Thunder Cops(1989) Chinese New Year 2014

This is supposedly a sequel to a film called Operation Pink Squad with which it has almost no real connection. It also has a sequel called Thunder Cops 2 which it also has almost no connection (it features a top billed Stephen Chow who only shows up toward the end for a couple of minutes). The reason I'm telling you this is because if you read on this film almost every review will mention the connections and state how the film seems completely unconnected to them. I also mention it because you should know that you don't need to know about any other film to enjoy this.

The easiest explanation of the plot has a newly married couple not getting it on in the bedroom. He is too timid, having been warned off letting his wife he's inexperienced lest she laugh at him.  He is however very jealous and when her job as a police officer has her take part in a sting operation as an escort he follows along to try and catch her in some infidelity. Complications naturally arise first in that he misinterprets everything he over hears and secondly the building the sting is to take place in is haunted. Meanwhile a Buddhist monk has been brought in to catch the ghosts. Unfortunately one of the ghosts escapes before she can be locked away.

Broad humor mixes with supernatural chills in a film that is light on plot but big on wild and over the top action set pieces. The humor is a matter of taste and frequently falls flat. On the other hand the action set pieces are really good with the toy helicopter chase alone being worth the price of the DVD. The sequence involving toy helicopters chasing the flying head of the ghost is a wonder. The zombie attack that follows it isn't bad either-though how it's resolved has to be a zombie film first-elves.

Its a wild and wacky film that is, once it gets going, an absolute blast and a half. Track it down.

Leaving Gracefully (2011) Chinese New Year 2014

The joy of running Unseen Films is I have an excuse to look for off the beaten track for films. Thanks to this website I can spend extra time going through the various racks in the DVD stores. This means that I can pick up more films that look promising but normally I might not touch. My finding Leaving Gracefully was the result of  going off the board, I found it in a store in Chinatown in NYC. It has a box (see above) all in Chinese and except for one word of English- English under subtitles and an interesting picture that made me want to know more.

God I love happy accidents.

Based on a true story, this is the story of a couple, Hsiu-mei and Chih-hui, in Taiwan who are shaken when she is diagnosed with a rare brain disease called Spinocerebellar Ataxia. The disease will slowly destroy all her motor control. Initially everyone, including their daughter, have a kind of denial about the situation, but as things worsen they begin to come to terms with it. Eventually Chih-hui decides that he's going to take the time left with his wife and walk with her (in a specially modified wheelchair) all around Taiwan. As time passes the family finds hope and each other once again.

While far from a perfect film, Leaving Gracefully beautifully manipulates your heart strings. I found it very hard not to get misty while watching the film. There is something about the ability of the human spirit to find joy that is beautifully illustrated in this film. Yea there is sadness but at the same time Hsiu-mei's joy at seeing temples, or the ocean is magical.

Credit the cast lead by Rene Hou as Hsiu-mei. She manages to get all of the physical and emotional changes just right. Even more importantly she makes it clear that there is a person inside the twisting body. There is something about the joy she shows when dealing with her daughter, listening to her play the piano, singing her happy birthday or simply comforting her, that brought me to tears.

I really liked this movie a great deal. And while it may not end up on the best of the year list next December, I'm guessing that this film is going to end up one I talk about all year long. Track this one down.

Back to 1942 (2013) Chinese New Year 2014

This huge epic film is the sort of film that only the Chinese film industry is doing any more. Certainly American and European film companies are turning out epics but they are doing it with a hell of a lot more computer generated imagery. This is the sort of epic film that in America would be considered Oscar bait (the film was China's submission for last years Oscar) or at least an attempt to gain critical acceptence.

Based on Liu Zhenyun's novel Remembering 1942 the film tells the story of  the horrific famine that rocked parts of China in 1942 and Henan in particular. The film follows rich landlord  Fan as his life falls apart. His home is destroyed by bandits as he is feeding the poor. He is then forced on to the road to try and find food with his family and just to survive, its a trip that slowly dwindles their numbers. Meanwhile the government  does nothing to help the refugees, too focused on their own skins and fighting the war they pay no attention to the suffering in their midst, a fact the horrifies the Westerners that come in contact with the story.

