Tag: 2016

Innocent15 (イノセント15, Hirokazu Kai, 2016)

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innocent-15Innocence is a fairly nebulous concept and one often misused but if you were expecting an “innocent” tale of youthful romance, Hirokazu Kai’s Innocent15 (イノセント15) is out to wrong foot you from the get go. Kai does not shy away from the darker sides of human nature in examining abusive parenting and forced prostitution as well as the damage done when a secret is broken after long years of being unable to be honest about who you really are. This is a bleak tale, but one with with hope shining round the edges, even if uncertainly.

Narumi (Sara Ogawa) and Gin (Riku Hagiwara) are ordinary middle school students living in small town not far from the capital. When Narumi plucks up the courage to confess her love to her friend, she receives the kindest of brush offs but Gin is left confused. His two drop out friends who spend their days skateboarding around the neighbourhood can’t understand his decision to turn down such a pretty girl though they remember that he’s done the same thing before. Gin himself doesn’t quite know why, but even if he feels sorry for not returning Narumi’s feelings, he is unable to accept them.

Though Narumi may seem like the perfect high school girl – quiet, studious, and refined, if a little sad, her home life is anything but ordinary. Saddled with an aggressive woman child for a mother who demands Narumi abandon her homework to cook her dinner while she plays on her gameboy, Narumi keeps her head down and makes the best of things. After putting up with her mother’s regular beatings, she finally decides to leave when she learns that her mother has sold her virginity to her boyfriend for 100,000 yen.

Meanwhile, Gin’s life is turned upside-down when he learns his father is in love with another man. Already in a state of confusion about his own adolescent feelings, Gin is unable to comprehend this sudden bombshell and lashes out at all around him. Therefore when Narumi arrives and tells him she’s leaving for Tokyo to look for her father he immediately says he’ll come with her. However, their youthful ideas of going it alone in the big city are quickly dashed.

Gin’s problems are of a more immediate kind but Narumi has endured long term suffering at the hands of her abusive mother. When she belittles Narumi’s studying and remarks that she’s no need to go to high school because the world always needs more hookers, it seems like an instance of cruel sarcasm but it turns out she really is intent on prostituting her own daughter to her no good boyfriend.

When her mother’s boyfriend viciously attacks Gin, Narumi is left with nowhere else to go. The tragedy is that intense social pressures and her already existing isolation make it impossible for Narumi to confide in someone about the abuse she’s suffering at home. Being only 15, even if she were to simply walk out of her mother’s house she would have no way to support herself, leaving her with little choice between possible starvation on the streets and allowing her mother to sell her to her cruel and violent boyfriend.

Narumi’s “innocent” love for Gin becomes her last lifeline and his rejection a crushing end to her dreams of being saved. By contrast, Gin’s problems are much easier to solve. His resentment towards his father is more likely driven by the shock of the revelation rather than directly because he has fallen in love with another man. Gin may have temporarily rejected his father, but his father has not rejected him. Guilt and embarrassment over his actions aside, Gin is always welcome to return home where his father would welcome him with open arms. All of Gin’s problems are internal as he struggles with his adolescent confusion. All of Narumi’s problems are external – when Gin spots the scars and bruises on her shoulder, she tells him that she was able to put up with her mother’s cruelty because it only hurt her body and never touched her soul. Narumi’s interior is solid, but she’s trapped in a desperate situation from which there is no obvious way to escape.

Mirroring each other, Gin and Narumi try to run away from their problems but are each unable to escape. Kai opts for a series of reverses towards the film’s conclusion which offer hope only to dash it again and the final scene with only the sound of a motorbike’s flooded engine and eventual kickstart adds a note of anxious ambivalence in which there is a chance for the pair to ride away together but no further evidence that this attempt will be any more successful than the last. The general tone is one of gritty realism though Kai also admits the existence of life’s strange coincidence’s such as in the repeated appearance of a “weird lady” on a pink mobility scooter whose eccentric driving style has disastrous consequences. A necessarily bleak tale highlighting the plight of children in danger in their own homes and left with nowhere else to go coupled with a tentative, innocent teenage love story, Innocent15 is a tense, often horrifying experience filled with outrage but is careful to leave at least the possibility of a better way out, however far off it may be.

