January 12, 2006
In the spirit of Pan-Asian films, I’m going to review a new Chinese film, a Japanese film recently on DVD and an older Korean film I’ve only recently discovered. Only the first of these film is actually Pan-Asian (with actors from Korea, Japan, China and Hong Kong) but the trend is all the rage, so who am I not to be trendy?
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THE PROMISE
As promised, but later than I thought, here is my review of THE PROMISE! I thought I was going to see it at a critic’s screening set up by Weinstein Co. but then they dropped the film (it currently does not have a US distributor so don’t hold your breathe that you’ll get to see it unless you import it and it’s not available for import yet). Then, because they dropped it, I thought it’s Academy run was cancelled. It wasn’t. Which explains how Variety and The Hollywood Reporter reviewed it (I was wondering how they saw it) but I didn’t find this out till it was too late. But lucky me, there was one more showing -- American Cinemateque in LA was showing it and all the Golden Globes Foreign Film nominees this week. And Chen Kaige (the director) was there himself to introduce the film. He talked about how hard this three year journey of his was. And the sacrifices he made. It’s clear he feels strongly for the film and was happy just to be given the opportunity to make one like it.
Anyway, I literally just got home so my thoughts are bound to be rambling and not entirely well thought out. A lot of times my opinion of a movie will change once it’s had time to sit in my head for a day or two. Perhaps after a second viewing I may review this film again someday.
So what’s this film about? Well, in short: Kunlun (Jang Dong-Kun) is a slave who comes under the master of the people’s favorite General (Hiroyuki Sanada). The General is trying to defeat the positively evil Duke of the North (Nicholas Tse). But all three men are interested in the enchanting Princess (Cecilia Cheung) -- a beautiful but cursed woman who is largely the cause of all the problems in the film.
I don’t know if you’ve read the reviews of this film but I have -- and the blogs and the forums -- and they’re not very positive. But the plus of this is I had heard that the bull running scene looked as cartoonish as Wild E. Coyote so when I actually saw it -- I didn’t think it was that bad.
But the first thing to mention is that I expected this film to be the next in art-fu (such as HERO, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON and the oldie but goodie ASHES OF TIME). But it’s not. That’s not really what you should expect. This film is really a lot more like STORM RIDERS or the Korean film BICHUNMOO. This isn’t a bad thing. I happen to love STORM RIDERS despite it’s flaws. But it’s a good thing to know going in so your expectations aren’t skewed.
This includes the ‘bad’ CGI. This has been one of the film’s most talked about aspects. If you watch a lot of Asian films with CGI, this is pretty on par. (The people who have compared this to the art-fu movies don’t realize that those movies don’t have a lot of CG at all. And when they do, they are often on par with the CG in this film. Those arrows in HERO? Not quite ILM). Once again, I was told how horrible it was and then when I saw it, I didn’t think it was so horrible.
All of the acting was pretty good. And as far as my semester and a half of Mandarin could tell, Hiroyuki Sanada’s (a native Japanese) and Jang Dong-Kun’s (a native Korean) Mandarin was at least better than Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh. But this is somewhat off topic. Although, I’ve been following this movie for more than two years so I think I’ve earned the right to go off topic.
But as I was saying, the performances are all pretty good. Sanada-san and Jang seem to be on the same page, making them a good pair. Cecilia plays a good woman-of-everyone’s-desire. In the past she hasn’t been very comfortable with playing sexy but seems to be a lot more comfortable here. Despite the presence of her ex-boyfriend, which you think would be awkward. But Cecilia and Nicholas Tse are hardly in any scenes together. And Nicholas Tse, who in the interest of full disclosure I must admit I have been school girl crazy over in the past, is really turning into quite an actor. In all honesty, I think his performance is the best part of the film. (And my boyfriend, who would have every reason to dislike the man I used to dream about marrying, whole-heartedly agrees that Nic’s performance was the best in the film). While Sanada and Jang swing from comedic to melodramatic (at least showing their range), Nicholas anchors the film with his consistent and quirky performance.
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So the acting is good, the CG is what it is but the film rises and falls on its story. The biggest problem the movie has is that it’s just plot point upon plot point with very little story or character development. To it’s merit, it’s somewhat convoluted story is very clear. I saw the original Chinese cut. The Weinstein Co., when they were still releasing the film and it was called MASTER OF THE CRIMSON ARMOR cut the film down and had a written introduction which is what the trades reviewed. But nothing needed explaining and I’m not sure entirely what they cut because the film moved along just fine. And as I was noting, it really needed more -- not less. But something happens the something happens with no real emotional center. There are three characters you root for but none you identify with. With more work, the script could have been more affecting but as is lets you down a bit.
And a quick note about the kung fu -- it’s not up to snuff. Lots of CG and cutting, nothing to really watch or enjoy. As noted, more like STORM RIDERS than CROUCHING TIGER.
THE PROMISE is a bit of an anomaly, because it’s garnered such negative and mediocre reviews even in it’s home country but has also broke box office records in China (which is good, because it was China’s most expensive film ever). So some people must like it. Looking at the reviews o regular folks on the internet there is a lot of “not as bad as I’d heard” which amounts to a back-handed compliment. But in the end I would recommend it to most people. You won’t be sorry you saw it and will probably enjoy yourself on some level.
Prognosis: I enjoyed it, but my expectations were in place. Also, I’d like to see it again. Another review might be forthcoming.
GODZILLA: FINAL WARS
The Earth Defense Force....defends the Earth. Evidently sometimes from monsters. But they get more than they bargained for when an alien race called the Xilians appears and so does every monster Godzilla has ever fought. Masahiro Matsuoka is Neo, I mean Ozaki and his partner is Namikawa (played by Kumi Mizuno). They are elite members of this force -- and they are also mutants. The hot love interest biologist Miyuki Otonashi (Rei Kikukawa) will tell you all about it.
