Samurai Cop

                 

This is great. It's terrible and silly, but in just the right way to be very, very fun. It has, deservedly, a cult following, and a sequel was been made decades after the original, with the original lead! 

It follows a fairly simple plot: the heroes start a case, the villains are introduced, and then each one is killed off during the second and third acts. Plenty of serious thrillers follow this formula, but it's done so obviously here that plot details don't ever get in the way of the silly action. It's the kind of film that's good to watch with people and talk over it. Oh yeah, and there are a wealth of sex scenes. About every fifth shot at least has nudity in it, so that's good.

                   

                      

This is the kind of film that wouldn't work if it was at all self aware. The fact that it takes itself seriously even while the lead is chopping a henchman's arm off or hanging out of a car to shoot at a van full of baddies is hilarious, as is the game that viewers can play of spotting when the lead has real hair and when he's wearing a wig (they had to do re-shoots but by the time they got a hold of him he had cut his hair). The bizarre cinematography, over-the-top violent action, awkward romance sub-plot, terrible acting, and the non stop pace (apart from the sex scenes, which tended to go on for about five minutes more than they needed too) only make this piece of crap more of a gem. 

Oh, and Robert Z'Dar plays one of the main villains! Anything heavy on the Z'Dar you know is going to be quality trash.

              

Samurai Cop: 34.1

Miami Connection

               
An absurd and achingly of its time American martial arts action movie set in Miami and featuring the members of the band 'Dragon Sound' on their quest to rid the Floridan city of its thugs and biker-ninjas.
                 

               

You're probably making a few assumptions about what this movie is like now, huh? Well to be honest, you're pretty much right, but I liked it anyway.
The guy who wrote and directed it also played the lead, and apparently had to sell off a bunch of his tae-kwon-do places after the movie bombed on his own money. Ah well, at least it's picking up some speed in a niche "remember the 80's" sort of a way now.

The writing is terrible, the acting is impressively terrible, and the plot is pretty much as silly as a plot can be without trying to be. Twice the film actually just turns into a 'Top of the Pops' episode as we watch the band literally just perform a whole four minute song. It would be a total flop, if it wasn't for the damned enthusiasm that these lousy actors positively exude throughout. They are so obviously having fun, and putting their all into every scene, that I couldn't help but cheer them on as they beat up biker ninjas or whatever dumb thing it was that they were doing. It's all so quaint and fun that it feels like something modern made to be 80s - but it's not! That's why I like it - that and the laughs one has at the movie and how dumb the whole thing is.

I feel like the poster deserves its own paragraph: what the fuck?! I mean, I guess his face kinda looks like that but... Seriously? Why is his skin as folded as the creases in a fashionable dog, or his jacket? Why is there simultaniously a smaller version of himself near his crotch air-kicking a guy firing a sub-machine gun? Talking of his crotch, why do his jeans go so high up? Why are his arms so short - is that... is that meant to be forced perspective? And why, oh, WHY is that dumb scene with a guy taking a letter out of a mail box IN THE POSTER?!
Ok done - if that poster doesn't make you want to watch this bastard nothing will.
              

Miami Connection: 36.3

Come Drink with Me

             

Yeah, OK. bandits are running amok, they capture an official, then their creepy spokesperson talks of someone called "Golden Sparrow" who has the potential to match his skills. All fairly normal so far, until we see that Golden Sparrow is a woman.

This is a very impressive movie, mostly for its use of a strong female lead considering how old it is and the traditional style that the vast majority of east Asian movies had back then. In fact the other characters in the film are so disbelieving that their savior/nemesis is a woman, that they refer to her as a male for the first half of the movie. I actually thought this was a translation mistake until I did a little research.

In fact, the arch villain of the piece could be seen as taking on a more feminine role (with his pale white skin, elegant flowing clothes, and graceful movement throughout) and her defeating of him could be seen as her defeating the female stereotype of the time. Of course it could also be that he's meant to be gay, in which case the lesson is both more depressing and more arcane.

