——Mystic River——

(A-)

This is a pretty good film. Clint Eastwood does a great job at making a film that could have been pretty forgettable (the murder mystery police procedural story has been done to death–just on Law and Order alone) and making it quite memorable by playing off of the characters instead of the situation. It also helps that there are some damn fine actors working on this film. I mean, hell, the cast list reads like the must have Hollywood A list. There are a few weak moments I feel (like what the hell is up with Laura Linney at the end? And what’s going on with Kevin Bacon’s wife constantly calling him and not saying anything?) but overall I thought it was a very good film.

——Shaolin Mantis——

(B-)

For a while I was a little disappointed in this film because the guy never pulled out the Mantis style. It wasn’t until the very end that I realized he didn’t actually know the Mantis style yet and had to learn it by watching a praying mantis at work. Whoops.

Anyway, the film is about a kung fu expert sent by the Emperor to infiltrate the house of a suspected Ming sympathizer and to get a list of all of the rebels involved. He goes about this in the rather comic fashion of posing as a teacher for the granddaughter (who happens to know kung fu AND falls in love with him) and he tries to teach her while she tries make his life a living hell. Meanwhile he’s working on a deadline, because if he doesn’t get the information in nine weeks his whole family will be killed. The grandfather finds out who he is but the granddaughter makes up a story about how they are lovers and they get married.

Then there are a long series of fights to get out of the house when he has his information which make no sense because he doesn’t really win the fights and only after learning the mantis style does he come back and kick their asses. The fights before he knows mantis style aren’t anything special, which is a shame because they spend SO much time on them. The mantis style is awesome though. The rest of the movie is so-so, so I probably would recommend that you just skip to the end.

However after he brings the information to the emperor at the end the totally bizarre happens. His father, who he saved now tries to kill him with poison, citing the fact that the Mings must win. I guess with the history this makes sense, but why have the main character be on the bad guys’ side? It makes no sense.

——The Street Fighter——

(B)

Finally I got my Sonny Chiba movies in the mail. The plot of this is needlessly complicated, but the gist of it is that Terry is working for the yakuza and they want him to kidnap this wealthy heiress, but he doesn’t go for that so he goes to the good guys and offers to protect the girl. Terry is one of those guys that plays by his own rules and pretty much does whatever he wants because his father was killed when he was a child and right before he died he told Terry to trust no one and to always be the best. Anyway, the plot is just like any other 70’s exploitation flick, and not really good at that (for example, Terry has a flunky sidekick called Ratnose who is incredibly annoying and whose only purpose seems to be to die at an important part in the narrative) but the real draw of this movie is definitely Sonny Chiba who is AWESOME.

Sonny Chiba is a lot like Bruce Lee, except without the grace and he acts like a drunk gorilla (it’s pretty amusing). His karate is brutal. Unlike a lot of kung fu movies Sonny doesn’t play with his enemies, he kicks their ass (and usually kills them) as quickly as possible. It’s pretty impressive to watch him kill like fifty enemies in a row at the end. Also the film is really brutal too. There’s lots of blood (although it looks more like bright red Dutch Boy paint than anything resembling blood), frequent breaking of bones and a couple times Sonny will actually rip something off (including someone’s throat and a rapist’s nuts).

The actual plot isn’t that great, but it’s totally worth it to see Sonny Chiba kick major ass.

——Black Sunday——

(B)

At times I feel like this movie about a terrorist plot to kill everyone at the Super Bowl with a blimp is a little bloated (like a blimp; does it really need to be two hours and twenty minutes long?) but enough things go right with this movie to make it worthy viewing. Just to go back to that blimp for a moment, that final chase between the blimp and a police helicopter is probably one of the most bizarre and interesting chase scenes ever put on film. It’s pretty damn suspenseful too. I also liked the way the film really got into the details of pulling off a plot like this, and at the same time being able to deal with the characters in a respectful manner not really seen in today’s blockbusters. Of course today’s blockbusters are also a hell of a lot more exciting half the time, which makes me really wish that this had been edited down a little bit (at least to two hours). Still, despite the fact that it drags on from time to time it is a pretty decent movie worth checking out if at least for the bizarre climax.

