——Beach of the War Gods——

(A-)

Jimmy Wang Yu may not be a very impressive martial artist, but damn does he know how to stage a great action sequence. The entire second half of this movie is made up of one gigantic sword battle between the Chinese and the invading Japanese armies. People are fighting everywhere (and not that fake “I’m just in the background” play fighting either) and when someone is about to do something cool or kill another fighter the action goes into slow mo so you can see every gritty detail. After that it goes right back to more fighting though. People are fighting and dying all over the place. It’s awesome.

Although the characters feel the need to add in “those dirty Jap bastards!” to each and every sentence they utter, what is really ironic about this movie is how much Jimmy Wang Yu owes to the samurai movies of Kurosawa. Certain shots at the beginning are eerily similar to those in Yojimbo, and the movie owes heavy debts to Seven Samurai, from the similar way the final battle in the town is staged to the fact that each of the heroes of the story have traits similar to the heroes in Kurosawa’s movie (including having “the guy with the knives” that James Coburn made so famous when asking for a part in the Magnificent Seven).

The movie starts off a little slow, but it is all set up for what is to come in the second half. This is a very cool swordplay flick.

——Dawn of the Dead (RM)——

(A-)

Take everything that was cool about the original film and 28 Days Later, subtract the biting social commentaries of both films and add to that a big budget, and what you get is the extremely entertaining Dawn of the Dead remake that almost achieves a classic horror movie status. This movie is really relentless, and some of the best moments happen in the sidelines, watching total and utter chaos erupt around the central characters. A zombie comes out of nowhere and tackles a woman crying on her front lawn, a car barrels down the road at 90 miles per hour only to drive right into another vehicle. The credit sequences on their own deserve an award for being so damn creepy, using shaky hand held camera shots of live news footage or Blair Witch type home videos quickly cut together with awesome music (most notably the Johnny Cash song at the beginning) to make for some really scary, unexpected moments.

The movie actually owes more to 28 Days Later than the original Dawn of the Dead though, which is a shame. About the only similarity to the original film is the fact that most of this movie takes place in a mall. The movie makes heavy use of the shaky, grainy monochromatic digital photography 28 Days Later made famous, the fact that these zombie run instead of lumber along, and the fact that the zombies spread by way of a virus in their bites than by the dead rising. The camera technique still looks awesome, and although I’m a lumbering zombie purist I can excuse the running zombie part, but that last part is inexcusable. What the hell makes them a zombie or the living dead if they don’t actually rise from the dead? They even use the “When Hell becomes full the dead shall rise” line from the original movie, which makes no sense, because the dead aren’t actually rising. What the hell is up with that?

Although this movie doesn’t have any of the attacks on consumerism or the critiques of humanity that made the original such a classic, this is still a very cool and excellent straight forward horror movie, which makes me wonder why the filmmakers felt the need to momentarily slip into the traditional horror cliches from time to time. Like when the camera hovers in a certain place while the music swells and we just know that there is a zombie waiting to strike, and then you have that sudden jump out of nowhere scare. Do we really need that? That was old in the 70’s. And what about the old horror cliché that your main characters have to be complete and utter morons half the time. Honestly, do smart people ever get into scary situations? I mean, what’s scarier: the idea of a zombie apocalypse or the fact that only morons will survive the apocalypse?

Despite its flaws this is still a damn awesome horror movie that I want to see again in the theaters and will most definitely be picking up the DVD to add to my zombie collection.

(The original DotD cameos I noticed were Tom Savini (makeup guy and lead biker Blades), White Cop and an oddly fat and hard to recognize Black Cop as the televangelist, all making their appearances in the news feeds the survivors watch in the mall.)

——Marco Polo (AKA The Four Assassins)——

(A-)

This film is interesting in that it actually features a Westerner in a prominent role, i.e. the Marco Polo of the title who benefits from an extreme retelling of history. The Mongols are standing in the traditional role usually reserved for the Manchus, and Marco Polo has been made an inspector by Kubli Khan to root out the associates of some assassins who tried to kill him. Meanwhile those men take refuge with a master teacher who teaches the four of them the arts of pugilism in order to defend themselves against the Mongols. After numerous training sequences Marco Polo leads the Mongols to the sanctuary where the four men make their stand, and Marco realizes that he’s supported the wrong side.

