The Sniper

The Sniper is a Hong Kong action thriller directed by Dante Lam, a Hong Kong director who excels at highly stylised action/thrillers. The Sniper is another one, though it’s definitely style over substance. That’s not to say that there isn’t substance – this is a movie that bases itself on a strong central theme of rivalry amongst its three main characters, with a psychological undercurrent underlying its stylistic visuals and action. It’s a well-crafted, engaging film throughout.

OJ, a hot-headed police officer, is scouted into a Special Forces sniper team by expert sniper Hartman after demonstrating excellent marksmanship under pressure in a hostage situation. With Hartman’s professional tutelage, OJ excels in his training and becomes one of the best snipers on the team. With a strong competitive spirit, he quickly becomes fascinated by the numerous records set by Lincoln, Hartman’s disgraced former partner/rival and the best sniper the team ever had.

Lincoln’s confident but risky shooting caused his downfall when, during an intense hostage situation, he ignored orders and took a risky shot that caused the death of a hostage. In the aftermath he lost his position, his reputation was tarnished and he was sent to prison. Recently released, Lincoln harbours a deep grudge against his former unit for not backing him up, particularly feeling betrayed by Hartman. He teams up with Tao, a wanted crime lord (and the target of his failed shot), to get revenge on his former sniper team and prove he’s the best sniper of them all. While Hartman quickly tries to hunt down and stop Lincoln, OJ becomes determined to beat his records and begins to emulate Lincoln’s unorthodox shooting style, finding himself torn between Hartman’s hard, by-the-books tutelage and Lincoln’s instinct-based natural skill.

 

It’s a pretty slick action/thriller flick, boasting some great visuals, a cool premise and oodles of style. It’s also a pretty concise and precise movie, not wasting too much time outside of its own plot and keeping things moving forward at a good pace, moving from character interactions to action with a good flow. It does enough to keep itself engaging and interesting throughout, with a few twists towards the end to spice things up. The action itself, fitting its focus on snipers, is more measured than usual shoot ‘em ups. There aren’t many shootouts at all, with most sequences playing out like standoffs or operations, the sniper/s observing through a scope and firing when appropriate. The finale does go out in a big way with a sniper battle that’s bloody and claustrophobic.

If there’s one fault, and it’s a fault due to the plot’s design, it’s that the film struggles to make some of its characters compelling on their own. It’s focused mostly on the main three main snipers, meaning almost everyone else comes across as underdeveloped or simply insignificant (the rest of the sniper team are basically extras). The focus on psychology and rivalry suits the film, because outside of it the characters don’t really have a lot to them. In a weird way the conflict between characters is what makes the movie – the ideas of rivalry and revenge push the film along.

OJ ends up being almost a side character for much of it. The film doesn’t spend much time with him and he’s not actually that involved in the main plot (he’s more of an observer). The film very briefly looks at the influence of both Hartman and Lincoln on him but he doesn’t have any meaningful interactions with the latter while the former is his boss. It’s distinctly not his story, though he’s positioned as the main character. That being said, it doesn’t really matter since he fits in with the three-way rivalry plot, acting as a personification of the struggle between Hartman and Lincoln. It also helps that he gets to blast away with a sniper rifle on a few occasions.

 

There are a fair few superfluous scenes thrown in involving various characters’ families and personal lives that are meant to flesh them out a little more, but they don’t serve that function too well. Hartman’s wife tries to kill herself and OJ’s father is a washed up gambling addict who demeans his son – both of these things get a single scene’s worth of attention and then are never mentioned or referenced again. I understand why some of them are there – OJ pushes himself to excel to prove to himself, and his dad, that he’s not worthless – but they don’t really work as intended. If anything they sort of pull us away from the tension and the central three-way rivalry/relationship that makes up the heart of the film.

Despite its faults, The Sniper works due to how direct and concise it is. It’s a stylish, finely tuned film with enough substance to present a story and characters that, while simple at heart, fit together well. It’s a tight little number, and well worth watching.

The Admiral: Roaring Currents

We don’t really get that many historical dramas based around naval warfare these days. We’ve had a plethora of movies and series in recent memory regarding just about every other kind of warfare, but naval warfare is something that’s been in a little bit of short supply lately, especially old school naval battles. It’s something I’ve always thought was interesting, naval warfare that is, particularly the antiquated kind with sails, anchors, cannons and muskets and the like. Sure, I’m probably just romanticising it from old-school pirate movies, but beyond those there really haven’t been many that focus on real-world battles. That’s the spark of that led me to watch The Admiral: Roaring Currents, a South Korean historical drama focused on naval warfare.

