What Asian Films Have You Been Watching Recently?

[47lab]

Caught the 1992 HK revenge crime drama, STING OF THE SCORPION directed by Lee Kwok-laap and starring Anthony Wong, who looks ridiculous with a half perm/half mullet hairstyle. Lee Kwok-lap uses revenge driven females as the primary focus of his flicks from that girls with guns era (early 90s) and this time it's Maggie Siu who is assigned that role. It had its moments & good to see Johnny Wang Lung-wei playing his usual baddie self as a corrupt police captain & Eddy Ko as a triad boss but ultimately, it's mediocre in terms of story and action. Watch once and forget.

[47lab]

Caught the 2010 indie SK flick, PASSERBY #3 aka RAINBOW directed & completely self financed by Shin Su-won. This was her directorial debut and is based on her own life as a middle aged woman who suddenly gives up her steady career to embark on a new journey as a director, filmmaker, & screenwriter. I've enjoyed some of her later stuff like PLUTO and MADONNA, so was curious how her debut fared. Fairly entertaining from a biographical standpoint & there are some funny and charming moments but it's all over the place - a critique on SK's paint by the numbers movie industry, modern family demands & marriage life, teen bullying, & even the indie rock scene. Some of these topics have been revisited in greater detail in some of her later films but felt she tried to do too much here. Still entertaining and worth a watch for the comedic quirks and strong performance by actress Park Hyun-young as the pusillanimous lead character loosely based on Shin Su-won herself.

[47lab]

Somehow I missed 47 Lab's review of Moon Warriors, which could have spared me a great deal of disappointment. How so many talented people could come together and produce something as juvenile and treacly and unoriginal as this is a question future film historians might well debate. As for the USP, every time that big fish swam into the viewfinder, my heart sank.

Presumably this was originally a handsome spectacle, but the colors in the Universe disc are washed out.

I watched the HKL rip of the dvd, so I don't know if it's any better than the Universe HK disc picture wise but at least it's anamorphic but yeah, in any case, this was a shit movie.

So caught a Japanese/Korean double header earlier with first up being Takumi Saitoh's debut feature, the family drama BLANK 13. We've all seen this set up before about a deadbeat, worthless father (played superbly by Franky Lily) who abandons his wife and two pre-teen boys one night, only to reappear years later with the revelation that he is dying of cancer. Of course, his abandoned family is reluctant to accept him back in their lives and this could've been turned into the typical story of redemption or a tear jerker but Saitoh handles this rather cliched storyline with such nuance and in a particularly Japanese way that is refreshing & way more entertaining than I initially thought. Another positive is this flick gets down to the essence of the story without a lot of unnecessary filler as evidenced by its run time of a little more than an hour.

Next up was THE FORTRESS directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk. This is a saeguk drama based on the second Manchu (Qing) invasion of Korea in the 17th century. I don't know why but I tend to enjoy Korean historical/period films more than Chinese and Japanese ones? Perhaps, it's because the Korean ones seem grittier but at the same time, even more polished technically and effects wise. This one is a bit short on action for my liking with a lot of the screen time devoted to royal court intrigue and scheming and it's a chore to sit through endless dialog between the two court advisors and the King and the futility of their situation against the better armed and numerically superior Manchu forces but still worth a visit if you're a fan of these type of movies. Having said that, director Hwang Dong-hyuk best work is still THE CRUCIBLE aka SILENCED. I would recommend seeking that one out before watching this one.

[mjeon]

Somehow I missed 47 Lab's review of Moon Warriors, which could have spared me a great deal of disappointment. How so many talented people could come together and produce something as juvenile and treacly and unoriginal as this is a question future film historians might well debate. As for the USP, every time that big fish swam into the viewfinder, my heart sank.

Presumably this was originally a handsome spectacle, but the colors in the Universe disc are washed out.

