squelcho Reviews

F@ck This Job (2021)

Raining on Putin's gerontocratic pity party.

[10/10 · 7 March 2022]

Who'd imagine that in the 21st century, a desperate old man with a narcissistic personality disorder could find himself in charge of a vast nation state, it's military apparatus, all of its communications and media channels, and a nuclear arsenal to boot.

It almost happened with his useful idiot, Trump, but even he couldn't destroy the free press in the US , despite his best efforts. Putin, and his cronies, tolerate no dissent, or even a hint of freedom of expression, even from minor media players who wish to report anything but the party line.

More fool the true believers in the cult of Putin, because they've been drinking the Cool Aid for twenty years.

Just follow the money, if you want to find the Black Sea palaces and their actual beneficial owners.

The Show (II) (2020)

Channeling the spirit of Viv Stanshall, after a pint of laudanum

[7/10 · 27 August 2021]

Somwhere between Royston Vasey and Rawlinson's End lies ...Northampton.

Some excellent gags and deadpan metaphysics conspire to enliven some less than stellar thesping.

More of a TV Movie, going by the production values, but well worth a watch for the unpredictability. That nice Mr Moore is a cunning devil, and he manages to steal the show purely by dint of having a certifiable personality.

Dune Drifter (2020)

Cheap as chips, and not even mildly amusing.

[1/10 · 14 December 2020]

I've seen plenty of terrible no-budget films, and this is probably the least interesting. Keep the mind bleach handy if you're daft enough to watch this. Abysmal acting, half-baked script, tuppeny sfx, and the lowest production values in the known universe. The aliens wearing off-the-shelf Vietnam-era gasmasks is the icing on the stalest of cakes. I've seen more realistic episodes of Thunderbirds.

Ava (IV) (2020)

Film-making by numbers.

[4/10 · 24 August 2020]

Ouch! A perfect waste of 90 minutes. A barely existent plot, consisting of a few violent episodes, held together with cobwebs, cliches, and mildew. There's zero character development, which is a tragic waste of some very talented actors. The script is lame, and the cinematography, like the rest of the components, creaks through the gears in a totally perfunctory fashion, with zero absorption. Even the action sequences are dull. By halfway, I was fairly certain that it had been directed by an algorithm. Fat paychecks all round, but thin gruel for the viewer.

If you ever want to show someone how not to make an action movie, give them a copy of Ava.

Gatao 2: Rise of the King (2018)

Sharp and amoral Tawainese gangsrer tale

[7/10 · 26 August 2018]

A fair stab (pun intended) at making a Jonny To style modern gangster showdown movie, with what looks like a large dollop of SK style, particularly where the cinematography is concerned. There's some very tasteful slow pullbacks, pivot pans and tracking shots (with some smooth dronework thrown in) that tells me they didn't skimp on the quality, and hope it could be fixed in post with crappy editing and efx. The script isn't fantastically original, reminding me unerringly of the classic Chow Yun Fat triad movies, with more than a hint of Miike's Black Society trilogy, but the acting and delivery is excellent. The action sequences are brutal, amoral, and merciless, in the gloriously coldblooded Paris Lockdown style.

Overall, not the best triad turf war movie ever made, but the production values lift it into the realm of the absorbing and very watchable. My rating: five beers, and two packs of salted cashews.= a solid 7 .

Jack Reacher (2012)

It's a clunker.

[1/10 · 15 September 2013]

Found myself watching this turkey at a friend's place, and wished I hadn't. Cruise is insufferably smug, and wooden to boot. His body language is at odds with his role from start to finish. Quite creepy when he's lurking all over a hopelessly miscast Rosamund Pike with his eyes darting around like a trapped rat. Every character is two dimensional or less, and the set pieces are hackneyed clichés. The wrong way down a tunnel thing is getting very old after the twentieth iteration.I couldn't help wondering if Saint Thomas did his own driving stunts. I'm sure Cruise fans will see no wrong in his delivery of the Tom Cruise persona, but for non-devotees, it's all a bit shallow and desperately unbelievable..

John Dies at the End (2012)

More fun than a box of elephants.