Roaring Currents is based on a real-life historical naval battle, The Battle of Myeongnyang in which Admiral Yi Sun-Shin defended Korean from a fleet of 330 Japanese ships using only 13 ships of his own. It’s a pretty astounding story, especially since its true – Sun-Shin used knowledge of the Korean seas and superior naval skills to defeat a much larger fleet, sinking some thirty Japanese warships and repelling the rest while losing none of his ships. Roaring Currents offers a dramatic version of these events, one with presumably more explosions than the real battle had, but just as many fabulous beards.

 

Set in the late 16^th century, Korea’s Joseon Kingdom has been under attack by invading Japanese forces for several years. While the Japanese ground forces advance, its naval forces are repelled by Admiral Yi Sun-Sin (Choi Min-sik), the brilliant Naval Commander of the Korean forces. Political infighting and the work of Japanese spies however causes the paranoid Joseon King to have Yi arrested and tortured, handing the navy over to a rival admiral. Yi’s replacement proved to be completely incompetent, resulting in a single disastrous naval battle in which almost the entire Korean Navy was wiped out, leaving the Japanese Navy free to advance.

Sun-Shin is quickly pardoned and reinstated as the head of the Korean Navy, despite still recovering from injuries and illness from his torture. He gathers together the remnants of the Korean navy, 13 ships and some frightened, demoralised soldiers, to make a final stand to prevent a fleet of over three hundred Japanese ships from landing on Korean soil. Hopelessly outnumbered, Sun-Shin utilises his knowledge of the surrounding waters and mastery of naval tactics to fight back and repel the massive attacking force.

The movie assumes some familiarity with real-life Korean history, very quickly throwing the audience right into it. The opening gives a very brief, abbreviated version of the set-up before thrusting you into the thick of it, meaning most characters have little introduction. There are a lot of side characters, many of whom look the same due to their armour, face-covering helmets or even facial hair (lots of beards here). I was lost for a while, and found it hard to keep track of everybody, and barring Sun-Shin and his Japanese opponent I had a hard time telling most of them apart. It doesn’t help that most of the side characters have very little in terms of characterisation or personality, or even screen time (or plot importance if we’re being honest), with many only having a single brief scene in the first half of the film before being brought to the forefront suddenly and abruptly in the latter half of the film, usually just to give the action a sense of stakes. A sailor/spy and his mute wife are characterised solely as their descriptions, the various soldiers and officers are almost indistinguishable from each other, and the main villain, a dead-serious and dull ‘Pirate Commander’ leading the Japanese fleet, has less personality than his ornate helmet.

The focus then is on actor Choi Min-sik’s central turn as Admiral Sun-Shin, historic naval genius. Choi Min-sik is one of the best contemporary South Korean actors out there, noted for roles in films like ‘Oldboy’ and ‘I Saw the Devil’. He’s an actor with great range and talent. Unfortunately his version of Sun-Shin comes across as far too stoic, pensive and aloof, with a lot of the acting credit going to his beard. Most of his acting here involves standing or sitting silently while looking pensive, often while other characters are looking to him for orders or assurance.

While the real-life man was apparently very charismatic, a naval genius and one who commanded a great deal of respect, here he seems far too aloof and distant. None of his men have faith in him, but it’s not like he helps the situation. His response to every situation is to stand there and stare silently, often in slow motion. When his troops ask him what his plans are or what their battle strategy is, or even when looking for any words of encouragement or even a rousing speech, Sun-Shin doesn’t do or say anything. In the few occasions where he does interact with his troops, it’s not pleasant – he’s either beheading deserters, telling them that they should die protecting the navy and generally compounding the fear and panic amongst his own troops, to the point that when the battle does start most of his ships hang back. He basically fights most of the final battle on his own with one ship while his tiny fleet stay far back on the verge of retreat.

I might be a little unfair, since the man was under a lot of stress and emotional/physical pain – he was still recovering from being horribly tortured by his own King, he was physically ill, his massive awesome navy that he built from scratch was all but wiped out by incompetence from others – but this is too much of an inward portrayal of a stone-faced man who refuses to show emotion. There are a few times where we get a glimpse inside – during a fever-induced delirium he hallucinates the dead soldiers of his navy and is struck at the guilt of not being there in battle with them (not his fault, he was being tortured at the time) – but beyond that he’s a hard, harsh man, much like the ships he commands, and it makes it hard to believe he’d be able to rally his men or command a navy.  

