AKA: Pintu Terlarang
Country and Year: Indonesia (2009)
Director: Joko Anwar
Starring: Fachri Albar, Marsha Timothy, Ario Bayu, Otto Djauhari, Tio Pakusodewo

Review By: David Austin
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)

On the basis of this year’s Forbidden Door and last year’s Kala, Joko Anwar is one of the most fascinating new talents working in genre cinema. His work is a far cry from the extremely fun but trashy Indonesian films of the 1980s, like The Warrior or Mystics in Bali, and he deserves a far wider audience. It is a shame that the lack of exposure of Indonesian cinema has resulted in his almost total obscurity outside of his own region.

Anwar achieved success in Indonesia with a couple of well-received social comedies, but turned 90 degrees with 2007’s Kala, a paranoid modern noir with its feet set firmly in the world of supernatural. Influenced as much by J-horror as by Roman Polanski thrillers like Chinatown and The Ninth Gate, Kala is a masterpiece of apocalyptic atmosphere and one of the rare films of the last few years to send a genuine chill down my spine. Kala features all the noir hallmarks – femme fatales, hardboiled detectives, corruption, and a mystery plot that spirals into terror - as well as uniformly excellent performances. Were it not for an ill-advised and poorly-executed turn into Night Watch-style fantasy mythology in the last act, which, unfortunately, tarnishes the entire experience, I would say that Kala is one of the best films of the decade. Forbidden Door does not quite reach the heights of Kala, but nor does it sink to its lows.

In both Kala and Forbidden Door, Anwar realizes a sepia-tinted, neon-soaked look that is positively stunning. Impressively, in Forbidden Door, Anwar transplants that vision from the grotty underbelly of Indonesia – Kala’s world of rundown office buildings, empty factories and filthy streets – to an entirely new venue without sacrificing the fundamental style. Forbidden Door is set among the upper crust, taking place largely in spacious manors, art galleries, sports clubs, and cafes, but it retains all the menace of Kala. Anwar supplements these visuals with high quality production values. The Saul Bass inspired title sequence is a minor triumph, and the original score, by Aghi Narottama, Bembi Gusti and Ramondo Garcero, beguiles with brooding saxophones and swelling drumbeats. While none of the performances particularly stand out, they are of uniform quality.

Forbidden Door centers on artist Gambir (Fachri Albar, from Kala), an artist living a comfortable life with his statuesque wife Talyda (Marsha Timothy). With this backdrop, Anwar economically sets up and destroys the illusion of total success within the first ten minutes. While Gambir’s friends joke that he has it all, he is nagged by his domineering mother, mocked by his alpha male friends Rio and Dandung, and disrespected by the wealthy elite that attend his art shows. More significantly, he is haunted by the memory of the fetus that Talyda insisted they abort prior to their marriage. That traumatic event has driven a wedge between himself and Talyda, but it also become the basis of his success as a sculptor, creating tableaux of pregnant women that harbor organic surprises. There is a constant unease, a sense that the protagonist lives in a bubble, with darker currents eddying underneath his superficially beautiful life. As his relationship with Talyda crumbles, she warns him away from an intriguing door, which she says contains memories that would end their marriage once and for all. At the same time, Gambir is plagued by recurring images – a written plea for help and a vision of an abused young boy. His investigation of a shady members-only club brings these pressures and obsessions to a head.

Forbidden Door, with its emphasis on enigmatic, disturbing, and sometimes downright repellent imagery, is a spiritual descendant of David Lynch and Edogawa Rampo. The logic is that of nightmares. Transitions are abrupt. Unexplained events and oddities constantly skulk at the periphery of perception. As in Italian horror films, reason is less important than tone, though Anwar pays far more attention to character and script than Italian masters like Lucio Fulci, Pupi Avati, or Dario Argento. Rather than merely string together a series of set pieces, Anwar diligently crafts a feeling of creeping unease that finally culminates in one of the most grueling cinematic dinner parties ever committed to celluloid.

Unfortunately, Anwar’s biggest problem as a filmmaker, and his biggest stumbling block to greater success, is his frustrating inability to end his films successfully. Like Tom Wolfe, whose masterful Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full were engrossing builds to thudding climaxes, Anwar doesn’t know how to end his stories. Perhaps trying to follow M. Night Shyamalan’s lead, he tries for twist endings that, in the case of Kala’s awful last twenty minutes, tainted the entire film. Forbidden Door similarly zags when it should have zigged (though I won’t spoil the ending, which is at least not nearly so clumsy as that of Kala).

Recommended? Forbidden Door confirms that Anwar has the vision and technical chops to be a master on an international scale. He has shown he can fly the plane perfectly - he just needs to learn how to land.

If you like this, you might like: Eyes Wide Shut, Kala, The Ninth Gate, Chinatown, L.A. Confidential, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Videodrome

© David Austin

Tak Sakaguchi, street fighter, actor, stuntman, action choreographer, and now director, got his start as the star of Ryuhei Kitamura’s Versus before going on to star in or choreograph stunts for countless cult films, including Azumi, Battlefield Baseball, Cromartie High, Tokyo Gore Police and Shinobi, as well as founding the Zero’s stunt team. Now he has turned his hand to directing, with two films appearing in the 2009 New York Asian Film Festival - Be a Man! Samurai School [Sakigake! Otokojuku], an action/comedy about a “men’s school,” and Yoroi Samurai Zombie, an action/horror film in the style of Versus (and scripted by Kitamura). Cinema Strikes Back’s David Austin recently sat down with the deadpan Sakaguchi, who appeared in full costume from Samurai School and wielding a katana, to talk about his transition to directing and the state of the stunt industry in Japan.

CSB: Which did you film first, Be a Man! Samurai School or Yoroi Samurai Zombie?

Sakaguchi: Be a Man! Samurai School was first. That was my directorial debut.

CSB: How soon afterwards did you start YOROI SAMURAI ZOMBIE.

Sakaguchi: After finishing Samurai School, I shot a short film. The next feature film was Yoroi Samurai Zombie. There were about seven months in between.

CSB: Did you feel a lot more confident and familiar directing the second time?

Sakaguchi: The genre for Yoroi Samurai Zombie was a little different. It wasn’t strictly an action film. So I wouldn’t say I went in with more confidence but one thing that was different was that by the time I started working on Yoroi Samurai Zombie my crew had really started to come together, the camera guys, and the lighting, so that made my work a lot easier.

CSB: Was doing a lot of action choreography before good preparation for directing the entire film.

Sakaguchi: Of course.

CSB: In Samurai School, you were one of the stars, but in Yoroi Samurai Zombie, you don’t appear in the film at all. Are you looking to more movies where you just direct and don’t act?

Sakaguchi: In terms of the projects I have lined up, it’s about half and half, actually.

CSB: What do you have lined up?

Sakaguchi: One project I’m looking to get involved in is a period piece, where I would direct and appear in the film. A period piece with a lot of real swordfighting, and in terms of the martial arts involved, a real contact action film. Something unlike anything ever made in Japan before.

CSB: I know that in both movies you made poor Isao Karasawa [Sakaguchi’s teammate from the Zero’s] gets hit by a car. When are we going to get to see you get hit by a car in a film?

Sakaguchi: I don’t think that’s ever going to happen (laughs)

CSB: You don’t think you’re tougher than a car?

Sakaguchi: It’s not that, but I don’t want to take work away from Karasawa. He’s not only my trusted colleague but also my best friend.

CSB: Karasawa is a member of your Zero’s team, right? How many members are there?

Sakaguchi: Well, we have an actor’s school, a training school. If you include everyone, that’s about 12-13 people. But full-fledged members, about five people.

CSB: Is your school just for acting lessons or do you also do stunt training like the Seoul Action School in Korea?

Sakaguchi: It’s for both. Training for acting, and stunt and action work

CSB: Is there anywhere else where people can get stunt training in Japan?