[10/10 · 28 October 2012]

I haven't read the book, but I've seen the film. It premiered in the UK a couple of weeks ago as part of the London Film Festival. As a fan of Coscarelli's previous works, I wasn't going to miss a late night screening of this one. I saw about a dozen new films at the festival, but only one came close to being as wonderfully insane as John Dies at the End. I'm not going to throw spoilers, but if you can, try to see this in a cinema with a big sound system. There's as many audio gags as sight gags going on all the way through, and micro hommages to a few dozen cult classics. A very knowing work of art.

As with Bubba Ho-Tep, this film takes a mindbendingly outlandish premise, which through the course of events, and some wonderfully obtuse lateral thinking, persuades the audience that it's perfectly likely to be true. The boisterous audience at the showing I attended was fired up for the absurdism by Don Coscarelli's brief (unannounced) intro from the stage, but there's so many gags in this film that he could easily have taken a back seat and shamelessly guffawed along with the paying punters. If you like old school comedy horror, with a decidedly surreal tinge, go see this film. It's refreshing, but sadly all too rare, to run across a film that doesn't take itself at all seriously, but takes the process of film-making very seriously indeed. Script, cast, design, direction, and production values are integrated seamlessly into a sublime delirium that is much more than the sum of its parts. I can't recommend it highly enough in these gloomy times.

In case you're wondering, Don Coscarelli in person is one very amusing guy, and mercifully lacking in Hollywooden airs and graces.

Ink (I) (2009)

So bad it's awful

[1/10 · 5 May 2011]

As noted elsewhere, the relentless "10 stars!!!" shilling is enough to make you grind your teeth flat, but when you try to watch this lamentable piece of hooey, you'll want to scoop your eyes out with a rusty spork and wash your brain with a cruise missile.. It's relentless garbage, dressed up in dreadful gimmicky post production, and looks like the kind of nonsense a no budget student could throw together in a week on After FX or Final Cut with a few overused plug-ins. There are no redeeming features at all. The acting is rank amateur, the scripting is non existent, the cinematography sucks big time, and the direction is laughably inept. Quite who these aspartame-raddled shills are who are hyping this to the heavens, well.... I'd be amazed if someone as untalented as the director actually had that many friends. PR budget bigger than the movie itself? Looks suspiciously like it.

In a contest to make the worst film possible with the limited means and imagination at their disposal, this outranks even Gymkata. And we all know how "wonderful, amazing, groundbreaking, and visceral" that was. If you can retain the will to live through the entire movie, your fortitude is to be admired. I hope the doctors bring you out of the coma soon.

Shinjuku autoroo (1994 Video)

Made for TV Miike mayhem

[8/10 · 6 February 2007]

The further you delve in to the Miike back catalogue, the more obvious it becomes that the guy had the art of dramatic pacing down to a tee from very early on. TV production involves fast shooting schedules and slick editing: both of which Miike excels at.

This bloody yakuza revenge flick arrived a year after the excellent Bodyguard Kiba/ Chiba remake, and a year before Black Triad Society. You can see the template being developed for that movie, and the succession of increasingly brutal yakuza movies like Agitator, Kikoku, and Deadly Outlaw Rekka in the wild intro, the disposable spaghetti style henchmen, and the close quarters kamikaze gunfights.

Inspiration isn't a crime, so the familiar elements from the early works of Fukasaku, Gosha, and Nakajima count as a big plus for me. Some action movies sag during the necessary lulls between the blam blam set pieces, but Miike easily fills those scenes with subplots that eventually implode around the finale. A finale which in this case bore a passing resemblance to both Machinegun Dragon and the awesome DOA.

Bunta Sugawara and Sonny Chiba probably inspired a whole generation of Japanese kids to make high octane action movies. A job well done in this case. If you like the straightforward bad boy rebel yakuza style, then don't hesitate to grab yourself a copy. The setup is offbeat, and it sets the tone perfectly for the duration.