The naval battle itself, which takes up the entire latter half of the film, is pretty impressive, with a surprising amount of variety. Changing tides, violent winds, enemy riflemen, hailing arrows, cannon fire, rocky shallows, boarding pirates and more complicate the naval battle, with every few minutes being punctuated by an explosion of cannon shot, gunpowder and bits of ship as various soldiers are thrown about violently. CGI is used to good effect (they could hardly get together some hundred plus real ships to smash into each other), and coupled with the costume and set design make the whole thing look pretty great. Actually the film on the whole looks great overall, with an authentic feel. It captures the feel I’d assume naval warfare would have, with rocky boasts, sea foam frothing up from ships smashing into each other and the oddly claustrophobic nature battle on the high seas would have. Since it’s a single battle as well, you definitely get the feel of exhaustion that comes from the constant fighting, as Sun-Sin’s signature ship gets progressively more damaged, and his men more bloodied and broken.

Since the battle takes up half the film, they pace it out pretty well, and have a few moments for breathers. They also at least give some form of explanation as to why the Japanese navy doesn’t just send all three hundred ships at once and trounce the Koreans (the battle is fought in a somewhat narrow stretch of land with swells that the smaller Japanese ships would struggle against). Actually adhering to history makes the seemingly outlandish story have more weight and truth to it. The Korean warships were larger and sturdier than their Japanese opponents and were better suited for cannon warfare forcing the Japanese to try and close distance and board them, but the odds still weren’t in their favour at all. The final battle also gets spaced out a little due to many of the side characters side plots being brought to the forefront. These things take the attention away from Sun-Sin, but at least spice up the battle without making it feel padded out. The battle does make it seem like Sun-Sin fought almost the entire battle with his one ship, and that pure chance, coincidence and a bit of luck came into play, but that might have been the case anyway.

The film actually reminded me a bit of John Woo’s ‘Red Cliff’, another historical drama based on real events, but dramatized to hell and back with a lot more romance, light humour and kung-fu swordplay. That film was much lighter and more fictionalised than The Admiral, but had a better handle on dealing with its multiple characters, giving them each enough attention and personality to make them feel real. The Admiral doesn’t manage that, and even with its focus on Sun-Sin it never really manages the personal feel it seemed to be going for. On the other hand it at least focused better on offering a more realistic, somewhat more historically accurate version of its real-life event than Red Cliff. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, and based on those merits I think I preferred Red Cliff to The Admiral, though they offer different experiences and The Admiral is definitely worth watching.

Mojin: The Lost Legend

In ancient China, during the feudal battle between three kingdoms that fractured the nation (as outlined and romanticised in various books, movies and videogames), an emperor tasked treasure hunters with raiding the tombs of past emperors and royalty for gold and treasures to fund his armies. These treasure hunters were known as the Mojin Xiaowei, trained down generations in uncovering tombs, navigating crypts, avoiding traps and gathering all sorts of riches. But beyond their raiding, the Mojin were also taught to respect those places, and to place a single candle at the southeast end of every tomb. If the candle was to go out, the spirits were displeased and the Mojin had to leave the tomb, and any treasure, immediately. Or so says Mojin: The Lost Legend, a Chinese adventure film that seems to try and tick every single box on a checklist of generic tomb-raiding genre films. It’s astoundingly by-the-numbers, with an exceptionally basic story drowning in cliches and paper thin  stock characters, but for what it is it’s a fun, diverting little romp with some cool set pieces and special effects, even if it lacks originality and a satisfying narrative. Provided you just want to shut your brain off and watch tomb raiding nonsense, Mojin is fine.

Hu and Wang are lifelong best friends and Mojin Xiaowei, or Treasure Hunters, carrying the tools and knowledge of tomb raiders passed down through generations from feudal times. But after some failed expeditions they’ve given that life up and have illegally immigrated to 1980s America where they scrape out a meagre living selling junk on the street and evading immigration police. While the two wash-ups get drunk and lament their lives, their former partner, and Hu’s former flame, Shirley (Shu Qi) attempts to get them to sort their lives out, return to tomb raiding and go legitimate, something Wang is eager to do but Hu is opposed to.

Tired of Hu’s negativity, Wang gets hired by members of a powerful, affluent cult to head back to China and hunt down an ancient artefact known as the Equinox Flower. The treasure has an important link to an integral event in both Hu and Wang’s youths, some twenty years back in rural China in the sixties when they were travelling with enthusiastic communist Red Guard students. Determined to amend for a past mistake that haunts the both of them, Wang heads to find the tomb and the treasure for closure, forcing a reluctant Hu and Shirley to follow. Together the trio will face the tomb’s deadly traps, the nefarious plans of the cult and their own pasts.

