountable odds. Between the two stories, you should have plenty of material for a paper. Okay, so onto the next bit of back story. I love writing about this movie because there is so much going on with it. When it was finished in 1979, The Warriors was very nearly banned. There were reports of gang violence and bloodshed at screenings in New York. Turns out just about all these reports were fabrication on the part of a group of censorship nuts who simply didn't want the film to be released. Those of you who are my age will remember a similar brouhaha when Colors was released several years later, with the main difference being that then there really was gang violence. Plus, Colors sucked. Other reports scolded the film for using real gangs in the shooting (the shooting of film, that is), thus perpetuating the feeling that it was cool to be in a gang. In fact, just about everyone in The Warriors was a Broadway/off Broadway dancer. Members of one real gang were included in the film because the film makers accidentally spray-painted a giant "Warriors" prop tag on the real gang's tag down at Coney. This pissed the gang off, and in order to keep them happy, they were given parts in the film. That's diplomacy! So, onto the film! Michael Beck plays Swan, the "war chief" of a Coney Island gang called The Warriors. You may think that a gang whose home turf is an amusement park is sort of weak, but you probably haven't seen Coney Island. That place makes the worst parking lot carnival seem as clean and safe as Disneyworld. I mean, these days the freak show features Coco the Killer Clown, a midget in face paint who earned his stage name by actually doing time for murder. Swan, along with eight other members of the gang, are heading up to Van Cortland Park in The Bronx for a big meeting of all the major and semi-major gangs in the city. For those of you unfamiliar with New York City, Coney Island to Van Cortland Park is a long-ass way, probably a few hours by train. The meeting is being held at the bequest of Cyrus, the James Brown-esque leader of the city's most powerful and organized gang, the Gramercy Riffs. I'm not sure if the Riffs are actually from Gramercy. It's a small area, fairly upscale, and I don't think all the Riffs could fit there. Incidentally, this movie is a lot more fun if you get yourself a New York City subway map and play along! Anyway, if the Gramercy Riffs actually are from Gramercy, I wonder why the hell they would want to hike all the way up to Van Cortland Park for a meeting. It would have been closer to actually go down to Coney with The Warriors. Then, after the meeting, all the gang guys could ride the Wonder Wheel together. Oh, what fun they would have! Cyrus' plan is to keep up a truce between all street gangs and unite them to take over the city. As he says, there are at least 60,000 assorted gang members and hangers-on, while there are only 20,000 cops. He also says "Can you dig it!?!?!" a lot in this weird sort of offkey way, sort of like the same weird offkey way Hacksaw Jim Duggan chants "USA!" Most of the gangs at the meeting are pretty into the plan, maybe because they see the Gramercy Riffs are powerful enough to have matching silk robes and slippers. But all parties have a spoil sport. This time, it's David Patrick Kelly, starring as a greasy, wormy little guy. David Patrick Kelly would go on to appear in many roles as a greasy, wormy little guy, including the Arnold Swarzennegger film Commando ("remember when I said I would kill you last? I lied."), and the David Lynch projects Wild at Heart and Twin Peaks. On the flip side, Michael Beck, who plays Swan, was pegged as the break-out star of the film. People expected big things from him, and they might have gotten them had Beck not gone on to appear in the abysmal Olivia Newton John disco film Xanadu and the even more abysmal but infinitely more entertaining big-budget sci-flop Megaforce. After those two bombs, Beck's career was pretty much dead before it ever really began. David Kelly is a member of a greaser gang called The Rogues. He decides, for no real reason, that he's going to shoot and kill Cyrus, which he does. In the ensuing madness (imagine stirring up shit on a playground full of 900 assorted gang members, some of them dressed up as mimes), Kelly manages to pin the blame for the shooting on Cleon, the leader of The Warriors. No one really knows what happened, but Kelly manages to start a fight that ends up with poor Cleon being pummeled by some Riffs as the cops descend on the place and 900 gang members scramble to get the hell out of there. We never do find out exactly what happens to Cleon, but we can safely bet that it wasn't too pretty. Swan and the rest of the representatives from The Warriors high tail it through the scenic Woodlawn Cemetery to try and get back to their train without getting busted by the cops. At this point, they have no idea that Cyrus' death is being pinned on them. They also don't know if the truce is still on or not. When they find a gang of multi-racial skinheads standing between them and their train, they are able to figure out the thing about the truce. Thus the premise for the film is established: The Warriors have to fight their back to Coney Island. Along the way, gang after freakish gang rumbles with them, all looking for the honor of being the gang that delivered The Warriors to the Riffs. The gangs start out pretty normal, but as the long night goes on, they get weirder and weirder. At first you have The Turnbull ACs (the skinhead guys). Then there's The Orphans, a no-name gang in The Bronx who are so low on the food chain that they didn't even get invited to the big meeting. And then, toward the end of the night, you start getting The Lizzies and The much-talked-about Baseball Furies, who of course, must be seen to be believed. They were actually played by the film's stunt crew. Rumbles, track fires, and the insurmountable geography of New York City all add to the trouble. The Warriors also pick up an antagonistic tag-along woman after they take care of The Orphans. She is played by Deborah Van Valkenburgh, who would later appear in the decent Streets of Fire where Willem Dafoe wears garbage bag cover-alls, and the TV show Too Close For Comfort where Jim J. Bullock would act gay and Ted Knight would mumble and humph a lot and go "Munroe, have you been messing Cosmic Cow again?" Ummm, needless to say, The Warriors is her best work. In fact, just about everyone is good. There are some wooden performances, but for the most part, this cast of unknowns and almost-were's delivers the goods in a believable way. Everyone from Swan down to the goofy looking leader of The Orphans is believable. The film also features James Remar as hot-headed Warrior Ajax. He's probably had the most consistent career, appearing in such films as Mortal Kombat II as Raydeen, the remake of Psycho, The Quest starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Band of the Hand (a personal favorite of mine, and one we should get to soon), and various other things. Look, I said he had a consistent career; I didn't say he was in good movies. Director Walter Hill handles everything amazingly. The film is out-of-control enough to be exciting and fun, but it's restrained and subtle enough to make its point without being heavy-handed, and to be able to deliver some truly incredible scenes. He has exactly the right amount of violence, and he places it in exactly the right places. The fight with The Baseball Furies is great, and the fight in the Union Square subway station is even better. Hill would go on to make the excellent Southern Comfort a couple years later, and then hit the big time with 48 Hours. His career has sort of faltered in recent years, but making The Warriors is all he ever really had to do to win my admiration. Michael Beck's acting is understated but powerful. It's a technique few people pull off well. Michael Beck and Clint Eastwood do it well. Chuck Norris does it poorly. I leave it up to you to determine the differences. Deborah Van Valkenburgh is also superb as the sassy trouble-maker who buries her pain and disappointment with life under a life of easy sex and violence. The supporting cast ranges from passable to excellent. Of course, I'm a big fan of The Lizzies, the all girl gang who tangle with some of The Warriors down in the East Village. And we all love The Baseball Furies. That's like liking Harpo Marx or Curly. It's simply a given, and you cannot fight it. I have to say, though, I'd be pretty happy get offed by The Lizzies. I'd feel like a real chump if the Baseball Furies kicked my ass, though. One of the best scenes comes after a rumble in the Union Square subway station with a goofy gang of over-all wearing meatheads, not too far at all from where I used to live (to think I was probably just a few blocks down from The Lizzies ... sigh). Swan, Mercy (Deborah Van Valkenburgh), and the other Warriors who have survived the night, are on the train when a group of giggling kids on their way home from the prom stumble onto the train. At first, the kids don't notice The Warriors and Mercy. Eventually, they catch on that a bad-ass, beat-up, bloody and exhausted street gang is sitting with them. The kids suddenly get quiet, and one of the guys does that nervous "hey man, what's up" nod and raising of the eyebrows. Mercy looks at the girls in their formal wear, then at herself, wearing a torn-up old skirt and covered in dirt and grime from fighting and hiking down dirty subway tunnels. She moves to fix her hair, ashamed suddenly of her appearance, but Swan stops her. She closes her eyes, as if trying awake from a nightmare. At the next stop, the kids decide to go ahead and get off the train. When Mercy opens her eyes, they are gone. One of the girls, however, drops her corsage on the way out. As The Warriors, ragged and bruised, finally reach Coney Island, Swan picks up the corsage and gives it to Mercy. It's a single tender moment in an otherwise relentlessly downbeat and brutal film. That alone makes the moment all the more powerful. I don't why it's my favorite scene in the whole movie, but it is. When Swan and The Warriors finally make it back to Coney, the sun is just beginning to come up. It's the first daylight scene in the entire movie. originally, director Walter Hill shot an additional opening scene that took place during the day, but later removed it so that the entire would be one long, harrowing night, with the only daylight coming at the very end. A perfect decision, a moment of brilliance. Unfortunately, in the broadcast television version of the film, the scene is stuck back in to fill in time lost by cutting out some suggestive lesbian dancing that The Lizzies do during their part of the film. The flow of the film is only slightly hurt, but it's definitely much better with no light until they, quite literally, finally reach the end of the tunnel. Of course, waiting at Coney for them are The Rogues, anxious to make sure The Warriors are dead. There's never really any explanation as to why David Patrick Kelly and The Rogues have it in for The Warriors. They just do. Maybe for no reason other than Cleon happened to be one of the first men at Cyrus' side, and thus was an easy target to point at. Maybe, like Cyrus' killing, it was just random. Anyway, it gives David Patrick Kelly a chance to do the movie's most famous bit, as he sits in his car with bottles stuck on his fingers, clinking them together and chanting "Warriors, come out to play-yay!" over and over as The Warriors grab bottles and pipes for their one, last rumble. Even worse than The Rogues, though, are The Riffs, who have also made the long trip down to Coney to settle a score. There's some really amazing stuff in the final scene. Swan and Mercy stand on the dirty Coney Island beach, surrounded by trash and staring off at the ocean as the sun rises. "We fought all night to get back to this?" Swan says. "Maybe I'll just take off." When Mercy says she'd like to come with him since she loves traveling. "Where have you ever been?" Swan asks. "I never been anywhere," she replies. "I just know I would like it." Swan smiles. It's the first and only time he does it. Another great moment. It perfectly sums up the plight of the people in the film. Trapped in a prison from which there is often no escape. If you live here, you know how it can be, how difficult it can be to simply leave. I know people who have lived here and never been outside the burroughs. I know some who have been here and never even seen the world very far beyond their own little neighborhood. Their own piece of turf. There in lies the message of The Warriors, as summed up by Warrior member as he and the rest of the survivors watch the sun come up: "Cyrus was right. It's all there." Only Cyrus was talking about more than turf; he was talking about life. It's all there for the taking; you just have to reach out and take it. The Warriors, quite simply, is a classic of the action genre, and a film that anyone who wants to be well-schooled in bad-ass cinema should check out. Most people, including critics, sell these films incredibly short. More times than not, films like The Warriors are more moving, more intelligent, and more important than any Oscar winner could ever hope to be. There is a grimy reality to the film, even when it's at its most fantastical. It's tense, nerve-wracking, and thoroughly engrossing. It's a perfect example of everything that can be right with an action film, and conversely, everything that is wrong with action films today. It's driven by characters. The plot is simple enough: get back to Coney Island when every gang in the city is gunning for you. There are no special effects, no spectacular stunts (though there is plenty of fighting). The film rests entirely upon the shoulders of its cast of unknown,s and they deliver wonderfully, and without resorting to contrived, so-called "clever" dialogue. Which is not to say the film is stupid; it's simply realistic in its portrayal of humans. Character-driven action is something, sadly, of the past in this day of brainless, formulaic blockbusters filled with computer effects. The Warriors is about people. It revolves around these people. It's their job to make the movie good, to make it meaningful. And they do it. Labels: Action, Year: 1979 posted by Keith at 5:25 PM | 0 Comments Friday, October 24, 2003Don
1978, India. Starring Amitabh Bachchan, Zeenat Aman, Pran, Iftekhar, Om Shivpuri, Satyen Kappu, P. Jairaj, Kamal Kapoor, Arpana Choudhary, Helen, M.B. Shetty, Mac Mohan, Azad, Yashraj, Devaraj. Directed by Chandra Barot. Buy now from India Weekly.