Lights in the Dusk (2006)

losing it in style

[8/10 · 9 November 2006]

I saw this film as part of the London Film Festival and would recommend it simply on the basis that it held my interest from start to finish after a very long day at work. The only other movies I saw which managed this feat were Taxidermia and Big Bang Love, both extraordinary films in their own individualistic ways.

Kaurismaki inspires a certain hangdog cynical joi de vivre and leaves his audience to extract the humour based on their own mistakes/prejudices. So is it a great film? Not particularly, but it's a very clever piece that drags you into a vortex of depression and loneliness, and almost forgets to return to the surface. The acting is relentlessly downbeat, the script a tour de force of clumsy unspoken angst, and the whole is a beautifully tongue-in-cheek lesson in the art of 21st century minimalist expressionism. Personally, I find Kaurismaki's comedy blooming in the banal stupidity which informs the painful learning process of his clumsy but lovable characters. No assumptions of sophistication, only aspiration to a meagre level of happiness. Just like 90% of the world's population. Compassionate humanism and world-weary cynicism are constant bedfellows in the Kaurismaki canon. Who would want it any other way? Cigarette?

César (1936)

Marseilles la vielle

[10/10 · 1 May 2006]

Having had the good fortune to live a portion of my life in Marseilles, I still get a frisson of nostalgia for the city every time I see the films in this trilogy. The way of life in Marseille has obviously modernised over the 7 decades since they were filmed, but the underlying generosity of spirit and joie de vivre is still there. Marseilles is to Provence and its bourgeois pretensions as London is to its satellite and suburbs: squalid, frenetic and crime-ridden, but nonetheless magnetic. The people of Marseilles still possess the same uniqueness of character that they did back then. A mixture of Italian, Corsican, Maghrebin and French, blended in a huge and historically important trading port. The largest Foreign Legion barracks was (and I believe, still is) in Marseille, ready to be unleashed on the subjects of the French African colonies at a moment's notice.

The port is still (albeit much less so) a smuggler's paradise, and the social life of the city is still centred around good food, good love, and strong drink. Pagnol and Raimu knew the city well, and gave it the starring role in the trilogy. Imagine their joy at being able to relocate a stage play to the Mediterranean coast and use genuine atmospheric exteriors of the old port in all its pre-war glory. The city, and particularly the docks, took a real beating from both sides in WW2, so Pagnol not only created a few masterpieces of cinema, but also an invaluable document of a lost architecture and layout.

The nonsense between L'Academie and Pagnol was related to the prevailing Parisian view of southerners as being crude, unsophisticated people who lived a simple life of manual labour, procreation, drinking and eating (cul terreux). The view from the south that still prevails, is one of a Paris riddled with snobbish elites (peigne cul) totally divorced from the realities of healthy living . The wonderful climate and diet of the Mediterranean coast has long been a source of envy for those condemned by fate to dwell in the damp root vegetable fogs of northern France. Pagnol was gleefully rubbing their noses in it.

Pagnol opened up a lot of avenues in film, but the people of Marseilles remember him mostly for his authentic capturing of la vie quotidienne. I'll drink to that.

Ashes of Time (1994)

Weak film by Wong Kar Wai's standards

[6/10 · 12 March 2006]

I watched Eagle Shooting Heroes a few months before this movie, and enjoyed every farcical HK in-joke and cliché that was shovelled into it. The cast seemed to be enjoying every minute of it, and the fight scenes were well up to HK standards. Unfortunately, Wong Kar Wai, while he is an excellent director of modern themes, completely missed the point with Ashes of Time. It tries to be a philosophical martial arts movie, but lacks the adrenal rush of even the most basic Tsui Hark Wu Xia movies. Brigitte Lin reprises a role that martial arts fans would have seen a great many times previously, and the exploding cliffs and erupting lake are by no means original. Swordsman 2 and East is Red both played the supernatural card to the hilt, with the added benefit of some fantastic fight scenes.

Much as I admire Doyle's camera-work in Fallen Angels, Chungking Express, In the Mood For Love, Away With Words, and Last Life in the Universe, I feel that martial arts action cinematography is sufficiently specialised as to be a little beyond his reach. It's not that difficult to see why the shooting schedule went out of the window, or why the cast rushed off to make Eagle Shooting Heroes during the hiatus.

