Shield of Straw

 

An immensely wealthy man puts out a billion-dollar bounty on the head of the killer who murdered his granddaughter. The killer in question throws himself to the mercy of the police force and the justice system. A team of dedicated security police are forced to protect the killer and get him to court before he’s assassinated, with anybody being a possible suspect, including those within the force itself. It’s a pretty decent premise for a thriller, and one ripe for tense drama. Unfortunately none of this happens, because Shield of Straw squanders it’s potential to deliver a sterile, bland, plodding thriller devoid of excitement. This is an arduous experience, a cold picture that almost feels strangely obligatory. It was directed by Takashi Miike, but it lacks any of his flair or signature style to the point where it could have been directed by anybody.
 
The premise, as said before, sounds pretty good. Powerful, ageing billionaire Ninagawa puts out a massive bounty on the serial killer who murdered his granddaughter. Fearing for his life, the killer, Kiyomaru, hands himself in to the police, who are tasked with protecting him and getting him to Tokyo justice headquarters within 48 hours so he can be judged and sentenced according to the law. Veteran security expert Mekari and enthusiastic rookie Shiraiwa are hand-picked to personally ensure Kiyomaru’s safety, along with a detachment of police. But as the escort begins, tensions arise as the allure of one billion dollars strikes seemingly everyone, from civilians to medics and soldiers. When a website run by Ninagawa starts posting their movements and locations suspicions pass through the team as it becomes clear one of them is a traitor.

It’s a really good premise for a film, and Shield of Straw manages to completely waste it, never capitalising on the potential for tension and suspense. Instead everything is mundane and straightforward as things move from one small obstacle to the next at a plodding pace. That’s another problem with the film, it’s horrendously long and boring, never managing the frantic tension the story demands. The two day time limit is never a factor, there are very long stretches when nobody is in danger and considering the massive bounty not that many people try and kill Kiyomaru. If anything early scenes sort of lie as most of the Japanese countryside and roads are absent of people and cars.

Not a lot happens at all actually. While the premise suggests a frantic, adrenaline-pumping rush, the movie and the characters move at an absurdly slow pace, lingering far too long and building up every minor confrontation way more than they needed to be. Because that’s what they largely are; minor confrontations. While there is one ridiculous set piece involving a runaway gas tanker flipping over and blowing up on a highway (something the trailer took great relish in showing off), for the most part there’ll be one or two people who’ll try and get Kiyomaru, mostly in low key and non-exciting ways. Somebody might put poison in a syringe, or a pair of baton-wielding security guards might menacingly approach. The insane chaos of the situation is largely ignored. It's baffling how low-key and uneventful the entire film ends up being.

So if we’re not going the action route we’d be going the character-focused route instead, but that doesn’t work here either. The characters are all so overwhelmingly dull and unlikeable, almost all written paper-thin and without any real defining features. Most are unemotional and statue-like in their acting, standing around for long stretches of time without doing or saying anything interesting. A common thing that happens is characters accusing each other of being suspect, but they never go anywhere. I think every single character gets accused of having a motive in killing Kiyomaru, some a few times over. Mekari is astoundingly dull as the determined security professional, having the personality and acting ability of a shield made of straw. Shiraiwa manages to be just as dull, blindly following Mekari’s teachings. There’re also some police officers involved, most of whom use their time accusing each other of being after the money.

This all could have still worked if it had a memorable villain, but Kiyomaru is a really boring one. He’s just a regular, ordinary killer, and a whiny idiot to boot. He's no mastermind, and there's no psychological manipulation at play here. Sure he says and does cruel things, constantly antagonising the security team he relies on for protection, but he has no presence and spends most of his time cowering or yelling for help. His actions also make no sense whatsoever – he flees to the police and is desperate for their help, but then he starts to do things that put everyone in danger for no reason. It’s almost as though he doesn’t care about his survival, but then why’d he even bother heading to the police for protection? The film's ending likewise misses the mark, bringing things together in the most ordinary way imaginable, almost as though they were wilfully doing all they could to avoid doing anything interesting or unexpected.