——The Isle——

(A)

Harry rented this Korean film and brought it over to my house to watch, and we both agree that this is probably the most fucked up disturbing thing we’ve ever seen. This definitely isn’t for everyone. Harry and I both agreed at the end that anything else disturbing we saw from now on would seem blasé in comparison. Still, if you were someone who really liked Secretary but wished it was a whole lot more fucked up then the Isle is probably for you.

This is a beautiful film about a mute woman who supplies these men that live on houseboat shacks and from time to time provides the services of a prostitute. The people who live in the shacks are usually people who don’t want to be found by society, whether that means they committed a crime or that they just don’t want people to know what they are doing (like the businessman who comes there to have an affair).

Then a man comes that has apparently killed his wife and lover and is fleeing from the law, with absolutely no interest in fishing. The mute girl takes to him pretty quickly, but they are both pretty damn fucked up. The guy keeps trying to kill himself and the mute girl likes to stab people who piss her off from under the water. And the movie only gets more fucked up from there…WAY more fucked up. And it’s a love story, go figure.

I won’t get into the finer points of this movie (email me if you are interested and want to know more) because it is really disturbing and probably not something most people want to read about it. But despite the fact that you’ll probably get the hibbee-jibees multiple times (I don’t care how jaded you are) this is actually an excellent film that beautiful and amazingly well put together. I’m not ever going to look at fishing the same way again, but the film is still pretty must see for those with a really, really, REALLY strong stomach.

——Winter Sleepers——

(A-)

This is the film the Run Lola Run guy directed right before Run Lola Run. It’s a pretty slow burn drama about how these people’s lives in a ski village intertwine because of coincidence. It’s beautifully shot in warm tones with some good direction, and has some great character interaction. Some people might find fault with it with the fact that not a whole lot really happens in the movie, but I at least really enjoyed it despite that fact. The movie isn’t perfect, but it was still able to give me that warm and fuzzy feeling one gets when watching a good foreign film.

——Return of the Street Fighter——

(B)

More Sonny Chiba, and unfortunately some more bad plot. The beginning of this film spends at least a good half-hour on boring exposition, but I guess it is worth it because from then on it is almost nonstop ass kicking. Of course half of the fights happen with little or no explanation, but still, Sonny rocks. There is another crappy sidekick, this time a cute Japanese girl who looks like a hipster Pippi Long Stocking, and yeah she serves little function other to die and thus start Sonny’s ass kicking. There’s also a Mafia Don who looks just like Pacino in Serpico who you know is a really BAD bad guy, because he uses every chance he can get for Asian racial slurs. I’m not completely sure I know what this film was all about, but neither do I care, especially when Chiba hits a guy in the back of the head so hard that his eyes pop out like a cartoon character.

——Blade of Fury——

(B-)

I probably would have rated this film a whole lot better if director Sammo Hung hadn’t totally fucked the ending. Sammo tends to like shooting things in fast-mo (my term for the opposite of slow-mo) which works fine in a few scenes in the first half of the movie, but looks completely stupid in the final scenes of the film. Fast-mo seems to work best when it is used when two characters are fighting each other, both moving at similar speeds, or when a character is spinning. For some reason it just looks really right when you are spinning. When it doesn’t work is when you have characters or objects moving at varying speeds, like when a group of people are attacking one person, because that means whenever someone who was just standing there moves for his chance to get kicked in the face he looks like a silent movie character in an under cranked film. Also it is definitely a technique, like slow-mo, that should really be used sparingly at key moments only. When you use it for the whole fight it just looks like shit.

I’m not really going to get into the plot except to note that the Ching dynasty is really hated by the Chinese. I mean REALLY hated. In just about ever kung fu movie I’ve seen they are always the bad guys, and they are always major dicks.