Sit back, brothers and sisters, and I'll tell you the story of a man who once held the vast population of India in the palm of his hand; a man larger than all others in heart and influence if not in stature, and to whom others could look for inspiration, for strength in times of need. Who is this man? No, not Mahatma Gandhi. No, not even Bose Chandras, the daring Indian dissident general who was the real reason the British finally freed the country. No, these men may have been great historical figures, they may have been great men, but when's the last time you saw Gandhi jump backwards out of a tree to kick some guy in the face while wearing powder blue flares? No, brothers and sisters, the man to whom I refer is none other than Amitabh Bachchan, the biggest box office draw in Indian cinema throughout the 1970s and the crown prince of Bollywood cinema. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with Amitabh Bachchan and his seminal works from the era. It would be understandable. After all, only hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people celebrated his name at the height of his popularity. Granted, the numbers for recognition were definitely in his favor, but in the United States at least, few people started their morning by waking up, cursing out President Carter about the gasoline rationing, then thinking to themselves, "I wonder who's big in Indian movies these days." It was our loss. The 1970s were the golden age of bad-ass action heroes, an era that will, unfortunately, probably never roll around again in today's climate of ultra-young pretty boy stars and high-tech, high-cost, low-quality computer effects. Gone are the days of grizzled, chain-smoking transit cops sitting at a control desk and barking into a radio at some terrorist. Gone are the days of guys like Joe Don Baker, Lee Marvin, Walter Matthau, and Clint Eastwood. It's been washed away by the cult of youth, by the lack of interest in making movies about and/or for adults, or at least for people who don't buy nine-year-old Ben Affleck as a world-weary ex-FBI agent. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the 1970s may have had some bad music and some truly foul fashion trends, but it was a classic era for the action film. Standing amid the heroes, proud, dark, and lean, was Amitabh Bachchan, relatively unknown in the US but never the less Bollywood's mega-popular answer to Bruce Lee, Clint Eastwood, and whoever was considered at the time to be the Lee Marvin of Bavaria. I think it might have just been Lee Marvin, though it could also have been Helmut Kohl or some guy named Hans. When it comes to Bollywood films, I already know what you're probably thinking, and for the most part you would be dead on. Indian films are almost always filled with delirious amounts of singing and dancing, even if they are horror films or those jingoistic, Pakastani-hating right-wing deals where Indian soldiers run in slow motion a lot while defending mother India and liberating grateful Kashmiri youth from the clutches of hand-wringing, bloodthirsty Pakastani terrorists. Hey, just because it's one of the most volatile and potentially catastrophic stand-offs in the history of civilization, with potentially millions of people at risk from nuclear attack, doesn't mean that Sonny Deol Sonny Deol or some other brave and noble Indian hero (actually, not some other now that I think about it. It always seems to be Sonny Deol) can't pop off for a lavish five-minute-long song and dance number with flashing lights, blue smoke, and a rump-shaking Bollywood beauty.
Yep, for those outside the culture (and even for quite a few within), the song-and-dance formula films so popular and plentiful in India can be a real chore to get through. We in the West lap up the once-a-year foray some Indian director takes into arthouse cinema with no musical numbers and maybe even some flashes of nudity, but looking at the foreign film section in the average American video outlet would delude you into thinking the only films ever made in India were Bandit Queen, Monsoon Wedding, and the collected works of Satyajit Ray. Admirable films and filmmakers all, but it's just not right to reduce the film capitol of the world (more films produced per year than the United States, or any other country for that matter) down to a few serious arty titles. That's like thinking the only filmmaker in Japan is Akira Kurosawa or that all American art films have the same emotional subtlety and low-key approach of arthouse filmmakers like Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer. You just don't get a proper feel for a film industry, or for a people, if all you watch are the serious art circuit films. If that was the case, then everyone in America would be upper-middle-class gay or lesbian yuppies struggling to come to terms with their homosexuality amid a backdrop of quaint New York City cafes and coffee shops. There is very little in our arthouse fare to clue you into the fact that most Americans are beer-swillin' yahoos who can be entertained for months on end by shouting "What?" after every sentence uttered by Stone Cold Steve Austin. So I implore you, especially those of you in other countries, please do not judge us based on our neurotic arthouse cinema. Please show objectiveness and thoroughness by instead judging us based on the number of pork rinds we can cram into our mouth at one time and the fact that we still, for some ungodly reason, cheer for Hulk Hogan. Understanding of a culture can come in part through their popular entertainment, no matter how bizarre and bad that entertainment may be. The intellectuals of any given country will bemoan the fact that they would be judged by popular entertainment, but let's face it: the reason it's called popular entertainment is because that's what most of the population enjoys. I'm not proud of the fact that I live in a nation that laughed its ass off during Saving Silverman, but what can I do? The fact of the matter is that most Americans are prone to liking crap like that, and so judging us as a people is sadly more accurately done based on pop cinema than on anything I like. Likewise, I'm sure the intelligencia of any country doesn't want you to think their nation is full of idiots who tune in to Razzmatazz or that show where Beat Takeshi wears a lobster suit and shoots naked men out of a bungee cord cannon, but that's what the folks like, and that's who makes up your country. Only by exploring what people actually like, as opposed to what snotty film critics and lit professors tell us people like, can we begin to uncover cultural truths like, "All peoples are pretty goofy." Based, then, on my research regarding their pop culture, I am now more in tune with the fact that in India, everyone sings and dance and magically transports between discos, mountain meadows, fields of flowers, and neon-lit back alleys in the space of a few seconds. Everyone in India is just half a breath away from belting out a song and having the whole street bust out some well-choreographed dance moves. So says popular cinema, so it must be true. Likewise, all Americans are crudely rendered computer graphics accompanied by a blaring rap-metal soundtrack everywhere they go and all British people are forty-year-old flamboyant gay men working at the Grace Brothers department stores and rolling their eyes every time that Mrs. Slocum makes some comment like "my pussy was soaking wet last night," meaning of course that she left her cat outside in the rain. Whether or not he was well-known in the United States, no ongoing commentary about the action films of the 1970s (or of any decade, for that matter) would be complete without spotlighting Amitabh Bachchan right there with the rest of the greats. Spotlighting Bachchan is cool with me, because the man was pretty boss. He was born the son of a captain of industry turned nationally-known poet and a woman whose only occupation seems to have been "socialite," which I guess is better than your only occupation being sociopath. While it would be cool and romantic to paint Bachchan as some impoverished young man who struggled up from the Calcutta ghettos to become the king of Indian cinema, the fact is that he was born into a pretty posh lifestyle in the town of Allahabad. When he became interested in acting, few people saw him as anything more than a rich college boy out on a lark. That all changed once folks started getting a load of his on-screen charisma, booming voice, and innate talent at the craft. Within a few movies' time, Bachchan was well on his way to becoming the biggest star in the history of Indian cinema. During the 1970s, he was the posterboy for the Indian action film, though he didn't limit himself to that genre any more than the average action film limited itself to the action genre - Indian films manage to pack pretty much every genre into the single average film. Taking cues from spaghetti westerns, black action films, martial arts movies, and the various cop and gangster films, Bachchan was at the forefront of what became known as the masala film, spicy blends of violence, action, melodrama, sex appeal, and cool. Bachchan became best known as the originator of the "angry young man" character, often torn between the laws of kinship and the laws of the state, frequently falling on the wrong side of the laws of the state.