Sakaguchi: Sonny Chiba has a school.

CSB: The Japan Action Club? I did not know they were still training people.

Sakaguchi: Yes.

CSB: Do you see your Zero’s team as a successor to the Japan Action Club?

Sakaguchi: I don’t know that I would call them a successor, but within Japan they are a very respected action team.

CSB: Have you ever talked to Chiba about working together?

Sakaguchi: A long time ago, there was a little bit of talk about that, but it’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to him. I’m really too busy right now. It’s hard for me to meet people.

CSB: In Samurai School and Yoroi Samurai Zombie, who else from the team were we seeing in front of the camera besides Karasawa?

Sakaguchi: In Samurai School, the two people who hang off the big cliff are Zero members.

CSB: How did you shoot that scene?

Sakaguchi: We had a cliff that about 50 meters down and we put people on ropes.

CSB: In Samurai School, who plays the Drill Master, with the beard and WWII cap? I really enjoyed his performance.

Sakaguchi: That was a very popular and famous actor in Japan, Shun Sugata. He was actually in Kill Bill and The Last Samurai. He’s also the police chief in Tokyo Gore Police.

CSB: How did you get the colorful, comic book look to the film?

Sakaguchi: In Japan, Samurai School, the original work, is a very popular, well-loved manga in Japan. I’ve always loved it since I was a kid. My love created that world (laughs)

CSB: Was doing this project your idea?

Sakaguchi: It was my idea to do that project. Nowadays in Japan, there are a lot of film projects where they take a manga original work and make a live action version of it. But Samurai School was really at the forefront of that. So I was really at the crest of that wave. And because it was so successful that inspired a lot of projects like Death Note and 20th Century Boys and made it possible for all these other projects. People saw what could be done with a live action version of a comic.

CSB: We spoke to Sabu (Hiroyuki Tanaka) a while back, and he was saying that he’s now finding it hard to do a movie that is not based on a manga, because people don’t want to bankroll it.

Sakaguchi: I’m at fault for that.

CSB: How long did it take to shoot Samurai School?

Sakaguchi: A little over two weeks.

CSB: How do you do it that quickly, with so many stunts, without someone being injured?

Sakaguchi: It’s not that I really want to shoot it in such a short period, but in terms of budgets and time we’re always limited. One of the big things is that I’m working with stunt people who are top class stunt people in Japan. Because they are such professionals, we are able to do such dangerous stunts safely within a limited amount of time. Actually, Zero’s is known in Japan as the stunt team the team that does the craziest, most extraordinary stunts but has never had anyone injured ever.

CSB: You’re more known for these kind of action and horror films. How did you get involved in Koji Wakamatsu’s United Red Army, which is a grueling film but in a very different way?

Sakaguchi: I don’t strictly work as an actor in action films. Wakamatsu said he wanted to make a film that was so great that he could say it would be his last work. I was really moved by that sentiment so I got involved in that one.

CSB: Are you thinking of taking more dramatic roles like that since working in that film.

Sakaguchi: No! There are really no other action actors in Japan. I’m the only one. So if I quit, there’s no one. So I do feel a certain level of responsibility to keep doing the work I do.

CSB: Do you think the Japanese industry has a chance of achieving the level of widespread action skill and technique as, say, Hong Kong or Korea. Do you think more people will be able to learn to do this and compete with your team?

Sakaguchi: I think if I don’t quit, it’s definitely possible. In Japan, there weren’t action films for a very long time, and then when Versus came out it really started up the action genre in Japan again. But if I quit, there’s no hope (laughs).

© David Austin

Nick Chin made his start working in documentary films before directing the award winning short film Tai Tai. Following the success of that film, Chin directed his first feature length film, Magazine Gap Road, an icy noir about a former high class prostitute Samantha (Jessey Meng), who fled her former lover and client, the terrifying Hans (Zhen Shiming) and made a new life for herself in the upper crust of Hong Kong. This life is threatened when an old friend, Kate (Qu Ying), resurfaces, dragging Samantha back into Hans’s orbit. This unusually star-studded first feature also stars Hong Kong legends Richard Ng, who appeared in just about every comedy made in Hong Kong in the 1980s, and Elvis Tsui, who did the same in just about every Category III film, as well as Ng’s son, Carl. While the subject matter may be grimy, the treatment is anything but – Chin presents some of the most gorgeous views of Hong Kong I’ve seen in years and dresses his cast in high style.

Cinema Strikes Back’s David Austin recently had an opportunity to talk with Chin, who was in New York for the presentation of Magazine Gap Road at the 2009 New York Asian Film Festival, about his work as an independent filmmaker in Hong Kong and the making of Magazine Gap Road.

On His Early Career and Television Projects

CSB: I understand that you are not from Hong Kong. Where did you grow up?

NC: I grew up in London. My parents are Shanghainese. I lived in New York for about eight years and I’ve been in and out of Hong Kong. I have been in Hong Kong for the past three years because of this film.

CSB: I can hear the London in your accent.

NC: It’s a bit of overseas Chinese, is the best way of saying it.

CSB: You were in New York for eight years with your family?

NC: Yes, I was working here. I used to work in documentaries, stuff for PBS. Occasionally I would go to Hong Kong to do some work. So I’m sort of in between Hong Kong and New York, but to be honest with you, there’s more work in Hong Kong at the moment so I seem to be spending more time in Hong Kong.

CSB: Is that how you got your start in film?

NC: I worked in the BBC in London for about four years, Channel 4, but it was mainly historical documentaries. Then I came to the States and worked for production companies down in Soho, one called Ambrica, that did documentaries on Eleanor Roosevelt. I worked on one on Tojo and I did some stuff for another production company for the Dame Edna show. I did the Millennium Special (laughs). That was fun. At the same time, when digital video and Final Cut Pro came out, I did workshops at the AFI and started to do my stuff. And then I started to do web videos and commercials in Hong Kong – freelance work. And then I did Tai Tai. After that, I came back to New York to finish that up. Then I did some more freelance stuff in Hong Kong. But then I wrote the script, pretty much, in New York, and went out and shopped it and did it in Hong Kong. Since then, I have been working on another project and I did a TV series, an Asian Jackass and commercials and stuff like that.

CSB: An Asian Jackass, with people doing silly stunts and stuff like that?

NC: Yeah. We had a guy who broke the Guinness Book World Record for being shot point-blank with paint guns.

CSB: In terms of range or quantity?

NC: In terms of how many and within a certain amount of time. He got shot like 348 times. My god. This was almost like a year ago. We hit all the S&M dungeons in Kowloon, which was exciting. There are a lot of office fetishes. They have these dungeons with offices in them. (laughs)

CSB: Kowloon’s the best place to find that kind of thing?

NC: Yeah, only in Kowloon. There are three of them. And all around Mongkok. You know, S&M people take themselves really seriously. The Asian Jackass crew was like two Thai stuntmen and a bunch of young guys. But one of the mistresses there has a whole theory behind it. They had electric shocks for nipples. And there was one room that was totally black and all the sexual toys glowed in the dark. What was really depressing were the one-room dungeons. You could tell that they lived there and had just converted it into a dungeon and it was just sort of rank.

CSB: Is that going to be on Hong Kong television?

NC: No, for AXN. I just did it freelance for a month.

CSB: Were you always directing before Tai Tai or did you take on other roles.

NC: Oh no no no. I was a coffee boy for years, then assistant editor, PAs. The documentaries were never my documentaries; they were me learning the ropes. The reason I left London was that I spent three years on this huge documentary about China which in the end never got funded. I started out as a researcher. My boss then had just done something called The People’s Century, which was this big thing about the 20th Century, and when we started he had a whole office in the BBC, and when it ended it was just him and me on the kitchen table. As it became apparent that the funding was being pulled, he just promoted me; he said, “Oh, Nicholas, you’re now an associate producer.” (laughs) So I came to New York and I was like “I’m an associate producer” and I was applying for jobs as an associate producer. I got this one job, down in Soho, and after the first week, the boss was like “Nick, you don’t know what you’re doing” and I was like “NO.”