 

Speaking of pasts, a big theme in the film, and the major bulk of the character development, is about letting go of the past. It’s here that the film weirdly gets stuck. The past is discussed at length, returned to (through a lengthy flashback) or focused on, with ‘the past’ being central to almost every character’s motivations and personality. It also largely dictates the film’s structure. The first half of the film mostly just introduces Hu, Wang and Shirley, with a bulky section being made up of that lengthy flashback to Hu and Wang’s near-fatal ordeal within an abandoned, cursed Japanese military base. It’s fun, spooky stuff, but having so much focus on the past (and that event in particular) makes the rest of the movie feel thin, so the stuff in the present lacks a sense of urgency or importance. When it comes right down to the actual real-day plot events, Hu and Wang are hired to investigate a tomb and then immediately go there and do so. The links to the past also make any and every twist or revelation blindingly obvious. It’s almost ironic that a movie about letting go of the past is completely unable to let go of the past.

We have some fun cliche characters, though they’re all tried-and-true stock characters and horrifically thin. Hu is our roguish hero, the sort of expert treasure hunter with confidence and swagger that these movies get, only this version is largely washed up (at least initially). He’s got the smirking confidence, charm and skills to back it up, and works well off of the other characters. He’s sort of likeable, made more so because of the pretty great comedic chemistry he has with his co-stars. Wang is largely the comic relief, the more enthusiastic but less skilled treasure hunter (he’s a bit obnoxious). He weirdly becomes a bit of a driving force for the film. Shirley, played by Shu Qi, brings some good comedic timing and chemistry as Hu’s partner/sometime lover, giving her character a sort of kickass girl personality. Offering more comedic relief is Grill, the hapless ‘representative/agent’ who eagerly tries to sell Hu and Wang’s talents and finds himself constantly being injured as he’s forced to follow them in the tomb.

Hu and Wang share a fixation on Ding, the Red Guard girl they both had a crush on in the sixties and the reason for their issues – letting go of the past means letting go of Ding. There’s a problem with this – Ding isn’t interesting or likeable and you can’t understand why they’d be so thoroughly entranced with her to the point where twenty years later they’d still be thinking of her. She’s naïve, she comes across as ignorant, and besides a pretty face and a love of flowers she’s astoundingly not interesting. She’s played by actress/model Angelababy, who has given somewhat similar roles in the past a lot more pep and humour, but Ding is underwritten and bland, which sadly fits for a character written more as a plot device than an actual person. She’s just a bit weird and a little creepy, especially since she’s basically a hard core communist. Actually the whole ‘travelling with communists/maybe being communists’ past angle is really strange.

If there needed to be more characterisation for anybody, it’d be the villains, who are paper thin and basic. They’re a mysterious cult determined to find a powerful artefact, which is exactly the same antagonists in just about every treasure-hunting movie ever. There offer no surprises, and even their leader’s twist at the end can be seen coming from a mile away. Apart from the creepy leader, a cult-leader sort with mismatched eyes who has total control over her blindly loyal followers, there’s also a shifty businessman and a dual-hatchet wielding badass girl whose evil organisation’s outfit seems modelled on schoolgirl clothes. They fit their part, but aren’t exactly memorable. They’re also idiots, either blindly walking into or triggering every single trap.

Speaking of idiots, the Red Guard communist students in the flashback are almost wilfully stupid, blindly following their communist ideology to their deaths. The moment they come across some ominously creepy statues in an obviously sacred place they decide to stop their journey in the middle of the night to knock them over. This backfires spectacularly (blood-thirsty mosquitoes are pretty horrifying), forcing them into the abandoned military base, where they find more creepy statues and the entire dumbass dance starts again, this time with mummified Japanese WW2 soldier zombies. It’s actually pretty awesome, especially seeing those idiots get comeuppance at the hands/spears/swords/rifles of the shuffling, dried out undead.

Movies about ancient treasures and tombs are always poised to deliver some great fun with deadly traps, creepy ruins, glorious treasures and ancient thrills. Mojin delivers on all this. We get swarms of blood-drinking mosquitos, several different types of zombies (seriously, there’re a few of them), unnatural green flames and collapsing tombs. While not especially original, it’s all done exceptionally well and make for a very fun time. The mystery behind the tomb ends up being pretty simple, but the journey there is a fun one. Also adding to the fun is the weird way the Mojin Xiaowei navigate them, using a mystical compass and either Feng Shui or the Chinese zodiac (I’m not entirely sure). It’s novel and strange, though it doesn’t get much of an explanation.