It wasn't long before Bachchan's characters struck a chord with the people of India, who like everyone else in the 1970s, weren't having a very good time. With the social strife and global turmoil. Bachchan's films presented them with wily underdogs and allusions to working class problems and unrest, even if he himself was nowhere near working class. Zanjeer was the film that rocketed him to the top, and there was no stopping him once he was there. When he suffered a grave injury on the set of a film called Coolie, the nation sat in anxious anticipation as they listened to frequently broadcast updates on the actor's medical condition. Eventually, Bachchan decided to parlay his celebrity into a political career, winning an elected office in 1984. In a unique approach to campaigning, part of Bachchan's publicity for his bid included the release of his film Inquilab, the finale of which features Bachchan's character laying waste to a room full of corrupt politicians. He wasn't long for this political coil, though, thanks primarily to a little scandal involving his ties to organized crime. It was no big surprise that Amitabh would have connections to the underworld. Much like the Hong Kong film industry throughout the 1980s and first half of the 1990s, the Indian film industry of the time was more or less run entirely by organized crime, which is slightly different than in the US where film studios are often run by criminals, just not the organized variety. If you were making a movie at the time, then you were rubbing shoulders with gangsters and other unsavory characters. Still, it was enough to force Bachchan's eventual resignation from politics, which in turn signaled the beginning of his stardom's decline. Bachchan's popularity faded as the 1980s progressed, and although he briefly revitalized his career from time to time with a hit movie, it wasn't the same. In the 1990s, Bachchan mounted another comeback attempt, which failed pretty miserably when each movie he made became one more in a string of bombs. India still loved the guy; they just didn't want to watch the crappy movies in which he starred. He countered by starting a corporation for managing and distributing talent and pop entertainment (and produced film like the controversial though lauded in the West Bandit Queen), but thanks to the low return on his movies, that didn't really pan out either. Just as it was looking like it was Amitabh's time to ride off into the sunset, he starred as a determined bank robber in the slick, formula-breaking heist film Aankhen, which many people said showcases the best performance of his career. Having not seen the film as of the writing of this review, all I can say is that in his older age, Bachchan is looking more and more like Al Pacino. As for his many films from the 1970s, many people regard Don as his best. Of course, many people regard Deewar or Zanjeer as his best, and still many others will tell you its Sholay. The thing about India is that there are so many people that you have enough people around to provide "many people" opinions for quite a few films. Whether or not it's Bachchan's best film is debatable since he made so many good ones, but Don is certainly one of the finest action films from the 1970s despite the Bollywood song and dance trappings. It's action-packed, fast-paced (a rarity for a Indian film, even an Indian action film), well-written, compelling, and full of low-budget charm and heart. It's a great example of everything that was right with action films at the time, and everything that's since been abandoned in favor of bigger, louder, faker looking CGI explosions. Don is the kind of movie where someone will ask, "Who are you?" or "Who do you think you are?" just so Amitabh Bachchan can cast a steely glare at them and announce in his booming voice, "Don," which is invariably punctuated by a blast of dramatic music and a fast zoom in tight on his face., possibly followed up by an equally fast and tight zoom in on the face of his antagonist displaying one of those looks of combined awe and dread. If you're interested in my opinion -- and for some mad reason you must be if you've bothered to read this far -- the dramatic fast-zoom just isn't used enough these days. Back in the 1970s, especially in low-budget action films, it was all you could do to keep the cameraman from doing the dramatic fast-zoom as often as possible. Heck, a kungfu villain couldn't walk five steps without someone zooming in on his dour face and hitting the loud blast of dramatic music. And as much as I like the technique, the world just didn't need that many close-ups of Wang Lung-wei. I'm sure if some directors had their way, the fast-zoom and dramatic music would follow every single line in a film, even plain vanilla ones like, "Would you care for an appetizer?" or "Who's the number one radio station in the tri-state area?" I'm not saying every single little line of dialogue has to be punched up with this technique. Maybe just half of them. I'd be pretty happy then, though to be honest, I'd rather look at close-ups of Wang Lung-wei than ever see a giant stadium-seating theater projection of Martin Lawrence zooming at me. Don opens with a classic action film sequence in which a group of gangsters are standing in a swaying, sunlit field as another gangster speeds toward them. When he gets out of his cars, the other guys say, "Don" soothe camera can zoom in fast on him and his Amber Vision sunglasses. Does Don have the money? Of course he does, but rather than making the exchange as planned, the other goons pull their guns on Don since no transaction in the entire history of the underworld has gone off without some hitch or one party attempting to double-cross the other. Don is no sucker, though, and he's watched enough action films to know there was a double-cross afoot. He sneers as he tosses the briefcase full of money over to the criminals. They scatter into very small pieces as they discover that rather than money, the briefcase contains a bomb. That's Don, baby. He blows up people before the credits even roll! When the credits do roll, they're rotoscoped fluorescent green and red scenes of mayhem and ass-kicking from elsewhere in the film, not unlike the cool credit sequence from Foxy Brown. And that theme song! Forget all that Bollywood pop nonsense! Don has one of the flat-out funkiest, hardest action theme songs of the 1970s. Don doesn't even have to kick your ass with his own foot. He can just throw on his theme song and let it kick your ass for him. If you bought the Bombay the Hard Way: Guns, Cars, and Sitars CD (which you should do if you haven't already), then you're already familiar with the theme from Don, as well as a few other tracks and dialogue samples that show up in original or remixed format on that disc. Ever wonder who's deep, rich baritone voice that was brushing off some unseen hot Hindi lass with the simple utterance of, "Some other time, baby." That was...Don! Bachchan's character of Don, or The Don as he is often called (like how you can call Dwayne Johnson "The Rock" or "Rock"), is, unsurprisingly, one of the most notorious crime bosses in the entire world, but especially in India. That's why they zoom in on him every time his name is uttered. Tubby Interpol agent Malik comes to town to help the local DSP catch the wily criminal. Meanwhile (there are a lot of meanwhiles in this film), Don has to worry about the widow of one of his men, who Don himself killed when it was discovered that the guy - who is a dead ringer for Lars Ulrich - wanted to leave the criminal underworld and start a new life. The film's first musical number comes when she tries to delay Don's departure from a hotel room with her sensual pelvic thrusting and wild gyrations. I think just about every Hindi movie I've seen features a scene in which a woman tries to distract or delay someone by staging a song and dance number, but the context of this sequence actually sets it apart from a lot of other Indian films. By that, I mean it looks like it could actually belong in the same movie as the rest of the action. When Indian films indulge in their musical sidebars, a lot of them tend to handle it like a music video that just gets plopped down in the middle of a movie. It often has nothing at all to do with the movie itself, and frequently they'll feature outlandish montages and location changes. One minute, a group of soldiers will be hunkered down in a snowy bunker high up in the mountains, facing a line of Pakistani machine guns, and one of the Indians will say, "This is intense. I am glad we have leave tonight." Then they'll just cut to five minutes of disco dancing, wild costumes, and MTV lighting as everyone sings and dances and gets filmed wandering through The Swiss Alps, Paris, the Taj Mahal, and some nightclub full of bubbles ands smoke. Then the next scene will just cut back the soldiers in the bunker again going, "Boy, leave sure was fun!" Don at least attempts to ground the music in the events of the film. When the woman tries to seduce Don, the whole number takes place in the hotel room with no jumping all of a sudden to Milan or Jupiter. Within the context of the film, then, it's actually somewhat believable that this is going on without any wild leaps of logic. It makes the musical numbers a lot easier to swallow than some disconnected and wildly out-of-place production. Don escapes, of course, because he's Don, but just as he takes care of one vengeful woman, Lars' sister shows up for revenge. Unlike Lars' fiancee, his sister Roma comes packing more than hip-shaking and false eyelashes. She's packing fists and feet full of kungfu rage and enough smarts to infiltrate Don's gang and become his number one gun moll. Roma is played by Zeenat Aman, and she's a good example of why Bollywood films are so well-known for their incredible beauties. She's a bombshell, to be sure. Enough to drop your jaw if she doesn't just sock you in it for starting at her. But her character here is also a rarity in Indian films, at least nowadays. She's an ass-kicker on the same level as and often above her male counterparts. She's smart, resourceful, and never once needs a man to come to her rescue. There's a definite dash of Pam Grier and Angela Mao in her. Women in most Indian action films (and most action films in general, regardless of country of origin) are little more than window dressing whose sole purpose is to act all coquettish in musical numbers with the hero. There's nothing at all impressive about them beyond their looks and dance moves. Zeenat Aman's Roma, however, is a real character. She's got depth, range, and the ability to go toe-to-toe with anyone who crosses her path. All that and she can still perform a jig or two when the music calls for it. Her role here was enough to rocket up near the top of our "greatest female ass-kickers" list. With all these folks gunning for Don, it's only a matter of time before his many fights and car chases end up with him on the bad end of business. One night he narrowly escapes capture but gets fatally wounded in the process, dying in the backseat of the DSP's car he'd just hijacked. The DSP knows that someone else even bigger than Don is calling the international shots, and he devises one of those "only in a movie" plans to smoke out the big boss. Turns out that years earlier, the DSP handled a case in which a young street performer named Vijay reported a case in which the parents of two children had simply disappeared. The case itself was nothing spectacular, but Vijay was a dead ringer for...Don! Okay, okay, that's a pretty big coincidence, but you're going to have to get used to things like that in this movie, because there's a lot of them. In a lesser film, they come across as clumsy contrivances thrown in simply because the writers couldn't think of anything else. In Don, on the other hand, they are used with great effect to keep the plot twisting and turning. Even though some of them are pretty outlandish (like the DSP happening to meet the one guy who happens to be Don's spitting image amid the hundreds of millions of people in India), the coincidences are woven so well into the fast-moving plot that they're easy to swallow. They're fun rather than being something that just makes you groan. Vijay isn't wild about risking his life posing as the Don. He's