On Tai Tai

CSB: Can you tell us a little bit about Tai Tai (2002)?

NC: It was an early film done with Josie Ho. She’s been in a lot of Johnny To films since then. I had the idea for the script and someone knew her. We talked and she liked the idea. So I shot it. And it was great. I think most of the people who worked on it had just graduated from the APA, the Academy of Performing Arts in Hong Kong. The cameraman, Charlie [Charlie Lam, who has since gone on to shoot a number of films for Ann Hui and Pang Ho-cheung, including Pang’s Exodus, also playing at NYAFF 2009], is now one of the top cameramen in Hong Kong but then it was literally his first film out of school. It was a fun group of young people. It’s a story about a Tai Tai, which is slang for a lady who lunches. It’s about what goes on behind the gated door and what’s in her mind – the claustrophobia and the frustration of that sort of high society world. I got a call and it went into competition in Cannes, I think in 2002 or 2003, so that was a mini-break. And then it won an award at Kodak. After that, I took about a half a year to get my head back to normal again, and I was trying to work on a script about that. And while doing that, I ended up working on Magazine Gap Road.

On Magazine Gap Road

CSB: How did Magazine Gap Road get started?

NC: I have a friend who has a similar background to Samantha in film. We were hanging out one afternoon and I overheard this conversation she had with this friend from her past. The conversation sort of struck me. And it wasn’t until half a year later when I was thinking of trying to do a script that it sort of started the script. And the relationship she had with the woman in the past was a bizarre one. She was still in that world while my friend was out of that world. But when they talked it was a weird conversation where they’re both in and out. I’m sure it’s the same with junkies, people who don’t do drugs and people who do drugs. There was a coldness about it, but you could tell they were very close friends. That got the whole Kate and Samantha thing going.

CSB: Did you talk to her a lot while you were preparing the script to get the details and milieu correct?

NC: Not really, no. Where the film takes place, on Magazine Gap Road, I know through other people in Hong Kong, a little bit. The main thing was that I fell in love with the Peak, and a lot of it came from that.

CSB: You mentioned before that the Peak is really a very upscale neighborhood that overlooks the main part of the city. In the film, is the Peak essentially the life that Samantha is trying to get for herself?

NC: Yeah. It is. In Hong Kong, in that world of Hong Kong society, living on the Peak is very prestigious. It’s the same as people who live in penthouses in New York, there’s this weird sort of thing where you live at the top and you’re just looking down at everybody and they look like ants. There’s a certain feel, an isolation. And that area is not the Hong Kong that I know or you know. It’s not crowded, it’s not chaotic, it’s not loud. It’s different. So I’m trying to do a film in Hong Kong but it’s a different side of Hong Kong.

CSB: Given the subject matter, Magazine Gap Road could have been a message film, but instead it felt like a noir, a character-driven piece. Did you think of it as purely a character-driven piece or did you also think of it as trying to get out a message about the situation.

NC: I’m not a big message person. The films of the genre I like, I like Paul Schrader a lot, I remember watching a lot of his films when writing it. The noir stuff – I read thrillers. I need to read to go to bed at night so the noir sort of thing is in my head a lot.

CSB: Any particular ones in your head when making Magazine Gap Road?

NC: In terms of specific films, it was Light Sleeper, the Paul Schrader film, and American Gigolo. Touch of Evil, it didn’t really come through, but I liked a lot. The filmmaker I like a lot is Max Ophuls. They are very beautiful films and they take place in a similar world but it is in Viennese high society. But the subject matter is just really f—ing brutal. You know, really dark, and it’s very different than what you see and it creeps in when you watch the films. How much of those influences came through, I doubt, very little.

CSB: Visually, to me, in terms of that sort of lightness and darkness, it felt almost like a Jacques Demy film, like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, though the umbrella in one of the scenes may be a tip-off on that. Just visually, was that the kind of look you were going for?

NC: Yeah. Color. Yes. In the beginning, I wanted to keep this color saturation but have the contrast of black and white film. Like Touch of Evil. We were comatosing for a week and you can’t do it. There’s a reason why black and white films have that look – it’s because they’re black and white. And we were trying to put color in. But no, we talked a lot about the color palette before, with the clothes and in the locations. I wanted it colder – I mean, it’s a cold film. In terms of the colors we wanted to use, it had to have that in there.

CSB: You have acknowledged before that there is a glamour and a sheen to the film, and you could not have shot it any other way. Is that because it was necessary for the plot, or is that just your preference and you wouldn’t do it any other way?

NC: First, because of the script and the world it is in – that world of rich people - it’s all quite pretty looking. Film is a visual medium. I like films that do something to the eye. The things that I wanted in the picture I could do with this glamorous sheen. The clothes she wore and the places she went to - we shot the real locations in the film - are the real locations in real life. Some of the bars and the hotels match.

And, in Hong Kong, it’s a little different. You don’t call them high-class hookers. They’re mistresses in Hong Kong. There’s a lot more ambiguity and the rituals behind it are a little different, which I didn’t really go into in the film but it’s much more gray than in the States, where it’s escorts and street hookers. Out there, it’s mistresses, they’re longer-term relationships that these tycoons or sons of tycoons seem to have.

CSB: Are we to think that the Samantha character is someone who would have had a very select list of clients?

NC: She would have had one client. It would have been Hans. That type of character wouldn’t want her to be with anybody else.

CSB: I think I misunderstood that. I thought of Hans as more of a pimp or procurer. I understood they had a relationship but not that he was necessarily her client, precisely.

NC: I see that. I think in the original in my mind he was more like a client, but I suppose he comes off as a bit of a pimp too.

CSB: It’s probably the air of menace that does it. On another topic, I know you got Elvis Tsui, who I love, to be in the film. Did you ever think about using him as Hans instead of putting him in the role you did, as a policeman who assists Samantha.

NC: I could have, but approaching Elvis – I liked his stuff, particularly Viva Erotica. In the script, the policeman was a bigger character than Hans and I like the idea that Elvis looks big and has all this baggage with the sort of films he’s done before – a sort of type. And to have him be soft seemed to work more with the policeman character.

CSB: I liked seeing him cast against type.

NC: Also, the producers were involved in getting him and we talked about it and the policeman seemed a better choice.

CSB: Did you always have him in mind?

NC: From very early on.

CSB: How about Richard Ng? Was he always someone you had in mind for the film?

NC: Yes, but we didn’t think it was possible in the beginning. He’s a star, he’s done all these films, and he was in London. We wanted Carl Ng to be in the film, so it was like “Can we get them both?”

CSB: Were you tempted to throw in some slapstick for him?

NC: (laughs) I couldn’t add it to the script. Anyway, Richard has done a lot of more serious roles recently. It actually helps when casting him if you can say it for something different.

CSB: Giving him an opportunity to avoid typecasting?

NC: Right.

CSB: I understand that the budget was around $300,000. How did you put that together?

NC: There were three different producers. I also have some of my own money in the film. Early on, Lee Chiu-wah, who helped produce The Mummy 3 [Tomb of the Dragon Emperor], 2046, Lust, Caution, came aboard. The film could not have been done without him. He helped out a lot and I was able to go to him with questions during the process. In order to work with his timing, the pre-production had to be very short. Post-production took much longer. The film spent a lot of time with Oriental Post in Thailand. The actual filming took about a month.

CSB: Is the film screening in theaters or is it still making the festival circuit?

NC: It’s at festivals now, and it will get a “limited release” in Hong Kong before it comes out on DVD.

CSB: Are you going to try to release it in the US at all?

