Monday, December 31, 2012

Movie Monday #18: Infernal Affairs



“Do all undercover cops like rooftops?”

--Andy Lau as Lau, Infernal Affairs 

I am not that hip when it comes to the Hong Kong movie scene, and for good reason -- I just don’t get the pacing and the plotting of most Chinese films.  I guess I’m too used to Hollywood car chases and explosions that, admittedly, my favorite Hong Kong film for years was John Woo’s Hard Boiled, mostly because of Tony Leung’s performance in the film.  Last Saturday night, I had the pleasure of taking in another great Tony Leung performance, and a terrific film altogether -- Infernal Affairs, directed by the upcoming team of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak.

The basic story behind this crime thriller is simple -- two cadets rise up quickly through the ranks of the Hong Kong police force, but end up taking separate paths.  Yan (Tony Leung) is “thrown out” of the academy so he can become an undercover cop within the Triads, China’s form of organized crime.  What he and the other cadets don’t know is that Lau (Andy Lau), an ace cadet with perfect marks, is a plant within the police department with loyalties to the Triads.

I was a little surprised that the movie let the big secret out from the get-go, but then I realized just how smart that was.  It screwed up the tension and the anxiety ten times more than they already were, and from that point, the movie proceeds to embellish the characters a bit.  Yan has been undercover for ten years and has been arrested three times for assault of an officer, and his boss, Superintendent Wong (the great Anthony Wong in a stone-cold serious role for a change), orders him to see the department shrink.  Lau, on the other hand, finds himself ordered to locate the mole that’s recently been discovered within the department (which is, naturally, Lau himself) and work directly for Internal Affairs, while still helping Sam (Eric Tsang), the Triad boss he’s loyal too, get his criminal enterprises underway.

If this sounds familiar, it should -- Martin Scorsese ripped off the story of this film to make his cop thriller The Departed, with none so much as a credit to Andrew Lau and Alan Mak as the originators of the story.  But the similarity between the two films pretty much ends at the whole mole here/mole there point in the story.  Yan starts to fall in love with the department psychiatrist, while Lau has one of his underlings tail Superintendent Wong to a meeting with Yan.  This results in the turning point of the story -- the Triads invade the building, and Yan and Wong are trapped.  Yan escapes, but Wong is thrown from the roof and onto the top of a taxicab, some twenty-five floors below.

And like some of my other reviews, I’m going to stop before I get ahead of myself and reveal the entire movie to you.  This is one Hong Kong thriller I’m very proud to say isn’t out to disgust you with gut-punching violence, confuse you with some symbolism that only the director understands, and offend you with gratuitous language and nudity.  Infernal Affairs, despite it’s name and the sexy Chinese woman who appears on the cover of the DVD (who isn’t even in the movie, I came to discover), is a very clean and crisp film that keeps you on the edge of your seat and includes some definitive jaw-dropping moments.

Andy Lau and Tony Leung are the standout performances in this film, though I felt that Lau’s was stronger, because his character goes through the most change.  Leung was still enjoyable and affable as always (that scene when he says he dreams of the psychiatrist and she responds with the sweet ‘I dream of you too’ was extremely well-played), but I felt like the directors were setting him up for a fall throughout the film and not giving him a chance to even try and be a hero.

This film also guest-stars one of my new favorite Hong Kong actors, Edison Chen, who I first saw as Ryousuke in the Initial D live-action film.  Edison plays the young version of Lau’s character, and many of the flashbacks to his cadet days feature Chen.  In my opinion, this is a bright young man with a bright future in cinema, whether it be foreign or domestic.

The production design, in combination with the lighting, is just superb in this film.  The use of white, black, gray, green-gray, blue-gray, and natural lighting really set this off as something that says, “Take notice of me.  I am not to be ignored.”  There are a lot of rooftop scenes in this film, and how they covered and lit them when there’s really nothing around to mount a camera on or plug a camera into is a testament to the Hong Kong film industry’s ingenuity in getting things done.

Overall, this is one film I’m proud to have in my collection, and I found it at the local Blockbuster store in the clearance section of their previously viewed movies for $3.99.  If I can find it there, surely you can find it through similar means.  I encourage you to do so, even if you’re not a fan of Hong Kong cinema, because this film just might change your mind -- it did mine.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Movie Monday #17: Sukeban Deka


"Like I said...the outside world basically sucks."
--Amanda Winn as Saki Asamiya, Sukeban Deka

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Whenever you watch anime, you have to expect the unexpected.  A futuristic cop drama could suddenly turn into a magical girl show and back again in the blink of an eye.  But Sukeban Deka, the story of a teenage detective who uses a government-issue yo-yo as her weapon, probably takes the prize for the most unexpected (and unappreciated) anime out there.