happy chewing on betel leaves (the Indian equivalent of chewing tobacco) and caring for the two children he's raised as his own. When the DSP promises to pull strings to get them admitted for free into a prestigious school, Vijay is swayed. Against his better judgment, he will become.Don! His identity is known only to the DSP, who records the entire plan in a secret file he keeps hidden in his personal safe. That way, even if something happens to the DSP, there will be proof of Vijay's true identity. I guess they don't have his or The Don's fingerprints on record. After staging an arrest, Don's gang - lead by Roma - rescue their boss from the hospital, unaware of the charade that is being performed at their expense. It was nice to see a gang that was completely loyal to their leader and genuinely excited to help him recover. Action films before and after have drilled into our heads the notion that at least one member of the gang has to be looking to stab everyone in the back, but here they are all loyal men. Well, except for Roma. She just wants to kill The Don and leave, but she can't kill him until he recovers his memory, which Vijay is faking having lost until he can learn everyone's names and faces. It's all a pretty clever ruse until the day he knows enough to announce that he has made a full recovery. From that moment on, Roma starts looking for ways to kill the poor guy, at least until she discovers the secret of his identity. Meanwhile... There's this weird looking guy named JJ who is about to get out of prison. He has one of the most disturbing haircuts I've ever seen, even worse than Sammo Hung's bowl cut from the 1980s, but not worse than Sammo Hung's jeury curl from the same era. JJ was one of the best safe-crackers in all of India, but he left it all behind when he got a family, becoming a circus performer and renouncing his life of crime despite frequent offers from members of Don's gang to get back in the business. When his wife falls gravely ill, however, JJ is forced into doing the proverbial "one last job" in order to pay for the operation that will save her life. As anyone who watches enough action films knows, there are certain guidelines you should stick to if you want to make it out alive. For example, if you're a cop never ever mention retirement, your family, or that boat you just bought so you and your wife can finally take that romantic cruise you've been planning for so long. That's just asking for a bullet in the head. Conversely, if you're a criminal you should never, under any circumstances, take "one last job" no matter what the motivation for doing so may be. It's not going to work out. It's going to be a trap, or the people who hired you are going to try and double cross you. I mean, poor Chow Yun-fat's done about a dozen "one last job" movies, and they never work out for him. Sure enough, the DSP busts JJ, even putting a bullet in his leg as the poor guy sprinted through the hospital in a mad dash to deliver cash to the doctors to save his wife. JJ gets a prison sentence, his wife dies, and his children are abandoned to fend for themselves. You sort of get the feeling that the DSP, despite being a good guy, is sort of an asshole. I mean, he lets the guy's wife die right there in front of him, then he leaves the kids on the streets to die, and later on, he holds saving Vijay's adopted children (I wonder who their father will turn out to be) over Vijay's head in order to pressure him into taking part in this daft plan to masquerade as The Don. Not exactly the conduct of a decent guy. Needless to say, JJ has lost everything that meant anything to him in his entire life. All he has left is his burning desire to get revenge against the DSP, and you can't really blame the guy. When Vijay discovers a book with all the names and contacts of The Don, he turns it over to the DSP, who in turn plans a big raid on the night of a meeting between all the heads of the top crime families in India. Don opens the meeting with a rousing "I'm the Don!" song, which may seem to be a silly thing for a gangster to do until you remember how much all those Italian gangsters like Sinatra and the Three Tenors. Everything goes pretty well with the raid up until the point where the DSP gets killed. Vijay is rounded up with the rest of the criminals, and none of the cops believe he's not Don. The criminals do, though, and they're just waiting for a chance to get their hands on him. When Inspector Malik goes to the DSP's home to retrieve the diary Vijay claims will prove his innocence, the safe has been cracked. Turns out JJ came looking for revenge, but found the safe and the diary instead and figured he could use it to blackmail Don's gang, who he also has a beef with. Will JJ succeed? Will Vijay escape the police and Don's vengeful thugs? It's enough to make your head spin, but when you remember that, like all Indian films, this thing is close to three hours long, then you'll see that they need a lot going on to keep things movie. Most Indian films drag as a result of their running time and need to pad out the script, but Don has so much going on that it never misses a beat and always remains fast-paced and thrilling. Helping matters out is the fact that Amitabh Bachchan makes Vijay such a likable character. He does a spectacular job making audiences sympathize with Vijay, and as his situation becomes more and more desperate, the fact that we actually give a damn about him and Roma makes the film that much more exciting. It being an action film from the 1970s, you can never be sure just how things will turn out. True, Indian films almost always end with a "happily ever after," but masala films from the 1970s were different, and the possibility that Vijay won't make it out alive lends a sense of urgency to the proceedings. One twist after another keeps the moving sprinting along, and special credit should be given to scriptwriter Salim Javed. He's crafted a long but taught, edge-of-the-seat action film with great characters and multiple sub-plots that are all tied into the main story by the end of the film. Writer-directors like Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie get a lot of credit for how they take so many seemingly unconnected strands of story and weave them all together, and while I don't want to take anything away from those guys (even though I can't stand Tarantino, I have to give the devil his do and admit that he can spin a well-structured yarn) Don does it just as well, perhaps even better, fifteen years earlier. It's really a work of art and a bit of a miracle that Javed pulls it all together and keeps the whole thing in order. Although there are no major revelations, there are a lot of surprising and pleasing twists. The best thing you can say about a three-hour-long film is that you don't even notice it was three hours. Such is the case with...Don! Besides the great characters and complex if somewhat contrived plot, the frequent action sequences help propel the movie along at a rocket's pace. There are a few car chases, some shoot-outs, and a whole heck of a lot of kungfu fighting. None of it is very good, but it's fast-paced and exciting, which makes up for the rather sloppy editing and choreography during the fights. If you've watched a lot of films involving martial arts, then you've certainly seen worse crimes committed in the name of putting foot to ass than you'll see in Don. It's no worse than most pre-Bruce Lee kungfu fights, and it's as good or better than most Jimmy Wang Yu style "swingy arm" kungfu films, where all the combatants do is wave their arms wildly in each others general direction. The fight choreography in Don at least has enough sense not to be slow-paced or dull. It might not be pretty, but it is pretty cool. The final fight pits Vijay, JJ, and Roma against a seemingly endless stream of thugs, and it's full of cool action. JJ even gets to bust out some gymkata in one part! And Zeenat Aman impresses me as a fighter as well. Although there are some shots where she's being doubled, there are many more where she isn't, and she handles the stuntwork superbly. One of the things I've always appreciated about Indian films is their message that even out-of-shape chumps can kick ass. Sure Zeenat and Amitabh are in top shape and look great, but there are fewer things more bizarre looking in film than JJ. Not only does he have that screwed-up haircut, he also wears a frilly black silk Renaissance festival shirt and has spindly little old man legs. Despite his appearance, he flies through the air and dishes out two-fisted beat-downs like there's no tomorrow. I think there's only one really muscular looking guy in the whole film, and Roma kicks his ass in about five seconds using some judo power. Everyone else looks like real people. Skinny people, fat people, people who are just shaped weird. It's a bit funny to see a guy like JJ doing so much fighting, but it's also refreshing and cool. And what's with the henchman with a beard? Is he some sort of feral Wolfman?
The acting is great. Like Is aid before, Zeenat Aman is wonderful as Roma, giving her a real sense of strength and purpose. The script takes a chance with a rare female Indian ass-kicker, and she's up to the task of making the most of it. I don't think I've seen a cooler heroine in all of Bollywood cinema. Amitabh Bachchan proves why he was so damn popular for all those years in the dual role of Don and Vijay. As Don, he's ruthless and charismatic; as Vijay, he's carefree and charming. Bachchan masterfully creates a character who can take advantage of all the sympathies the script offers him to take. Had a less talented star been in the lead role, this movie wouldn't have been half as good since concern for Vijay is what really fuels the suspense. Finally, there's JJ. His situation is no less desperate than Vijay's, and the performance by the actor is no less compelling. I really miss movies that feature adult stars. I've done enough railing on the cult of youth in this review, so I won't rehash that except to say that it's so much nicer to see a movie full of characters with real depth, with some lines on their face, and with motivation for their actions beyond looking cool. Finally there is the music. Like everything else in this movie, it kicks some major ass. What you here on Bombay the Hard Way is a good sample of what the film has to offer. Hardcore funky action tunes. It's one of the best scores from a decade in which great scores for action movies were the norm. Kalyanji Ananji really outdoes himself. The song and dance number music is not bad either. A couple 1970s style Bollywood pop songs from the ladies, Amitabh Bachchan's strange but enjoyable "I'm the Don!" number, and a couple more traditional sounding songs from scenes involving street performers and drunken revelry round out the wah-wah peddle drenched 1970s action music, lending an air of exoticism to it, unless of course you happen to be from India, where Indian things are not especially exotic. It all comes together to make Don a fabulously entertaining piece of pulp cinema. It's got tons of action, a great story, great characters, and musical numbers that are at worst inoffensive and at times even enjoyable since they are grounded in the reality of the film and not just some wild forays into music video art. If you are looking for a good Indian film but are scared by all the festivities, Don is a great place to start. It's long but never dull, and the musical indulgences are subdued. What's more, it's just a damn good action film. Don is a shining example of why a well-written, well-performed film is so much more enjoyable than any of those dime a dozen blockbusters we have now. Despite the silliness that may creep into the story, Don makes you care about the characters, and that makes you care about the movie. Amitabh Bachchan and Zeenat Aman deserve places at the top of the action film pyramid, and Don is the reason why. If you want to see one great example of 1970s action, you could do a hell of a lot worse than...Don! Labels: Action, Bollywood, Stars: Amitabh Bachchan, Stars: Zeenat Aman, Year: 1978 posted by Keith at 1:21 AM | 0 Comments Thursday, May 22, 2003Nowhere to Hide
1999, South Korea. Starring Joong-Hoon Park, Sung-kee Ahn, Dong-Kun Jang, Ji-Woo Choi. Directed by Myung-se Lee. Available on DVD (HKFlix).