You are wondering why I'm including this film in a Chinese New Year grouping of films when this is not the sort of upbeat film one would put into a Chinese New Year celebration. There are two reasons to do so, first the film begins on New Year.  Secondly the film is a wonderful celebration of the Chinese film industry and it's ability to turn out fantastic looking films that put most similar Hollywood films to shame.  This film is a technical marvel and to beautiful to look at even in all it's devastation. I really wish I had seen this on the big screen.

As high as I am on the look and technical aspects of the film, I'm mixed on the story. While understandably not a happy film, it is ultimately a bit too preachy for my tastes. This is a film that very much wants you to know all that is wrong with what happened and it underlines it with the inclusion of several big name actors including Adrian Brody, to play historical personages to act as a kind of Greek chorus to let us know how forgotten the people were. Its not a bad film it's just that it has a chip on it's shoulder.

That said I like the film. Its a sad tragic story that need to be told. The film has a real power despite it's hitting its audience over the head.  By the end you will be broken up. Mostly though I recommend it to anyone who want to see a huge epic of the sort that they rarely do any more.

A few words on Young Detective Dee and the Rise of the Sea Dragon (2013) Chinese New Year 2014

I regret not seeing this when it played in theaters in the middle of 2013. This is a film designed to be seen big and in 3D and not seeing it that way kind of lessens things.

The plot of the film is set before Detective Dee and The Mystery of the Phantom Flame and follows Dee as he comes to become part of the royal court and investigates matters concerning a sea dragon that sank an entire fleet in  the opening set piece.

You'll forgive me for not going into greater detail of the plot but to be perfectly honest I didn't catch everything. I got lost in the images and the motion, plus some of the subtitles came and went rather fast so I let details slide. Yea it's one of those movies that you need to see a couple of times so that you can get past the OH WOW factor and get back to the plot. I will say that the film does tie in nicely with the first film setting up when and how Dee met several characters from the first film and Mark Chao makes a good younger version of Andy Lau.

While the film is a bit too heavy on CGI and some of the earlier sequences with it are okay, the film for the most part is truly spectacular. The locations, the monsters, everything is just epic. The action sequences are wonderful and the sort of thing you'll want to play over when this hits DVD (in about 2 weeks)

I really liked this film a great deal and I'm planning on squeezing in another viewing sooner rather than later...

Journey to the West: Conquering Demons (2013) Chinese New Year 2014

I was about a half an hour into the Journey To The West when I realized that what I thought was going to be a slam dunk Chinese New Year film wasn’t going to get a mention. The reason I thought it was a slam dunk was it was a Stephen Chow comedy based on one of the great works of literature and released during last year’s New Year period, so it was going to be perfect right? Wrong. It’s a wildly uneven film that kind of is the start of something but doesn’t really work.

I finished the film, tweeted a my disappointment and then moved on.

Or so I thought. Instead I got a tweet or two and an email or two saying I was crazy for not liking the film. Forced to pause and reconsider my position, I sat and thought and decided I really didn’t care for the film in total, but since people were actually taking the time to defend it I should take the time to write it up.

The film is a precursor to the main travels of Journey to the West. As the film open a water demon is terrorizing a village. When a Taoist monk kills a giant ray the town is thrilled, but Buddhist monk Tang Sanzang says they have the wrong culprit. The town doesn’t want to hear of it and beats him. However the demon instantly starts attacking the village once more and it’s up to Tang Sanzang to save the town. He does so with the help of Duan, an female demon hunter. From there the film moves follows as the monk and Duan try to stop a pig demon who is devouring passes by at a remote restaurant, and the fight eventually results in the release of the trapped Monkey King.

A very strange mix of low comedy and graphic bloody cartoony violence that pushes the film into horror film territory this is a very odd duck film. The film is largely a series of set piece battles linked together by a few exposition sequences. It’s a film of constantly shifting gears that made me wonder what was Stephen Chow going for.

