Apologies from me for this late update -- I had a super-crappy week last week due to the death of an old acquaintence here in Dallastown that I went to school with and things got complicated. Aside from that, I would like to present to you the first anime-related review of Movie Monday, a look at ADV Film's 2002 entry, City Hunter: The Motion Picture.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Nookie never lies.”
--Martin Blacker as Joe Saeba, a.k.a. City Hunter
Let it be said that I’ve been an unabashed fan of anime, or Japanese animation, since I was twelve years old. The very first ‘real’ anime I ever saw was The Guyver: Bio-Booster Armor OAV put out by U.S. Renditions, and it’s been an on-and-off-again ride ever since. Right now, it’s on again, and I’d like to commemorate this ninth review by being the first anime-related review of Movie Monday -- City Hunter: The Motion Picture, a made-for-TV special to celebrate ten years of the TV series City Hunter being on the air.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the City Hunter story, and that included me, it’s fairly simple -- Ryo Saeba (Joe Saeba in the English version) is Shinjuku’s number one troubleshooter and ladies’ man, also known as City Hunter. If you leave a message on the XYZ board at the downtown Tokyo train station, he’ll come find you and offer assistance. If you happen to be a pretty lady, then he expects to be paid with some nookie. To stop his relentless nookie quest, his assistant Kaori has a variety of hyper-dimensional hammers that she smacks Joe over the head with, ranging from a 50 pounder to a 1,000-ton ball on a chain.
The lass in need of assistance this time is dancer/performer Ami Munto, whose brother disappeared some time ago. Recently, Ami received a bundle of black roses, which always held significance for her and her older sibling. Simultaneously, a criminal mastermind known as The Professor has entered Tokyo, with the purpose of committing a terrible terrorist action against the Japanese government. Could this Professor be Ami’s long-lost brother? What’s his purpose for challenging the City Hunter? If I said anything else, I’d spoil what is probably the most thrilling anime I’ve seen in a long time, so I’ll just stop right here and let you watch it for yourself.
I watched both versions of the film (the original Japanese version and the English dub) and found the English dub to be more enjoyable, even if it does have some serious mistakes and mispronunciations in it. Most notable of the changes in the dub is the switch of Ryo’s name to Joe so it would fit the lip flaps. The same probably happened with Saeko, the sexy female police inspector, whose name got changed to Sandra. Kaori’s name got mispronounced by each character at least a dozen times, and I don’t think any of them got it right. And finally, the most notable mistake was the mispronunciation of the city Shinjuku, which got pronounced as "not SHIN-juku," not "shin-JU-ku."
But this dub makes up for what it did by giving these characters more flavor than the Japanese version had. In the Japanese version, Ryo is simply a tough guy with a case of wackiness that could be controlled with some anti-psychotics; Martin Blacker, his English voice actor, brings more balance to the role, giving “Joe” a unified persona. The arguments between Falcon, a tough mercenary who runs a coffee shop, and Joe are absolutely hilarious, whereas they fell flat for me in the Japanese version.
As for the hyper-dimensional hammer thing, I have only this to say to City Hunter fans -- when you get to be my age (27 in May), whacking someone over the head with a hammer because they chase after women is like watching a Looney Tune, not an anime. Sorry, but all that fighting between Joe and Kaori didn’t make me laugh once. I’m guessing the hammer business is something only die-hard City Hunter fans understand, ‘cause it was lost on me.
As an added note, the final battle between Joe and The Professor is probably my favorite part of the movie, because it takes place on a speeding bullet train against a rusty orange sunset. The gunplay in City Hunter is very realistic, with the guns actually looking like their real-life counterparts. The fistfight between Joe and The Professor wasn’t bad either, as it didn’t have them pulling out rapid-fire martial arts on each other and just going totally over-the-top with it.
Overall, I’d say that City Hunter: The Motion Picture isn’t for everyone, but if you’re a big action fan and you like your anime to be a little more realistic and believable than something like, say, The Guyver, then you might want to give this film a shot. I did -- I found a like new copy of it on the Amazon.com Marketplace for a smidgen below six dollars, and that included the shipping. Unfortunately, used is probably going to be the only place you can find the City Hunter movies and TV series, as they have all been discontinued by ADV Films and are now probably out-of-print. But if you like to hunt, and you know this bargain bin barbarian does, then you’ll find your dose of Joe, Kaori, and the hyper-dimensional hammer-whackin’ soon enough.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Movie Monday No. 8 - Big Trouble
Well, two weeks in a row for the month of March, people! Let's keep this streak going with a review of the Barry Sonnenfeld comedy, Big Trouble, which I picked up at Tom's Music Trade here in Red Lion, PA for four bucks. Wondering what store I'm talking about? Read on and find out for yourself!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"This is Miami? They can keep it."