The entire film is so cold and clinical, lacking any visual or stylistic flair. Everything is dull and grey, from the interiors of buildings and precincts, the various cars, buses and subway cars their journey takes place on and even the empty Japanese streets. Coming from a director like Miike it’s baffling, and the entire thing comes across as being some sort of contractual obligation. There’s no passion or energy put into it by anybody, as characters sleepwalk through its dull script. Shield of Straw is not only a bad movie, but a disappointing one as well since there was so much potential there. The premise in Takashi Miike’s hands sounds like it could have given us something astoundingly insane, but instead we get the most boring and bland ‘thriller’ imaginable.

Out of Inferno

Disaster movies are something I haven’t really touched yet here, and it’s a genre that seems a bit sparsely done compared to most others. We get what, maybe two or three of them a year? I guess you could say it’s because it’s an entire filmmaking niche dedicated to depicting horrible things happening to innocent people with disasters, man-made or natural, wreaking havoc on cities, towns and civilisations all for the gleeful joy of its audience. Sure, some try to depict the horrors and realities of such events, but for the most part disaster flicks are escapism as we voyeuristically witness the fate of several characters encountering some sort of horrible event. And a lot are pretty fun. While most are familiar with the big budget Hollywood-made disaster flicks, there are actually a fair few interesting ones in the rest of the world. Out of Inferno is one such film, hailing out of China.    

Tai-kwan (Sean Lau) and his brother Keung (Louis Koo) were top firefighters in China who have since become estranged. They haven’t talked in four years after the death of their father, in which time Keung has resigned from firefighting to start a company dedicated to fire safety and prevention. Tai-kwan is planning on giving up a promotion and resigning in an attempt to repair and strengthen his relationship with his pregnant wife Si-lok, which has strained due to his commitment and focus on his job.

Pure chance has Si-lok head to an ultrasound appointment in the same fifty story high-rise commercial block where Keung is having a celebratory party for the opening of his fire-safety company. A series of events cause an explosive fire to break out in the building’s basement, the flames and smoke trapping everybody within. Tai-kwan and his firefighting unit are sent in to rescue the survivors, and Tai-kwan needs to save his wife, brother and the other survivors as the fire continues to get out of control.

 

It’s a pretty basic set-up, and absolutely perfect disaster movie fodder. It’s all the sort of thing we’ve seen before. Thankfully the film improves itself by focusing on its strong main characters, and a growing sense of escalation throughout. It was directed by the Pang Brothers, the twin directing duo best known for directing the original Hong Kong version of ‘The Eye’, and acclaimed Thai action film ‘Bangkok Dangerous’ (they’re also regrettably responsible for the Nic Cage-starring American remake of the same film). They’ve got an eye for stylistic cinematography, energetic pacing and tension and it really shows here. It’s a pretty good looking movie and keeps a good sense of scale and place. As the film continues it gets more claustrophobic as the building starts to collapse and the flames and smoke close in. They keep the sense of danger pretty real, in that every time the characters get somewhere seemingly safe it is always short lived as things get worse.

Disaster movies tend to trade on the three main audience emotions they’re well suited to deliver on. The first is the sadness of seeing characters you like get killed. The second is that dirty little satisfaction of seeing characters you hate get killed. The third, following on from the first, is the triumphant relief of seeing a presumed dead character has survived after all. Out of Inferno weirdly skimps over on the first two. There are actually a lot of survivors, to the point where I don’t really think that many people died at all. Sure, a few side characters and ancillary ones get taken out in flames and rubble, and the sense of danger is certainly there and continues to ramp up ridiculously, but a lot of people make it out relatively fine. But you won’t think that – there are some really intense, panicky moments in there, some which had me squirming in my seat, so that even when nobody is killed you’ll still feel exhilarated and exhausted. That’s a strength many disaster films lack (especially the big Hollywood ones – ‘San Andreas’ was devoid of that sort of tension).

I think a big reason for all this is that Out of Inferno is a disaster film that shows the various emergency response teams as exceptionally competent. The fire-fighting and paramedic response is massive as they cordon off the area, use a variety of equipment to breach the building and get survivors out, and take care of them as well. There’s no incompetence, and also no characters with ulterior motives to make things more dangerous. I think it partly works in the films favour – two of its leads were firefighters and had that experience, so they’re better poised to knowing what they’re doing. I will say though that despite the low death count, the film does briefly look at the more grim implications and effects being in a disaster-like scenario would have on your health and wellbeing.