All I ask of an action film is that it entertains me. I'm not a demanding viewer most of the time. I'm easy to satisfy, and I don't think that makes me simple-minded. No, there are plenty of other things that do that. As long as the movie isn't god-awful boring or just plain full of crap, I'll probably at least enjoy my time watching it, even if it isn't the sort of thing I'd ever buy. Frankly, I'd much rather sit through a dumb but exciting action film than a boring one that tries to be smart and fails miserably. Swordfish, I'm looking in your direction. At least a dumb action movie lets you know immediately where you stand. At the same time, I hate a lot of big, dumb action movies like that third Die Hard film. Is this a contradiction? Hypocrisy? Well, don't try to figure me out. I'm one of those hedge mazes, baby, and you could get lost in my leafy green complexity. Just because I don't need a film to be smart doesn't mean I don't want a film to be smart. It's icing on the cake. So I was delighted when I sat down to watch Nowhere to Hide, another in the increasingly long line of top-notch Korean action films I've been getting around to watching lately. On the surface it is a simple story of a cop chasing a killer. It plays to all the genre cliches that come with the territory: the cop is on the edge and has an unhappy (or non-existent) normal life, the criminal is cool and calculating, the cops are as brutal as the criminals, etc etc. If you were to read a simple plot synopsis, there would be nothing in it to suggest that Nowhere to Hide was anything more than a run-of-the-mill actioner no different than a thousand other films. Obviously, I wouldn't have prefaced this whole thing with that bit about smart movies if there wasn't something more at play here than a run-of-the-mill action film. There are, first and foremost, two rather spectacular things about the film that set it apart from the pack. First is the visual style, which manages to be unique even in today's atmosphere of style run rampant, with everyone seeming to forget that a movie needs more than "cool visuals" to be entertaining. If all you can do is make cool visuals, become a painter. We'll get to that later, because what I want to discuss first is the more subtle thing going on in Nowhere to Hide, primarily because it's something that doesn't get discussed too much since everyone is busy obsessing over the visual style and forgetting the rest of the film. The most unique thing about this movie is it's near complete lack of gunplay. In a romantic comedy, this wouldn't be so spectacular a thing, but in an action film about out-of-control cops chasing a wily killer, one expects a certain amount of shooting to occur, or at least a certain amount of guys waving guns around over their head. Not so here, where guns are almost never a factor, save for one time. And in that one time, the fact that a gun has been used is a source of major concern for all involved. As such, at least from an American perspective, and from the perspective of someone who watches a lot of action films from all over the world, Nowhere to Hide is something surprising and unique, a counterbalance to the rather nonchalant use of guns in just about every other film in the genre. No one would ever say that Hong Kong action films are free of gunplay. For American fans at least, John Woo defines Hong Kong action cinema (even if he was less popular in Hong Kong), and his movies are defined by the interaction of people and pistols. Even Jackie Chan, whose movies revolve around stunts and martial arts, frequently uses guns whenever he's playing a cop. In American films, guns are a given. The most famous cinematic cop in America is probably Dirty Harry, and nothing defined Harry like his Magnum. Even Nowhere to Hide's Korean contemporaries seem to embrace gun culture, as movies like Shiri were positively boiling over with high-caliber action. In each of these movies, and in many of the cultures themselves, guns are the first, easiest solution to any problem. Going into a dangerous situation? Go in with your gun drawn. Someone fighting with you? Point your gun at them and shut them up. Detective Woo in Nowhere to Hide is, by any other measure, the proverbial cop on the edge. The big difference is that he doesn't use a gun. He doesn't even carry one, at least until the very end, and even then he is quite bad with it. Likewise, none of the men working with him use guns. Only one member of his force actually draws a gun during a dangerous situation, and the results are a source of torture for him from that moment on. On the flipside of the coin, none of the criminals use guns either. The main killer uses a sword, and when challenged, his fists. Everyone else, cops and criminals alike, seem to favor pipes and bats if they need a weapon. The distinct lack of guns in the film makes you call into question the entire concept of brutality and just what makes a brutal action film. Because make no mistake about it, although it's a very twisted and offbeat comedy, Nowhere to Hide is a brutal film. Woo and his men are sadistic, constantly yearning for a fight, and not at all shy about beating confessions out of people. The sight of a cop socking a criminal in the jaw is considered brutal and abusive, thanks primarily to the flesh-on-flesh contact. For some reason, the same cop waving a gun in the face of the same unarmed man wouldn't really faze anyone so long as he didn't actually pull the trigger. So is it the firing of a gun that is brutal, or isn't the mere use of it even as a tool for intimidation, a way to get power over someone without a gun, something brutal as well? Why is the use of a gun so sanitized, so expected, and the use of a fist considered so base and animalistic? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Why is a fist fight savage but the use of a gun not? Personally, and I'm no pop psychologist, I think we simply relate more to the sight of someone getting pounded like a side of beef being tenderized by an Iron Chef. The threat of a fist in the face is a lot more real to most people than the threat of ever having a gun pulled on them. It's something we all understand more. To put a real-life spin on it, I'm pretty nervous around any physical altercation that involves me, even if it's one I could win (and those are few and far between). The fist fights I've been in have always been a source of great anxiety for me. Conversely, the night Scott and I, along with our friend Todd, had a gun pulled on us, fear never even ran through my mind. It was just like, "Oh hell, let's just get this over with. I have things to do." By all accounts, the chances of someone with a gun killing me are higher than someone beating me to death with their bare hands, but I was a lot less scared looking down the barrel of a gun than I am looking at someone's knuckles flying toward my nose. Part of that has to do with the remoteness of a gun. Pull the trigger, bam. It's over. It's not like having to duke it out with someone, which is far more intimate, and thus I think, far more personally affecting. It's cold, technical, and removed. I'm sure the gun freaks out there will beg to differ, or perhaps demand to differ, but for me, there's nothing personal about a gun, even the ones snipers use and talk to like they were their intimate lovers. It's still a machine, more or less. There's also, and again this is from the perspective of someone who doesn't care for guns, something less respectable about them. Sure, if someone is shooting at me, I'd probably wish I had one to shoot back, but it takes no special talent to use a gun on someone. Any jackass in Phat jeans can do it. You can be a scrawny, spineless little kid, but you can still pull the trigger and kill someone. Having to get into a fist fight means you have to rely on yourself, and if you are like me, your ability to get in a few sucker punches and surprises that will end things before you get your ass kicked. You can't fake fighting well. You have to be good at it, or at least better than the person you are fighting. For me, and this is just my personal outlook (I make no condemnation on people who like having a gun around), there is something far more respectable about going at it fist-to-fist. There is something more respectable to me about getting your ass kicked in a fight than there is in winning the fight because you have a gun. Here in the US, that we have a gun culture goes without saying, though the degree to which we worship the firearm has been put a little more into perspective with our recent glimpses into the average life of someone in, say, Afghanistan. Compared to them, we've still got a long way to go. At least our toddlers have to sneak the guns out of the house. But regardless of that, there's no denying that America and the gun live side by side. They're in our Constitution. They're strapped to our police officers and sometimes even our shopping mall rent-a-cops. More than a few private citizens have them. No matter how many teenagers and computer programmers bring them to school or work to shoot up their peers, cries of outrage are let loose in response to even the mildest form of gun control. When our police force confronts a hostile situation, they do so with guns drawn, primarily because the people opposing them probably have their guns drawn, and despite what those pugilists in the Boxer's Rebellion thought, bare flesh versus hard steel rarely works out to the advantage of the guy with the bare flesh. Case in point: how did the Boxers do? Nowhere to Hide presents us with a culture that isn't obsessed with guns, and by doing so, even if it was unintentional, it calls into question the differences between the two cultures, something that action films rarely think to do. When confronted with a hostile situation, even one in which they don't know if the other side is armed, the response of the boys in Woo's pack consists of clenching their fists and getting ready for a brawl. The film opens with Woo himself busting a large gang with nothing but his fists to back up his words. Eventually some friends show up, but they all have pipes. No guns. True, it's easier for a police force to operate without relying on guns when the criminals have to do the same, but then, that's all part of living in a culture that has not so enthusiastically embraced the gun as a God given right rather than a reluctant last resort. Despite all this, Woo is considered violent and out-of-control. His tactics of beating the crap out of people were shocking enough to raise the eyebrows of censors when the movie was recut for the American home video market. For some reason, punching a suspect is considered more violent than shooting at them, or threatening to shoot at them. Sure, I don't want a cop shooting at or punching me, but if I had to chose, even though a punch in the face scares me, I'd probably take it over a bullet to the head. With this added layer of thought about guns and the nature of violence, about how we become desensitized to the use of a gun because the use of a gun is so impersonal, Nowhere to Hide is suddenly a lot more complex than the otherwise straight-forward plot might have some people believe. Joong-Hoon Park plays Detective Woo, a squat, brutish looking guy in a leather coat and floppy LL Cool J hat. He reminds me of a less spherical version of the pro wrestler Tazz. Woo is part of a controversial homicide unit where they're willing to beat a confession out of anyone they know is a criminal, even if that person is a teenager or a woman. Still, the only real sidearm Woo carries is a pistol that shoots a relatively useless puff of mace that never seems to stop anyone. When asked by his partner if he wouldn't feel safer with a gun, Woo laughs at the suggestion. He's a fighter, and he'd much rather risk his life in a fist fight than take the coward's way out by pulling a gun. His partner, Kim (Dong-Kun Jang), is younger and less shy about letting a gun get him out of a sticky situation every now and again. Even so, it's rare that he ever uses it, preferring instead to simply let a lead pipe upside the head be his fighting advantage. When a man is murdered, apparently as part of some sort of underworld power play, Woo and his team are assigned the investigation. Even the assassin, Sungmin (Sung-kee Ahn) doesn't bother with guns. In one of the film's many superb sequences, he hits his mark with a sword during a downpour out on the 40 Steps, a famous landmark in Inchon. His back-up thugs chase away the other guy's thugs again not with guns, but with bats and blades. A few shakedowns here and there, and a particularly amusing fight between Woo and a big guy named Meathead, lead the cops to Juyon (Ji-Woo Choi), Sungmin's girlfriend. The fight between Woo and Meathead is yet another example of just how different this movie is from most other action films. In nearly any other film, Woo would have pulled a gun on Meathead and said, "Alright, let's get going," and that would have been the end of it, and we wouldn't have thought anything was wrong with that. Instead, Woo refuses to even give a gun a thought, wanting instead to have it out with Meathead and subdue him physically. Again, it's curious that simply pointing a gun at the guy and hauling him in is considered fine, but refusing to use a gun in favor of fighting your opponent unarmed is considered barbaric. You could say that the gun is a way to avoid the violence, and then someone else could counter that by saying that even pointing the gun at someone is a violent act. Even when the cops are waiting for Sungmin at Juyon's place, none of them use guns. Once again, they all rely on fists and feet. When the fight turns into a chase, the cops could end it simply by pulling out a gun and yelling, "Freeze!" Once again, that wouldn't strike anyone as unusual, even if the criminals were unarmed. They don't do that however, because for them, and for this movie, the gun is not an