NC: I would like to, but it’s a hard time for Asian films in the US, as you know.

CSB: One last question. Has your friend seen the movie?

NC: No comment.

Thanks to Nick Chin and to Grady Hendrix for arranging this interview.

© David Austin

Crush and Blush
AKA: Misseu Hongdangmu
Dir. Lee Kyeong-Mi (South Korea 2008)
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars (good)
Capsule Review by: David Austin

CRUSH AND BLUSH PLAYS AT THE IFC CENTER ON JUNE 24 AT 9:15 PM AND ON JUNE 25 AT 5:00 PM. SEE THE FULL SCHEDULE HERE

Koreans filmmakers have proven themselves to be masters of the losers-in-love comedy in films like The Foul King and Please Teach Me English. In Crush and Blush, director Lee Kyeong-Mi and actress Kong Hyo-Jin add to the tradition with a sharply edited, wickedly funny story about a social outcast who never got over her crush on her teacher and is willing to go to absurd efforts to secure his attentions.

Kong turns in a outsize performance as Yang Me-Sook, an angry little sparkplug who harbors a whale-sized crush on Mr. Seo (Lee Jeong-Hyeok), a married teacher who hardly seems worth all the attention. Considering how unmemorable Kong’s turn in Lee Myung-Se’s M was, I would not have thought her capable of such a unique, uniquely awful role. In Crush and Blush (so-named because of her constantly reddening complexion), Kong’s Me-Sook is truly brilliant comic creation – a stalker too pathetic to be threatening, but pathological enough to be dangerous. She spies on Mr. Seo’s wife, worships him from afar and, when she finds out that Mr. Seo may be carrying out an affair with dim Lee Yu-Ri, her prettier rival in the Russian literature department, makes it her mission to ruin the woman’s life.

Director Lee Kyeong-Mi puts the viewer in an awkward position of empathizing with a clearly deluded protagonist. While Me-Sook’s hijinks are funny, there is always a genuine harm floating in the background, be it the humiliation of the sweet but stupid Lee or understated agony of Mr. Seo’s wife, who is clearly all too aware of her husband’s fallibilities. The bigger problem is Me-Sook’s influence on the Seo’s daughter, Jong-Hee (Woo Seo). It is clear from the start that Me-Sook and Jong-Hee are kindred spirits. Jong-Hee too is the loser of her class, a sullen weirdo who evokes a Beetlejuice era Winona Ryder. The two bond over their supposed efforts to save the Seo’s marriage from Lee, however, even as they become friends, Me-Sook heedlessly pursues her own agenda.

Dark as the material is, Crush and Blush is extremely funny. Until the slightly flat final act, where she loses the light touch and sure hand that made the rest of the film so enjoyable, director Lee stages the comedy perfectly, using rapid-fire editing, layered narrative and carefully crafted voiceovers to bring us into Me-Sook’s mind without ever adopting her worldview. The direction is flashy but never intrusive, allowing the cast the carry the bulk of the story on their able shoulders. I look forward to more from Lee and Kong Hyo-Jin. Oh, and I would be remiss if I did not go out of my way to mention Hwangwoo Seul-Hye’s performance as Lee Yu-Ri. Hwangwoo hits the perfect note of pretty but insecure and proves fearless when it comes to some very unflattering scenes.

If You Are the One
AKA: Fei Cheng Wu Rao
Dir. Lee Kyeong-Mi (South Korea 2008)
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars (good)
Capsule Review by: David Austin

IF YOU ARE THE ONE PLAYS AT THE IFC CENTER ON JUNE 24 AT 4:00 PM AND ON JULY 1 AT 9:30 PM. SEE THE FULL SCHEDULE HERE

Feng Xiaogang must have a streak of melancholy a mile wide. Whether taking on wu xias in The Banquet (see review here), historical war epics in Assembly (see review here) or romantic comedies, as in this years If You Are the One, Feng seems most at home dealing with tragedy. It’s an unusual trait in such a crowd-pleasing director, but Feng’s films have been huge successes and it may be a case of differing cultural expectations.

If starts out on a light note, with novelty inventor Qin Fen (Ge You) selling out for big money (his Conflict Resolution Terminal is the best filmic novelty plot device I’ve seen since Made in China). Cash in hand, the middle-aged Qin immediately places the most realistic personal ad in recorded history and sets out on a dating odyssey in order to find a compatible wife. As Eddie Murphy proved in Coming to America, bad date montages are almost always comedy gold; this one is no exception. Eventually, he meets Smiley Liang (Shu Qi), a stewardess carrying on an affair with a married man (Alex Fong). At first, she considers him an annoyance, then a welcome distraction, and finally a potential companion. However, even as his affection for her grows, she makes clear that her heart has already been broken beyond repair.

Ge You, who first caught my eye in Zhang Yimou’s To Live, is always excellent, but this is the best performance I have seen out of Shu Qi (a former soft-core starlet) since her self-parodying turn in Viva Erotica, Derek Yee’s ode to Category III films. Though she has achieved both mainstream and arthouse success since, Shu displays a level of vulnerability and weariness here that far outweighs her work in for Hou Hsiao-Hsien in films like Millennium Mambo. Perhaps it’s a case of the right actress for the right role, a beauty on the verge of aging and starting to consider her life, but Shu plays Liang perfectly.

The sole issue I had with the film, unfortunately, is also one of casting. While Ge and Shu are individually excellent and I found their friendship convincing, there is no romantic chemistry between the two. Platonic friends, sure, but lovers, no. I may be harping on the wrong point, though. Feng crafts the film in such a way that the lack of sexual tension might be intentional.

© David Austin

Rough Cut
AKA: Yeong-hwa-neun yeong-hwa-da; A Movie is a Movie
Dir. Hun Jang (South Korea 2008)
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars (good)
Capsule Review by: David Austin

ROUGH CUT PLAYS AT THE IFC CENTER ON JUNE 23 AT 9:30 PM AND ON JUNE 24 AT 6:30 PM. SEE THE FULL SCHEDULE HERE

I am tempted to dismiss Rough Cut as just another Korean gangster film, filled with “cooler-than-thou” characters who engage in brutal fisticuffs every ten minutes or so, like so many of its predecessors. In many ways it is just that. However, Rough Cut has a little more on its mind, mingling the worlds of filmmaking and organized crime, and playing with notions of artifice and reality in interesting ways.

Rough Cut blurs the distinction between truth and fiction from the get-go, setting its story during the filming of (what else?) a gangster film. The lead actor, Su Tae (Kang Ji-Hwan), is obsessed with “keeping it real.” His tough-guy posturing and desire to fight for real eventually lead to injured co-stars and problems on the set of the film-within-a-film - a gangster opus in which he and a rival compete over the same girl (played in the film by “actress” Kang Mi-Na, in turn played by real actress Hong Su-Hyeon). Fiction becomes a form of truth when Su Tae persuades gangster and former wannabe actor Gang-Pae (So Ji-Seob) to join the film on the condition that they do everything “for real.”

Each man admires and despises the other on some level and the tension between the two is palpable. Su Tae is not all bluff and exaggeration, though his celebrity has convinced him that he is invulnerable. He’s initially unafraid of Gang-Pae and his associates, and willing to get physical … up to a point. Su Tae’s macho attitude disguises a cringing inability to deal with his real-world problems and he quickly realizes that bravado only goes so far. Su Tae’s violence, after all, is mere playacting, an attempt to prove something to himself or others. Gang-Pae, on the other hand, is not out to prove anything. His acts of violence are deadly serious, and treated as such. Gang-Pae is stoic in the face of work-related troubles far more problematic than Su Tae. Moreover, he proves capable of beating Su Tae at his own game – exuding effortless charisma Gang-Pae soon wins over director and lead actress.