Based on a shoujo manga by Shinji Wada from the 1970's, Sukeban Deka (which roughly translates as "Delinquent Detective") is the story of Saki Asamiya, a lavender-haired teenage girl sitting in a prison cell for causing trouble at her school.  A man referred to only as The Dark Investigator offers her a deal--she can work for the police as an undercover teenage detective, infiltrating high schools and fighting crimes the police normally couldn't reach...or her mother, on death row for murdering her husband, will be executed.  As long as Saki agrees to be a detective, her mother's execution will be postponed until she can be set free.

Saki has no choice but to agree, and soon she's back on her old stomping grounds--Takaoka High School.  Unfortunately, she's not top dog anymore--the three Mizuchi sisters are the queens of this school.  Emi Mizuchi is famous for her art, but it turns out that all she does is copy other artists' work and pretend that it's her own.  Ayumi Mizuchi is treated like royalty and pretends to be very lady-like, but in fact runs a righteous extortion ring and drug trade within the school.  Reimi Mizuchi is president of the student council, but yeah, she's evil too--she ends up brainwashing all the Takahoka students into doing whatever she pleases.

Add into the mix a cute but personality-free girl named Junko who paints like an angel and keeps getting her shirt ripped off, along with Saki's would-be boyfriend, Sampei, and you have the ingredients for your a-typical early 1990's high school drama...or do we?  Sukeban Deka has some familiar school drama moments, such as the awkward first meeting between Saki and Sampei (where he declares her his goddess) and Saki and Sampei hanging out at Junko's apartment, but that's not the thrust of its two forty-five minute episodes.  The real meat of this series is when Saki starts striking back against the Mizuchi sisters and their illegal activities, using her indestructible yo-yo, fighting skills, and street smarts to dish out plenty of payback.

Even though this OVA only has two episodes, the hero characters grow, adapt, and change at a satisfying pace.  Saki turns from a wild school yard brawler to a responsible teenage detective and heroine.  Sampei shaves his head (at Saki's request--you have to see it to believe it) and is a real help to Saki in the end, along with being a good friend.  Saki's police liason, Kyoichiro Jin, is one of those long-haired bishonen detective guys who probably inspired the characters in "Fake," but takes on the role of keeping Saki grounded in reality when her anger gets the better of her.  Even Saki's principal, Numa, gets in on the action, agreeing to help the girl he once hated.

And let's not forget that there's plenty of fighting, too, and the majority of it involves Saki and her yo-yo.  Anime is known for its dramatic poses, long sweeps of the hands and feet (before a punch or kick), the shouting of attack names before you use that attack, and the colorful backgrounds that appear behind the characters as they perform said attacks.  Sukeban Deka uses all of these mainstays in its fight scenes, but not to the point to overkill.  Director Takeshi Hirota knew exactly which notes to hit on the anime keyboard, and he hits them all just right.

The character designs were adapted from the original manga by Nobuteru Yuki, who also worked on Cleopatra D.C., another favorite of mine.  Nobuteru's large eyes, long faces, and shoujo leanings all add a nice touch to the proceedings here and give Sukeban Deka a unique style that it can call its own.

Takashi Takaomi's music is a combination of synthesizers, electric guitars, some nice bass, and occasional orchestral interludes that accent each character's struggle to escape the hell their school has become.  The battle themes are particularly memorable, especially the one where Saki busts into the arcade and starts raising all kinds of hell with her karate moves and her yo-yo.

I've watched both versions of Sukeban Deka (dubbed & subtitled) and, oddly enough, I prefer the dubbed version, which features the talents of old ADV Films mainstays Amanda Winn, Tiffany Grant, Kurt Stoll, Jason Lee, and Rob Mungle.  Amanda Winn landed the role of Saki Asamiya, and she was born to play this part.  The hard edge to her voice, her screams of frustration, and her comedic timing couldn't be better.  Tiffany Grant plays Junko, and while she does an admirable job, there's little she could do to elevate this character.  Kurt Stoll takes Sampei's wackiness and off-the-wall humor to the umpteenth level and makes this character a lot more entertaining than he was in the Japanese version.  Jason Lee and Rob Mungle star as some of the heavies employed by Ayumi Mizuchi to keep Saki in line.  Even ADV producer & dub director Matt Greenfield gets in on the action as some of the obnoxious background characters.