There is one MUST SEE moment in the film though. This is a sequence where, for no apparent reason, a horse runs THROUGH a brick wall. I don’t know how they did it, or even how they got the horse to run into a wall, but it is the most hilarious/bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. That moment alone makes this movie worth seeing, and there are quite a few fights that are pretty cool.

——Shaolin and Wu Tang——

(A)

This is by far the coolest kung fu movie I’ve seen so far. Gordon Liu does it again. There are a few passing resemblances to his other great kung fu movie, Shaolin Master Killer, but there is also enough new stuff that you won’t really care. The plot involves two friends of rival schools (Shaolin and Wu Tang) who get involved in an evil plot by a Ching official (there the Ching are again!) to learn the secrets of the two schools. Since the schools won’t teach him their secrets he sets up an elaborate plot that not only help him learn the two styles, but also make the two clans think the other one has caused them some harm. The two friends go off to their respective clans and train to fully master their styles, only to be the two representatives for their respective schools in a tournament that the Ching leader is hoping will wipe out the two schools so that he will be master of the realm. The two realize the plot in time though, and together manage to take out the Ching official.

The plot to this is quite solid, and the fight sequences are very much among the best I’ve ever seen. Gordon Liu doesn’t fuck around with his kung fu. When you watch him you really feel like you’re watching the real deal. This one receives my highest kung fu recommendation.

——Hollywood Homicide——

(C+)

Although the film does end on a high note that doesn’t really disguise the fact that this is a one-note gimmick movie. All the movie has is the fact that Harrison Ford is a real estate agent in his spare time and pretty boy Jackson is a yoga instructor/wanna be actor who gets all the chicks. It doesn’t really voyage too far away from that premise. Otherwise it’s a Law & Order episode where the case is solved not by good crime solving but by the pure coincidence that the two main bad guys also happen to be the two men that killed pretty boy’s dad. Whoop de do. Harrison Ford does bring some light to this otherwise dull comedy by making even the most bland lines sound awesome. Plus bonus points for that scene where he’s humping the two-way mirror. Also, bonus points for having Andre 3000 of Outkast in the movie. Otherwise this film is just another day at the office.

——It Happened One Night——

(B+)

This 1934 Frank Capra film is insanely charming, even if the plot and the dialog aren’t really anything to flip over. The film is all about a newspaper reporter helping a rich girl escape her father in Miami and hitchhike their way north to her new husband in New York. Surprise, surprise, on the trip north they quibble and fight with each other the entire way, only to somewhere along the way fall in love. You’ve seen it a million times before, and yet something about the film feels real fresh (prehaps it is the fact that in 1934 this probably was real fresh). The banter between the two is not as snappy as it would have been in a Howard Hawks film, but the acting is spot on and makes for a real fun film.

——Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World——

(A)

This is one of the best movies of its kind, and is definitely the best movie that takes place on a boat since Das Boot. Speaking of Das Boot, the two films are very similar in their portrayal of men at sea in a time of war, except for the fact that this film is far less depressing and a hell of a lot more fun. Part of the problem of films that take place in this time period is that they seem to always feel stale and stuffy, and who wants to see that? Master and Commander has none of those problems, staying authentic to the time period while feeling timeless at the exact same time. It’s exciting and interesting and always keeps you on your toes. And the battles…damn. They do for two ships firing cannon balls at each other what Saving Private Ryan did with its D-Day battle scene. Giant chucks of wood suddenly disappear while splinters fly everywhere. It’s crazy. This is definitely one of the best films of 2003, as the film manages to be not only a good blockbuster entertainment, but a fine piece of dramatic entertainment too.

——Flag of Iron——

(C-)

For a Chang Cheh/Venoms movie, this film is unusually bad. The plot is horrible and the overdubbing is probably the worst of any film I’ve seen so far. And while the film has plenty of fights, there are probably too many as each one doesn’t really last too long before the antagonist dies. Only the final battle really stands out, and at that it really isn’t that spectacular. Stay away from this one.