--Dennis Farina as Ness, Big Trouble
Cue the Cheers theme song, people, ‘cause I’m going to jabber on about one of my favorite places to go. No, it isn’t La-La Land; I can go there any time I want (and some people claim I live there daily, which I’m not conceding or denying). It’s a trade store located on North Main Street in the town I live in, Red Lion, Pennsylvania, called Tom’s Music Trade, and it’s the best place to find anything you’re looking for.
Feeling a bit blue last Wednesday, I went to Tom’s (it’s, like, five minutes from my apartment) and traded in some older DVDs I had and acquired some new ones for my collection. Tom, the owner, is a British guy who hasn’t lost his accent yet, likes watching UFC fights on his laptop by the cash register, and never seems to be in a sour mood, no matter what the weather may be like outside. When I visited his store on Wednesday, I told him about my blog, and that I’d mention his store in it someday.
Well, that time has come, since on my visit there I picked up the 2001 Touchstone Pictures comedy Big Trouble, based on Pulitzer-prize winning humorist Dave Barry’s first novel. I’ve never read the novel, but there were definite "Barry-isms" carried over from the book to the script, which is always a good sign that the writers actually cared about the material (and it wasn’t just another paycheck to them).
This film begins with Jason Lee playing a hippie addicted to Fritos named Puggy. Everyone keeps mistaking him for Jesus because of his long hair and goatee, which I thought was actually kind-of funny. The movie begins full-force with Tim Allen playing Elliot Arnold, a former columnist who quit his job after having a meltdown at his former boss who tried to assign him ‘serious’ work. If this isn’t a Barry-ism, then I don’t know what is.
The story in this film follows Arnold as his son, Matthew, attempts to go to a female classmate’s house and squirt-gun her so he can "score points" for a game played in school. Simultaneously, Dennis Farina arrives in town and at this girl’s house to kill her father, who has been skimming money from his company. The company had ordered him dead, and Farina and his partner, who always responds with the same line -- "You said it" -- end up botching the job when Elliot’s son Matthew enters the scene and tries to ‘kill’ the poor girl with his squirt gun.
When the girl’s mother (Rene Russo) and Matthew’s father Elliot meet for the first time, there’s some chemistry that can’t be denied...and when she stops by Elliot’s office the next day, they end up doing this hilarious sex scene where Elliot is trying to kiss her, take her clothes off, balance himself, and keep from spilling a cup of coffee, all to a Mexican samba in the background. This had me rolling, and that was a very good sign.
The girl’s father (Stanley Tucci) acquires a nuclear bomb from some Russian arms dealers who use a crappy bar as a front for their operation. That’s when two knuckleheads, led by Tom Sizemore, storm the bar to rob it, but instead take the nuclear device and the so-called "drug kingpin in the fag Jag" back to his house, where Elliot, his son, and the "kingpin’s" daughter and wife have arrived after finding out that another one of these squirting games has gone on, and end up getting tangled up in the heist with the nuclear device (that everyone keeps remarking looks like a garbage disposal).
If the comedy in this doesn’t keep you watching the movie, this is the point where it kicks into high gear and everything gets cranked up ten notches. I won’t ruin it for you -- you have to see it for yourself as every character gets what’s coming to them, and then some.
A movie would be nothing without its script, and this movie had a great one. The direction by Barry Sonnenfeld, who also directed Get Shorty and Men In Black before this film, was top-notch. There weren’t what I call frat-boy shots in it -- shots down women’s dresses, extreme close-ups of breasts and ass -- you get what I mean. It was a very clean movie in terms of that. The acting was top-notch, but that’s what happens when you have comedy greats like Stanley Tucci, Jason Lee, Rene Russo, and of course Tim Allen working with material from Dave Barry -- you’re bound to have something funny.
The music for this film was great as well, performed by James Newton Howard, who gets very little recognition for his work. The jazzy themes he came up with for Big Trouble matched the film perfectly, and even in the suspenseful last minutes, the score lived up to the action on the screen. Industrial Light and Magic even did some great plane effects here that still hold up well.