If you're expecting an anime version of the live-action Sukeban Deka movies released by Tokyo Shock,  then you'd best look elsewhere.  The Sukeban Deka OVA remains faithful to Shinji Wada's original manga and gives us a presentation that's definitely suited for the anime style.  But don't let that deter you from picking this up, because this show has it all--action, romance, angst, drama, humor, and tragedy, all in a neat two-episode package.   So if you're in the mood for an early 90's anime flashback or just a quick, entertaining watch, look no further than Sukeban Deka.

(And here's a fan trailer someone made for Sukeban Deka, if you can get past the thirty seconds of random intro clips...)

 

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Movie Monday #16: The Tournament


"Is it my accent or something?"
--Kelly Hu as Lai Lai Zhen, The Tournament

I’m a sucker for an assassin movie due to my formative teenage years being spent watching John Woo’s Hong Kong classics (A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hard Boiled are his three best).  The problem these days is making your average assassin movie interesting enough to pick up off the movie shelf, simply because there are so damn many of them.  I had the pleasure of taking in an assassin film that turned the whole genre into a giant kill-or-be-killed tournament, with plenty of action and thrills to spare.  I’m talking about the Scott Mann film The Tournament.

The story of this film is that every seven years, an unsuspecting town is selected as the battleground for the top thirty assassins in the world.  The challenge is to be the last one standing, winning the large cash prize and the prestige of being the world’s top killer.  The entire contest is viewed through closed-circuit television by a group of mysterious, rich men, who bet on the contestants like a sporting event.  This whole sha-bang is organized by Powers, played to the hilt by Liam Cunningham, a man whose face I’d never seen before but whose voice I’d definitely heard on commercials and from videogame and animation voice-overs.

When the film opens, Joshua Harlowe (Ving Rhames) is participating in the last contest, seven years ago.  He’s out of bullets in his gun, has no other weapons to speak of, and is up against a machine-gun-toting maniac who isn’t taking kindly to Harlowe’s announcement that he’s retiring from the business.  In a bit of trickery, Harlowe pulls off the victory, killing this maniac with some kind of pressurized air gun, blasting his head to pieces.  I should note that this movie is not for the squeamish--there are plenty of body parts and organs flying around and detonating spectacularly.  This may sound like a bad thing, but it really doesn’t detract from the viewing--it adds a dimension of grim reality to the competition that’s about to take place.

Flash-forward seven years, and it’s time for a new tournament.  Enter Lai Lai Zhen (Kelly Hu in a smoking hot role), a Chinese assassin who arrives at her hotel, wakes up the next morning a little groggy from being implanted with a tracking device, and gets a major wake-up call when one of these hitmen attacks her, pretending to be room service.  After some high karate on Lai Lai’s part, she gets her first kill, and she moves up the leader board.

To my surprise, the film proceeds to develop a side story about Father Macavoy (Robert Carlyle), an alcoholic Catholic priest whose faith is a mite weak.  When he enters a diner and has breakfast, one of these ‘contestants’ (the incredible Sebastian Foucan, the inventor of Parcour) enters as well, cuts out his tracking device, and drops it in Father Macavoy’s coffee.  Now, everyone thinks Father Macavoy is that contestant, and this unsuspecting priest has entered the tournament.

Lai Lai Zhen tracks Macavoy down, thinking he’s the Parcour guy, and gets assaulted by a Russian Special Forces maniac who was pulling off incredible martial arts moves without wires.  The only other person I know who has done moves like this without the aid of any apparatus is Matt Mullins (Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight), so this was a welcome surprise.  Lai Lai almost loses this battle, if not for some quick thinking on her part, as she pulls one of the pins on a grenade on the Russian guy’s combat vest (while giving him the finger, no less).

After determining that Father Macavoy is not a willing participant, Lai Lai calls Powers on the emergency line, informing him of this situation.  He sees this as a great betting opportunity for his assembly of mysterious, rich pals and tells her that he’d better start killing, or else he’ll end up dead too...and puts the priest up on the leader board, with the odds of five hundred to one.