Okay a moment of full disclosure I’m mixed when it comes to Stephen Chow’s films. When his films come together as in Kung Fu Hustle or Shaolin Soccer it’s magical. However when things don’t work the humor falls flat and the violence and situations seem nasty and ugly in the kids film which I would never show to a kid CJ7.

For me here the mix is wildly off. The comedy is frequently over the top and misses the mark. I don’t think I ever laughed at any point. I did smile but I never laughed. This is Benny Hill low brow humor at its broadest.

The action sequences are full of bone crushing violence that leaves body parts flying and fountains of blood flowing. Few horror films, even things like the Saw series, have as much blood in them. People die. Children die. While I have no problem with the violence or the blood or the death it’s so extreme that it works against the comedy. It’s hard to laugh at a film when two seconds after you’re laughing the characters are ripped apart.

To be honest I do like the demons are demonic. I mean they really would give Freddy Kruger a run for his money. While I’m not a scholar of the Monkey King and while I’ve not run across such and angry violent non jokey monkey king. When he battles Tang Sanzang he is a monster.

While I don’t have a problem of the Monkey King being monstrous , I think you would be too after being locked away for 500 years, I find the stark realism of the Monkey King being really a monkey being a bit jarring. The stories are not reality, they never were real world stories and having them suddenly operating in the real world with the spewing blood and flying flesh is kind of wtf. No that isn’t the problem, the problem for me is the realism crashing into the cartoon. I could have taken one tone not both, or I could have taken both if the blending was really blending and not seeming to be off/on shifts.

The problem with tone affects the end of the film as well. When Monkey is subdued by Buddha the calmness and all of that comes out of left field. Where did it come from?

While I understand it’s a marketing choice I’m ultimately kind of at a loss to know why the film is being considered a monkey king film. Yes he’s in the film, but he doesn’t show up until about 70 minutes into the action. Instead this is Tang Sanzang's story. The film is the start of the story and when the film ends it seems more to be amping up for further adventures.

Is it a good film?

In fits and starts. The film has moments that taken on their own terms are quite good. The action sequences, most of which run for 10 or 20 minutes at a clip would probably play better in a different frame work or better connected to each other. Being a tad generous its good not great. I don’t know how this would have played had I not known the story. I may have liked it better.

The film is being released by Magnet on iTunes,VOD and into theaters March 7

Tales From the Dark 2 (2013) Chinese New Year 2014

You'll forgive me for placing this film with in the confines of a happy Chinese New Year celebration but I've been looking for a place to this sequel to Tales From the Dark (which I reviewed back in July when it World Premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival) for some time.  Actually the term sequel is wrong the wrong term since this film was conceived as a second part to that film and was released on a few weeks after the first.  Like the first film this is a trio of short films based upon the work of Lilian Lee. None of the films are related to any of the others (though I'm pretty sure some actors criss cross the films but in different roles)

The first film in this collection is Gordon Chen's  Pillow. It begins when a couple has a fight when the woman can't stand that her boyfriend is still connected to an ex-girlfriend. Separated from her lover the woman begins suffering from insomnia.  Told by her boss to change her pillow she buys a new one. The pillow brings on dreams of an intense sexual nature with her missing lover.

The second film is Laurence Lau's Hide and Seek, about a bunch of teens who decide to spend the night in their old school. While there they play a variation on the game of Hide and Seek called Master and Ghost that involves some people being human and others being ghosts. The trouble is some of the ghosts that haunt the school decide to make an appearance.

The final film is Teddy Robin's Black Umbrella. This film was actually scripted by Lilian Lee herself. The film follows Robin's mysterious man with an umbrella who runs across a prostitute during the Festival of the Dead.

This is a  lesser collection of  horror tales that still has moments of chills. The problem seems to be that these stories had to be told in a set amount of time and were trimmed (or at least thats how it feels).The film runs a sparse 90 minutes where the first film ran 114 minutes.

The best of the trio is probably The Pillow.  I say that more because that's the only one of the three films that doesn't really feel rushed or shortened. This isn't to say that the second and third films are bad, they aren't, its simply to say that they feel terribly rushed. The films have a certain pace that gets suddenly sped up in the closing minutes. Its as if they had to remain under 90 minutes and come hell or high water they were going to get there so they rushed things.