Admittedly, Rough Cut is not quite as clever as it thinks it is, nor does it take its ideas nearly as far as it could have. Director Hun Jang allows the proceedings to coast quite a bit on the strength of So Ji-Seob’s performance. Fortunately for the film, as for the film-within-a-film, it is a star-making turn that should launch his career on the big screen. The layers of pretense and complexity added by the film’s driving conceit - further considering that in the real world, both are actors, one an actor playing the role of an actor and the other an actor playing the role of the actor – merely add icing to the cake. When Gang-Pae and Su-Tae finally go at it, the audience is left to ponder a fight scene staged between actors who are pretending to be actors who are fighting for real in a film in a film in which they are supposed to be pretending to fight. It’ll give you something to think about while the punches land.

The Clone Returns Home
AKA: Kurôn wa kokyô o mezasu
Director: Kanji Nakajima (Japan 2008)
Starring: Mitsuhiro Oikawa, Eri Ishida, Hiromi Nagasaku
Review by: Charlie Prince

THE CLONE RETURNS HOME PLAYS AT THE IFC CENTER ON JUNE 22 AT 9:30 PM AND ON JULY 1 AT 11:00 AM. SEE THE FULL SCHEDULE HERE

[Charlie caught this back at Sundance in January and his review is reprinted below.]

The Clone Returns Home is not for everyone. Although it was billed by critics as one of the top “must see” works at Sundance this year, it is at heart a capital-A art film that will appeal to a very limited audience. Put more plainly, this film is extraordinarily SLOW. For example, the film includes what I think of as the ultimate “film festival scene” — a scene that is tolerated and even celebrated at film festivals, but would be booed off the screen in any kind of normal theater environment. The classic “film festival scene” is a staple of The Clone Returns Home and goes something like this: we see a giant field, or beach or other large open expanse. From the far side of the screen, we notice someone walk into frame, though we’re so far away we may not even realize at first that it is a person. Then, lucky us, we get to watch in real time as this person slowly walks across the field or beach or whatever over several eon-bearing minutes. During such scenes, there is often no dialogue, no plot developing, and nothing to pay attention to — think of it charitably as a chance to reflect on what happened in the previous scene (since there is nothing else to do), or less charitably as an informal bathroom break. That is the film festival scene, and it occurs several times in The Clone Returns Home. Not everyone hates this, I’m assured, and extremely patient audiences may enjoy it, but my guess is many people will find it tedious.

Which is a shame, because there are some interesting philosophical concepts in the film (lurking in between takes of people slowly crossing fields), and I suspect I would have enjoyed a more tightly edited film. Billed as the thinking person’s sci-fi film, it tells the story of Kohei, a young astronaut who agrees to take out an “insurance policy” so that in the event he accidentally dies, a clone will be made of him, so that he can continue to live and to provide for his loved ones by way of the clone. But in addition to the ethical debates raised by the concept of cloning generally, it turns out there are all sorts of technical problems to producing a clone. As an initial problem, the first Kohei clone to be produced is too perfect — he remembers everything from earlier in his life, including many things that are better left forgotten (especially an incident involving his brother which has always haunted him). (Small spoiler ahead this paragraph only) So, the company decides to go ahead and produce another clone, thinking the first, failed clone had died. Soon, however, clones are bumping into each other, it turns out there is a strange “resonance” that affects clones and allows them to hear things other people can‘t — all of which ends up being very confusing for those in the audience who didn‘t fall asleep.

In full disclosure, I did start to nod off on this one, but I tend to think of that as a film festival’s version of natural selection — for those of us running around seeing films from 7am until 2am, we’re barely able to stay awake. The great movies captivate us and wake us up no matter how tired we are, but if a movie’s overly slow, dull or otherwise a stinker, no matter how hard we might try, we start to nod off. I hate it when that happens, but it is an efficient alert system for dull movies.

Tactical Unit: Comrades In Arms
AKA: Kei tung bou deui: Tung pou
Dir. Law Wing-cheong (Hong Kong 2009)
Rating: 3 ½ out of 4 Stars (very good)
Capsule Review by: David Austin

TACTICAL UNIT: COMRADES IN ARMS PLAYS AT THE IFC CENTER ON JUNE 22 AT 5:20 PM. SEE THE FULL SCHEDULE HERE

PTU, with its understated cool and Rube Goldberg-esque plotting was one of Johnny To’s masterpieces and one of my favorite films of the 2000s. When I spoke to To in 2007 (see here), he was gearing up to produce a series of television features through his Milkyway production company under the “Tactical Unit” banner, using the same actors and characters. So far five of these films have been shot, some on video and some on film, some achieving theatrical release and some not. I have not had a chance to see the others yet (though I intend to), but Comrades in Arms, while no masterpiece, is great fun in the classic Milkyway tradition and a worthy successor to PTU.

The focus in Comrades in Arms is the rivalry between the four-man PTU teams led by veteran Brother Sam (Simon Yam) and May (Maggie Siu). May’s career, aided by senior Inspector Ho, is rapidly eclipsing that Sam, and their teams constantly jockey for position on the streets, during arrests and at police social functions. An ironic cut to the title card for Comrades in Arms makes clear that they are anything but. Meanwhile, the career of Fat Lo (Lam Suet), continues its downward spiral. Since the loss of his gun helped set the plot of PTU in motion, Tong has been demoted from detective to driver, and become trapped in a morass of gambling debts. Familiar characters and grudges re-established, Comrades in Arms drops the teams (and Lo) into the unfamiliar environment of the mountainous terrain between Hong Kong and China, where they are charged with sweeping the forests for four heavily-armed robbers.

Unlike PTU, Comrades in Arms occasionally falls back on cliché and sentiment and is devoid of the intentional moral ambiguity of its ancestor. Nor does the plot compare to jigsaw puzzle of PTU. Comrades in Arms is a much more straightforward animal. Nevertheless, the same pleasures may be found in the interactions between the personalities on teams (like Bin, the semi-competent albatross of Sam’s team), the low-key but engaging Milkyway house style and the eventual clockwork precision of the ballistic denouement. The cast of Milkyway regulars also does their regular excellent work, ranging Simon Yam’s façade of calm, Maggie Siu’s slow burn, and Lam Suet’s bumbling. Director Law Wing-cheong, the associate director and editor of PTU, largely stays true to the spirit and flavor of the original, resulting in a film which is perfectly capable of standing alone (a friend of mine, who never saw the original, confirmed as much) but also successfully builds on the original.

Antique
Dir. Min Kyu-Dong (South Korea 2008)
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars (good)
Capsule Review by: David Austin

ANTIQUE PLAYS AT THE IFC CENTER ON JUNE 22 AT 1:25 PM AND ON JUNE 27 AT 5:40 PM. SEE THE FULL SCHEDULE HERE

Everything about Antique is as sweet and as rich as the cakes prepared in the titular pastry shop. Indeed, high melodrama and camp are the order of the day, served up with consummate skill and creativity. Part mystery, part gay-panic comedy and part gay melodrama, Antique pays homage to its convoluted manga origins with a barrage of bright colors, split-screens, camera tricks and flashy edits that make the viewer feel like they are watching a comic book, and transcends the page by adding a full-blown musical number and an impossibly pretty (and pretty is the right word) cast of South Korea’s rising male stars.

The cake shop in question, the Antique Bakery, is run by rich boy Jin-Hyuk (Ju Ji-Hun), who recruits Min Sun-Woo (Kim Jae-Wook), a flamboyant and talented pastry chef (and former admirer of Jin-Hyuk’s who Jin-Hyuk dramatically rejected in high school) who is fired from every job he takes because he can’t work with women and becomes the subject of jealous fights between every male employer and co-worker, gay or straight. As Sun-Woo puts it, he is a “Gay of Demonic Charm” and irresistible to men – the ultimate twink. Sun-Woo still has feelings for Jin-Hyuk, who must not only fight off his advances but find male employees who can concentrate on their work with Sun-Woo around, no easy feat. Simultaneously, Jin-Hyuk is trying to deal with nightmares relating to his repressed memories of a childhood kidnapping - the secret reason why a man who does not like cake would open a bakery.