[47lab]

After Xmas dinner, it was time to watch some Korean thrillers and Jang Hang-jun's 2017 psychological crime thriller, FORGOTTEN fit the bill quite nicely. A very entertaining and engrossing flick with a nice script and good acting all around. I'm used to the sudden turn of events and twists in Korean movies and felt it was done well here without suspending belief (too much) or ruining the core story. The second half wasn't as strong as the first but the ending tied everything together. Recommended for fans of the genre.

[47lab]

Caught the 1990 TBS version of the Takeda Shingen saga directed by Sadao Nakajima and starring Koji Yakusho in the lead role along with Sonny Chiba as his father, Hiroki Matsukata as the head of the Inugawa clan, other big names are Tomisaburo Wakayama and Shima Iwashita & narrated by Ken Watanabe. This story has been retold numerous times on both the big screen (notably KAGEMUSHA and Kadokawa's HEAVEN AND EARTH) and there was also an NHK Taiga TV series that was narrated by Ayako Wakao just a couple years earlier.

Felt the production values to be decent enough & battle scenes, although they were pretty standard TV fare & can't compare in scope to film but again okay for the limited budget of a TV production . The real reason for watching was Koji Yakusho's splendid performance & Chiba was also superb as the boorish & ill tempered father of Shingen. I enjoyed the acting performances more than the 1988 version.

Also caught Gao Xixi's 2017 gangster crime film, THE GAME CHANGER starring Peter Ho and Tao (ex-EXO Kpop fame). This is a film re-working of the TV series SHANGHAI BUND that he did back in the mid 2000s which is itself a remake of the popular TVB series starring Chow Yun-fat and Ray Lui. This had some decent action and Peter Ho is good as the stoic revolutionary member of the Blue Shirts Society (called the "Association" here) who is on a collision course with Tang Hexun, the head of Shanghai's underworld. The downfall came with the introduction of Tao's character (the adopted son of the aforementioned Tang Hexun). He's decent enough in the stunt department and doesn't embarrass himself on that end but he carries no depth to his character and the fact the stylist gave him a typical boyband mop made him look ridiculous in what was supposed to be 1930's China. There is a pivotal scene where Tao discovers Peter Ho's revolutionary ties and he's acting was so laughably bad that there should have been a canned laugh track playing in the background. Overall, recommended for Peter Ho and some decent gunplay (the John Woo tropes notwithstanding) and action. Also for the cute Uyghur actress, Guli Nazha.

[47lab]

I watched Yue Song's IRON PROTECTOR. This is the flick that was originally called THE BODYGUARD aka SUPER BODYGUARD but the distributor Well Go changed the name due to the similarly titled Sammo Hung flick which came out around the same time. I was lukewarm towards Yue Song's previous martial arts actioner, THE KING OF THE STREETS and felt this one to be in the same vein with -- notably light on story and character development but this one appeared to be heavy on the physical stunts and action. That is fine by me. Was duly impressed by the fight choreography and even if the trailer is a bit disingenuous when it proclaims that the film's fight scenes were made without any effects . It's clear that wire work is used extensively during the numerous fight scenes and no effort to hide that fact either. The stunt crew certainly took their lumps as the bonus footage showed them taking full contact strikes to the face and body and generally getting fucked up the filming of the fight choreo. This is still a relatively low budget production and the editing and camerawork reflected that but surprisingly, it didn't really detract too much from the core action and I enjoyed this on a purely visceral level. Yue Song in this flick and his debut does show promise as a leading action hero and I think he also has the tools to successfully parlay his skills into playing physical comedic roles too -- it'll be interesting to see what trajectory his career path will take in the future.