answer. It's not a short-cut or a way to get work done without effort. The cops would rather run themselves ragged in a foot chase than turn to a gun to solve things for them. Of course, that could also be part of the reason Sungmin is able to escape. In another moment of humor - and this film is an action-comedy (just not slapstick) - Woo fires his mace gun off wildly, even when Sungmin is nowhere to be seen or is far out of the pistols range of what looks to be about three feet. That thing really is useless, which may or may not be additional imagery pertaining to the movie's attitudes toward our societal reliance on guns. The one time a gun is used is by Kim, when a crazed man holds a kid hostage using a straight razor. During a moment of confusion, Kim fires and kills the criminal. By all means, it is a justified shot, and most movies wouldn't even think twice about it, except maybe to add some silly one-liner to tie things up nicely. Here, however, the shooting becomes a source of great inner turmoil for Kim, who can't fully convince himself that shooting anyone is a brave or right thing to do. "Never forget this feeling," Woo tells him, showing that for all his willingness to beat someone up, even Woo considers the use of a gun with great gravity. At no point do they condemn it. They merely suggest that one should always remember the consequences and never let the use of a gun become standard practice. From colorful fall nights to the snowy dead of winter, Woo and his men continue to track the elusive Sungmin, leading to a confrontation on a train (with Woo disguised as a drink vendor looking like Angus Young from AC/DC), and finally a showdown in a rain-drenched construction lot. In the final confrontation of the film, Woo finally resorts to a gun, but it is ultimately useless, and he throws it down into a puddle of mud in favor of settling the score with his fists. The outcome of the final fight is also a twist on what one would expect from this sort of film, but by the final moments, Nowhere to Hide has proven it's anything but just another "this type of film." The uniqueness of the film's approach to violence and action is matched by its uniqueness in style and appearance. It switches from washed-out, grainy black and white to vibrant, rich, almost overwhelming color. It slams recklessly between slow-motion and regular speed. It toys with lighting, angles, and composition as freely as the script toys with the expectations of a "cop on the edge" story. It is a beautiful film to watch, and the visual flare manages to augment rather than overwhelm. Some people use visual flash as a way to mask weak stories and bad movies. In those moments, the visuals and the effects become the reason for the movie, the center of attention when they should be there to help tell the story instead of covering it up. Though some of the tricks in Nowhere to Hide have no real point, they never overwhelm the story, and they never become annoying. They are simply another layer of what is going on. As I stated earlier, the plot is simple even if the execution is not. Each of the characters fulfills a genre stereotype, though always with enough of a twist to remind you that this isn't business as usual. Sungmin is easy to dismiss as the cool, brilliant criminal because he dresses smartly, and the villains are always cool and brilliant. The big difference here is that he's neither cool nor especially brilliant, at least not as we actually see him once you strip away expectations you bring in from other movies. His girlfriend is a regular, though quite beautiful, woman in her early thirties living a very simple middle class life despite the fact her boyfriend is an underworld assassin. Sungmin himself says no more than a few words during the entire picture, and those words are merely an observation of something obvious about a door. He's able to elude the police because he's somewhat careful some of the time, but he still makes the mistake of visiting his girlfriend once her identity is known (and without checking the place out beforehand). His attempts to elude the police on the train are slightly less than genius as well. In fact, in the story presented, there is nothing at all to suggest that Sungmin is brilliant, or even somewhat smart, or that he is a great criminal. These are all expectations we bring in with us, and it's something of a surprise to realize the movie has not played to those expectations. Instead, it's played on them. By the same token, Woo and Kim are supposed to be the archetypal rogue cops, the kind who ruffle the feathers of the higher ups and always give the mayor a headache. Again, those are character traits we bring into the film with us and which the film quickly subverts. Rather than being angered by the violence, Woo's captain is annoyed that the men can't get more information with it. Despite the fact that they regularly beat up suspects during interrogation, there is never any indication that Woo and his men are ever disciplined from higher up or that anyone looks upon their actions with disgust or moral outrage. By the book, Woo should be the hothead and his partner should be the by-the-books type. Instead, they're both hotheads, and it's the partner who tends to get careless with the gun. Although he's a bad-ass, Woo is also a human character. Though he loves a good fight, he doesn't always win them. A visit to his sister ends with him donning his new pair of gloves (a gift from the previous year's Christmas that he never opened) and frolicking off into the snowy night like a little kid. We do get the requisite talk about how the lines between cops and criminals are blurred, and how Woo only became a cop to keep himself from becoming a thug, but those are never central themes in the movie since, by comparison, the criminals get next to no screen time. Despite somewhat broadly drawn characters, the movie manages to personalize Woo and Sungmin's girlfriend, Juyon. Even Sungmin develops a character despite saying almost nothing and only being on screen a few minutes. I guess he's sort of like Boba Fett. Again, it's because we all carry preconceptions of what these characters should be, and the movie allows us to fill them in and mold them slightly to our liking. You could write it off as shallow characterization, but I think it's too effective at drawing you in to be so hastily dismissed. Despite his thuggishness, it's hard not to like Woo. He may hit people, but he won't shoot them. He is never anyone other than who he is, and that's a refreshing honesty. His scenes with Juyon, the world-weary woman who has gotten involved in more than she wants to deal with, lend an air of melancholy to the film. These are, at heart, two very lonely characters who will find no release from their solitude. Sungmin will either be captured or disappear forever. Woo will always spend his evenings on a stake-out or sitting alone at home cooking up some ramen on a camping stove in the middle of his floor. It helps the characters to have such accomplished actors behind them. Joong-Hoon Park is utterly superb as Woo, managing to drum up fondness for a guy who could be very easy to dislike if handled incorrectly by the actor. Instead, he comes across like a bully big brother who, just as you start to dislike him, does something really meaningful and sweet. Sung-kee Ahn as Sungmin is also accomplished, and by far the most experienced of the main cast. It is the quiet grace and strength with which he carries himself that allows you to fill in his character. That he can leave such an impression with so little time on screen is quite a feat. Ji-woo Choi is simply stunning, but beauty alone will only get you compared to Liv Tyler. As Juyon, she lends the film a sense of "everyman" (or everywoman) humanity and sadness. Dong-kun Jang, who plays Woo's partner Kim, is the least engaging of the main cast, but that's only because his character is the least engaging. He's there primarily to be Woo's sidekick, and although his character is given plenty to think and do, Kim never becomes as moving a figure as Woo or Juyon. It's nice to see a movie with an older cast, something that a lot of filmmakers have forgotten about. Now, young folks are fine and all, but a fella like me can only take so many films about a guy in his early twenties who is supposed to be some seasoned FBI agent or hardened street cop. It's good to see some people with a couple lines in their faces amid this era of youth worship. No, it's not like we're watching Carl Olsen up there in action, but at least we're not expected to buy some fresh-faced lad of twenty as a grizzled veteran of the homicide department. Even Ji-woo Choi is close to thirty, which makes her positively ancient by Hollywood standards. Well, by all Hollywood standards except the one that allows Meg Ryan to still act like she's nineteen. Weird how in the 1980s, we had all these teens movies starring people in their thirties as teenagers. Now we have all these movies with supposedly older adult characters being played by people barely out of their teens. I fully expect to see a remake of Cocoon starring Aaron Carter, Mandy Moore, the members of O-Town, and in the role formerly occupied by Steve Guttenberg - Steve Guttenberg. Not that we're entirely devoid of wrinkles here. Sean Connery still catches the eye, as does George Clooney. And that dreamy Robert Redford? He voted for Taft! Lightening what would otherwise be a grim film is a truly wonderful and twisted dark sense of humor that keeps most of the proceedings feeling like something out of a cartoon. Amazingly, this doesn't really undercut the brutality or effectiveness of the film, which has enough serious moments to balance things out nicely. It's sort of like watching a Walter Hill film along the lines of 48 Hours, where there is plenty of dark comedy, but it is seamlessly blended with more sinister elements that result in a well-balanced film rather than something that veers wildly from one mood to the other without establishing anything. Sometimes the violence is used for humorous effect; sometimes it's deadly serious. I'm a bit surprised that most critics and viewers are so dismissive of the plot as being non-existent. It's there, and it actually has quite a lot to say, even if it chooses not to do it through dialogue. Perhaps it's just me, and I'm seeing more than was ever meant to be there, but you know how it is. If I see it, then it's there, at least for me. That the movie has chosen to develop both plot and characters in a somewhat unconventional manner seems to get missed, or it simply doesn't work for some people. I thought it was delightful. Despite what you might think, I don't feel engrossed by movies that are nothing but visual flare and pointless action scenes. Though Nowhere to Hide is dripping with visual flare and action, never once did I feel it was the entire point of the film. Like I always say, you get out of a film what you put into it, and most people seem unwilling to look beyond the film's visuals and see anything more. Fine with me. I have no vested interested in convincing people that what they dismiss as nonsense is actually, at least to me, an interesting and subversive plot. In a world where movies have gotten so manipulative and so dumb, people hardly recognize something clever when it comes along. Rather than beat you over the head with it, director Lee Myung-Se allows his film to gather substance along the way, and apparently, it does with a subtlety lost on many viewers. I have no problem being in the minority in thinking that there is a hell of a lot more going on here than just cool visual tricks. The movie even further subverts expectations by delivering violence that isn't particularly nice to look at. We expect well-choreographed shootout and fight scenes that play out like ballet. Nowhere to Hide gives us sloppy, awkward fist fights that look pretty much like fights do in real life. The movie isn't here to make violence look cool. In fact, it's often striving to make violence look absurd. Ultimately, it's one of those movies you have to see for yourself and make up your mind about. Is it mindless fluff, violent nonsense, or an actual thoughtful and enjoyable piece of filmmaking? Is it all those things? I thought it was wonderful, but like I said in the opening paragraphs of this review, I'm often easy to please. It's the antithesis of movies by directors like John Woo, who of course, Lee Myung-Se gets compared to a lot by critics who don't know any other names in Asian cinema. Never mind that the movies and directors are nothing alike aside form the frequent use of slow motion. Nowhere to Hide lets you put your own notions into it, and if those notions are that this is all style and no substance, then that's what you'll see. I actually went in knowing very little about the film and director, and had no real preconceptions about what I was about to witness. I think that worked out well for me, because I ended up seeing quite a lot. On top of that, I flat out enjoyed the film. It's unique in style and substance. It's expertly pieced together, beautiful and ferocious to behold. It's funny, twisted, gritty, and sad. Ten minutes were slashed from the American version of the film, which may be why people seem to miss so much of what's going on in it, so seek out the uncut 112 minute original Korean version. It's bombastic, it's flashy, it's innovative. It has something to say even if people seem not to hear it. But none of that matters much if it isn't an enjoyable film, and I thought Nowhere to Hide was simply fascinating. And hell, even if you think I'm full of it, at least the film is entertaining and cool to look at. Labels: Action, Country: Korea, Year: 1999 posted by Keith at 5:43 PM | 0 Comments Sunday, November 18, 2001China Strike Force
2000, Hong Kong. Starring Aaron Kwok, Norika Fujiwara, Mark Dacascos, Lee-Hom Wang, Coolio, Ruby Lin, Ken Lo Directed by Stanley Tong. Available on DVD (HKFlix).