Reviewed at Raindance 2016.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Seto and Utsumi (セトウツミ, Tatsushi Omori, 2016)

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seto-and-utsumiThere are two very distinct sides to the career of Tatsushi Omori. Brother of the well known actor, Nao, Omori may be best known to certain audiences for his hard hitting, often gloomy and pessimistic dramas of human misery such as festival favourite Ravine of Goodbye or the little seen The Whispering of the Gods which proved so controversial that his only option of screening the film involved erecting a tent where he could show it himself. However, a closer look at his filmography discovers a steady strain of laid-back comedy such as the Tada’s Do It All House series in which two brothers played by Eita and Ryuhei Matsuda act as bumbling handymen-cum-detectives-cum-whatever-you-need-them-to-be. It might be less surprising therefore that his latest effort is an adaptation of Kazuya Konomoto’s comedy manga Seto and Utsumi (セトウツミ, Setoutsumi) which revels in the everyday absurdity of teenage life in Southern Japan.

Seto (Masaki Suda) and Utsumi (Sosuke Ikematsu) are ordinary high school boys heading into their final year with the exam season and the end of their youthful, carefree days looming. Utsumi is a quiet, serious sort who generally doesn’t like a lot of company. Seto, by contrast, is a real live wire and not exactly a top student. Nevertheless, they found each other by a river one day and have been more or less inseparable ever since. Every day after school they meet and hang out in the same spot over looking the water where they shoot the breeze about various ordinary things from a non-argument over a girl to venus fly traps, Buddhist terminology, and ghosts.

Like many teenagers, Seto and Utsumi kill time doing nothing in particular and their conversations are generally inconsequential. Yet for all of their inherent randomness and absurdity, there’s a layer of poignancy underpinning each of them as the boys let slip various aspects of their private, interior lives. Seto’s big life drama involves the possible separation of his parents following the illness of the family cat which everyone in the family decided to indulge seeing as the poor thing didn’t have long left, but against expectation it’s two years later, the cat is still alive and Seto’s father is growing ever more resentful at spending so much money on luxury cat food. Seto’s family are a rowdy bunch, just as prone to drama as he is yet for all their complaining they seem fairly close – close enough for Seto to complain about the constant random text updates from his mother (a trait which Seto seems to have inherited himself).

Utsumi, by contrast, is much more aloof and keeps himself to himself. When Seto complains after his mother spots the boys at the river with bags full of shopping in her hands he remarks sadly that he rarely eats at home, implying it must be nice to have someone cook you a meal everyday. His approach to life is cerebral, calculating odds and planning angles, as he reveals to Seto in a piece of possibly not very helpful dating advice. Utsumi’s unseen parents are, presumably, just as aloof as he is, austere and religious. Nevertheless, in Seto he’s found a true sparring partner and someone he can waste time with amiably.

Utsumi’s parents are useful for one thing, they belong to the temple in which Seto’s crush, Kashimura (Ayami Nakajo), lives. Seto has been secretly trying to brush up on Buddhist terminology to impress her, but predictably she prefers the cool indifference of Utsumi to his friend’s energetic banter. Utsumi isn’t interested in Kashimura in any case, but not even this possible subject of conflict is big enough to seriously risk damaging the two boys’ friendship. As one character remarks towards the end of the film, it really is a once in a lifetime connection.

Omori keeps things simple, mostly sticking to static shots of the boys sitting on the steps near the river but he makes the stillness add to the sense of the absurd running through the quiet backwater town. After beginning with accordion music and ride through the canals, Seto and Utsumi’s first conversation takes place in front of an unintentional audience of a perfectly motionless older man, staring vacantly out at the river. The man turns out to have a valid (if sad) reason for being where he is, but the presence of the balloon animal vending clown from Eastern Europe (called Mr. Balloon) is a little harder to explain given that other than Seto, Utsumi, the aforementioned man, a high school bully, Seto’s mum, and a senile grandpa, no one else comes anywhere near this tranquil spot for the entire film. Using occasional dissolves and superimpositions to create a fleeting, dreamlike atmosphere with a handful of cutaways and flashbacks for comedic context, Seto and Utsumi is a truly charming ode to teenage friendship in all its pleasantly ridiculous absurdity.