[Takuma]

Be-bop High School (ビー・バップ・ハイスクール) (Japan, 1985) [DVD] - 3.5/5
I had little interest in this series until a guy who owns a movie bar in Tokyo (with a torn up Wolfguy poster on the bathroom door!) told me it's a ton of fun. He was right. This was one of the pinnacles of Japanese 80s pop culture, merging the delinquent boy comic book action popular since the 70s with the 80s idol and high school action formulas (Sailor Suit and Machine Gun, Sukeban Deka etc.). Toru Nakamura and Kojiro Shimizu play hard-fisted high school kids who go against gang leader Hitoshi Ozawa who has turned the school into a yakuza training camp. It's a lot of fun with attitude, cool soundtrack, not-too-silly comedy, hard-punching action and cutie Miho Nakayama (Rebellion League of Girls in Sailor Uniform). Takashi Miike's Crows Zero films were the modern versions of this. Director Hiroyuki Nasu had been making music video influenced Roman Pornos (e.g. The Warriors rip-off Virgin nanka kowakunai, 1984) but this mainstream film finally let him shine. Co-writer Machiko Nasu (who also debuted at Nikkatsu with the excellent A Girl's Pleasure: Man Hunting, 1977), was his wife.

Be-bop High School: Koko yotaro elegy (ビー・バップ・ハイスクール 高校与太郎哀æŒ) (Japan, 1986) [DVD] - 3.5/5
Not a bad sequel. While there's initially a bit less kick to the action/pop/comic book mix, and it lacks some of the lean story of the first film, it makes up for it with an insanely fun action finale full of crazy stunts and street fighting. There's also a nice addition of ass kicking school girls (both sukeban and more casual variety) that spice up the film. Slightly inferior to the first film, but the fun is still there in plenty.



Be-Bop High School: Koko yotaro koshinkyoku (ビー・バップ・ハイスクール 高校与太郎行進曲) (Japan, 1987) [DVD] - 3/5
Part 3. Miho Nakayama is gone (replaced by Izumi Igarashi from Shojo Commando Izumi, playing similar character in similar manners), and so is the plot. The film works even without them, however. The soundtrack and the action, particularly towards the end, are once again highly enjoyable. By this film Toru Nakamura and Kojiro Shimizu had reached pretty respectable levels as action performers (as mainstream actors), and there are several bits of inventive choreography that puts many real martial arts movies to shame. There's some great humour as well (including a particularly funny scene with jealousy struck Shimizu trying to deal with a girl choosing another guy over him), and the 1st, 2nd and n'th panty shot in the series (just mentioning) which may or may not been a factor in making this the 8th most popular domestic film at the 1987 box office.



Be-Bop High School: Koko yotaro kyoso-kyoku (ビー・バップ・ハイスクール 高校与太郎狂騒曲) (Japan, 1987) [DVD] - 2.5/5
Part 4, the first one that is sort of bad... yet sort of good. You can clearly sense the "anything goes" approach where no joke is too bad as long as it helps fill in the running time and not too much care has been put into ensuring every scene is as good as the previous one. The film is also surprisingly, and regrettably, sadistic in places. Yet, the characters are still awesome and there are many good/funny bits so you can't help but to be entertained most of the time.

Be-Bop High School: Koko yotaro ondo (ビー・バップ・ハイスクール 高校与太郎音é ) (Japan, 1988) [DVD] - 1.5/5
Part 5. No Hiroshi, no plot. Even the pop aesthetics and catchy tunes have largely dried up. Action has taken a dive as well. Mrs. Nasu must have been totally out of ideas and Mr. Nasu there just for his pay check to buy some rice for Mrs. Nasu. Occasional school girl panty shots are probably the film's biggest merits. Oh and Takeo Chii is still on board as a cop. The kids these days knew him best from a TV program Mr. Chii Walks Around (Chii sanpo) where he was the old man walking around. Nothing to do with this film but I don't have anything else write about.



Be-Bop High School: Koko yotaro kanketsu-hen (ビー・バップ・ハイスクール 高校与太郎完結篇) (Japan, 1988) [Netflix] - 1.5/5
The last and least Be-Bop film, with shabbiest storyline and all around tiresome execution. Only the tiniest spark remains in the once-so-amusing quarrelling between Tooru and Hiroshi (back for this final entry), and worse yet, the film devotes large chunks of screen time to entirely forgettable supporting punks. Followed by a V-Cinema revival in 1994 with new cast and crew.