The freezeframe action sequences just look weak in comparison to 99% of HK action sequences, and rather than driving the narrative, they almost drag it to a standstill. I can only assume that there was either no action director on the set, or that the person doing that job was seriously inept, and the jerky style was used to cover the weakness of the fight scenes. A shame really, because Eagle Shooting Heroes shows that the cast were very capable of performing complicated fight scenes with their eyes shut. They weren't exactly novices at the genre, and with a competent action director, they are far more convincing as fighters.

And therein lies the problem with this movie. None of the fighters are convincing, because we never really see them fight. We see some blurry slow-mo, and greyed out freezeframes, but never get a real sense of what makes them so fearsome. And because of that, the grand sentiments expressed by the leads are rendered almost meaningless.

I like some of Wong Kar Wai's films, but not all of them, and I certainly don't place him on a pedestal where criticism is not permitted. He makes great original films, but his attempts to cover well worn traditional HK genres (Heroic bloodshed in As Tears Go By, and martial arts in Ashes of Time) have resulted in his weakest movies. Action films require as many, if not more, thought processes as more artistic character-driven movies, and also demand a certain quality threshold in the action scenes, which an auteur might mistakenly assume comes naturally. It doesn't.

The Heroic Ones (1970)

Excellent Shaw Bros period piece

[9/10 · 1 December 2005]

As mentioned in another review, the quality of the remastered Celestial DVD is truly astounding. And it's no less than a fine movie like this deserves. The Heroic Ones doesn't try to be a kung fu movie in any way shape or form. It's a brutal swords and spears epic on a grand scale, with enough carnage to satisfy even the most bloodthirsty viewer. The body count must be in the high hundreds at least.

Without wanting to give too much away, the swoop from victory through treachery to tragedy is carried off with real panache by everyone involved, with enough strategic twists and turns to hold the interest throughout. All in all, a gripping historical drama, finely shot and acted, with great stunt work and battle scenes, and well worthy of repeat viewings. I was reminded of a few classic 50s and 60s westerns, with the noble warrior(s) battling incredible odds amid breathtaking scenery and stirring soundtracks. See it if you can. On the Celestial DVD if you can feasibly manage it.

Ma lu xiao ying xiong (1973)

Hong Kong curio

[7/10 · 30 November 2005]

I found a cheap DVD copy of this movie and wasn't really expecting too much from it, but was pleasantly surprised to discover a very watchable film. The image and sound quality and subtitles were also excellent throughout. Someone obviously thought this was worth properly remastering, and I'd have to agree.

I can't help wondering if this was a contractual filler for Golden Harvest regulars. Maybe another movie fell through, so they set this one up in a hurry and developed the script as they went along. I'm only guessing, but it certainly gets a lot sharper as it progresses, having started out as a "lovable scamps" type comedy affair with some very Boulting Bros style title animations and totally cheesy soundtrack.

The fight scenes aren't the most convincing you'll ever see, but Polly Kwan and Angelo Mao do get to kick and crunch a goodly number of snarly evil doers as the movie gets progressively more uptempo and violent. They also get hit quite hard a few times themselves. Tough babes, those 70s starlets. Added fun comes from placing the faces who take up the supporting roles and minor cameos.

It's not a kung fu classic or a lost masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a decent little film, well acted and directed once it finds its feet and drops the slapstick. There's plenty of worse ways to pass 90 minutes on a rainy day.

Xue lian huan (1977)

Not really Jimmy Wang Yu's finest moment.

[6/10 · 8 November 2005]

Compared to his more brutal and straightforward movies, this one only occasionally hits the heights. Wang Yu's spearwork, which is pretty central to the plot, is no more than barely adequate. His kicking and punching is up to his usual standard, but the hesitancy in the spear fights is a bit too obvious in my eyes, after exposure to Gordon Lui and Carter Wong's spear and staff work. It's not really helped by the out of sync dubbing which murders the sound effects.