Reviewed at Raindance 2016.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

There are also a few bonus web episodes of Seto and Utsumi enjoying even more pointless conversations:

No. 1 – Kendama (a kind of Japanese cup and ball game) (English subtitles)

No. 2: Timing (English subtitles)

3. Standing Ovation (no subtitles but you don’t really need them)

Three (三人行, Johnnie To, 2016)

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Johnnie To is best known as a purveyor of intricately plotted gangster thrillers in which tough guys outsmart and then later outshoot each other. However, To is a veritable Jack of all trades when it comes to genre and has tackled just about everything from action packed crime stories to frothy romantic comedies and even a musical. This time he’s back in world of the medical drama as an improbable farce develops driven by the three central cogs who precede to drive this particular crazy train all the way to its final destination.

Dr. Tong (Zhao Wei), is a tough as nails neurosurgeon. Having arrived in Hong Kong from the mainland at 17, she learned Cantonese, got into medical school and has built a fine career for herself but this same drive means she’s unwilling to delegate and constant overwork is beginning to eat into her statistics. She thinks her day can’t get much worse after an angry patient rants and calls her a quack because there has been a complication with his surgery and he’s currently unable to walk but her next patient, a man with a gunshot wound to the head brought in by the police, is about to add to her already long list of workplace stressors.

Shun (Wallace Chung) is actually almost OK except for having a bullet lodged in his brain. Against all the advice, Shun refuses the offer to have it removed surgically because he’s playing a long game with the police and it’s his one bargaining chip. The police’s story is that Shun grabbed a gun and tried to escape whereupon an officer shot him. However, this turns out to be not quite true and Inspector Chen (Louis Koo) has twin worries – finding Shun’s accomplices and covering up the extreme misconduct committed by his team members.

The original Chinese title of the film, 三人行 which means three people walking, is inspired by the traditional saying that among three people you will always find someone you can learn something from. However, the tragedy of these three is that they’re incapable of learning anything from anyone else and are actually quite disinterested in other people. Tong is always thinking of her targets and can’t bear the thought of losing again if Shun dies of his injuries, but rather than learning to step back and recharge, she continues to push herself to near breaking point. Chen is series of walking contradictions – a lawbreaking policeman, so certain of his own ability to counteract crime that he’s lost all accountability. Shun’s big personality flaw is taking far too much pleasure in his playful scams. He wants to make a phone call so he refuses surgery until he can (quoting Bertrand Russell and throwing the Hippocratic oath back at Tong, already nearing the boil), never quite realising that the delay could very well signal the end of everything.

Tong, Chen, and Shun are three pillars of society – the respectability of the medical profession, the authority of law enforcement, and the inevitability of crime. Tong, the most sympathetic, propels herself into overwork but her selfish need to prove herself to herself puts patients’ lives at risk. The police force which is supposed to represent protection under the law, is shown to be corrupt and little more than criminal in itself. Chen says he can break the law to enforce the law, but what he’s really trying to do is save his own skin after going too far. Shun is simply a sociopathic genius intent on showing off his cerebral prowess to anyone who will give him the slightest bit of attention but like all criminals he’s a goal orientated, short term thinker. Each of the three is, in a sense, moving in their own universe and driven only by their own certainty of primacy.

As much as Three is a crime thriller, psychological character piece, and medical drama, what lies at the heart of it is farce. In keeping with much of his work, To’s world is an absurd one filled with eccentric fringe characters who may be more important than they otherwise appear and, as usual, the final god is luck – a paralysed man attempts suicide by throwing himself down the stairs only to suddenly find he can stand up by himself at the bottom, and Chen’s gun jams several times preventing him from taking decisive action. At one very strange juncture, Shun even tries to escape the hospital by making use of the classic boys own adventure tactic of tying a number of sheets together and using them to climb out of the window. To’s true centrepiece takes the form of a tense, exciting shootout which looks like slow motion but was apparently filmed in real time with the actors moving slowly in perfectly choreographed formation. The improbable scene of carnage, prefaced by bombs going off right, left and centre, is conducted to a the strains of a genial pop song extolling Confucianist wisdom. Beautifully balletic, the bullets hit in real time but the actors react as if stunned, allowing us to fully experience all of their fear and confusion at the centre of such a shocking event.