[47lab]

Talk about an exercise in perseverance -- I recently watched Hu Bo's nearly 4 hour film about a day in the lives of disaffected youth & the disenfranchised in China titled, AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL. I wanted to check it out since it received some buzz from film festivals and also that the director killed himself shortly after its completion. After finishing or should I say surviving (there were moments where I thought about giving up), I couldn't help but imagine a rewording of Dante's famous phrase would have been apropos before the opening scene, "Abandon all hope, ye who dare watch this movie." One of the bleakest, dreary and disconsolate works that I recall seeing in recent memory. Has shades of Jia Zhangke's early works but Zhangke is an eternal optimist compared to Bo. The fact the movie abruptly starts and ends without credits or titles (I believe I read it was due to some legal wrangling by Bo's family after his death) just adds to the overall gloom and doom. It's not hard to imagine the director committed suicide after having sat through this ordeal.

[47lab]

While the Women Are Sleeping (女が眠る時) (Japan, 2016) [Netflix] - 2/5
Rarely do you see a potent thriller lose its way as badly as this Wayne Wang Japan entry does. A novelist and his wife run into a creepy old man (Takeshi Kitano) vacationing with a sexy teenage girl (Shioli Kutsuna) in a resort. What is going on? It turns out even the filmmakers did not know. After building a solid mystery for the first hour, the film throws in every imaginable explanation and asks the viewer to pick up his preferred one. Perhaps a re-watch would bring more sense to the film, but the trick is so cheap it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to do that.

I recall seeing this a couple years ago and couldn't even make it through the half way point. I dozed off and never bothered to finish watching it.

Back to a good flick, I recently caught Zhang Yimou's wuxia fantasy flick SHADOW and thought it was a nice return to form for him after his last abomination with that putrid THE GREAT WALL. SHADOW harkens back to his earlier wuxia movies and that's not a bad thing. The cinematography was beautiful and the whole 'yin/yang' aesthetic and philosophy that permeates this film was interesting as it extends to even the fighting styles between the two adversaries. The umbrella blade weapon was fucking cool too. Starts off slow (a bit too slow for me) but eventually turns into a satisfying mix of period epic drama and martial arts action.

[Takuma]

Black Lizard (黒蜥蜴) (Japan, 1962) [TV] - 2/5
The best detective in Japan (Minoru Oki) battles female super villain known as Black Lizard (Machiko Kyo) in a cartoonish and episodic Edogawa Rampo story. This is the 1962 Daiei version, not the better known Shochiku/Kinji Fukasaku 1968 version. This has occasional colourful charm, a battle of wits and even musical numbers, but it's also painfully long and talkative.

Blind Monk Swordsman (悪坊主侠客伝) (Japan, 1964) [35mm] - 1.5/5
Toei's ninkyo yakuza shot at getting their share of Zatoichi's popularity with a blind yakuza monk character. Too bad it isn't any good. Famed jidai geki veteran Jushiro Konoe (the father of Hiroki Matsukata) plays the role as if he was a loudmouth Osaka punk - quite the contrast to the lovable blind masseur or even the pervert monk played by Tomisaburo Wakayama in the later Wicked Priest series. It simply does not work as the character is irritating and the storyline an incoherently told mess. In brief, it's about a bad man re-discovering humanity via woman and child while clashing with the yakuza and being hunted by a man called “Death” who has his own dark past, all set against the backdrop of industrialization. I was at the verge of falling asleep when an unexpected sight of a woman running with her boobs out, and the following comment about how it suck to be blind at a time like that, woke me up halfway into the film. Another highlight comes in form of a powerful ending shot accompanied by Toshiaki Tsushima's (The Street Fighter, Battles Without Honor and Humanity) score. The rest isn't worth it.