If this all sounds fun as mindless adventure film fodder, then that’s because it mostly is – the movie manages to coast on the inherent enjoyment of tomb-raiding treasure-hunting stories. It’s fun enough without managing to transcend or improve on the sort of films it apes. It is a bit too long towards the end where it drags out a bit, especially because it starts to repeat itself. Hu and Wang argue about the past constantly, even being to sole focus of two consecutive scenes of them having the same argument. The romance between Hu and Shirley and whether they’ll get together is a redundant concern, same with the ‘are these cult people secretly evil?’ thing, since the answer to both is a blaringly obvious yes. And Ding! We can’t ever seem to get away from her, always popping up in flashbacks and hallucinations. In an interesting sort of twist on the usual formulae though, the main hero isn’t the one with the drive and personal stakes; instead it’s the comic relief character, Wang, who finds himself compelled to finish the job and uncover the tomb. Of course the hero, Hu, does eventually eclipse this, taking Wang’s guilt and drive and sort of stealing it for the finale, but for a while it was interesting to see the comic relief sidekick as the actual emotional core, even if only for a moment.

Mojin: The Lost Legend is fun enough. While its faults are mostly directed to the thin, basic, stock nature of its story and characters, the rest of it is pretty earnest, with some cool special effects and set/costume design. The effort is there, but not spread evenly across every aspect.

Glory to the Filmmaker!

Takeshi Kitano, known by his stage name Beat Takeshi, is probably best known in the West for the various Yakuza movies he’s directed and starred in. The veteran Japanese actor has directed and starred in films like Violent Cop, Boiling Point, Brother and Outrage, owned the antagonist role in Battle Royale and even directed, wrote and starred in Zatoichi, a reboot of the old film series. The man has presence on and off the screen, his films characterised by ultra-violence, the mechanics of the Yakuza underworld, themes of nihilism and meaninglessness, and bouts of black humour, while his characters tend to be pensive, deadpan killers with strict codes of loyalty. In his home country though, Kitano is better known as a comedian and television personality, which is how he started his career. That might explain what exactly ‘Glory to the Filmmaker!’ is, a meta, bizarre cinematic diversion and return to his comedic roots, while also encompassing his career as a director, his image, the filmmaking world and what I guess he thinks is funny. It’s an absolutely insane film, one that feels like an excuse or outlet for Kitano to let out all the jokes and comedy bits he’s wanted to make.

The plot starts out meta before going completely off the rails. Famous Japanese director Takeshi Kitano decides to stop making ultra-violent gangster movies, pledging to expand his repertoire by moving away from bloody violence and branching out into other genres. The problem is he has no idea what sort of film he should make, being entirely clueless as to what audiences want to see. He tries his hand at almost every genre, from dialogue-driven drama, romance, tear-jerkers, horror films, ninja action movies and dramatic period pieces, and every single attempt ends in some sort of massive failure, be it boring scripts, nonsensical plots and characters or Kitano somehow accidentally reverting back to making movies about gangsters.

He eventually settles on making a big budget sci-fi disaster film, but upon realising that the disaster itself (the cliché of a meteorite heading straight for earth) isn’t enough to carry the film he starts to write in a group of ‘interesting’ characters, from a money-grubbing mother/daughter duo, a mad scientist and a peculiar man who can suddenly change into a metal dummy at will (played by Kitano). Things then get completely out of hand as the movie fills up with weird and wacky nonsense characters in bizarre, nonsense situations, the film devolving into nonsense sketch-like antics.

 

Glory is a film of two disparate parts, both of which offer substantially different kinds of humour. The first half is focused on the humour of film and genres, poking fun at the tropes and cinematic conventions that show up in movies. The second half is where things go off the rails completely, with a wackier, sillier, completely absurdist sense of humour. Unlike most other comedies, there isn’t any real plot. Kitano wanting to make a movie, but being unable to find success is the running drive through the first half’s collection of mini-films, but the second half has no such purpose, other than to just go for broke. You won’t understand why Kitano has teamed up with a mad scientist and is piloting a robot suit, but you probably don’t need to. As a result, the movie has an odd pace, and the complete lack of an actual narrative means it’s mostly just a series of ridiculous jokes until a big, ridiculous finale. It wasn’t an issue for me, but if you aren’t on board with the film’s type of humour then the movie might feel aimless.