Frankly, not much of the plot particularly matters. What does matter is the sheer joy of the filmmaking on display. Like the similarly candy-colored Memories of Matsuko, it is the medium, not the message, that counts here, and Antique is a beautifully crafted, frothy confection of a film that should win over all but the most hardened homophobe.

© David Austin

K-20: Legend of the Mask
AKA: K-20: Kaijin niju menso den
Dir. Shimako Sato (Japan 2008)
Rating: 2 ½ out of 4 Stars (above average)
Capsule Review by: David Austin

K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK PLAYS AT THE IFC CENTER ON JUNE 20 AT 8:15 PM AND ON JUNE 30 AT 1:45 PM. SEE THE FULL SCHEDULE HERE

K-20 is silly fun; an old-fashioned matinee crowd-pleaser in the vein of The Rocketeer or the Indiana Jones films. Set in an alternate universe where World War II never happened and Japan has retained its Victorian-era stratification of society, the film pits a dashing hero against a cartoon villain – master thief Kaijin 20: The Fiend with 20 Faces - before a steampunk backdrop. It’s definitely kids’ stuff, the sort of film that might star Brendan Fraser if made in the US, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a kick out of the showmanship, starting with K-20’s first appearance – ripping off a rubber face at a press conference to reveal a serial villain’s mask and fedora, along with a catchy maniacal cackle. Today’s more serious superhero opuses, with their angst and extreme violence, rarely find time for the lighthearted fun that powers most of K-20.

Takeshi Kaneshiro, whose boyish good looks have matured since his turns in Wong Kar-wai’s earlier films, stars as Heikichi Endo, lower-class circus athlete (shades of Robin’s origin). The mysterious K-20 frames Endo in order to distract ace detective Kogoro Akechi (stone-faced Toru Nakamura) from his plan to capture an electrical doomsday machine created by Nikola Tesla, forcing Endo to adopt an identity as a cat burglar. Meanwhile, Takako Matsu makes for a fun heroine as Duchess Yoko Hashiba – while no Karen Allen or Margot Kidder, she’s spunky and having more fun than anyone else in the movie. For Endo, having to hide from the authorities is cause to bemoan his fate. For Yoko, it is an excuse to break free from the bonds that have stifled her all her life.

K-20 is packed with fun pop culture references and slick special effects. Sato creates a credible world, where police zeppelins co-exist with gyrocopters in a city still caught in the throes of the art deco movement. While not quite on the level of Hollywood’s filmic Gothams, K-20’s Teito, capital of this alternate universe Japan, has great visual appeal and provides enjoyable stomping grounds for the film’s numerous parkour-inspired action scenes. Similarly, K-20’s take on Edogawa Rampo’s Detective Kogoro Akechi, the great Sherlock Holmes figure of Japanese literature, is an interesting one. The film’s Akechi is a cold, removed aristocrat, who first reaction to his fiancée’s attempt at seduction is to suspect a plot.

The plot is full of holes and clichés but, even at over two hours, director Shimako Sato provides K-20 with enough momentum to help viewers endure the occasional slower and sillier stretches, with a few exceptions. The worst offenders are the scenes featuring orphans – these are pure treacle, clumsily illustrating the miseries of the underclass and even going so far as to use the gratuitous and tonally inappropriate death of a child to hammer its point home. However, I’m willing to overlook a certain amount of crap from any director who works in a sly homage to Empire Strikes Back.

Samurai Princess
AKA: Samurai purinsesu: Gedô-hime; Samurai Princess: Devil Princess
Dir. Kengo Kaji (Japan 2009)
Rating: 2 out of 4 Stars (average)
Capsule Review by: David Austin

SAMURAI PRINCESS PLAYS AT THE IFC CENTER ON JUNE 20 AT 12:00 AM AND ON JUNE 30 AT 4:30 PM. SEE THE FULL SCHEDULE HERE

Samurai Princess hits all the usual notes of Japan’s latest wave of gore films, but is something of a letdown coming from one of the creative minds behind last year’s wonderful Tokyo Gore Police. As directed by Kengo Kaji, screenwriter for Tokyo Gore Police (and supervising screenwriter for the excellent Uzumaki), Samurai Princess is equally gory and insane, but more shrill and far less clever than its predecessor. Tokyo Gore Police may have been ridiculous splatstick, but it was made with an immense amount of artistry, approaching Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II and Paul Verhoeven’s subversive Robocop and Starship Troopers. While Tokyo Gore Police may have been low-budget, it never looked cheap. Samurai Princess, on the other hand, has a cramped, direct-to-video feel about it that copious blood, guts and breasts can’t quite overcome.

Samurai Princess is set in an anachronistic world, where samurai and swords co-exist with factories, chainsaws and androids (an all-purpose term for Frankenstein-esque killers made out of recycled body parts). Aino Kishi stars as a former novice nun turned powerful (and occasionally naked) android reconstituted from of the parts of her slaughtered sisters (along with fun extras that probably aren’t standard at the convent, such as breast bombs, rotary saws and plasma-generating hands). Aiding her is a guitar hero (Dai Mizuno) capable of playing body-shredding chords, who wants to seek out and slay the source of the mutant androids - mad scientist Kyouraku (a philosophical descendant of Battle Angel Alita’s Desty Nova), who is more concerned with the artistic motivations of his creations than the bloody havoc they wreak. The girls of the Shogun’s Anti-Android division also make an appearance, along with a Buddhist nun.

All of this hits the screen in a borderline incoherent manner that makes it difficult to engage with the plot or characters on anything other than a whiz-bang, spectacle level. Usually, faced with this sort of insanity in a Japanese film, I assume it is based on a manga and that there is some method to the madness which did not make it up onto the screen. However, by all appearances, the screenplay is an original work by Kaji. Perhaps I was wrong, but I expected more from the man who penned the sly Tokyo Gore Police.

Nevertheless, those looking for outrageous gore won’t be disappointed. Yoshihiro Nishimura, special effects guru and director of Tokyo Gore Police, helped to produce and create the effects for Samurai Princess, resulting in gags like skeletons being punched clear out of bodies. Unfortunately, Kaji does not yet have the directorial chops to build a real picture around the grue.

© David Austin

AKA: Tau ming chong
Country and Year: China (2007)
Director: Peter Ho-Sun Chan
Starring: Andy Lau, Jet Li, Takeshi Kaneshiro

Review By: David Austin
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)

WARLORDS PLAYS AT THE IFC CENTER ON JUNE 19 AT 6:30 PM AND ON JUNE 23 AT 7:15 PM. SEE THE FULL SCHEDULE HERE

Warlords is an interesting example of how the same tale can be filmed very differently. The true story that forms the basis for the film – the rise of an ambitious Chinese general during the Taiping Rebellion of the late 1800s and his eventual assassination – was previously told by legendary martial arts director Chang Cheh in Blood Brothers, one of his absolute best movies. Peter Chan’s 2007 remake follows the same outlines, but makes significant changes while taking advantage of a far larger budget and a far grander scale. However, though the artistry of the recent film is far superior, and though Warlords has aspirations to be a manly tearjerker of the highest quality, Blood Brothers remains the more emotionally resonant and successful film. While filming Blood Brothers, Chang was at the top of his game and recorded some of the best performances of his career – Warlords, on the other hand, hits all the expected notes and hits them well, but never quite catches fire.

