February 23, 2006
Cult Films
The first film I intend to review this week is SAMURAI FICTION. People love this movie so much I am hesitant to review it all. (I’ve reviewed movies you all love in the past and I’ve sat quietly through the storm of disfavor that followed). Further, I watched it several weeks ago now and utterly neglected to write anything down and now write about it with faded memory. I found it to be pretty ok but merely ok and I’m ready for your hate mail, send it along.
There’s a problem I encounter quite often with the fact that I cover a lot of ‘cult’ films. Criticizing a cult film that someone loves is sometimes paramount to criticizing their child. They see no flaws and love it unconditionally. That’s fine. You should see me defend and deify my favorite films (look in archive, see: AKIRA). But I write another column on another website about science fiction television and those guys are way worse than you guys when I step on their favorites (in the interest of self-promotion that website is SMRT-TV.com).
What’s cute about some of the cult film fans is that they’ll try to convert you. When I negatively reviewed ONG BAK (I can’t believe I’m bringing this up again of my own accord), I got a number of offers from you lovely folk to send me, free of charge, the ‘making of’ DVD. So I could see how hard they worked. I would certainly change my opinion if I saw how hard they worked! While I was pretty sure that I’d still have a low opinion of the movie no matter how hard they worked, I admired the admiration of others. I wish I enjoyed it to the level they did, it would only make me as happy as they are.
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But the ONG BAK experience has taught me to be a bit careful around some of these films. (So much so that I haven’t dared review TOM YUM GOONG, but perhaps if you promise to be nice I will). I try to see what others see (if possible) and at least understand what they like about it. I don’t want to deter people from watching what they might like -- all I want to do is make people watch more foreign films! (With force, if necessary -- or that device from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE).
Japan seems to be an expert at putting out these huge cult phenomenoms every couple of years. Something about their films causes this impassioned, undying devotion. Japan also puts out anime, one of the biggest cult phenomenons of all time.
Before I started writing this column (almost two years ago, goodness!), I had never heard of SAMURAI FICTION. But honestly, over this time span, it is the film I have been most e-mailed about. I always promised to cover it (like you poor folks still waiting for the Takashi Miike column I promised forever and ever ago -- when the man stops making films faster than I can watch them that column’ll happen). And SAMURAI FICTION sat in my Netflix queue among 300 other films and it’s time never came. But I saw it in a video store a few weeks ago and decided -- this was it.
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SAMURAI FICTION
To say Quentin Tarantino had seen SAMURAI FICTION before making KILL BILL would be an understatement. He even used a song from the star and scorer of SAMURAI FICTION in KILL BILL. And to say that perhaps the title of SAMURAI FICTION may be inspired by Tarantino seems ultimately possible as well. But the Tarantino connection ends there -- so be prepared to enter a slightly less kinetic (and slightly more Japanese) parody-homage to the samurai genre.
Rannosuke Kazamatsuri (Tomoyasu Hotei) steals a treasured sword from his clan (a sword which in real life was borrowed from Toshiro Mifune, the most famous samurai of the movies). Heishiro Inurai (Mitsuru Fukikoshi), the son the clan leader, impetuously follows him screaming and running with two members of his clan tasked with following him.
Heishiro’s first encounter with Rannosuke doesn’t go anything resembling his way and he is taken in by Hanbei Mizoguchi (Morio Kazama), who happens to actually be a master swordsman but now is a pacifist who raises his beautiful daughter Koharu (Tamaki Ogawa) in the country.
The plot isn’t particularly ground breaking and it’s not supposed to be. This is a ‘love letter’ to the genre (I hate that phrase, but it’s what comes to mind) so a lot of classical plot elements exist in some form. Heishiro is headstrong and wants to be the young hero. Rannosuke is a rogue just wants to find someone worthy of his skill. And Hanbei has found inner peace in the raising of a daughter. If you’ve watched any of the genre, you’ve seen these men before, but never like this.
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The film is in black and white, drawing more comparisons to Kurosawa’s films. But this film draws from a longer history of samurai, even including familiar (and significantly more modern) anime conventions. It’s wide ranging interest -- from the black and white past, to the slow-mo modern day -- is part of it’s charm. The action isn’t great but it’s good. The filmmaking isn’t great but it’s good. But the film has a fun to it that’s hard to characterize. It’s parody with reverence. It’s tone is unusual and it’s off-beatness is refreshing. The film never gets overly goofy but always keeps it’s jovial tone. I can definitely see why people enjoy it.