And damn, does Chang Cheh know how to deliver the goods. The numerous fights feature the same levels of quality he attaches to all of his films and these fights are no exception, kicking more ass than usual. I was impressed. The soundtrack is also surprisingly good. Look for an early appearance from Gordon Liu as one of the villains, before he ever became the Master Killer. A very solid martial arts masterpiece from Chang Cheh.

——Hammer of the Gods (AKA The Chinese Boxer)——

(A)

Yet another kung fu flick in which the title makes no sense whatsoever (there is no hammer or gods), and yet I really do think Jimmy Wang Yu outdid himself with this movie. His kung fu may not be pretty, but damn can this boy construct some awesome looking fight scenes.

The story is about this misfit who got kicked out of a kung fu school for causing trouble who comes back after learning karate to make more trouble. He kicks all of the student’s asses, but then the master shows up and finally whoops his ass. Defeated he leaves only to come back later with some Japanese karate masters, who proceed to pretty much kill everyone except Jimmy Wang Yu, who is only badly hurt. The lead Japanese guy is hilarious because he’ll just flip out and start busting up EVERYTHING. He’ll jump up and smash the roof just to make a point.

Anyway, Jimmy Wang Yu trains to defeat karate and then comes back to kick some ass. What’s interesting about this movie is that usually the training sequence of a kung fu movie takes up like the entire middle third of the film. In this movie it lasts no more than five minutes. Instead the focus is more on the revenge, and how sweet that is, as in true House of Blue Leaves fashion he defeats and entire gang of thugs in a gambling parlor, only to go outside and fight a bunch of guys with samurai swords in some freshly fallen snow. Finally he goes after the main bad guys, but only after an extremely long series of increasingly cool fights. Spurting blood is also used to amazing effect in here. I’m definitely deeming this movie must see kung fu.

——The Devil’s Backbone——

(B)

While this movie was pretty to look at and really well shot, other than those two things I wasn’t really impressed too much by this film. If it was a ghost story it wasn’t an especially scary one; if it was a drama it wasn’t a particularly moving one. It was good enough to pass the time, but nothing really stuck with me and there was nothing in it that would make me ever want to see it again. It was just, eh.

——The Rundown——

(A-)

This was one of the movies along with Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Kill Bill, among others, that made me feel like last year was signaling a new action film renaissance. While this movie isn’t nearly the best movie ever made, it is an extremely well made and very fun action movie, well worth everyone seeing. I can’t wait to see Walking Tall, and I really hope that The Rock blossoms into the next big action star.

So much of what I find cool about this movie is its style. That’s where it really makes all of its points. Wire-fu is used in the best possible fashion in this movie. I don’t want to see two fighters floating through the air like dancers. When someone hits someone else I want to see that person fly across the room. The Rundown has that in spades. Also, everything you really want to see in an action sequence in other movies is here in this movie. Where they were too lazy to come up with something original, this movie takes pleasure in just giving you the essentials. The Rock plays Beck, a character who hates guns and doesn’t like to fight. What then could be more fun than watching him take down a bunch of guns with guns without needing a gun himself, or fighting a bunch of crazy guerrilla fighters he doesn’t want to fight with? The Rock is just too cool for school in this movie, and that’s what it’s all about.

——Instructors of Death——

(A-)

Why do titles have to be so misleading? The last thing on anyone’s mind in this movie is death. Also, this movie has a little problem with narrative logic. Although I always knew what was going on right now, I had no idea how it linked up with what happened or what was going to happen. All that said though, this movie is fucking amazing. I just realized that the director Chia-Liang Liu (arguably the greatest old school kung fu director) is actually the brother of Gordon Liu (arguably the greatest old school kung fu fighter), and duh, that explains why they made so many movies together. While I have no idea what the hell the point of this movie was, it was still too damn cool for words.

This movie is one of the few old school flicks to have a woman as a fighter, much less a major character, and she is just an amazing fighter with some great crane style work. Also, the fighter from the North is enormously talented. But (as usual) it is the Liu brothers who really shine in this movie, from Gordon’s amazing flexibility, quickness and perfection in style to his brother’s amazingly complex fight sequences (both in technique and staging). It is just amazing to be able to watch some masters in their prime at work. This movie is so damn cool.

——Jackass the Movie——

(A)

I don’t really know how you go about reviewing a movie like this, since it has no plot, character, or structure to speak of and compare it to other films. What I can say is that this movie was really fucking funny. I mean, every single segment had me in stitches. That doesn’t exactly make this movie art or anything, but if you enjoy watching grown men hurt themselves in various hilarious manners, then you can’t go wrong with this movie.