Things escalate big time. The opening build-up and introduction to the characters is only about thirty minutes or so before the fire starts, and from there things get increasingly dangerous. Besides the fire and smoke, there’s flaming rubble, collapsing rooms, explosions, chemical leaks and deadly falls all ready to take out the characters. Every moment has something big and more dangerous happening. It does get ridiculous, especially with the CGI at times. It mostly looks great, but there are moments where the flames are fake looking or move in ridiculous ways. In particular, one scene has a pillar of fire explode outwards like some sort of flaming snake which the firefighters counter with a blast from a hose. Otherwise it does a fine job of delivering the disaster of a disaster film. Interestingly, the film’s focus is on its central few characters, specifically Tai-kwan, Keung and Si-lok and their relationship together.

Tai-kwan is an interesting protagonist for a disaster film in that he’s part of the outside rescue force. He’s committed to his duties as a firefighter, to the point of prioritising others above his own wife and brother. It’s an oddly refreshing change from the usual sort, where the hero somewhat unheroically abandons his duties to selfishly protect his personal interests (like when Dwayne Johnson completely abandons his life-saving job in a time of crisis to go rescue his ex-wife in ‘San Andreas’). It’s also ripe dramatic material, which Out of Inferno wisely centres the bulk of its character drama around. It also makes up the bulk of their relationship, with Si-lok struggling to understand Tai-kwan’s commitment to his job and his priorities, but her experience in the inferno makes her at least understand why he’s the way he is.

Keung is a great juxtaposition to Tai-kwan, in the sense that he wants to help but in a different way, especially since you can understand his perspective and how it affects his actions and behaviour. His frustration at losing lives as a firefighter despite doing everything according to protocol leads him to resent his by-the-book brother and lead him to strive and focus his efforts in fire prevention. Initially I was afraid he’d end up being that sort of idiot executive character that shows up in disaster movies, the sort who refuses to accept the amount of danger in order to protect their own interests, but the moment the fire breaks out he instantly starts helping people out and does all he can to keep Si-lok safe.

The side characters are, sadly, very lacking and a weak point for the film. Most disaster films line up a wide cast of characters, ostensibly to start killing them off, usually giving them a little bit of characterisation so the audience know who is who. There’s the obnoxious, mean, unlikeable ones whose purpose is to die for the audience’s satisfaction, and the innocent, funny, pleasant ones the audience doesn’t want to see die (so their deaths hold more impact as emotional bullying). Out of Inferno weirdly lacks this. Most of the side characters are exceptionally thin or forgettable, to the point that you won’t remember or care about them. Here we have a doctor, a husband-wife-daughter family, and a security guard and his security guard trainee son. The absolute weakest are the characters operating out of a shifty-looking diamond cutting outfit. When the fire breaks out they resort to theft and murder, and just blindly end up exacerbating things. They’re absurdly underwritten and useless, and just get in the way.

The movie absolutely excels in building up danger and tension. Initially it doesn’t seem too bad. As the flames break out and smoke starts to cloud out the lower levels, the massive firefighting response team seems to be handling things pretty damn well – people are being rescued, protocol is being followed to a T and the fire seems relatively contained. Then there’re explosions, a growing conflagration, massive plumes of deadly smoke, a toxic chemical spill, flooding, collapsing roofs and floors, burning furniture, and even more – by the time we get to flooding, the threat of drowning and an emergency tracheotomy I was almost exhausted. It certainly delivers on the danger and panic you want from a disaster movie, especially as it continues to grow as the film continues.

It’s a good film all things considered, and while it might be a little lacking in certain respects and lacked the kill count most disaster movies tend to have it was exciting and exhilarating enough to keep me engaged the entire time.