 In the first half the humour largely comes from the various riffs and piss-takes (often earnest and completely straight) of various genre movies, from the interminably slow and dull talkie drama (mostly involving ordinary people sitting at a table and drinking while making mundane conversation), to the nonsense clichéd tropes of a ninja action movie. Some of it is absolutely sublime – his Japanese horror movie (involving a head-collecting killer wearing a traditional Japanese theatre mask) gets absurdly on-point when a shrieking girl in a bikini randomly appears from nowhere for no reason whatsoever. It’s also insanely funny seeing Takeshi Kitano himself in all these roles he’s painfully miscast in. His slouched posture and stoic stillness make every one of the romance films he attempts to make seem even more ridiculous. The weirdness and humour also comes in how earnest some of these ‘films’ are. The longest one by far is also (mostly) played completely straight, a grim ‘honest’, surprisingly/seemingly earnest drama set in a small town in the 50s that involves youngsters growing up amidst poverty and domestic abuse that takes a few sudden, somewhat unrealistic ‘dramatic’ leaps until the narrator puts a stop to it.

The second half is instantly far looser and more sketch-like in design as the characters and situations get wackier, the jokes get sillier and nonsense rules supreme. We get pratfalls, dumb puns, purposefully bad jokes, abundant slapstick and overwhelming absurdity. It’s hard to even describe some of the randomness that goes on. The already near-non-existent plot is quickly forgotten as we go about random little bizarre comedy bits following the strange characters. It ditches the movie-making premise the film started with entirely, with the narrator disappearing completely as actual characters appear (no matter how silly or ridiculous).  The initial disaster film plot is immediately discarded to follow its selection of weirdos. A lot of it is really just a series of sketches or comedy bits. For example, the mother/daughter duo attempt to skimp out on paying for a meal at a restaurant by placing a fake cockroach into their meal. Before they can complain a massive group of scary-looking gangsters try to pull the same stunt. When the two chefs come out they’re revealed to be absolutely massive wrestlers who absolutely pummel the crap out of the gangsters, destroying much of the restaurant in the process. Its bonkers crazy, has nothing to do with anything and signals the film’s shift in priorities as the two chefs perform wrestling moves (all sorts of faux-punches, tag-team swings and throws) in a part that feels ripped right from a comedy variety half-hour show. Which, as it turns out, might have been the entire point – Kitano was primarily a comedian before he became known as a maker of gangster/Yakuza flicks. This film seems largely made out of his desire to harken back to his comedy antics and goofy sense of humour.

Kitano and his dummy double get used in some funny moments, where his ability to switch at any moment being treated as a superpower. Even better are the scene where his steel double is meant to be doing something amazing or acrobatic, such as flipping through the air, and you can clearly see the film crew clad in black just rotating the dummy by hand. Kitano himself brings a surprisingly goofy humour to the film, breaking from his usual stoic demeanour to crack a little smile or engage in some nonsense pantomime or slapstick routine. It’s a lot of really silly, more often completely insane broad humour. That’s not to say there isn’t cleverness underneath it all with some subtle, understated visual humour jokes – for example, the mother/daughter duo’s clothes slowly switch over as the film continues until they’ve completely swapped outfits by the end. The cast do a really great job all things considered, playing their roles really well. In the first half everybody plays things perfectly straight which makes the various different genre films even funnier, while in the second half it’s nonsense ahoy, but the comedic timing and on-point absurdity is spot on.

 

Whether you’ll like Glory to the Filmmaker! or not is completely dependent on your sense of humour. It reaches pretty broadly, with an insane variety of nonsense on offer from wordplay, puns, slapstick, visual humour and more thoughtful references (there’re more than a few nods to some of Kitano’s other films). The differing styles of humour in the first and second halves make it a very real possibility that you might love one half and hate the other, and the switch from a more understated comedy to full-on silliness can be jarring since it happens so suddenly and thoroughly. But as a comedic distraction Glory to the Filmmaker is a lot of fun. It’s aimless, ultimately meaningless (whether or not the movie gets made or even exists at all is beside the point), but the experience is a fun one. It might even be a little autobiographical – most of Kitano’s filmography consists of Yakuza movies, so this is a noticeable departure, and the early premise of him trying to move away from gangster films, him struggling and failing and the sheer insanity that occurs when he really lets loose and does whatever might be true to life.

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.