Overall, Big Trouble is simply a tightly-plotted and very funny movie, and I haven’t even mentioned half of what goes on. I’m saving it for you, the viewer, to find out when you watch it, because this is one movie I’d recommend to just about anybody, even my grandmother (if you’re reading this Grammy, go rent Big Trouble before the day’s through). If you’re looking for big laughs with a great cast that will not disappoint, then Big Trouble is the movie for you. And if you don’t laugh even once, then you are not human.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"This is Miami? They can keep it."
--Dennis Farina as Ness, Big Trouble
Cue the Cheers theme song, people, ‘cause I’m going to jabber on about one of my favorite places to go. No, it isn’t La-La Land; I can go there any time I want (and some people claim I live there daily, which I’m not conceding or denying). It’s a trade store located on North Main Street in the town I live in, Red Lion, Pennsylvania, called Tom’s Music Trade, and it’s the best place to find anything you’re looking for.
Feeling a bit blue last Wednesday, I went to Tom’s (it’s, like, five minutes from my apartment) and traded in some older DVDs I had and acquired some new ones for my collection. Tom, the owner, is a British guy who hasn’t lost his accent yet, likes watching UFC fights on his laptop by the cash register, and never seems to be in a sour mood, no matter what the weather may be like outside. When I visited his store on Wednesday, I told him about my blog, and that I’d mention his store in it someday.
Well, that time has come, since on my visit there I picked up the 2001 Touchstone Pictures comedy Big Trouble, based on Pulitzer-prize winning humorist Dave Barry’s first novel. I’ve never read the novel, but there were definite "Barry-isms" carried over from the book to the script, which is always a good sign that the writers actually cared about the material (and it wasn’t just another paycheck to them).
This film begins with Jason Lee playing a hippie addicted to Fritos named Puggy. Everyone keeps mistaking him for Jesus because of his long hair and goatee, which I thought was actually kind-of funny. The movie begins full-force with Tim Allen playing Elliot Arnold, a former columnist who quit his job after having a meltdown at his former boss who tried to assign him ‘serious’ work. If this isn’t a Barry-ism, then I don’t know what is.
The story in this film follows Arnold as his son, Matthew, attempts to go to a female classmate’s house and squirt-gun her so he can "score points" for a game played in school. Simultaneously, Dennis Farina arrives in town and at this girl’s house to kill her father, who has been skimming money from his company. The company had ordered him dead, and Farina and his partner, who always responds with the same line -- "You said it" -- end up botching the job when Elliot’s son Matthew enters the scene and tries to ‘kill’ the poor girl with his squirt gun.
When the girl’s mother (Rene Russo) and Matthew’s father Elliot meet for the first time, there’s some chemistry that can’t be denied...and when she stops by Elliot’s office the next day, they end up doing this hilarious sex scene where Elliot is trying to kiss her, take her clothes off, balance himself, and keep from spilling a cup of coffee, all to a Mexican samba in the background. This had me rolling, and that was a very good sign.
The girl’s father (Stanley Tucci) acquires a nuclear bomb from some Russian arms dealers who use a crappy bar as a front for their operation. That’s when two knuckleheads, led by Tom Sizemore, storm the bar to rob it, but instead take the nuclear device and the so-called "drug kingpin in the fag Jag" back to his house, where Elliot, his son, and the "kingpin’s" daughter and wife have arrived after finding out that another one of these squirting games has gone on, and end up getting tangled up in the heist with the nuclear device (that everyone keeps remarking looks like a garbage disposal).
If the comedy in this doesn’t keep you watching the movie, this is the point where it kicks into high gear and everything gets cranked up ten notches. I won’t ruin it for you -- you have to see it for yourself as every character gets what’s coming to them, and then some.
A movie would be nothing without its script, and this movie had a great one. The direction by Barry Sonnenfeld, who also directed Get Shorty and Men In Black before this film, was top-notch. There weren’t what I call frat-boy shots in it -- shots down women’s dresses, extreme close-ups of breasts and ass -- you get what I mean. It was a very clean movie in terms of that. The acting was top-notch, but that’s what happens when you have comedy greats like Stanley Tucci, Jason Lee, Rene Russo, and of course Tim Allen working with material from Dave Barry -- you’re bound to have something funny.