A dodgy Wang Yu movie is still a few notches above the rest of the cheapo chop sockys of the era, and it's watchable enough in that context. The plot is as creaky as an ancient waterwheel, featuring lashings of cackling treachery, some evil scheming (and utterly predictable) bad guys, a wicked wily temptress, a blind heroine, and a showdown in the snow. But not much else of note. And all edited with a blunt axe, by the look of it. The much lauded rings of death would not be out of place in a Godzilla movie, so don't get your hopes too high.

Despite all that, I watched it through to the bitter end and thoroughly enjoyed the low budget camp predictability of it all. Despite the hype on the DVD cover, it's definitely not to be taken too seriously.

Deadly Melody (1994)

once more with ill feeling

[8/10 · 7 November 2005]

I kinda like these Brigitte Lin swordsperson mini-epics. Dragon Chronicles and Eagle Shooting Heroes are probably the daftest, East is Red is probably the moodiest, Swordsman 2 and New Dragon Gate Inn are fairly straightforward, and this one is a good old vicious revenge movie in a similar vein to The Bride With White Hair. I don't expect ultra-realistic fighting, or a plot I can follow with one braincell (when there is one), so I'm happy making do with the belly laughs. It's populist entertainment in a feisty pantomime style. I might be a bit soft in the head, but I enjoy the style. It's not high art, but it's not trying to be.

As far as I'm concerned, most of Brigitte Lin's swordsman/woman epics are played strictly for laughs. Some more subtly than others. Anyone taking fantasy movies like this one too seriously is probably in the throes of a terminal humour bypass. No doubt anti wire fu beardstrokers and grumpy snake/crane purists will be up in arms at the unrealistic action sequences, but that's their sole function in life, bless 'em.

The subs are fairly comprehensible and legible on the Mei Ah laserdisc transfer, so it ain't that hard to grasp what's going on and why. The ending is bit abrupt, but I'm used to that. They probably overshot the shooting schedule by twenty minutes and fried the budget on lyre ammunition. Que sera.

Hei bai dao (1971)

Wang Yu to the rescue.

[7/10 · 12 October 2005]

This is a surprisingly good movie, considering the age, the budget, and the simplistic plot line. Namely:Evil bandits kill the entire Hung Escort, including poppa Hung, and steal the 500,000 silver taels they were escorting. The elder Hung is a mighty swordsman, but falls victim to the big boss bad guy's demon rod, a nifty combination poker and Swiss Army Knife affair, after a lengthy knockdown drag-out opening battle.

Cue impetuous vengeful daughter Hung, skilled in dual knifeplay, and hell bent on killing the guys who offed her pappy. Good guy Jimmy Wang Yu introduces himself by casually flipping out of a tavern to save a blissfully unaware child from the thundering hooves of the aforementioned vengeful daughter's horse as she leaves town on her mission of vengeance. She's too busy being vengeful and impetuous to see the child, but it matters not, because Jimmy saves the kid, and her lollipop. Ms Hung heads off to bad guy mountain while Jimmy stoically finishes his tea. Hurrah!

Naturally, Wang Yu is an incognito heroic kung fu master, known throughout the region as Iron Palm, who just happens to be heading the same way as vengeful daughter Hung. When they meet again, at a cartstop along the way, they have a brief comedy tussle, before casually battering a few dozen of the local thugs into the ground and joining forces to combat the nefarious evildoers.

It might sound cheesy and a bit predictable, but this is one of those old school kung fu movies that just gets better and better as it progresses. The acting is pretty good, and the grand finale is well over a quarter of an hour of swish kung fu and fancy swordplay with oceans of blood being spilt by the evil minions foolish enough to mix it with Jimmy Wang Yu.

I've got a ropey bootleg DVD which looks slightly worse than a beat up VHS, with "occasional" subtitles and crunchy sound. It's nearly an authentic Friday night chop socky fleapit vibe, and it's quite possible that I might have whooped a couple of times.

See it if you can. It's kinda charming in an innocent way, and Jimmy Wang Yu is usually worth watching. It sometimes feels like a Ringo Lam or John Woo heroic bloodshed movie that's been hurled back in time a few hundred years. Maybe they grew up watching Wang Yu movies too?