The man who may have the most to teach us the genial old man with a key stealing habit who erupts into a bawdy song as he’s being discharged. He may have the right idea when he suggests that everyone follow his example and learn to laugh loudly to live a happy life. To reinforces his absurd intentions with intense realism, embracing the ritualistic, “theatrical” nature of the operating room with all of its various performances set atop the heated bloody scenes of bodily gore and coldly metallic nature of the surrounding equipment. To’s gleefully graceful aesthetic is back in force for this tale of lonely wandering planets pushed out of orbit by the imposing centrifugal forces of their rivals. Strange and tinged with absurd humour, Three is To is in a playful mood but nevertheless deadly serious.

Reviewed at Raindance 2016.

Original trailer (English/Traditional Chinese subtitles)

S Storm (S風暴, David Lam, 2016)

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s-stormIt’s become almost a cliché to describe a sequel as “unnecessary”, but then assessing how any sequel or, indeed, any film might be deemed “necessary” (for what or whom?) proves more fraught than one might originally think. It might, then, be better to think of certain sequels as “unwise” – S Storm (S風暴), a followup to the similarly named Z Storm is just one such film. Z Storm’s critical reception was, shall we say, lukewarm and did not exactly inspire a burning desire to return to its world of corporate corruption vs different kinds of bickering policemen but, nevertheless, here we are.

Louis Koo returns as ICAC officer William Luk who has the misfortune to see one of his targets assassinated right in front of him. The trail leads him to Hong Kong’s famous Jockey Club and a trading scandal involving illegal behaviour in online football gambling. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time brings Luk into contact with depressed policeman Lau (Julian Cheung Chi-lam) whose sister just happens to work in the bar in which the mysterious hitman everyone is looking for is fond of taking a drink.

Refreshingly, S Storm’s plot is actually very straightforward – bets are being rigged and the people at the top of the tree are in on the plan. Some of them are willing to go try great lengths to stop anyone finding out and spoiling their fun. Cue gangster action and dastardly tricks as the anti-corruption guys try to clean things up. However, S Storm is very much a believer in the power of coincidence. Which is to say, Lau’s sister just happens to wind up fancying the hitman and Luk’s old boss just happens to be right at the centre of the action. Believability is not high on its list of priorities.

Added to the straightforward narrative spine, Lam throws in a number of subplots – the most interesting of them being with the mysterious hitman who visits a photography exhibition for some reason set up in a shopping mall which features scenes from global war zones. It seems our sad but noble hitman was some kind of child soldier (going by his flashback) though this is never fully explored and is rather crudely used to add some kind of spiritual quality to the hitman’s final journey.

Rather than mild rivals, ICAC and CID become awkward friends fairly quickly in the quest to investigate the mysterious deaths and corruption paper trail. Lau is a former gambler with a bad reputation hoping to make something out of himself by solving a high profile case. His relationship with his sister is somewhat strained as she recites the sad story of her upbringing which includes being gang raped by goons looking for a repayment on her brother’s gambling debts (as she improbably shouts out loud to the entire bar in which she works as a way of getting back at her policeman brother who’s asking too many questions). Luk and Lau eventually bond as their conflicting personalities complement each other well enough to create an unbeatable crime stopping team.

What the film lacks in intrigue it tries to make up for with action which it handles well though infrequently. A standout out scene features one of Luk’s female subordinates getting into a fight in a teahouse which is then followed by some fist fighting with the silent yet heroic hitman. Other standoffs are gun based but at least mildly interesting if not particularly original.

S Storm has some odd ideas about character arcs, shifting the most interesting elements to the fringes and thrusting the blandest to the front. plot elements are shoehorned in bluntly and without warning such as a forgotten tussle between Luk and a former associate over a woman which quickly becomes irrelevant. Luk is also given a rather odd character moment when he comes across the dying body of another major character and simply nods, as if identifying with their plight or sympathising believing that they’ve found peace now or some other such nonsense (given that he has never actually met this person and knows nothing of their backstory). The film’s rather abrupt ending in which justice is served but the bodies remain where they fell remains unsatisfying and testifies to the ultimate failure to make the scandal laden content as interesting as it strives to be.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Line Walker (使徒行者, Jazz Boon, 2016)

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When sitcoms make the transition to the big screen, they usually do so by going on holiday. Police procedurals are no different as Line Walker (使徒行者), a cinematic outing for a wildly popular Hong Kong TV series, proves by throwing its hat into the global ring with a Brazil bound drug based gang war. Taking more than a little inspiration from the classic undercover cop drama Infernal Affairs, Line Walker joins former undercover officer Ding and her handler Q as they receive a mysterious message from a missing operative identifying himself only as “Blackjack”.