Shortly thereafter, Harlowe appears on the grid--seems someone came after him in his Miami home and killed his wife.  He’s come back to the tournament for revenge, because he has information that his wife’s killer is one of the contestants.  So what does he do?  He kills the film’s writer, Nick Rowntree, who cameos for about five or six lines as one of these assassins.  Well, they’re always saying that directors want to kill the writers, so why not do it through the magic of film?

As Harlowe keeps gathering information through each person he kills, Lai Lai and Father Macavoy are in survival mode--she’s trying to keep him alive while avoiding his constant question of “Why are you here?”  When they finally acquire a car, Lai Lai drives as far as she can out of the city, so the tracker won’t be as effective.  Meanwhile, Harlowe has acquired a tanker truck and is following Lai Lai’s tracker.  Everything is set for the final showdown, and what a showdown it is.

It’s pretty clear at this point that I can’t say enough about this movie, because it reminds me of classic 1980’s action films, but done one notch better.  Kelly Hu, as previously mentioned, is absolutely gorgeous (as always) and is smoking hot whether she’s beating the crap out of someone with martial arts or blasting someone with a gun in each hand (which was probably paying homage to John Woo in some way).  Robert Carlyle is perfectly cast as Father Macavoy, a man who has lost his church, his congregation, and his will to live, and finds it all again through the help of Lai Lai.

The only part I didn’t really understand was Ving Rhames as Harlowe.  Rhames plays this part like he’s a guest star in a TV movie, and his part is written in that fashion, even though he should have been the main character.  He seemed distant and out-of-place throughout the entire film, and his talents seem wasted on such a small part as this.

Despite this semi-major flaw in the film, everyone else is also perfectly cast--the hitmen look and sound like hitmen, the bystanders look and sound like bystanders, and the hilarious tech guys who run the closed-circuit cameras sound like total neurotic geeks who should spend more time outside.

The action in this movie is incredible--lots of gunfights, lots of chases, lots of martial arts--and none of it seems forced or just for the sake of having it.  Once you have established the parameters of the world this movie operates in (sort-of a “Pay-Per-View” tournament/sporting event thing), everything else falls into place, and that was a very nice thing to see.

Style-wise, the movie is shot in very drab surroundings with very dark, drab colors, adding to the dark, internal struggles of the three main characters...and let’s just face it, folks--assassins killing each other in a competition every seven years for a cash prize is a pretty dark thing.

The Tournament is a film that delivers on all fronts--action, plot, and characters.  It lays down some commentary about how the world sensationalizes sporting events, and that maybe something like this assassin tourney is where we’re heading.  Luckily, it doesn’t get too bogged down in that and never forgets what it is--a damn good action movie.  If you’re looking for a great action-thriller to add to your collection, then look no further than The Tournament.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Movie Monday #15: P2


I was perusing the shelves of my local Blockbuster Video store (which, sadly, has been closed due to the rise of Redbox and Video on Demand) back in May and spotted the movie on their previously viewed shelf that you're reading about right now--P2, a low-budget horror vehicle featuring a girl trapped in a parking garage with a sadistic security guard on Christmas Eve.

With Halloween two months away, I thought now would be the perfect time to review P2 and let you know that it's one of the few horror movies I actually like.

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 “I know you're just trying to humanize me, Angela, so stop it!  Stop it!"
--Wes Bentley as Thomas, P2

In case you couldn't tell by reading this blog, I'm not a big fan of horror movies.  I think it stems from a childhood fear of Chucky, the sadistic doll from the Child's Play films, and the fact that I have no tolerance for pointless gore.  I do, however, find myself watching a few horror films a year and enjoying them on varying levels.  But there is one that stood out to me above all the others as one of the best experiences I ever had watching a horror flick, and that movie is P2.

P2 (named after the parking garage level it takes place in) starts off simple: Angela (played by Rachel Nichols), a corporate workaholic who is staying late at the office on Christmas Eve, finds that her car is the only one left in the parking garage...and that it won't start.  When Thomas, the overly-friendly security guy (played by Wes Bentley), gives her a jump, the car still doesn't work.  He offers to give her a lift, and even invites her to share Christmas dinner with him in his office, but Angela turns him down and calls a cab.