The music for this film was great as well, performed by James Newton Howard, who gets very little recognition for his work. The jazzy themes he came up with for Big Trouble matched the film perfectly, and even in the suspenseful last minutes, the score lived up to the action on the screen. Industrial Light and Magic even did some great plane effects here that still hold up well.
Overall, Big Trouble is simply a tightly-plotted and very funny movie, and I haven’t even mentioned half of what goes on. I’m saving it for you, the viewer, to find out when you watch it, because this is one movie I’d recommend to just about anybody, even my grandmother (if you’re reading this Grammy, go rent Big Trouble before the day’s through). If you’re looking for big laughs with a great cast that will not disappoint, then Big Trouble is the movie for you. And if you don’t laugh even once, then you are not human.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Movie Monday No. 7 - In Bruges
Well, here's starting off a new month with a new review. Let's see if I can start another streak of updating them on or near Monday (the previous record was 5 weeks straight). The problem I had in February ended up being that I am came down with a nasty cold and didn't get out much and didn't feel like doing much of anything, even Movie Monday. Well, that's about to change. So here for your reading pleasure (or displeasure, as the case may be), is a review of 2007's twisted, un-P.C. drama/thriller In Bruges.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What’s a f**king fifty year-old Chinese lollipop man doing with kung-fu?"
--Colin Farrell as Ray, In Bruges
Up until this film, I had yet to see a project that truly captured the agony that a first-time hitman might go through when his first job blows up in his face. It’s a theme that intrigues me and I’ve seen it attempted in other films, but never to the degree of success that Martin McDonagh has pulled off in his 2007 feature for Universal/Focus Features, In Bruges.
I came across this film at the local Lackluster (oh wait, did I say that? I meant Blockbuster) Video store in my hometown and realized that it was cheaper to buy the previously viewed copy for $3.99 than it was to rent the damn movie for $4.99. Since I’m a big fan of offbeat British humor, I thought this would be a good match for me. It was, but this film also packs an emotional wallop I was not prepared for.
In Bruges finds our two heroes Ray (Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) taking a few days off in the Belgium town of Bruges after Ray’s first hit went wrong. It’s not revealed in this early stage exactly what went wrong with it, but they’ve received orders from Harry (Ralph Fiennes), their boss, to sit tight and wait for him to call. After some very comedic sightseeing that gets Ray into more trouble than he bargained for (and reveals his peculiar fascination with midgets), Ray scores a date with a cute girl on a local film crew (who is of normal human size, I’d like to note).
When Ray’s off on his date, Ken gets the call from Harry, and it’s between these two points that we really learn what went wrong. Ray shot a priest, and as he stepped out of the confession booth blazing bullets, a bullet blew open the head of a five year-old boy who was praying because, as he had written in a note Ray finds in the boy’s hands, he was sad. Ken pulls him away before the cops arrive, and now Harry wants Ken to "whack" Ray. "Nobody does a kid and gets away with it," Harry says. "Nobody."
As to whether Ken offs Ray or doesn’t, I’ll leave that up to you to find out when you watch In Bruges. While I was watching it, the film seemed to take on three different shapes -- the hitman movie, the neo-noir movie, and the offbeat independent European comedy. This unique blend of these three genres, if you will, allows In Bruges to be something very unique -- not a hitman neo-noir European comedy (duh), but a very emotional film about what humans do when other humans screw up.
Take for example Colin Farrell’s character, Ray. He’s got the biggest screw-up of all -- he shot a kid by accident. In one of Farrell’s best pieces of acting so far in his career, he actually curls up into Ken’s arms and bawls for the death of the child’s life he so ruthlessly took. This scene solidified the theme of the film for me -- that no matter who we are, we must first own up to what is ours and what we’ve done. It’s a powerful, very human theme, disguised in trippy neo-noir coating.
The music and production design further go to isolate the characters into this surreal world they live in. Carter Burwell composed a masterful piano-led score that tapped into the sadness and desolate feeling of Bruges, along with highlighting the more colorful parts of the characters’ personalities. His chase music, for when Harry catches up to Ray, is also quite exemplary. The production design was done by Michael Carlin, who captures the natural colors and architecture of Bruges masterfully, and with good taste.
There are two drawbacks to In Bruges -- the excessive use of the "f" word and the gruesome detail they put into the gunfire wounds. I thought these two elements were a little unnecessary in order to get their point across; we don’t need to see a chunk of the five year-old’s head missing in order to know that he’s been shot. A little blood and a small hole would have sufficed. Plus, to emphasize how much language there was, a rather amusing (or appalling, depending on how you look at it) montage is included on the DVD in the bonus features of nothing but the instances of foul language used in the movie. While it made me laugh, it might make some of you more virgin-eared readers out there in cyberland shriek in dismay.