If you read any other reviews of this film they will almost certainly make mention of the score which is worth watching the film for by itself. Hotei, the main actor is well known as a musician and is a neophyte actor. He acquits himself well in the acting category but it’s hard to get by his utterly strange looks. He’s quite striking with his unique look (you’ve never seen anything like him). But he overshadows all this with his music which is hip and modern but fits the film so well (and surpasses it at times).
This movie is not for most people though. It’s slow, the humor is humorous but not laugh-out-loud and the more you know about samurai films through the ages the more you’ll enjoy. I enjoyed it but I won’t be joining it’s cult any time soon.
FINAL FANTASY: ADVENT CHILDREN
While FINAL FANTASY 7 (the game) was so long ago that I’d practically forgotten about it’s existence, I was excited by the trailer for the FINAL FANTASY 7 movie. It looked gorgeous, of course, and it was nice to see the old characters back in action. Then a good friend sent me a copy and I actually saw the film....
I will try to summarize this film but I’m not sure I should bother. But this is the best I can explain it: It’s two years after the game and many are infected with ‘geostigma’. In general things aren’t going too well. Cloud (our hero), who with Tifa has a delivery service of some sort, is just minding his business and doing his job when he is challenged by three ‘brothers’, led by Kadaj, looking for ‘mother’ (it’s worth noting that no one knows what he’s talking about). One of the brother challenges Tifa and kidnaps adorable little Marlene. Cloud goes to get her and faces the brothers. Unfortunately little Denzel has already by hypnotized with a bunch of other kids (who I can only assume are the titular ‘advent children’ but I don’t know). Everyone (and I mean everyone) shows up and there’s a bunch of fighting. That’s the best I can do.
There was a lot of excitement for this film and a lot of people trying to make it something other than it is. It carried the hopes and dreams people had for the failed FINAL FANTASY:THE SPIRITS WITHIN feature film. But these people (and I am somewhat guilty of this) forgot the reality of this film. There are two things in particular that keep it from being the next great anime film. One is, it’s a sequel (to a game at that). The other is that, despite a short theatrical run in Japan, it was more or less made for home video.
It doesn’t need to and doesn’t try very hard to appeal to those who aren’t enamoured of the game FINAL FANTASY 7. That’s who they made it for. It feels much like a couple good episodes of anime strung together instead of a real motion picture experience.
If you are a fan, you get to see all your favorite characters again (even the dead ones). You get to see the fall out that the end of the game implies. The open ended finale of the game has led to much debate and curiosity over the years and I’m almost surprised that Square didn’t try to capitalize on this interest earlier, since FINAL FANTASY 7 was the most successful in the FINAL FANTASY series of games (being the first FINAL FANTASY made for Playstation and PC and a huge leap in computer graphics). But Square Soft, the game’s creator, finally did capitalize on this and the film was released along with spinoff and prequel games (the former for Playstation, the later for mobile phones) and another film (LAST ORDER).
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But a warning to fans (like there are fans who haven’t seen it yet): If you like the ambiguous, almost cynical ending of the game, I’d caution you not to watch this (and be filled with the happy happy joy joy). And for those interested in watching who haven’t played the game -- you won’t get everything but you won’t be too confused. But be warned as well: It will spoil the best parts of the game for you if you ever intend to play it.
And why would you watch it if you’re not already a fan? Well, the animation is quite good -- better than the standard for the last couple of games (as you would expect). But while it’s stunning at times, my high expectations for FINAL FANTASY animation stunts the film’s ability to wow me. They are victims of their own success. And the stylistic action scenes were fine at first when they were short but by the end I was tired of them and I could never tell what was going on.
There’s just surprisingly little to talk about where the film is concerned. There’s no particularly interesting character development or enlightening themes. The game had both these things. FINAL FANTASY 7 was ahead of the pack in making a statement on the mining of the earth’s resources causing our ultimate destruction. And also the characters were well-etched in the game causing them to still be some of the most loved today (I still see Aeris’ and Sephiroth’s at conventions).
But the film isn’t all bad (although it may be largely mediocre). As noted, it’s like watching a couple of filler episodes of an anime you already like. All your characters show up and it has a happy little ending. The main through-line of the film is Cloud moping and it’s resolved in the end with his decision that he would mope no more. I’m starting to think this film might be truly enjoyable with alcohol involved...
In the end, FINAL FANTASY 7 fans will enjoy another glimpse of their characters and the flashbacks to the game will have an emotional weight, but it’s not really the crossover film we all hoped it would be.
Sony will release an American DVD version of the film which will be two discs with lots of extras on April 25th. Dubbed.
IN TWO WEEKS: It’s time for the Hong Kong update, starting with SPL -- is it the savior of the once great industry? (I think maybe, yes). And Stephen Fung is good-looking, but not a terribly good actor. Although, is he a good director? I’ll tackle his first two features.
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