Basically, the aliens kidnap the UN Secretary General (the first Japanese one ever, they note) and Ozaki and his team must fight the aliens to get him and their planet back. Ozaki is aided by Captain Gordon (played by UFC champ Don Frye) who is a hard ass American who always speaks in English although everyone replies to him in Japanese. But to defeat the monsters while our team is defeating the aliens they awake Godzilla from his crygenic-like sleep in the South Pole.
As you may have gained from this description, Godzilla in only in this film incidently. There is the big convulted mutants versus aliens (slash mutants are aliens) storyline that no one cares abpit. Godzilla doesn’t show up until over an hour into the film. And the main storyline steals from so many well known Hollywood movies as to be ridiculous. There are a couple of scenes stolen directly out of THE MATRIX, even one out INDEPENDENCE DAY.
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When Godzilla does eventually show up, he rips through the other monsters so fast that there is little satisfaction. And who are the other monsters? I hardly know because they rarely tell you. I recognized the biggies like Mothra and Rhodan but most of the rest of the monsters were a mystery to me. But I did recognize one of the movie’s finer touches -- Godzilla quickly disposes of the CG Godzilla from Roland Emmerich’s 1998 Hollywood remake. The Godzilla of this film, as well as most of the monsters he fights, are what is called man-in-suit. It means, of course, that a man is wearing a Godzilla suit. This I actually find enjoyable.
In the end, Godzilla gets a long protracted fight with a version of King Ghidorah. I’m not sure why he was chosen as the aliens seem to worship Gigan (who Godzilla fights two version of, but disposes of easily).
While the man-in-suit Godzilla was pretty much my favorite part,
The film did play like 2 hours of Power Rangers. Men in monster suits fighting in miniatures. Humans in silly outfits doing too many unnecessary acrobatics. These are aspects of the intentional and unintentional campy-ness of the film.
But I think the thing is this film wasn’t made for me. It’s an odd beast. Because really it’s a goodbye to Godzilla. He’s going away at least for a while since his films aren’t making the money they used to. But subsequently, by being the ‘last’ and ‘50th anniversary’ film in which he fights many of his former enemies, this film got a lot of hype. To be honest, I didn’t even know they still regularly made Godzilla movies in Japan but I certainly knew about this film.
But this film was made as a treat to the die hard fans. As noted, they don’t even tell you who most of the monsters are. If you don’t know who Mothra is and that he’s summoned by two girls then that part sure isn’t going to make sense to you (it didn’t make sense to me, fortunately my boyfriend, who knows slightly more about these things, clued me in on who the bizarre girls were).
I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to have a Godzilla movie with proportionately little Godzilla. And whenever he does show up, there are inevitably a lot of explosions. This really made me wish he showed up a lot more than he did. There were plenty of good parts of this movie and almost all of them involved Godzilla. The main storyline seriously dragged. I did enjoy myself, but I think I could have enjoyed myself a whole lot more.
And look out for the super touchy-feely ending!
Prognosis: Good fun, but not as much fun as it could have been.
OASIS
What a truly unusual film this is. Released in 2002 in Korea, it got a US theatrical release and DVD release in 2004. I had heard about it but it wasn’t until I came across it in a video store last weekend that I picked it up.
Jong-du Hong (Kyung-gu Sol) is released from prison for a drunk driving hit-and-run. He goes home to his family but they’re not at the same address anymore. Only when he goes to a restaurant, eats but can’t pay and is picked up by the police are his family obliged to show up.
It doesn’t take long to figure out why his family doesn’t want him. He has no social graces, is a bit ‘slow’ and just plain not likeable. You find that this is his third arrest and the previous ones were for assault and attempted rape.
Once back with his family, they feel obliged to take care of him. His older brother gets him a job but he messes that up. He’s sleeping at his brother’s auto shop and also attempts to work there (unsuccessfully).
Further, he gets it in his head to bring a gift basket to the family of the man he killed in the accident. Obviously, they don’t want to see him. But it’s there he meets Gong-ju (So-ri Moon).
Gong-ju has cerebral palsy and like Jong-du she is abandoned by her family and shunned by society. After meeting, Jong-du returns to see her again and ends up trying to rape her.
So right about now you’re totally wondering what in the world is good about this movie. And it’s truly hard to explain. But there is something beautiful about it and it’s truly worth your time.
After the assault, Gong-ju contacts Jong-du. She actually wants to see him. And it’s there their romance begins. These two people really work together. While you dislike Jong-du as a single person and you feel sympathy for Gong-ju’s situation -- when they are together, both these feelings disappear. You can see them both as just humans. They are the only people, seemingly in the world, that understand each other. That see each other without prejudice and are willing to give each other a chance.
At the end of the film, the filmmakers try to emphasize how a love like theirs can’t be understood in this world. The point is worthwhile but the ending is forced -- with an event happening that in the end doesn’t make reasonable sense.
But it doesn’t matter so much. The film has either touched you or it hasn’t at this point. And it touches a lot of people. People love this film. They really do. Look at reviews on IMDB (where it has an 8.2 rating) or Amazon.
I doubt you’ve ever seen anything like this movie and a difficult subject is handled unbelievably well. Hollywood marginalizes this part of society like every one else does. Even when the subject is breached such as in THE OTHER SISTER, it’s completely Hollywood-ized. This film is entirely beyond that.
This is from the same director who brought us the equally affecting PEPPERMINT CANDY -- a real pick-me-up of a film that starts with a man’s suicide and goes back through the years ending with his life full of promise. While his films may not always be happy they do seem to be ‘true’ and it’s in that their power lies.
Prognosis: Really worth it for how different it is and how well it’s handled.
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