Both versions put the focus on a love triangle (really a love quadrangle, given the deep currents of platonic homoeroticism). In Warlords, as in Blood Brothers, the fulcrum around which the plot turns is the historical figure of General Ma – called Pang in Chan’s version and essayed by Jet Li. Warlords opens with the slaughter of Li’s army by the Taiping – a slaughter from which Li emerges despondent and disgraced. Excoriating himself for the loss of his honor and his men, Li falls into the arms of Lian (Jinglei Xu), a sympathetic peasant woman. Later, Li joins up with a group of bandits headed by a nearly unrecognizable Andy Lau (oddly, this fierce bandit chieftain is a bigger transformation for the actor than even his muscle-suit turn in Running on Karma) and Takeshi Kaneshiro. Forging a bond of camaraderie with the two men, Li sets about molding the bandits into a serious fighting force with which to challenge the Taiping and regain his former position. Complicating matters are Li’s own self-loathing and his vague desire to do help the common people through his actions, Imperial power politics, Lau’s disagreements with Li’s methods and, of course, the fact that Lian happens to be Li’s wife.

Chang’s version is similarly star-studded, featuring Ti Lung in the role of General Ma, Chen Kuan-tai in the Andy Lau role, and David Chiang in the Takeshi Kaneshiro role. However, shockingly for a Chang Cheh film, the Lian role is far more interesting in Blood Brothers. Though I love his work, Chang is not normally known for his plots and characters, and roles for women in his films are generally negligible, leading to frequent charges of misogyny. After all, Chang is the guy who practically turned Cheng Pei-Pei’s Golden Swallow into a guest star in his sequel to Come Drink with Me. Chan, on the other hand, has directed female-friendly movies like Comrades: Almost a Love Story and Perhaps Love.

However, as played by Ching Li (veteran of so many Chu Yuan wu xias, a director who usually had far more interest in female roles), the character is far more of a driver of the plot. She is attracted by Ma’s energy and ambition as much as she is turned off by Chen Kuan-tai’s lack of the same. Though cast in the femme fatale role of driving a wedge between the sworn brothers, her actions are understandable and her agony at the resulting tragedy is palpable. Jinglei Xu’s version of the role, by contrast, is more of a cipher – it is far from clear what attracts her to Jet Li (pity?) or why she would turn on her husband, portrayed by Andy Lau as a far more noble and heroic figure (a case of casting dictating character?) than Chen’s buffoonish brawler. As we are given little insight into her motivations, the infidelity aspect of the plot almost feels tacked on, instead of essential.

Similarly, Jet Li’s Pang, though one of his better performances, pales next to Ti Lung’s starkly ambitious and charismatic Ma. It was a rare villainous turn for Ti (an actor who gained renewed attention from John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow series) and a real showcase of his talents as an actor and martial artist. Ma’s near complete amorality was a more original approach than Li’s tortured “ends justify the means” philosophy. By amorality, I do not mean the sort of gratuitous wrongdoing that usually passes for evil in cinema – I mean that Ma simply does not take morality into account at all because he is almost exclusively interested in his own advancement. Personally, I have never been that fond of Jet Li as an actor (as opposed to a martial artist). That said, perhaps contrary to popular opinion, I think he does his best work in more lighthearted roles in films like Swordsman II and Kung Fu Cult Master than when forced to act dour. Li’s role here calls for a lot of glowering while ensconced in increasingly baroque sets of heavy armor, and, frankly, it is less than engaging.

Warlords does far outshine its predecessor in its epically choreographed battle scenes and the stunning production design. Blood Brothers was a product of its times and the cash-conscious Shaw Brothers studio, which tended to recycle the same costumes, sets, stuntmen and locations in its films. By contrast, Chan appears to have spared no expense, and the scale of the melees on display is stupendous. Rather than kung fu fights featuring 30-50 padded stuntmen and interminable (and unintentionally comic) scenes of people rolling down hills, Warlords features a cast of thousands duking it out in bone-crunching, limb-hacking battles that rival those of Braveheart. The proceedings are all insanely gory in that uniquely over-the-top Hong Kong fashion and highly entertaining if you enjoy that sort of thing (which I do).

Sadly, both versions give short shrift to the Taiping Rebellion, an appallingly bloody but fascinatingly bizarre incident in Chinese history. As well-chronicled in Jonathan Spence’s God’s Chinese Son, the Taiping were a quasi-Christian movement fomented among the southern Hakka minority by a total nut and failed official exam-taker who declared himself to be Jesus’s younger brother and whose followers refused to cut their hair into the queue hairstyle required by the ruling Manchurians. Crazy though they were, the Taiping were phenomenally successful as a military organization (at least initially) and won a number of important military victories against the doddering Qin (Manchu) dynasty, and eventually (as touched on in Warlords) controlled the key city of Nanking. At least one of the key incidents in the downfall of the Taiping is reflected in Warlords – the slaughter of the surrendered Taiping.

Recommended? Warlords is solid period piece with an excellent cast and tons of bloody action. Definitely work checking out, but make sure your next move is to see Chang Cheh’s masterful Blood Brothers.

If you like this, you might like: Assembly, Blood Brothers, Musa, Vengeance

© David Austin

Review By: David Austin
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 4 stars (above average)

Nightmare Castle epitomizes the Italian gothic of the 1960s and, as such enjoys the advantages and suffers the disadvantages of its kind. Specifically, Nightmare Castle has gorgeous cinematography and rich, eerie atmosphere. The plot, on the other hand , is a mostly forgettable mish-mash of horror tropes and meandering plot points. Nevertheless, director Mario Caiano, cinematographer Enzo Barboni and set decorator Bruno Cesari (who later worked on Once Upon a Time in America and won an Oscar for The Last Emperor) do first class work. Beautiful period costumes and furnishings are all shot for maximum effect (with an emphasis on stylish, ground-level tracking shots). Viewers familiar with Italian cinema will look past the flaws and appreciate the lovely sights on display.

In contrast to the finery on display, Nightmare Castle, like other Italian gothics of the early sixties, pushes the envelope in terms of graphic violence, adding grotesquerie to the otherwise dignified surroundings. Caiano does not shy away from the grue, setting his scenes of torture and depravity in the stately halls of a classical manor or in a pleasure garden. These two elements of Nightmare Castle’s appeal combine in an impressive finale that brings the somewhat drawn-out proceedings to a suitably pyrotechnic close.

Barbara Steel, in particular, benefits from the painterly eye, with her unconventional looks matched by impeccably tailored but slightly “off” dresses and similarly opulent but uncanny surroundings. Steel here essays a bizarre double role, as Muriel, the unfaithful wife of Steven Arrowsmith (Paul Muller), an amoral mad scientist in the mold of Peter Cushing’s Frankenstein, and as Jenny, Muriel’s fragile sister. When Arrowsmith catches his wife getting it on with the hunky gardener (Rik Battaglia, a veteran of pepla), he wreaks a terrible vengeance on them both and marries Jenny in order to get at her fortune. Mix in a spooky old mansion, a plot to drive Jenny mad, specters from beyond the grave, and the use of Muriel’s blood to revitalize Steven’s lover, Solange (the strikingly lovely Helga Line), and Jenny’s equally hunky psychiatrist, and all the elements of an old-fashioned gothic potboiler are present.

As you may have gleaned from the description above, in the grand tradition of Italian genre cinema, Nightmare Castle borrows liberally from the classics – a little Diabolique, a touch of Frankenstein, a bit of Eyes Without a Face, some Countess Bathory, and even some surprising touches from more exotic fare like Yotsuya Ghost Story (the half-mutilated face of the murdered Muriel, covered with black hair in classic Japanese ghost story imagery). Hitchcock too is liberally quoted, with Solange being a doppelganger of Rebecca’s Ms. Danvers and a Freudian dream sequence that recalls Spellbound. It’s all a little disorganized and haphazard, not to mention slightly longer than is strictly speaking necessary. Nevertheless, a strong cast, beautiful imagery and a nice, early score by Ennio Morricone make this worth a watch for genre fans.

Recommended? Steel fans will be in heaven.