             

                

All the fighting sequences are very highly choreographed and graceful, which is another way that 'Come Drink with Me' differs from other samurai movies of the time. This style inspired plenty of later movies like 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' and even stuff like 'The Matrix' if you feel like stretching the theory across the Pacific (and you probably can, as it's a fairly stretchy theory. It's the bubble gum of theories).

It's a little disappointing that our heroin is sidelined a little towards the end, and I found the whole Drunken Cat/Abbot side story a bit of a waste of time.

Also the acting is a little... well, it's an old movie, but still. The sound also needs work and the editing is a little iffy at times - Lucas should re-do it or something. The pacing is also off, and the script glosses over some details while plodding over others.

So overall it's not perfect, but it is an interesting piece of history and a must see for any martial arts aficionados. Apart from the woman thing and the fighting style though, it doesn't make for particularly good viewing.

                

Come Drink with Me: 37.4

Bulletproof Monk

             

'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' for idiots and children.

          

So Chow Yun-fat is a monk who has this magic scroll but doesn't have a name, yeah, and he stays young for like sixty years and then he has to find a new guy, yeah, but then there are also Nazis and a prophecy and the new chosen one is a stupid white American child (played accurately by Seann William Scott).

         

         

The action scenes are alright, but nothing special. The first scene was particularly good, but after that the rest of the movie goes somewhat down hill. There are a lot of scenes that don't quite work, and then peter out (mostly fight scenes - Mr Funktastic and his henchmen were particularly embarrassing), and a lot of plot holes that get glossed over. How exactly will the scroll let you take over the world? Or is it just... generally magic? Why, after over half a century, is the old Nazi guy still wearing his old uniform? Maybe he's just ran out of clean clothes that fit.

I enjoyed it when I was younger, and watched it with a friend, but even then it was in the same sarcastic way that I would enjoy anything that involved ninjas fighting Nazis. It's a fair amount of fun at times though, and wasn't completely horrendous. Also I don't mean to be too hard on the actors, they did pretty well with what they got - the script needed work, though.

             

Bulletproof Monk: 30.2

Kill Bill: Volume 1

      

One of the most relentlessly violent and bloody films I have yet to see. There are few contenders, though the South Korean 'Thirst' springs to mind. The 'Kill Bill' series is Tarantino at his most comically gory, it's in the territory of comic book heroes and villains, and everyone fights to the death and is decapitated in showers of blood.

         

         

There is no letup, no scene where the viewer can feel safe. For many it's likely a somewhat difficult movie to watch for this reason, but where 'Thirst' triumphed and where 'Kill Bill' failed to some extent is that I found myself getting bored of it. It's sort of like watching a 'Saw' film, but one that's nicely written and brilliantly shot. It's shocking, but it ended up just sort of bumming me out. And I think that's because nothing changes, other than an escalation of gore and the blood content. Where 'Thirst' continued to build on our character's personalities throughout the hardship, we get most of the feelings out of the in the beginning of 'Kill Bill', before moving on to the continuous slaughter.

That's not to say that this was a bad movie - it wasn't, it's just probably my least favourite Tarantino movie. It does a lot of things excellently though, and it does a good job of making the bride be one of the most badass (and I'm been sick in my mouth a little just uttering that word) characters of all time. And she is, right? After all she's been through, and in her yellow jumpsuit with a black go faster stripe.

                 

                    

The movie heavily pays homage to the classic samurai revenge flicks, and follows their same basic structure. The style is beautiful, hinting at just about every classic martial arts movie without directly ripping any of them off. There's even an animated sequence (no less bloody than the rest of the movie, despite featuring a child as it's main character). The swords and the swings and the sprays of blood are presented so artfully, it's violence porn in it's purest form, and you can clearly see the love that went into creating every little detail. Even if it's not for me, it's an excellently crafted movie, and not only for being one of the best homages to eastern cinema that I've ever seen.