Stanley Tong sucks. I don't make such sophisticated statements without some degree of deliberation and thought, and after years of giving him the benefit of the doubt, I'm left with no alternative than to pass judgement on this Hong Kong director, and my judgement is that I could never see another Stanley Tong film in my life, and I wouldn't be all that upset. Any number of things about his work annoy me, but first and foremost is his ability to make even the most dynamic stars completely uninteresting and dull. I mean, this is the guy who had Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Lo, and Yuen Wah together in the same film (Police Story III: Supercop) and made them all incredibly disappointing. Oh sure, Michelle did the stunt where she jumped the motorcycle onto the moving train, and that was cool and all, but ten seconds out of a ninety minute film hardly justifies the tedium. What kind of fool puts Jackie Chan and Yuen Wah in the same film and doesn't think to stage a fight scene? Or Jackie Chan and Ken Lo? Or Jackie Chan and anybody? He might as well not have even been in that movie. Tong went on to make Rumble in the Bronx, one of the most ludicrous of all Jackie's films, and redeemed himself slightly with the above-average Police Story IV: First Strike. But then he made Mr. Magoo, and it was all over. China Strike Force was supposed to be his big comeback film, his grand return to Hong Kong, and at least financially, he was successful. The movie made a lot of cash at a time when Hong Kong films are still recovering from an industry collapse that sent everyone reeling for a couple years. China Strike Force had a lot going for it. First, there was Aaron Kwok. For years, Kwok was plagued by his pretty-boy teen idol image. It held him back and kept him from ever being taken seriously as a legitimate action star. Now he's a few years older, the wrinkles are starting to show here and there, and while he may still be a handsome young lad, he starting to get the age and character that will enable him to finally break through. A few more pounds and a few more scars and he'll be set to join the Hong Kong action set without looking out of place among the traditionally grizzled veterans. And then there's Norika Fujiwara. You'd have to try real hard to find more of a knock-out than this woman. She is something else, to be sure. She was a model and a television actress in Japan before getting her big break in this film, and in getting her break, we've all received a break as well because she's drop dead gorgeous and not nearly as untalented as most other models-turned-actress. Throw in direct-to-video American action star Mark Dacascos, and you have one of the best-looking casts around. I've always thought Dacascos deserved to be a bigger star than he was. Why is a guy who moves this well, who can act at least halfway decent, and who is a striking guy to boot, going direct to video while guys like Seagal still plague our nation's theaters? It's unlikely at this point he'll ever catch his break. Instead he'll be doomed to a life not unlike Don "The Dragon" Wilson, which is at least a good doom. I wish I could be doomed to be pretty damn rich after making an endless string of low-budget action films. Maybe Dacascos will catch on overseas, but it seems unlikely. The movie itself has a pretty typical plot. Dacascos plays your run-of-the-mill young gangster guy who is intent on taking over the business, does not care for the tradition of honor, etc etc etc. These guys have been in about every gangster movie ever made in any country, but some old fart always trusts them, only to get shot in the back when the time is right. Aaron Kwok plays Darren, a hotshot cop who is always annoying his superiors. He has a partner who barely does enough memorable stuff to result in anyone remembering his name. He's only there to die, as in one of the most contrived scenes ever, even for an action film, the movie takes a break from all sorts of shooting and jumping about to feature a scene where Darren and his partner go out for dinner, and Darren asks his partner "So your wedding is soon?" They might as well flash up a big red "This guy is going to die!!!" subtitle. Everyone should know by now that in a cop film, the cop who is retiring, getting married, about to have a baby, or just bought a boat is always going to get wasted. It's a time-honored tradition. Handled properly, it can be kind of funny. Handled without any finesse whatsoever, as it is here, it's just plain annoying. As if that wasn't predictable enough, he's also marrying the chief's daughter. While the cops pal around, we learn that Dacascos plans to increase his underworld power by selling drugs. As is par for the course in this type of movie, the aging gangster who took Dacascos under his wing hates drugs and vows that his organization will never be a party to the selling of such foul goods. Extortion, murder, prostitution, slavery, gun smuggling -- these are all noble ventures, but drug peddling is right out. This news irks Dacascos' partner in America, played by hip hop star Coolio, who is apparently not a fan of Weird Al Yankovich. Coolio plays your very stereotypical jive-talkin', cigar-smokin' hustler who's only task in this movie is to say "Holy shit!" and "Cuz" or however you spell the slang for "cousin." He's pretty good at doing that, and luckily nothing else is demanded of him. To no one's surprise but the old guy, Dacascos plots with Coolio, who's character is actually named Coolio, to off the old man and take the business over. Also thrown into the mix is Norika, who is an undercover Interpol agent trying to get info on the old man's operation. Of course, no one knows she works for Interpol, as that is the general idea behind being undercover, but even someone who is still surprised by the plot twists in a Girls Gone Wild video can tell from her first scene that she's an undercover cop. One thing I like about a film like China Strike Force is that I don't have to worry about spoiling it for anyone. It's all so plodding and obvious that it's impossible to ruin any surprises. An underworld assassination at a big fashion show gives the film an excuse for two important things: a lot of sexy women parading about in skimpy panties, and the film's first action sequence, in which Aaron Kwok chases the assassin through the streets of Hong Kong using a variety of vehicles. At one point, Stanley Tong even has the gall to completely rip off the "moving motorcycle" stunt from Supercop, though he manages to screw it up more this time around by using a lot of wires to make the whole think look goofy instead of cool. The first action scene sets the stage for what you can expect from the rest of the movie: something just isn't right about it. Sure, there is a lot going on, but it just doesn't click. The wires are employed so they can go "over the top," but it winds up looking silly. In a fantasy film I don't mind wires and flying. In a reality-based action film, I think they look out of place but can still be used with great effect. In this, however, they are used very clumsily, and they detract greatly from the potential impact of what could have been cool fights and action sequences. Actually, now that I rewatch it, the first action sequence is the best one in the movie. It almost, but not quite, achieves a flow and, if nothing else is kind of cool because the assassin guy gets run over, hit by cars, punched, kicked, thrown off moving trucks, and even jumps off a giant bridge -- yet he still shows up later in the movie only to get killed in the most boring, mundane ways. Way to give us a potentially cool character then treat him like an afterthought. Thanks, Stanley. But far more than wires and missed character opportunities is the glaring problem that has plagued Stanley Tong's films since he first stepped behind the camera. He has no sense of pacing or rhythm. Tong started his career as a stuntman, and while we all know he can dream up and even perform some cool stunts, being able to properly film them is something else entirely. Tong's action sequences never find a groove. They always feel disjointed and, as a result, awkward and sloppy. Part of the problem here is that he's trying to make a kungfu action film with a cast that doesn't have much kungfu skill, but even that can't wash away Tong's own lack of directorial skill since he brought the same plodding sense of confusion to action scenes involving Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh, both proven commodities. What it boils down to, then, is that Stanley Tong just isn't a very good director. Or rather, he's an astoundingly mediocre director who makes astoundingly mediocre movies. Anyway, lots of action film cliches follow. Rather than pay the assassin, who seems damn near indestructible and would seem to be a worthwhile investment, Coolio just kills the guy. Mark Dacascos does indeed kill the old guy and start selling drugs. Aaron Kwok's partner does indeed die tragically. Aaron falls for Norika and, in an attempt to give us more T&A, has a pointless, out-of-place daydream about massaging her thigh. I'm all for T&A, male and female, but come on. Put a little effort into working it into the film. I mean, they had the T&A scene where Norika infiltrates Dacascos' and Coolio's gang by showing up in a tiny string bikini then stripping down to nothing to prove she isn't wearing any wires or anything. That was an okay excuse for some T&A. Eventually, Aaron and Norika close in on Coolio and Dacascos so they can have the big action blow-out. Just as Stanley Tong can't direct an action scene, so too does he always blow the finale of his films. Supercop has both Yuen Wah and Ken Lo for Jackie and/or Michelle to fight, so they knock off both those guys in about one second in very offhand manners, and leave Jackie to face... an old guy. Police Story IV gives us an underwater fight scene -- funny but fairly disappointing - before having Jackie slip around with a fake shark. Then of course Rumble in the Bronx completely forgot to even have a finale, so we just get Jackie Chan driving a hovercraft to a final showdown with... another old guy. This is worse than when the big final scene in Game of Death ended up being Bruce Lee versus... Gig Young. At least Gig Young was middle aged. This time around, Tong tries to deliver an action-packed finale, but once again his own lack of skill as a director trips him and everyone else up. Mark Dacascos is a genuine martial arts bad-ass, or at least he can pull it off wonderfully on screen. So God forbid we include him in the final fight scene. No, let's kill him off in the usual goofy, offhand manner. Let's crush him with a purple pimp car dangling from a helicopter. Then let's have a huge kungfu fight between the three people with the least amount of kungfu skill. Aaron Kwok versus Mark Dacascos could have been pulled off, and with a different director, it might have even looked good. Coolio versus Aaron Kwok is about the stupidest damn fight scene I've seen in a long time, and that includes the fight scene in The Matrix where that woman jumps up in the air and strikes the most absurd looking "pouncing chicken" stance I've ever seen while she hovers and the camera pans around her. Since Coolio and Norika are no martial artists, and Aaron Kwok is a passable on-screen kungfu star at best, that means we have to have a big gimmick to make up for the lack of interesting fight choreography. Tong's answer? Have the whole fight scene take place on a teetering pane of glass dangling from a crane hundreds of feet up in the air. It might sound exciting at first, but think about it, and let me use this pro wrestling analogy. Many years ago, WCW had a pay-per-view match between the dull Dustin Rhodes and the even duller Blacktop Bully. The gimmick of the match was that the whole thing was going to take place on the trailer of a moving truck. It might have sounded cool at first, but the end result was two guys moving very, very slowly while trying to keep their balance as the truck barrelled down various lonely highways at speeds in excess of ten miles an hour. This finale is that wrestling match. Norika, Coolio, and Aaron all scoot about very gingerly while trying not to fall off the glass. From time to time, one person or another will dangle off the edge or try to kick someone. And then Coolio finally falls, but only after one false change of heart. You know, where the villain is about to die, begs the hero to save him, and once being saved, immediately reverts back to his dastardly ways. Heroes always fall for that shit. I mean, before you flew around with the purple pimpmobile dangling from a helicopter, he was selling crack to nine-year-old kids. Now all of a sudden he's maybe not that bad a guy? They only do this so the hero can kill the villain without looking like a murderer. How many action movies end with the hero refusing to kill the villain, only to have the villain suddenly produce some weapon, thus justifying the hero turning around and offing the guy? It's a weak-ass cop-out. People want their bloodlust satisfied, but you also can't just have a hero who hauls off and shoots people after beating their ass. In the end, Coolio falls off the thing and Norika and Aaron fall in love for no real reason. They were only together about two days, and most of that time was spent being hoisted around on wires and pretending Coolio knew kungfu. The big problem with China Strike Force is how amazingly average it is. It's impossible to completely blast it and say it's awful, because it's not. At the same time, it sure as hell ain't a good movie. It's just... bland. Poorly directed. Awkwardly paced. Horribly choreographed. Completely cliche. In the hands of Gordon Chan or Teddy Chan, this could have been a good movie. In the hands of someone as over-rated and incompetent as Stanley Tong, the movie never manages to rise above a mundane level. It takes a talented director to elevate poorly written action film nonsense into something memorable, and Tong does not have the tools for the task. As such, China Strike Force remains an unsatisfying, though not completely unentertaining, failure. Given the uninspired direction, the film's sundry flaws become impossible to ignore. The English language dialogue, of which there is quite a lot, is completely ludicrous. Who wrote this crap? I mean, it's English. I recognize the words, but it doesn't make any sense. It sounds like English that was spit out of one of those online translation things, that can get the vocabulary but fails utterly to comprehend nuances and grammatical rules. It also doesn't help that the dialogue was recorded at a level barely audible to dogs and mice, let alone