The Editor

 

Horror parody films are dime a dozen these days, and unfortunately they’re almost all exclusively garbage. While we have had some classics, like Mel Brook’s spot-on Frankenstein spoof ‘Young Frankenstein’, the last few years have seen opportunists quickly churn out poorly made, low-rent ‘comedies’ that show no effort, care or understanding of the things they’re meant to be parodying. They’re usually lazily patched together low-budget/low-effort messes that, in lieu of talent, effort or actual comedic insight, simply throw in often gross-out spoof version of famous scenes from a variety of contemporary horror movies for barely ninety minutes and then calling it quits. A true horror parody would go further than that.

In comes Astron-6, a Canadian indie filmmaking production group of several friends whose output is made with minimal budgets (their first feature ‘Manborg’ apparently had a four-figure budget), a lot of off-key humour and an intense passion, love and understanding of genre filmmaking. Manborg took the piss out of eighties sci-fi robot/apocalypse stories, while their second film ‘Father’s Day’ was a gloriously gory and insane exploitation film about three oddball characters hunting down a serial killer who rapes, kills and eats fathers. Both movies are fun and ridiculous, full of explosive gore, bizarre humour and startling creativity, especially considering their almost non-existent budgets. They’re also perfectly on-point parodies of the genres they inhabit, to the point of obscurity at times. They don’t recreate scenes or make fun of specific movies, they encapsulate entire genres

The Editor is their third film, and might be their best from a purely filmmaking standpoint, boasting a more assured and consistent style compared to their last two films, and a thorough understanding of its subject matter. The Editor is Astron-6’s take on Italian ‘Giallo’ thrillers, the stylish but schlocky horror films from the seventies known more for their visual flair and abundance of blood and breasts than their simplistic plots and shallow characters. The Editor peerlessly imitates and holds true to the style, techniques and conventions of Giallo movies, for good and bad. It’s a great, funny movie, but really only for those who are familiar with Giallo movies.  It’s full of homages and loving nods to the movies by Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Mario Bava and others. If you aren’t familiar with any of those names, then The Editor will likely fall flat in places, so specific are its inspirations and the well it draws its inspiration from. It still works well as a comedy horror movie, though one that fits a specific niche.

 

Rey Ciso is our titular editor. Once a world-class award winning film editor with a magic touch when it came to piecing film together, Rey lost it all in a horrible editing accident. He not only lost the fingers on his right hand (now replaced with finely crafted wooden prosthetics), he also lost his former editing skills, his passion for film, the respect of his peers, the love in his rocky marriage to failed actress Josephine (Paz de la Huerta) and, momentarily, his mind, becoming unable to tell the difference between real-life and film.

After a short stint in an insane asylum, Rey is stuck editing schlocky low-rent horror films for a sleazy producer, unappreciated and disrespected by all apart from his assistant, the enthusiastic Bella. When the stars of the film are brutally murdered, Rey is considered an obvious suspect, especially by lead investigator Inspector Peter Porfiry. As the body count of actors, actresses and crew continues to rise, Rey finds his sanity slipping while Peter’s investigation into Rey’s past takes him from the surviving cast and crew to the director of the insane asylum (a cameo by Udo Kier) and even a mysterious priest whose knowledge suggests a deeper, darker secret behind the killings.

Rey’s character is played pretty much to perfection by co-director Adam Brooks. He captures the sort of distant, confused protagonist stuck in the middle of the killings, unsure if he’s the murdered himself. It’s an oddly restrained performance compared to the outlandishness of most of the other cast members, but it still perfectly captures and parodies that sort of sad sack character type, with the poor, downtrodden Rey constantly lamenting the fact that his wooden fingers make it near impossible for him to light a match. He becomes a little bit detached from the main plot, with his scenes having an eerie feel of their own (especially towards the end).

 

The instant standout character is Peter, played by co-director Matthew Kennedy, the no-nonsense, hard-core Italian detective who brings intensity and stupidity to ordinary situations. He’s a parody of not only detective characters, but the casual aggression and ridiculously exaggerated misogyny of Italian men in films from the seventies. Peter routinely slaps women for no reason whatsoever, adamant that it’s what women need. Besides that, he has a loving wife (suddenly struck with hysterical blindness after witnessing a gory murder scene) who he has some ridiculous sex with, and also gets an oddly homoerotic fixation with Cal, the new star of the doomed film (and a very obvious suspect, though Peter’s growing obsession with him makes him oblivious to things like Cal loading his car with murder weapons, is conspicuous appearance at almost every murder scene and his growing part in the film).