The Maidens of Heavenly Mountains (1994)

When in doubt, vamp

[7/10 · 9 October 2005]

I haven't cackled so heartily at a fantasy fun fu movie in months. Rocks explode at every blow, bolts of multicoloured energy whizz around in ever more interesting geometric forms, heroines and heroes age and revivify at an astonishing rate, and there's at least two of Brigitte Lin involved, so the subtle Sapphic mood is definitely in the house. The lyre that figures so highly in the synopsis is a brief adjunct over the titles at the start and the end, which is a relief, because the dodgy fingerpicking and the sound it generates bear scant relation.

If you can just let this movie roll over you, it's pure fun. If you try to understand what's going on, you'll be frowning from the word go. As far as I can make out, there are at least four, and possibly many more, power mad characters trying to get their hands on every last scroll, jade medallion, power "stance", and otherworldy deathray in existence on earth and in the spirit world, in order to do some fancy showboating in kung fu technique heaven. I found myself thinking of Steven Chow's Kung Fu Hustle on more than one occasion. The tongue in cheek campness is fairly relentless from start to finish, and I reckon it would make a great pantomime script.

Not recommended for beard stroking intellectuals or biff bang wallop Shaolin purists, but it's compulsive viewing once it's up and running/flying/zapping/ disintegrating etc. Silly and fluffy escapism it may be, but it's bonkers enough, and keeps a straight enough face to entrance kids of any age. Compared to pompous overblown garbage like Stormriders, it's self-parodying low-budget nirvana.

Kiss Me Monster (1969)

Ay caramba!

[5/10 · 4 October 2005]

As terrible as it was, I enjoyed this in a perverse "oh god, I could do better than that" kinda way. The guys who looked and acted like they'd flunked the Thunderbirds casting call. The dubbing that made me grateful that chop socky cheapos weren't dubbed in Germany by unemployed bierfest toastmasters. The stock footage that made me pine for the infamous white Jag 3.4 going over the cliff again again. The flashless guns that somehow kill people they're not aimed at (Did Roy Rogers ever patent them?) And the bouffantastic hairstyles that screamed "WIIIIIIIIIIIG!!!!!" loud enough to influence Divine and Joan Collins.

Somehow, I understood what little evidence of plot there was. This can probably be put down to a childhood diet of duff mangas and creaky Godzilla movies. The idea is that they get from scene one to finale without being mangled by the badddies. Erm, that's it. My brain barely broke sweat, but my funnybone was in overdrive. I'm not going to give it a post modern ironic 10, but the 5 is praise for making me hoot with incredulous laughter at the lapses in acting ability, plot, and continuity. The soundtrack is surprisingly cool. The band in the disco seem to be performing an excellent ersatz Detroit r n b breaks medley, and the kooky jazz pieces seemed seemed perfectly apt in context.

I've seen worse.

Away with Words (1999)

three parts autism, one part auteur

[8/10 · 29 September 2005]

I'm probably barking up the wrong tree, but for me this piece reads like an exploration of autism. Asano's character seems to be a classic example of synaesthesia in action. This is sometimes associated with schizophrenia, but I've also heard it mentioned by parents of autistic children. Who knows what goes on in the mind of Christopher Doyle? Maaybe not even Chris Doyle after a night on the grog.

I'm guessing as usual, but I think the English/Aussie bar owner is playing the Doyle role, reborn every day with a slight hangover and a few fresh bruises, and attempting to show that language is just one of the barriers that humans have to negotiate in order to communicate effectively. If you can't get over it, you can always go around it. Or invent an image based filmic language for the global village.

Visually, this movie plays like a roadkill version of Fallen Angels, fractured and displaced almost at random. The soundtrack is as non-linear as the rest of the movie, crashing around like a breakbeat electro dj on dodgy pills. It makes the MTV jumpcut junkies look positively pedestrian when it takes flight, but still manages to explore the rapport between the three principals in a tender, almost polite fashion. It makes very little immediate sense, what with the language and obtuse script, but the gentle absurdity gels quite nicely upstairs in the aftermath.