humans. Whenever a piece of shit hip hop song plays -- and they play often -- suddenly it's like you have the volume on eleven, but when they go back to speaking, everything is silent again. Thus watching this movie is a constant battle with the volume control. I feel bad for people who don't have a remote control, because they're going to be running over to the television every ten seconds to readjust. I guess they mixed the dialogue so low because they knew what crap it was. Speaking of English, what the hell is up with Mark Dacascos' character? How are you going to become the lord of a vast Chinese criminal underworld if you don't speak a lick of Chinese? Even people of Chinese ancestry I know who grew up in America know at least a few words in their grandparents' tongue, but this guy doesn't know a single phrase. Surely the Chinese triads would not be overly accommodating of a new boss who murders other bosses, can't speak any Chinese, and brings Coolio along for the ride. The film's other big short-coming is, of course, the pacing. Stanley Tong can do no right when it comes to figuring out how to pace and stage an action sequence. He cuts when he should stay still, he shoots in close all the time so we can't see anything. He never finds a rhythm or a flow for the action. He loves to go over the top, but only in ways that are ludicrous rather than breathtaking. The many action scenes in this film range from pedestrian to lumbering. You spend the whole scene waiting for something to be done well, then all of a sudden it's over, leaving you with an empty feeling and no sense of satisfaction. And then sometimes it's all too ludicrous, even for a Hong Kong action film. When Dacascos and Coolio are down at the docks watching the boys unpack a Ferarri or one of them other fancy-ass sports cars, Aaron shows up and spoils the fun, leading to a completely unbelievable scene where Dacascos takes off in the sportscar and Aaron luckily happens upon a passing truck full of forumla one racecars which, despite the highly explosive nature, apparently ship fully gassed and ready to go. Of course, this all happens after the part in that first fight/chase scene where he rides a motorcycle up the flat vertical surface of a delivery truck's rear door. I think he repeats that nifty trick at the end of the movie as well. The finale, which is by and large a ripoff of the helicopter finale from Tong's earlier Supercop, is hardly the pay-off I was hoping for. It's not cool or original. It's just, well, stupid. From the whole "car dangling from the helicopter" bit, to Mark Dacascos being killed without ever facing off against the heroes, to the completely disjointed and uninteresting "fight" between Norika, Aaron, and Coolio, Tong certainly tries a lot of stuff, but none of it works. To add insult to injury, Tong's reliance on the most obvious and awkward of wire stunts makes it impossible to enjoy even on a visceral level. On the plus side, however, Norika looks great in her leathery fightin' outfit. The acting is passable, but the roles aren't very demanding. Aaron Kwok is coming along, and as I said before, in a few more years I think he'll be ready to shine, but right now he's not quite there physically or in his acting skill. Norika is basically there to look good and kick some ass, and she is great at both. When she has to act, it's only the shallowest of deals. Even a paperdoll could pull it off, so no complaints. Dacascos is alright, but if he's going to be a Chinese gangster, even one from America, he should have learned to fake his way through some Cantonese. Coolio is playing a stereotype, and you have to be really untalented not to pull that off. Everyone else is pretty forgettable. Aaron's partner is so bland that when he dies, you hardly notice. His fiance is every bit his match in blandness, so that even though she loses her future husband and her father, it really doesn't matter all that much. The movie punctuates this by completely blowing her off at the end in exchange for a kissing scene between Norika and Aaron, which of course comes out of nowhere. The only thing memorable about this film is how good it might have been if someone else had directed. As has always been the case, Stanley Tong was given all the pieces for a great film and just couldn't make them fit together. I should have come away beaming and saying "That was great!!!" Instead, I walked away slowly thinking, "Well, that was alright... I guess." Awkward drama, awkward comedy, and awkward action sequences are tenuously strung together in what proves to be a very average film. Sure, it's better than watching a Mario Van Peebles film, but with guys like Teddy Chan and Johnny To raising the bar and giving us enjoyable, well-made action films, Stanley Tong's lack of skill becomes even more glaring. He has no style, and he has no substance. In the end, China Strike Force, like most of his movies, is a bland and somewhat tedious exercise in paint-by-numbers film-making on the level of some of your better direct-to-video action films. I don't hate it, but I don't think I'll ever feel the need to watch it again. Labels: Action, Country: Hong Kong, Director: Stanley Tong, Martial Arts: Kungfu, Stars: Aaron Kwok, Stars: Mark Dacascos, Year: 2000 posted by Keith at 4:38 PM | 0 Comments Thursday, August 30, 2001Shiri
1999, South Korea. Starring Suk-kyu Han, Min-sik Choi, Yoon-jin Kim, Kang-ho Song, Derek Kim. Directed by Je-kyu Kang. Buy it on Amazon  .It's been damn hard to like action films for the past five or six years. Back in the 1970s, America and Italy were cranking out action films the likes of which had never been seen before and would never be seen again. These were incredible films full of grim characters and gritty violence. When the 1980s rolled around, America dropped out of the picture, trading in the streetwise toughness of the 1970s for overblown blockbusters that were big on noise and and little on any real action or intensity. That trend continues to this day with a few notable exceptions. But that was okay. While America force-fed itself a steady diet of Rambo and Steven Segal, dedicated action fans needed only to turn to Hong Kong, where the whole concept of action films was being reinvented by guys like Tsui Hark, John Woo, Sammo Hung, and plenty of others. What America had lost -- that human quality, the thrill that comes from seeing people instead of special effects at the forefront of the action -- Hong Kong now offered up in spades. And much like Italian and American films of the decade before, Hong Kong films during the 1980s were unique and will probably never be matched again. Enter the 1990s. For various reasons, the Hong Kong film industry started to collapse. As older stars found themselves unable to perform the wild stunts the fans demanded of them and newer stars refused to undergo the horrific training required to pull off the stunts of yesteryear, action films faltered. Like American films, they began to focus less on the human aspect of a stunt and more on the technical aspect, things like big explosions and jumpy editing. Where many of the films had once relied on the style of breakneck martial arts action pioneered by Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, and Jackie Chan, the new crop of stars didn't have the dedication or the backgrounds to pull it off. A lot of the older stars, like Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh, suffered pretty harsh injuries as well, meaning that by the middle of the 1990s it was getting pretty hard to find a martial arts action film that didn't relying heavily on wires, camera tricks, and undercranking. Rather than covering up for the weaknesses of the stars, with few exceptions it only reminded people of how lame the new bunch was turning out. Interest in Hong Kong action films waned, and action fans soon found themselves lost once again. Sure, over in Japan Takeshi Kitano was revolutionizing the genre and doing things unlike anyone had done before him (or, of course, would ever do again), but one man could hardly support the genre for the entire world. It seemed that the well, for the most part, had run dry. Oh yeah, some people were swearing up and down that the latest crop of Bollywood actioners from India were real ass-kickers in the spirit of early John Woo action films. This claim never really held up to inspection, though. Perhaps it was simply time to go into hibernation, or spend time acquainting oneself with the impressive back catalog of worthy action films the world has to offer. The along came Korea. The Korean film industry has yet to get the attention that the cinema of China, Hong Kong, and Japan received overseas. An arthouse film would pop up every few years, but for the most part, even your above-average film fan in the United States knew little about Korean pop cinema. It just didn't have the trendy ring of other Asian countries. But a cursory look at where Korea stands right now will show that's in very much the same situation Italy, the United States, and Hong Kong were in when they were at the top of their game. Both Italy and the US hit their action film stride in the early-mid 1970s. for the United States, it was a period when the Vietnam War was still raging, the country was trying to hold itself together, and everyone on either side of the fight just felt disillusioned and exhausted. In Italy, it was the Arab-Israeli war and the dramatic rise in terrorist activity and crime that tore the country to shreds. Out of these boiling cauldrons of chaos emerged some of the greatest, grittiest films of all time. Intense times breed intense films. In the 1980s, Hong Kong was really coming into its own as a force to be reckoned with, and at the same time realized that the 1997 hand-over date at which time they would rejoin the Communist mainland was no so far off as it once was. Mix that anxiety in with an explosion in the power of triad gangs, and all of a sudden you have an island full of nervous, uncertain people. That fear and uncertainty got channeled in many ways into energetic films and artistic expression. If nothing else, directors were betting they might not have has much freedom come 1997 so they better pull out all the stops before then. The results were, of course, amazing. When 1997 rolled around and turned out to not be that big a deal, the industry found itself spent. Gangsters had bled it dry behind the scenes, VCD bootleggers had demolished the box office returns, and most of the old stars were retiring, seeking their fortunes elsewhere, or simply couldn't perform like they used to. Hong Kong settled back into a period of relative stability and complacency, and the raw intensity of the films from the 1980s was lost. And now we have Korea. I'm going to assume that no one needs me to give them a lesson on the past and current state of Korea. The United States fought a little war over there we creatively call the Korean War. You can watch MASH for the low-down on that. The war was historic for many reasons, not the least of which being that America, still high off their big World War II win, was in for a rude awakening pertaining to our military might. The United States has never been successful with wars in Asia. The Japanese ran circles around us and just would not give up during World War II. The ground battles in the Pacific were some of the most intense and bloody American troops have ever fought -- my grandfather's ear will attest to that if you can find it. He left it back in Guadalcanal somewhere. Eventually, we just had to drop a couple atom bombs on Japan to get them to surrender. Korea didn't go much better (and I won't even bring up Vietnam and Cambodia). When the country went into civil war, the United States immediately jumped to the aide of the democratic South. What we didn't count on was the Chinese leaping to the defense of the communist North. The war raged for years and never amounted to anything more than a stalemate. Eventually, everyone just got tired and signed a cease fire agreement. The war was never actually declared over. Officially, it's still going on today. Like just about every communist country started finding out in the 1990's, there are some basic problems with a government that is totalitarian and isolationist. Communist North Korea simply started running out of money, then they were not so simply hit with a number of bombshells. Crop failure and severe flooding resulted in mass starvation. Just about every communist country in Asia began moving toward an open market economy. Where North Korea could previously rely on China and Russia for aide, that aide was gone as those countries found themselves with their own load of problems. Both leaders in the communist world began making overtures toward the formerly evil democracies of the West. Before North Korea knew it, Russia dropped Communism and China started to (but just couldn't let go of that whole torturing of political dissidents thing). Kampuchea changed its name back to Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge. Vietnam loosened the grip somewhat and started marketing itself as a great spot for vacations. Korea's communist allies were suddenly few and far between. There was no way an impoverished, isolated country like North Korea could deal with the natural disasters that crippled its economy and crushed the people. They had to look for help, and the only places that were doing well were the United States, Japan, and South Korea. Maybe it was time to resume talks with their brothers and sisters from the South. The notion of a reunification of the two countries has been kicked around a lot in recent years. It worked for Germany. But then, it's still a wildly complicated situation. Decades of separation require years and years of work before reunification can ever be a viable, lasting solution. The countries started down that road when North Korea simply stood up and said it needed help. Japan, South Korea, and the United States obliged. If the bitterest of enemies (there is no love loss between many Koreans and Japanese) could put aside differences to help people in need, then maybe healing the wounds wasn't such a crazy idea after all. Talks began, and just like in Italy, The United States, and Hong Kong, feelings of hope, fear, anxiety, and confusion emerged. It's from these tense but hopeful times that Shiri draws its power. It draws its title from a fish that is native to the waters around the demilitarized zone between the two countries. The symbolism is not lost on the viewer, and in fact fish play a major role as symbols in this film. Shiri opens with no holds barred, as a group of North Korean special operatives train under merciless conditions that include practic |