Theater of Life - New Hishakaku Story(人生劇場　新・飛車角) (Japan, 1964) [35mm] - 3.5/5
A loose remake and expansion of the second Theatre of Life film (1963), devoting its entire running time to Tsuruta searching for his lost love Yoshiko Sakuma after returning from war. He hooks up with a bunch of travelling strippers and their manager (Hiroyki Nagato) in an attempt to locate her. This is an epic tale steadily if not exceptionally handled by Tadashi Sawashima, with Koji Tsuruta being the perfect man to play Hishakaku. The film's most memorable part - aside marring Tsuruta with strippers - is the unusually realistic and prolonged final fight. The film, like its predecessors, was more or less based on Koyo Ozaki's novel which in turn was a fictionalized and romanticized account of gangster Hikoichi Ishiguro (Noboru Ando mentioned the real person was nothing like the noble film hero). There was a relatively successful attempt in 1974 to de-romanticise the tale for the jitsuroku era with True Account of Hishakaku: A Wolf's Honor and Hunanity. Sawashima's films however remain the most remarkable versions, with the 1st movie often considered the primary work that modelled the ninkyo genre and launched its popularity.



Japan's Most Chivalrous (Japan) (日本大侠客) (1966) [TV] - 1.5/5
Masahiro Makino's adaptation of an often filmed story, hailed as one of the finest ninkyo films by Chris D, who also described it as "fast moving". I struggle to comprehend his view almost as much as I struggled with the film. Nothing really happens at all during the first 70 minutes except some old lady dies of boredom, I mean illness, and Tsuruta almost gets into a fight, twice! Makino was one of the most prolific and respected of ninkyo directors, yet his films often strike as slow paced and visually as well as emotionally flat to me. This is the most non-eventful of his films that I've seen. There is one particular point of interest, though, villain actor Bin Amatsu is cast against type as a good guy. This is the only time I have ever seen him play a good guy, and it's a shame his role is so small.

The Lone Stalker (ひとり狼) (Japan, 1968) [DVD] - 3.5/5
Classic matatabi film with Raizo Ichikawa as a nihilist lone wanderer. The storyline is a bit too centred on exposing the main character's back story (as opposed to wandering) but the emotional climax is surprisingly powerful. As an added bonus the film teaches you the tabinin's guesthouse etiquette. Extremely useful. One of Ichikawa's last films before his untimely death in 1969 at the age of 37.



Wicked City (妖獣都市) (Japan, 1987) [DVD] - 3/5
Horror anime misses its noir potential by being too fast paced and technically video-like; however, it's packed with impressively grotesque monster imagery and explicit sex. Yoshihiro Nishimura seems to have been highly influenced by this when he made Tokyo Gore Police. Superficial but entertaining, essential in the genre.

New Love in Tokyo (愛の新世界) (Japan, 1994) [Netflix] - 3.5/5
Interesting departure from the usual pink sleaze, with a fleshy sex biz tale told as existential city drama. Perhaps best described as post- Thelma & Louise dive into the seedy night, it steers away from the usual sexism and female objectification of pink films (a genre this movie borders on) with a story focus on strong, active women (one a prostitute, other a dominatrix who makes men crawl in front of her but never has sex with them, and part times as amateur stage actress) and their friendship. Blending in dozens of Nobuyoshi Araki's stunning art photos, documentation of sex trade mechanics and mid 90s Tokyo (can't believe the Yamanote trains looked exactly the same as today, with even the ad fames in the same places and same size) and imaginative little touches (gotta love the scene where she dials down the films colours, and then restores them later) the film largely overcomes what are real but not especially interesting characters. The film is too long at 115 min but the last half hour is terrific.



While the Women Are Sleeping (女が眠る時) (Japan, 2016) [Netflix] - 2/5
Rarely do you see a potent thriller lose its way as badly as this Wayne Wang Japan entry does. A novelist and his wife run into a creepy old man (Takeshi Kitano) vacationing with a sexy teenage girl (Shioli Kutsuna) in a resort. What is going on? It turns out even the filmmakers did not know. After building a solid mystery for the first hour, the film throws in every imaginable explanation and asks the viewer to pick up his preferred one. Perhaps a re-watch would bring more sense to the film, but the trick is so cheap it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to do that.