Two years ago (as detailed in the TV series), a top Hong Kong detective, Hong, managed to find just enough time before being murdered to wipe all his data relating to officers currently working deep cover. Ditzy cop Ding (Charmaine Sheh) was one such asset, and together with her boyfriend who is also her boss, Q (Francis Ng), managed to round up and bring in all the other operatives save one whose file was corrupted beyond recovery. Therefore when they receive a message written in Hong’s unique code signed “Blackjack” they are cautiously optimistic.

The trail leads them to a corporatised Triad gang currently engaged in the usual Triad business of petty gang wars over drugs, territory, and power. Shiu (Louis Koo) and Lam (Nick Cheung) are best buds and underlings in the organisation with their eyes on bigger prizes. Making a trip to Brazil to broker a drugs deal the pair get themselves into various kinds of trouble which is only compounded by the “Blackjack” issue and suspicions of a possible mole in the gang.

Ding and Q are the only returning characters from the TV series which has received significant upgrades in the big screen jump with the addition of several Hong Kong superstars including Louis Koo and Nick Cheung. Though the central narrative stands alone, there is a degree of assumed familiarity with the ongoing backstory which is at times frustrating for the uninitiated but never much of a barrier. Line Walker does, however, suffer from the common pitfalls of the TV show making the jump into the cinematic world in that it can’t shake the artificial largeness of the small screen.

After beginning with a broadly comic sequence as Ding chases down Blackjack in a Macao casino whilst making time for slapstick pratfalls along the way, the tone progressively darkens until the final, gritty action based finale. Though the banter between the bickering couple Q and Ding is never less than amusing, Ding’s cutesy airhead routine feels out of place with the general tone of the rest of the film especially as she is also supposedly part of a team of elite undercover police officers.

In attempting to up the ante, Line Walker’s scriptwriters have thrown in twists and turns at every juncture as more and more diehard criminals suddenly confess that they are, in fact, undercover police officers. No one is telling the whole truth as double crosses and betrayals dominate the action with an overt Infernal Affairs homage set in the Olympic stadium. Frankly, it all borders on the ridiculous as plot twist plies on plot twist with predictable regularity though it does at least make things exciting.

Exciting is clearly the name of the game when it comes to the action set pieces which attempt to make the most of the cinematic budget. The most high profile of these are the Brazil set sequences filled with shootouts and car chases not to mention precision timed chain reactions of exploding vehicles used as bombs. The physical fights are impressively visceral but occasionally contrived. In one notable instance two men are attacked by a lone assassin armed only with a knife but almost allow themselves to be stabbed for no reason at all. When they do fight back, they do so one on one rather simply taking down the opponent by overwhelming him with their combined strength.

Caught between comedy crime caper and gritty heroic bloodshed, Line Walker can’t make either approach work leading to an abrupt and unsatisfying, if artistically pleasing, finale. Koo and Cheung do their best as the brothers in crime duo each realising that they can’t quite go through with betraying the other, moving from easy banter in the first half to angst ridden glares in the second, but they’re in a different picture from the sunny world of Ding and Q who are still stuck in the TV screen. Though the overworked plot and variable tone create serious problems, Line Walker does at least offer impressive action with a thin layer of comedy even if it fails to hit its emotional target.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Call of Heroes (危城, Benny Chan, 2016)

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call of heroesA blast from the past in more ways than one, Benny Chan’s Call of Heroes (危城, Wēi Chéng) is a western in disguise though one filtered through Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone more than John Ford. Filled with Morricone-esque musical riffs and poncho wearing reluctant heroes, Chan’s bounce back to the post-revolutionary warlord era is one pregnant with contemporary echoes yet totally unafraid to add a touch of uncinematic darkness to its wisecracking world.

1914 – three years after the collapse of Chinese feudalism and warlords rule the land, each vying for power and terrain but taking little account of the displaced people in their path. The residents of Stone City find this out the hard way when notorious general Cao Ying wades into town and conducts a widespread massacre seemingly for the fun of it. Plucky school teacher Bai Ling manages to escape with some of her pupils even whilst other teachers and children are being summarily executed by Cao’s troupes.