If you like this, you might like: Black Sunday, Castle of Blood, Eyes Without a Face, Diabolique

DVD DETAILS

DVD Production Company: Severin
Run Time: 104 Mins
Extras: Original US and UK Trailers, Interviews with Barbara Steel and Mario Caiano

Severin’s disc compliments the film with a clean, remastered picture (after years of crappy prints circulating under alternate titles like The Faceless Monster) in 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen. In addition to including old and new trailers, Severin has generated some interesting new content.

The most important is a genuinely fascinating career-length interview of nearly half an hour with British ex-pat Barbara Steel. Steel made it far on her ghoulish persona and looks, starring in genuine classics like Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, as well as films like Castle of Blood and The Pit and the Pendulum. The quirky Steel has become quite the Grande Dame of horror, after an early career as a dyed blonde starlet at 20th Century Fox. After walking out on a Don Siegel/Elvis Presley film, she was loaned out to Italy for Black Sunday and fell in love with the country. In the interview she shares memories of her early career, great directors like Bava and Federico Fellini (for whom she performed memorably in 8 ½) , and Riccardo Freda, Antonio Margheriti and Michelangelo Antonioni (who apparently once wanted to make a horror film with Steel and Monica Vitti – the mind boggles).

Director Mario Caiano also appears in a 14 minute segment where he discusses the making of Nightmare Castle. Caiano was apparently a devotee of gothic literature, including the works of Poe and novels like Frankenstein and The Castle of Otranto (which I may need to revisit after hearing him talk). Reading between the lines from his discussions of the actors, I confirmed what I have long suspected about the casting of such films – faces are everything.

© David Austin

I have long said that the only good wrestling films come from outside the US. Between dramedies like The Foul King and freak-outs like Champions of Justice and The Calamari Wrestler, Japan, Korea and Mexico have put the US film industry to shame (the recent Nacho Libre did nothing to change my mind). With The Wrestler, though, there is finally some competition.

I can’t say Darren Aronofsky exactly reinvents the wheel with The Wrestler. The plot is nothing unique. Mickey Rourke stars as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a run-down pro-wrestler who used to be big. Now he wrestles in school gymnasiums and local tournaments on the weekends, wasting his weeks trying to maintain his trailer-park home with a little extra cash from odd jobs at a supermarket. Soon the remainder of his glory is threatened, as a heart attack forces him to quit the ring. Aside from the blood and the sex, this could almost be an “Old Hollywood” film. Clichés abound.

Nevertheless, for Aronofsky, this is a radical break from his usual visual tricks. After the show-stopping visuals and crackerjack editing of Pi, Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain, The Wrestler finds Aronofsky in stripped-down mode. Aside from his oft-repeated, signature shot of Robinson - a tracking shot from directly behind Rourke’s head that recreates the feel of a wrestler entering a stadium – the direction is best described as workmanlike. I mean that in a good way – Aronofsky steps back and lets Rourke command the show. And command it he does. The Wrestler is Rourke’s movie, and his performance overcomes any plot flaws and turns what would otherwise be an average tale into something more.

The other aspect of The Wrestler that allowed it to stand out from other, similar sad sack tales is that it does not exactly take the usual path. Wrestling is never portrayed as something more than it is – a form of staged entertainment, albeit a brutal one that involves some real pain and injury. No drama is manufactured around the winning or losing of a match and the filmmakers never pretend that the outcomes are in doubt. Robinson’s fellow wrestlers are a mix of up-and-coming kids, who treat him respectfully, and old pros, with whom he shares an easy camaraderie. Robinson is accustomed to respect within his chosen field – he may get little from the rest of the world, but in the ring and in the locker room, he is a man of stature. Nor is Robinson looking for a big score or taking on risks for money. Robinson rarely rages against his fate. He does not ask for much and seems largely content to live in peace. When his medical condition forces him to contemplate quitting the life, he seeks out alternative solaces – trying to reconnect with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and pursuing a relationship with a stripper (Marisa Tomei). His efforts to bring these women into his life are sincere. However, they are clearly substitutes. As his daughter points out, wrestling will always come first. When she tells Robinson that he doesn’t deserve a second chance, the audience feels for him, but knows that she is probably right. Ultimately, Robinson only has one true love.

Fox Home Entertainment’s DVD of The Wrestler looks good and includes a decent selection of extras. First up is a music video featuring the title song by Bruce Springsteen. It does not break any ground visually (as per most soundtrack videos, it primarily consists of the clips from the film) but the song is fitting. More interesting is the lengthy “Making of” featurette, titled “Within the Ring.” The featurette contains interviews with most of the principal production crew, including director Aronofsky, writer Rob Siegel and musician Clint Mansell, as well as actress Evan Rachel Wood. Notably absent are Tomei and Rourke. Reading between the lines of the other interviews, Rourke comes off as talented but a tough cookie. Also included are comments from some of the real wrestlers who participated in the stunts, as well as Rourke’s stunt double. There is a lot of footage from the filming of the wrestling scenes, apparently shot as live stunts with live crowds.

The Hairdresser’s Husband
AKA: Le mari de la coiffeuse
Dir. Patrice Leconte (France 1985)
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)
Capsule Review by: David Austin

The Hairdresser’s Husband is another somewhat atypical release for Severin, the boutique DVD label that tends to focus on classic (meaning from the ‘70s to the ‘90s) erotica, and eurohorror of the Jess Franco persuasion. The Hairdresser’s Husband is erotic, but of the art-house persuasion – those looking for less subtle pleasures [ahem] would be advised to look elsewhere. Indeed, The Hairdresser’s Husband is far more Federico Fellini than Joe D’Amato.

Fellini is truly the right frame of reference. In The Hairdresser’s Husband, director Patrice Leconte makes a fetish of the titular profession. We meet our young protagonist, Antoine, at the beginning of his lifelong obsession, as he falls in lust with the imposing chest and solid physicality of his local haircutter (who evokes the colossal Saraghina of 8 ½). His sun-dappled memories are seeds that yield a harvest – when asked what he wants to be, Antoine answers without hesitation: a “hairdresser’s husband.” The remainder of the film concerns the realization of that desire.

The hairdresser that adult Antoine (Jean Rochefort) sets his mind on is the considerably younger Mathilde (Anna Galiena), a retiring, unconventional beauty. How you feel about the film will depend on your perception of Mathilde’s character. I saw Antoine’s pursuit of Mathilde, their relationship, and the eventual denouement, as a fairytale, played out by characters, not people. Galiena’s Mathilde is eminently worthy of love but for me she (and her reciprocation of Antoine’s affections) is a creature of fantasy. Leconte, in the accompanying interview, thinks differently, according the film a level of realism that I thought was largely absent from the proceedings. Are the characters and conversations that populate the film lovely to watch? Absolutely. Do they even remotely exist in the real world? No.

Galiena strikes close to the bone when she tells of being warned that the film was a man’s dream and Mathilde was an impossible female character. I am inclined to agree with those anonymous naysayers, yet I still enjoyed the film. The Hairdresser’s Husband may be an indulgent male fantasy (as was, to a more self-conscious extent, 8 ½), but it is a tremendously well-realized one that gets a lot of mileage out of its stars’ charisma. Leconte is a master of atmospherics, with the sun of France and Barcelona complementing Galiena’s red dresses and hair, and Galiena and Rochefort draw the audience in. Fable though it is, The Hairdresser’s Husband still packs an emotional punch, primarily due to Galiena’s emotiveness.

Severin includes several bonus features. The trailer is nothing special, but the other two extras, an approximately 17 minute interview with Galiena and an approximately 36 minute interview with Leconte. Leconte’s interview will be of particular interest to those who have followed the director, as Leconte provides a career-spanning interview that takes as a starting point his early work in comic books, and winds through his first experiences in film and his later international successes like Monsieur Hire.

© David Austin