Unfortunately, Mister Security Guy has locked all the doors in the building, so Angela can't get out to the cab in time before it pulls away.  When she storms down to the garage to have a word with the guy, he turns the lights out on her and forces her into his office...where he drugs her, puts her in a white gown, and forces her to have Christmas dinner with him while she's cuffed to a chair.  Angela, however, is no dummy, and soon devises a way to escape Thomas's clutches (by stabbing him with her dinner fork) and call for help.

But alas, there is no help coming.  This is Christmas Eve, remember?  Angela has to fight her way out, using whatever tools are available, including a fire axe, a crowbar, and Thomas's stun gun, to name a few.  Thomas has a few tools on his side as well, such as filling the garage's elevator with water, using all the security cameras to track Angela down, and unleashing a very nasty Rottweiler that he's named Elvis.  And just when it seems Angela's figured out a way to beat Thomas and escape, Thomas figures out a way to stop her, which leads to a game of chicken in rental cars that will make your jaw drop.

You can say all you want about P2 being one of those low-budget, one-location horror films--it makes great use of its location (the parking garage) and the little nooks and crannies that occupy it.  I've never felt very safe in a parking garage, and after watching P2, I think I know why--they're very creepy when they're empty and dark!  This film plays on that perception and heightens it to the umpteenth level, creating the ultimate "what if" scenario.  The idea is ingenious and it hasn't been done before, so hats off to the creative team for their effort in that department.

The casting for the film couldn't have been better.  Rachel Nichols was perfect for Angela, because she could play both sides of the character--the desperate, frightened corporate employee who just wants a way out...and the kick-ass heroine she becomes when she's finally had enough.  She spends most of this film barefoot and in a cleavage-bearing white dress, which is a real challenge for any actress to take on, and Rachel pulls it off with sympathy and credibility. 

Wes Bentley is the perfect villain as Thomas, a guy who could be the creepy security guard in real life, let alone in P2.  He pretends to be gentle and caring to Angela in the beginning, but once she starts to rebel against his wishes, his psycho side starts coming out, and that's when you're in for a real treat.  Wes also gives us a taste of his funny side as he performs a homage to the Elvis Presley hit "Blue Christmas" while Angela is knocking out his security cameras with the fire axe.

Oleg Savytski performed the production design on this film, and I've become an instant fan of his work.  From the darkened corridors of the parking garage to Thomas's cluttered office and the elevator that Angela nearly drowns in, the design team made a one-location movie seem bigger than it was and made it last longer than the usual ninety-minute runtime.  They didn't do it alone, though--costume designer Ruth Secord came up with the fifteen different dresses that Rachel Nichols wore during shooting; director of photography Maxime Alexandre gave everything the necessary spookiness; and the music by Tomandandy (a composing team I'd never heard of before) blended perfectly into the background and made us feel exactly what we needed to feel at the moments we needed to feel it.

There are some glaring mistakes in P2, though.  One of them has to do with the scene where Thomas floods the garage's elevator with water and Angela presses the up button.  The elevator moves up and takes the water with it.  It looks downright silly, and according to IMDB, elevators are designed to drain the water out through the bottom if such an event occurs.  Two of the smaller mistakes involve the fork that Angela stabs Thomas with (it never stays in the same position) and a scene where a crew member's silhouette is visible on the wall of the rental car area.

One of the other issues with P2 is that it has the dreaded "3 Screenwriter Curse," meaning that three separate writers worked on the script.  In Hollywood, one screenwriter can either be good or bad; two screenwriters (or a two-person writing team) is usually a good bet; but three screenwriters is a recipe for disaster.  Jumper is a good example of this, since it had three screenwriters and was one of the worst movies I saw that year.  A more recent example would be the Sam Worthington vehicle Man on a Ledge, which not only had three screenwriters but was also a one-location film (and played out more like a TV movie than anything else).

Do you get what I mean by the 3 Screenwriter Curse?  Good, because I'm here to tell you that P2 rises above the curse and delivers on all fronts.  The script by Franck Khalfoun (who also directed the film), Alexandre Aja (who produced the film), and Gregory Levasseur (who also produced the film) gave us the perfect setup, the perfect amount of dialogue, and the perfect moments of tension to deliver one of my favorite horror films of all time.  I tend to gravitate toward unique, independent productions, and with P2 being an eight million-dollar parking garage film, I knew I had to see it.  I was not disappointed, and you won't be either...though you might become a little leery of being the only car in the parking garage at night.