The gore links the samurai action in with a more traditional Tarantino style, as victims are left dismembered yet still moaning and alive (the scene with that aid who had both her arms cut off was particularly difficult to watch) have definite flavours of films such as 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Django Unchained'. People aren't just dying horribly, their surviving horribly and moaning about it loudly. The filming techniques manages to retain the quirky Tarantino style too, even as it plays partially into your basic samurai revenge style. There are lots of little quirks which help to explain things to us in ways that could be seen as cheating if they weren't pulled off so majestically. It's difficult to explain, but it's a little like reading the blue prints of the movie as you watch it. A great example of this is the see-through car boot letting us see the hostage in the beginning of 'From Dusk till Dawn', and another is when Mia draws a magical square (its actually a rectangle, which always bothered me) in the air in 'Pulp Fiction'. Add to this little weird uses of sound and music like when the Ironside Siren sound plays ridiculously loudly whenever she sees a target.

I didn't hugely enjoy it personally, and I haven't bothered seeing the second installment yet (at the time of writing), but I do appreciate that this is an excellently put together piece of cinematography, and a worthy addition to the Tarantino series. It feels somehow less real than his other movies, and I think I even saw somewhere that the 'Kill Bill' series are actually movies in the Tarantinoverse, which would make sense as they do sort of feel like they could be the sort of crazy-ass fiction that would fit in with that crazy-ass world.

     

Kill Bill: Volume 1: 77.2

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon

The prequel to 'Mystery of the Phantom Flame', 'Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon' is as fast paced and surreal as ever, and features a younger version of everybody's favourite ancient Chinese Sherlock Holmes. This time a sea monster (looking like a massive manta ray) is threatening the empire, and the Empress sets a deadline of ten days for the mystery to be solved, or heads will literally roll.

The plot thunders along, with very little explanation of both character reasoning or the rules of this fantastical world. A lot of the actual mysteries are solved with flourishes from Dee, without any possibility of the viewers solving it for themselves beforehand.

There is a lot of slightly surreal CGI, which creates a style in itself for the series (a style shared by the 2004 edition of 'Around the World in 80 Days'). This blends interestingly with a fantasy style take on 8th century China to made a sometimes beautiful, sometimes tacky movie.

  

 

There is a nice use of effects for his skills, too. When he reads lips (a skill viewed in awe by his peers, to the extent that it seems almost super human) the camera zooms in to an extreme closeup of the person's mouth and the edges of the screen becomes foggy. We then hear their words spoken as if whispered close to the microphone. When Dee notices some small detail - the name on a token, a cell key, etc - the object leaps out and literally floats in the air before him. To everyone else it just looks like he's day dreaming, to comic effect.

A fun, cosmetic action filled mystery with a nice setting and a lot of CG.

 

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon: 38.6

Throne of Blood

     
A distinctive retelling of Macbeth set in feudal Japan. Akira Kurosawa directs (he also did Ikiru, which I adore) and the movie stars Toshiro Mifune. It is an interesting take on a classic, and Kurosawa seems to have done well in finding a mirror of 11th century Scotland.
    

Despite sweeping landscapes, hundreds of extras, and huge sets, a lot of 'Throne of Blood' feels understated. We rarely see any battles, and every time that it seems like a huge one is about to take place it either happens off-camera or fails to happen at all. I'm not sure if this was an intentional course of action to create a more theater-like performance (you never got to see the actual war in the play either, obviously) or if the decision was budget-influenced. Probably both, but either way I'm not crazy about the result.

The wife is played by Isuzu Yamada, and she does a great job at being pale and creepy. At first I thought that she would be immobile for the duration, but then we see her float about (and she can really move with that spear) to the accompaniment of the vip vip vip of swishing fabric. The witch is also a fun character, I like her kind of sassy indifference and general fuck-youedness (General Fuck-youedness). The dialogue does well at retaining a Shakespearean quality while feeling distinctively Japanese. They didn't have to scream everything, though.