I doubt that it would be possible to write a spoiler for this movie, because it's unlikely that any two people would ever see it quite the same way. I particularly enjoyed the gargling lady with the guitar, and the piggyback policewoman, although I might have just imagined them. The maguffins were delicious. My compliments to the chef.

Tennen shôjo Man next: Yokohama hyaku-ya hen (1999 TV Movie)

Satire with sharp teeth

[7/10 · 27 September 2005]

I had my doubts about this TV series before watching it, but I managed to pluck up the willpower to sit through 3 hours plus of Miike's take on the schoolkids-go-crazy genre. The first thing that struck me was that it was a comedy, rather than a straightforward horror. Instead of splattering noxious Japanese teenagers all over the walls like Battle Royale, or intellectualising the angst like Lily Chou Chou, Miike just sets about the conventions with a pickaxe handle. He seems to know instinctively when the sugar shutdown is approaching, and how to kick-start the adrenalin rush when the pace starts to flag. Sharp direction that works well in the TV medium. I would guess that this series was popular across a fairly wide age spectrum in Japan. The kids because the teen cuties get to kick plenty of tender parts and giggle a lot, and the adults for the undercurrent of sly dark humour and nifty dissection of Idol culture. 500 days might seem like a lifetime when you're young.

Overall, it flags a bit in the middle section, but picks up nicely when Miike brings out the coloured filters and bizarre sfx for the last act. I love that Yokohama big wheel, and I guess Miike does too, because it got a starring role in MPD Psycho. Some of the offbeat stylistic touches from Tennen Shujo Mahn seem to have been taken to their natural conclusion in the MPD series. The digital snowflakes, the coloured skies, and the heavily treated piano music being prime examples.

It's not great, compared to the majority of Miike's back catalogue, but it's fun to watch, whether you have a thing for asskicking teens in sailor suits or not. The two female leads are decent actresses, and considering that most of the cast were making their screen debuts, they all turn in fairly decent performances. One or two toe-curlingly awful transformation scenes notwithstanding.

Drifting Clouds (1996)

We'll eat wallpaper. People lived on it before.

[9/10 · 16 September 2005]

Another beautifully observed vignette from the mind of Aki Kaurismaki. Kati Outinen may not be the most beautiful woman in Europe, but like Guiletta Massima, she owns every scene she's in. Kaurismaki's usual suspects deliver a tight ensemble piece drenched in bathos, and inspired by the indomitable spirit of honest working people. The fatalism that cloaks the the lives of the central characters as they fall on successively harder times, until all they have left is their dignity. The sound of the unseen roulette wheel in the unseen casino interior is the death rattle for their minimal life savings. Naturally, with this being a modern fable, Kaurismaki will not let his heroes suffer in eternity, and manages to engineer a happy ending, albeit one with a heartstopping pirouette.

The score is a delight, from the piano player's melancholy jazz introduction to the tango lament at the last night of the Dubrovnik. Kaurismaki has an ear for haunting songs, and always sets them perfectly in context.

As noted by other reviewers, this is the complete antithesis to the crash, bang, wallop, ersatz hysteria of Hollywood. Personally, I find it it all the more thrilling for that. It's a white-knuckle ride through the despair of sudden unemployment, tinged with touching fidelity, optimism and above all, dignity. Bravo, Aki.

A World Without Thieves (2004)

Clickety clack.

[8/10 · 14 September 2005]

This is one of those movies I'd heard a lot about, but never quite found myself in the right place to see, until I finally managed to lay my hands on a Hong Kong DVD.

Few things in movies irritate me like white subs against light backgrounds, especially when it's a widescreen DVD with acres of virgin darkness below the screen area, but in this case such gripes are largely irrelevant. The plot is neatly woven and each character is given enough time to establish their true intentions. Not being a Chinese speaker, I tend to watch the nuances of expression for glimpses of the subtler plot elements, and that usually helps me to fill in the gaps left by those unreadable subs.