The rest of the cast is pretty great, especially those who seem to understand they’re in a parody. The aforementioned Cal is fun as an obvious red herring, but is a bit odd as the outlier American character – while Rey and Peter are acted with bad Italian accents, Cal just seems to use his normal voice, which sort of breaks the immersion the parody sticks to. He’s played by another Astron-6 member, Conor Sweeney, who co-directed ‘Father’s Day’.  The rest are great, from the sleazy producer, the various actors and actresses who end up dead, Peter’s poor blind wife and even the small cameo roles like Udo Kier’s asylum director. The one oddity is Paz De La Huerta, if only because I can’t tell whether she knows she’s in a parody or not. She does decent as Rey’s distant, disinterested wife, with some bizarre lines (‘Who is going to pay for this $500 Beta machine?’ comes out of nowhere). She also has no problem getting nude though. Actually most of the female cast get nude or have some sort of sex scene.

After a great opening, the movie slows a little and has a pretty lax pace in its middle, moving from one ridiculously bloody murder to the next while Rey slowly loses his mind and Peter’s investigation gets stranger. It’s still a lot of fun, especially as the character’s interactions and absurdity continues to build, and a lot is still happening as characters meets grisly, hilarious ends, but it feels like it’s just doing the same thing over and over again. Which, as a parody of Giallo films, is basically the point; those movies tended to just be a series of grandiose murders strung together with a loose, simple plot, the only issue here being that it begins to wear a bit thin. The final twenty minutes are just about as perfect as they need to be though, masterfully combining both parody and earnest homage for the sort of endings Giallo films had.  If the entire film was made forty years ago but played straight and had a little more polish it’d actually really work as a great Giallo film. And I’d even argue that, earnest and endearing parody or not, it is a pretty great Giallo movie on its own accomplishments.

Visually it’s fantastic, evoking the saturated colours, fluorescent lighting and stylistic conventions of the Giallo movies. Most murders involve seeing through the killer’s perspective, as their gloved hand raises a knife to strike while the victim screams. Some nightmare sequences and more trippy moments are fantastic, mixing colour and lighting to great effect. The music is fantastic, a mix of creepy synth and more upbeat disco funk. It also parodies Giallo films in other ways, with characters that have been overdubbed poorly on purpose. It’s all quite an earnest. The set design is also great, with the various locations, rooms and furnishings feeling ripped straight out of 70s horror movies.   

 

The gore is bloody and ridiculous, involving massive gushing sprays of blood, severed body parts and copious organs. The masked killer wields everything from knifes and straight razors to chainsaws, and the blood is a vivid red, as it slashes onto everything. Some of the more outlandish stuff is goofy in how fake and obvious it is, but that’s all part of the charm. In keeping with Italian Giallo conventions, the film is also full of abundant nudity and sex, almost entirely played for laughs heeere. Some characters are just randomly nude, and breasts have a habit of slipping out of shirts. But the sex scenes are absolutely hilarious and over the top. The best involve Peter and his wife, with the near psychopathic detective turning every lovemaking scene into an intense experience. He’s the sort of man who, after coitus, will grab giant fistfuls of dirt and smear them into his face while letting out a primal yell.

The ending is absolute brilliance, simultaneously parodying and perfectly capturing the essence of those old Italian horror movies. It manages to both make zero sense and perfect sense, with a random twist leading to a nonsensical revelation. In particular it brings to mind some of Lucio Fulci’s films. It’s really the only way the movie could have ended. Speaking of Fulci, I was surprised at how many nods there were to his films. There are visual motifs to a lot of Giallo films and nods to Mario Bava and Dario Argento, but Lucio Fulci seems to be the main source of inspiration, with several scenes and moments being homages to the man’s over the top horror movies.

I had a lot of fun with The Editor. I enjoyed the other two Astron-6 releases, and I really enjoyed this one as well. My appreciation of the film is largely rooted in my love and understanding of Giallo tropes and conventions, but outside of that it’s still a solid, entertaining film. It will sit best with those familiar with Giallo films, already niche in this day and age which might limit the movie’s appeal, but it’s a lot of fun regardless.