A quite interesting fact is that they used real arrows in the making of the movie. This is especially impressive in the final minutes, as Taketoki is fired at by hundreds of his own archers (the image of the endless arrows thudding into the wooden wall all around him would later be echoed by many other movies, most notably - for me - 2002's 'Hero').

A pleasing if not excellent retelling of the classic tragedy.

Throne of Blood: 64.1

Sanjuro

Everybodies favourite nameless ronin is back, and he's as gruff and initially unlikable as ever. This one seems to be on a bigger scale right away, as it begins with nine young (and somewhat inept) samurai discussing possibly corrupt officials.

The plot is similar in style to the first movie (here it is, by the way) which I guess is to be expected, and it was a lot of fun seeing the nameless ronin again (this time calling himself Tsubaki Sanjuro). His character didn't suffer from over development, as they are often wont to do in sequels, and I was pleased that he was kept as closed off and gruff as ever.

I particularly enjoyed the way he rolls his shoulders. This tick, and the way he is always scratching himself, gives off a very doggy feel. This time, he is in contrast with his surroundings, as even the enemy is, for the most part, more proper than he is. There are no bandits and gamblers in this one, and I found myself missing them. Ah, wouldn't it be nice if Nakadai popped up and fondled his gun.

The one character who is also an 'unsheathed sword' forces Tsubaki to kill him at the end in a fountain of blood that wouldn't look out of place on 'Kill Bill'.

The fighting is a little better, as is the plot, but I still found myself missing the run down village of the last movie. As he did last time, the nameless ronin ends the film with a simple 'goodbye' before walking off down the road, jerkily rolling each shoulder in turn as if trying to dislodge flies.

Sanjuro: 48.2

Yojimbo

Long silences dotted with music that is occasionally intrusive. A shaky camera, and an old man tells our nameless ronin about the two rival mobs in the local village. The samurai expresses a desire to rid the village of both of them, and soon has each boss vying for his employment.

The main character, who names himself Sanjuro Kuwabatake, is very calm, he moves as someone who is familiar with his own body and who is indifferent to the world around him, yet displays many doggy characteristics. This harmonizes with the gang members, as particularly when battling they stand low to the ground and move jerkily. When Sanjuro first arrives a dog holding a human hand trots by him. This dog is an extension of the nature of the townspeople, and of Sanjuro himself. Other characters display the characteristics of rats, skulking and fawning over the samurai.

I liked the scene where Sanjuro watches the two gangs try and fight each other. Both do a great job at acting like a pack of dogs; no one man wanting to be the first to close, and the battle is eventually interrupted.

An excellent use of the loud, jarring music is the micky mousing as one of the bosses walk down a set of stairs behind Sanjuro. Like this, many aspects of the body language of characters in this movie are comedic. This helps to make the sudden outbursts of violence more shocking, especially (I imagine) to an early 60's audience.

The natural sounds throughout the film compliment the music, most notably the howling wind, which tends to signal arrival and/or desolation. The differences in the village between a hot, dusty day and a chilly wet one are vast, and it is in these differences that 'Yojimbo' has beauty. As the wind howls, billows of white dust shroud figures standing in the street. The pervasive tinkle of rain hitting the buildings is combined with runnels of water flooding from roof corners and down walls.

Sanjuro is an interesting character, as he goes back and forth between heroic and plain unlikable. He claims to be disgusted by "weak people", yet he goes out of his way to rescue a woman from one of the bosses, and return her to her husband and child. My favourite character though was a brother of one of the bosses, who owns the only pistol in the village, and takes it out and brandishes it all the time.

The fighting itself isn't really up to much, and through most of it it is clear that one man is just wiping a dull blade over another's chest, to over dramatic cries of pain. I'd have thought that the fighting would be one of the strong points of a movie like this, and the sometimes almost funny fight scenes really pull me out of the story.

Overall though not a bad film, while the plot has doubtless evolved from many other stories such as 'The Glass Key' and possibly 'Red Harvest', elements of it can be seen in many later movies, both Asian and other noir.

Yojimbo: 46.8