[47lab]

Watched Masanori Tominaga's bio pic on controversial self published art porn impresario & showman, Akira Suei titled DYNAMITE GRAFFITI. Really enjoyed this one. Based on Akira Suei's own writings and he's certainly led an interesting life up to his point. Some neat observations on the late 60s and early 70s Japanese graphic design scene & the burgeoning pornographic manga and photo magazine scenes of that era. Some really funny comedic elements too like the scenes where he teaches his straight laced secretary on how to perform phone sex haha. It was fun seeing famous sex photographers like Nobuyoshi Araki portrayed in this flick and after having watched Araki's own documentary (ARAKIMENTARI), he's portrayal seems spot on! A soundtrack by Kikuchi Naruyoshi, especially the avant garde jazz scores also adds a nice touch. After seeing this movie, I wish a true documentary on Akira Suei was available.

[47lab]

I caught David Lam's latest in his financial crime series, L STORM featuring Louis Koo back again as ICAC investigator William Luk. If you enjoyed any of the previous films (S Storm, Z Storm) then you'll probably enjoy this one. A competent crime thriller but nothing special & hopefully the last in the series. Features the usual car chase scenes, gunplay with CGI blood and poorly rendered CGI explosions but that's part and parcel for these type of movies. The supporting cast was okay but I wouldn't mind seeing more of the actors that played the baddies, Sienna Li (Xin Yue) and especially newcomer Adam Pak. Pak has some charisma and seems to be able to handle the physicality of HK choreographed fight scenes. Reminds me a bit of a young Takeshi Kaneshiro looks wise. But of course, no one looks better in a bespoke Ascot Chang suit than a perpetually tanned Louis Koo!

[ropo1]

watched alot since my last post so ill keep em short. Been focusing mainly on modern cinema.

An Elephant Sitting Still (2018) 3.5/10
To many flaws, comes across as slightly above studentfilm level. im unable to look past this. Apparently won the Golden Horse for best feature film.

Angels Wear White (2017) 6.5/10
A minor rapecase involving a higher up. Solid but nothing out of the ordinary.

Fires on the Plain (2014) 5.0/10
Not sure where tsukamoto is heading. Seemingly lowbudget and not without problems. It's not that bad, but nothing is memorable except perhaps the battlefield scene. The original is great, and this is for completeists.

The Villainess (2017) 7.5/10
High octane, great cinematography modern day Nikita. But there's a bit to much story. By all means recommended for the good bits though.

One on One (2014) 7.0/10
A teen gets killed and the killers eventually face kidnapping and torture 'one by one'... Solid as always when it comes to KKD!

Wild Animals (1997) 6.5/10
Two korean imigrants in france becomes unlikely friends and eventually ends up working for some minor mobsters. Would say it's the least polished KKD film - on that note his most venture into genre, it's also very violent for an early of his.

Taboo (1999) 6.5/10
Oshima goes gaysamurai. Cinematography & lightning is looking good but otherwise one of, perhaps his weakest film (i'm halfway to determine that).

Okinawa Yakuza War (1976) 6.5/10
Was having bit to high hopes here. Fairly violent but also to comical in places, felt like Chibas character was a bit to much over the top.

Burning (2018) 8.5/10
Past, present and future comes together in what seemingly starts of as a romance but later goes more into thriller/mystery territory. Lee Chang-Dong is past up and comming at this point, but to me this is the full circle film with a clear progression as far as cinematic language goes. I'm for sure looking forward to what's next.

[47lab]

Watched Kim Hong-sun's cat and mouse crime thriller THE CHASE. There has been a proliferation of these type of thrillers coming out of South Korea in recent years and this one attempts to be a bit novel by using mostly senior actors cast in prominent roles. Interesting and (un)intentionally funny during certain scenes especially when one of the main characters has Alzheimers but still fairly generic and predictable. Felt Sun's debut feature, THE TRAFFICKERS was a level above this one. Still watchable though and as I mentioned the elderly cast does a bring a different and at times entertaining take on the proceedings.