Subjectively, this is a very mobile film, which gets moving in fine style with some beautiful travelogue style tracking shots of high mountain China, and a mildly incongruous "borrowed" top of the range Beamer. The brief hiatus before the train journey begins, allows us to glimpse the widening cracks in the happy couple's business relationship. The naivety of the young farmer they encounter is a useful counterpoint to Andy Lau's selfishness. And thus begins an exploration of honesty under duress.

I don't want to go into too much detail, but suffice it to say that there's some fun cgi trickery, some elegant grifting duets, and some nicely underplayed camp malevolence, all washed through with strangely hypnotic, slightly blurred cinematography and lighting. Very similar to the woozy feeling one gets after a few hours on a train.

This film covers its many bases with an elasticity that allows the viewer to figure it out in their own good time. The underlying atmosphere of quiet menace versus insouciant braggadaccio, centred around the naif's bundle of cash and his gentle zen philosophy, is perfectly played out to a subtle and suitably rhythmic score. Where a western film would brutally over-dramatise the scene on the roof of the train, here it's played so nonchalantly that one would almost assume it's an everyday occurrence.

As a modern take on an old fable, it works on every level. I enjoyed watching the onion being peeled away, layer by layer, to the point where it became pure fatalism. Honesty, dignity, bravery, and compassion. With added sleight of hand, and a pinch of sorrow and sadness. Well worth seeing.

Swallowtail Butterfly (1996)

So what's all the fuss about?

[11 September 2005]

First things first. Why did they let Chara "sing"? Come back Ronnie Biggs, all is forgiven. The whole club/band/creepy gaijin diatribe/instant pop stardom thing was a total waste of time. The movie was doing fine up to that point, but got bogged down in her twee J-pop idol whispering and ridiculous rock clichés. Shunji Iwai may have a great eye, but his ears appear to be in need of a good syringing.

The fractured narrative sometimes made the script seem like it was written in the editing suite, and some of the jerkier cuts jarred badly with their artless futility. The characters struggled to inspire any empathyin the rush to bludgeon us with the message that Japanese society has a racist underbelly. A message effortlessly conveyed in much subtler terms in most of Takashi Miike's movies. The cinematography is sweet enough when it isn't succumbing to 90's MTV crassness. Perhaps I'm just easily bored by kaleidoscopic low shots of blurry knees and shoes. That said, it's worth seeing. There's some interesting observations being made, some flashes of sardonic humour, and the bazooka scene might well have influenced other more radical Japanese directors.

What I see is a film maker struggling to find his identity, and overreaching himself, both in the script, and the direction. His ambition is admirable, but the execution is merely respectable. I'm glad I saw it, but it doesn't compare too well to Lily Chou or Picnic in terms of depth or beauty.

Undo (1994)

barking up another tree

[7/10 · 11 September 2005]

I'm just guessing, as usual, because I have no idea of the cognitive process involved in the scripting of this film, but it strikes me that this is a piece about control.

Shibari is a fairly ancient Japanese art, and when properly practised, can totally immobilise a person. If a person seeks to submit completely to another, it's a fair start point. I got the impression that the woman wants the guy to exert some very basic control over her, but unfortunately she is unable to precisely articulate her desire.

Driven by the realisation that the passion in their relationship is virtually extinct, it's almost as though she's trying to draw him a map as she ties everything in knots. His unwillingness to pursue the most direct line of investigation only serves to further distance her from him. The shrink (all tics and unlit cigarettes) seems to understand the woman's yearning, but our hero prefers denial.

The repeated coda "now tie me up properly" seems to imply that she actually seeks a full on submissive bondage solution, and for him to take absolute responsibility for her wellbeing and happiness. The fact that he is incapable of understanding her needs, or responding adequately to them, is probably the reason she ties him up properly and vanishes.

Like I said: just guessing.

Apart from that, it's a decently made short film, with enough interesting imagery to hold the attention, even if the plot occasionally seems to have fallen through a crack in the floorboards. The shot of the despairing woman and the suspended turtles framed by the window at dusk would not look out of place in a fancy art gallery. Likewise the final web. Nice aesthetics, shame about the narative.