Overall, I’d have to say that In Bruges is a very different film -- not at all what it is advertised or hailed to be. I think it has at its core a very serious theme about your sins catching up to you, and that if you try to run, you only delay the inevitable. A pretty grim outlook, but one that matches the lives of criminals and hitmen that populate the world this movie takes place in.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What’s a f**king fifty year-old Chinese lollipop man doing with kung-fu?"
--Colin Farrell as Ray, In Bruges
Up until this film, I had yet to see a project that truly captured the agony that a first-time hitman might go through when his first job blows up in his face. It’s a theme that intrigues me and I’ve seen it attempted in other films, but never to the degree of success that Martin McDonagh has pulled off in his 2007 feature for Universal/Focus Features, In Bruges.
I came across this film at the local Lackluster (oh wait, did I say that? I meant Blockbuster) Video store in my hometown and realized that it was cheaper to buy the previously viewed copy for $3.99 than it was to rent the damn movie for $4.99. Since I’m a big fan of offbeat British humor, I thought this would be a good match for me. It was, but this film also packs an emotional wallop I was not prepared for.
In Bruges finds our two heroes Ray (Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) taking a few days off in the Belgium town of Bruges after Ray’s first hit went wrong. It’s not revealed in this early stage exactly what went wrong with it, but they’ve received orders from Harry (Ralph Fiennes), their boss, to sit tight and wait for him to call. After some very comedic sightseeing that gets Ray into more trouble than he bargained for (and reveals his peculiar fascination with midgets), Ray scores a date with a cute girl on a local film crew (who is of normal human size, I’d like to note).
When Ray’s off on his date, Ken gets the call from Harry, and it’s between these two points that we really learn what went wrong. Ray shot a priest, and as he stepped out of the confession booth blazing bullets, a bullet blew open the head of a five year-old boy who was praying because, as he had written in a note Ray finds in the boy’s hands, he was sad. Ken pulls him away before the cops arrive, and now Harry wants Ken to "whack" Ray. "Nobody does a kid and gets away with it," Harry says. "Nobody."
As to whether Ken offs Ray or doesn’t, I’ll leave that up to you to find out when you watch In Bruges. While I was watching it, the film seemed to take on three different shapes -- the hitman movie, the neo-noir movie, and the offbeat independent European comedy. This unique blend of these three genres, if you will, allows In Bruges to be something very unique -- not a hitman neo-noir European comedy (duh), but a very emotional film about what humans do when other humans screw up.
Take for example Colin Farrell’s character, Ray. He’s got the biggest screw-up of all -- he shot a kid by accident. In one of Farrell’s best pieces of acting so far in his career, he actually curls up into Ken’s arms and bawls for the death of the child’s life he so ruthlessly took. This scene solidified the theme of the film for me -- that no matter who we are, we must first own up to what is ours and what we’ve done. It’s a powerful, very human theme, disguised in trippy neo-noir coating.
The music and production design further go to isolate the characters into this surreal world they live in. Carter Burwell composed a masterful piano-led score that tapped into the sadness and desolate feeling of Bruges, along with highlighting the more colorful parts of the characters’ personalities. His chase music, for when Harry catches up to Ray, is also quite exemplary. The production design was done by Michael Carlin, who captures the natural colors and architecture of Bruges masterfully, and with good taste.
There are two drawbacks to In Bruges -- the excessive use of the "f" word and the gruesome detail they put into the gunfire wounds. I thought these two elements were a little unnecessary in order to get their point across; we don’t need to see a chunk of the five year-old’s head missing in order to know that he’s been shot. A little blood and a small hole would have sufficed. Plus, to emphasize how much language there was, a rather amusing (or appalling, depending on how you look at it) montage is included on the DVD in the bonus features of nothing but the instances of foul language used in the movie. While it made me laugh, it might make some of you more virgin-eared readers out there in cyberland shriek in dismay.
Overall, I’d have to say that In Bruges is a very different film -- not at all what it is advertised or hailed to be. I think it has at its core a very serious theme about your sins catching up to you, and that if you try to run, you only delay the inevitable. A pretty grim outlook, but one that matches the lives of criminals and hitmen that populate the world this movie takes place in.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)