What the films have in spades is creepiness. There are shots of ghosts and possible ghosts in the second and third films that really set a mood. There is so much effort in these small moments that one really wishes that the films didn't feel like they were jumping to the end. To be perfectly honest both Hide and Seek and Black Umbrella are scarier and more freaky than The Pillow, especially in some of the ghost imagery and blood letting, they just kind of stumble at the end. (What would those films have been if allowed to flow organically?)

Is the film worth seeing. Yes definitely. When the films work, they are great. But when you see this film you have to be willing to go with the moments and not the whole. The moments really are special even if the whole isn't up to those levels. If you like horror the films are worth seeing. Personally if I was watching the two Tales From the Dark films together I would  watch this one first so you can end on the high note of the first collections.

Design of Death (2012) Chinese New Year 2014

A kind of spiritual cousin to director Guan Hu's earlier Cow is set in another village in the 1940's, though this time in the Southern Part of China. Nominally a comedy the film has a very dark, and at some points almost too dark to be funny, tone .

The plot of the film has Simon Yam almost running over a sack in the road. Stopping to see what is in it he opens it to find Huang Bo tied up inside it. He had been placed there by some villagers and then beaten before being thrown off a cliff. Bo threatens to kill Yam but decides to let him live, he then wanders off down the mountain. Months later Yam is dispatched to a village of long lived people where someone is supposed to have died. On his way to the town he finds Huang Bo laying dead in the mountains. Taking the body into the village Yam begins to investigate what happened to Bo and why. Was it plague as the villagers say or was it something else?

Huang Bo is amazing playing a huge mountain of a man who is constantly pulling pranks and annoying the piss out of the villagers. You know why they want him dead. You also manage, over the course of the film not to hate him quite as much as we do early on, there is something about the man that we warm to. He is in a way a kind of Frankenstein monster of misunderstandings.  He's so good that by the time the film ends he will have gone from some you hate to someone who has broken your heart.

Simon Yam is amazing. While an important character to the story, the film unravels through his eyes he isn't on screen all that much, and yet when he appears he holds your attention and allows you to see events unfolding and changing like the opening of a flower. What I like is that he manages to play all the emotions, from broad comedy, to deadly seriousness with an ease that makes it all believable. (Yam is one of the best actors working today anywhere in the world)

This is a super little film. How has this not gotten any real notice? I suspect that the weird tonal shifts from comedy to drama to mystery to tragedy has something to do with it. How do you describe the film when it is constantly shifting before you? To say it's one thing is to sell it short and annoy anyone expecting that one thing. My best advice is find a copy and just watch the film since all you really need know is its really good film that's not like any other one you're likely to see.

Cow (2009) Chinese New Year 2014

Guan Hu's tale of a man and a cow played the New York Asian Film Festival a couple years back and I missed it. I had heard good things about it and I put it on the short list of films to keep an eye out for.Recently I stumbled across a copy and I picked it up.

Set during the Japanese invasion of China the film stars Huang Bo as Niu'er, a not too bright peasant. His village has received a Dutch cow to provide milk for the wounded. When the Japanese bomb the village Niu'er flees only to return to village empty except for the dead...and the cow. He then has to fight off the Japanese and survivors wanting to make a meal of the cow.

A darkly funny tale this is one of those films that makes you laugh, and makes you think as we see the insanity of war and of human behavior. As much as we laugh at some of the silliness, we are also made aware of the cost of war as the disjointed nature of the narrative allows us to see the ultimate fate of many people we get to know and like.  Its a film  with moments where laughter catches in your throat.

Huang Bo is brilliant as our hero. Its clear he will protect the cow at all costs in order to return the cow to the army. The role requires him to walk a very fine line between dramatic performance and slapstick and he does so brilliantly, managing never to tumble over the line too far into one thing or the other. Watching him I was deeply moved. I can completely understand why the Subway Cinema guys like him so much.

Definitely one to search out. Its the sort of film that will make you wonder why more people don't know about the film.