Having left with nothing and walked miles, Bai and the children are near starvation when they stop into a noodle house to share a single bowl. Unfortunately the noodle house is about to be robbed but fortunately one of the diners is bearded wanderer Ma Feng (Eddie Peng) who isn’t up for anyone disturbing his serious food coma. Impressed with Ma’s skills, the kids and Bai make their way to Pucheng where Bai has a cousin but Cao is still on the warpath and trouble has a way of tracking good people down.

Pucheng (the name of which literally means ordinary town), is watched over by the noble sheriff Yang Kenan (Sean Lau Ching-wan) though the protective garrison has been sent to the front leaving them with only a skeleton defence. When a mysterious visitor arrives in town and proceeds to shoot dead a man, woman, and even a child, Yang arrests him but when the killer turns out to be Cao Ying’s unhinged son, a number of questions arise. Yang is committed to justice – no matter the man’s name, he ought to pay for his crimes. Yet, Cao Shaolun’s presence is sure to attract his father’s attention and so many of the townspeople feel it might be better to let Cao Shaolun go. Placate a tyrant and undermine the idea of justice by failing to enforce the law or sign your own death warrant by standing up for your principles, it’s a frontiersman’s dilemma.

The references to classic Hollywood westerns are obvious enough, particularly when the narrative takes a turn for the High Noons as Yang finds himself standing alone as the sole resistance to the oncoming militia man threat. Though the townspeople do not exactly turn on Yang in the same way they turn on Kane, they clearly choose appeasement over war. Yang’s dedication to justice is purehearted, there’s little hint of personal vanity in his decision to stand up for the rule of law but only the knowledge that folding now is the same as bowing to Cao’s tyranny.

Though introduced as a possible protagonist, Ma Feng takes a far smaller role in the action than might be expected. Clearly channeling Mifune’s Sanjuro, Peng’s wisecracking drifter and cynical, reluctant hero is almost at odds with the serious business of law vs politics over in Pucheng. His character centric subplot of conflict with a former friend who works for the other side is insufficiently developed to support the emotional weight it’s intended to carry and sometimes feels like a distraction from the main narrative though the great pot mountain based martial arts set piece is certainly one worth waiting for.

If Peng’s Ma Feng feels slightly misplaced with his cynicism and comic stunts, Louis Koo’s hammed up villain Cao Shaolun is in an entirely different film altogether. Wildly over the top, Koo plays Cao Shaolun as a permanently amused psychopath, all crazy eyes and manic laughter. A self consciously cool guy, Cao Shaolun dresses in white and murders innocents with a golden gun all the while knowing he can do as he pleases simply by the virtue of his name.

Shot with a heavily digital aesthetic, Call of Heroes’ evidently high production values are sometimes reduced to a televisual quality or otherwise let down by substandard CGI. The fight scenes themselves are filmed with an old fashioned rigour filled with innovative and exciting choreography and are refreshingly humour free. Like the best westerns, Call of Heroes contains its own parable in that the best weapon against tyranny is a strong and righteous populace but the final stretch almost undermines its noble aims by presenting what is either a revolutionary spring lead by the people for the people, or a worrying case of mob justice.

Prone to narrative dead ends in setting up major characters only to sideline or kill them off unexpectedly, Call of Heroes has a frustrated quality in not being able to decide whether it wants to be a serious call to arms for standing up for what’s right in the face of overwhelming force, or a comedic romp in which a cocky drifter sorts everything out by accident. Either way, Call of Heroes does provide a number of genuinely exciting martial arts set pieces even if floundering slightly in-between them.

Original trailer (Cantonese with Traditional Chinese/English subtitles)

Train to Busan (부산행, Yeon Sang-ho, 2016)

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Train to BusanMany people all over the world find themselves on the zombie express each day, ready for arrival at drone central, but at least their fellow passengers are of the slack jawed and sleep deprived kind, soon be revived at their chosen destination with the magic elixir known as coffee. The unfortunate passengers on an early morning train to Busan have something much more serious to deal with. The live action debut from one of the leading lights of Korean animation Yeon Sang-ho, Train to Busan (부산행, Busanhaeng) pays homage to the best of the zombie genre providing both high octane action from its fast zombie monsters and subtle political commentary as a humanity’s best and worst qualities battle it out for survival in the most extreme of situations.

Workaholic fund manager Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) is having a series of very bad days. His wife has left him and for unclear reasons, also left their young daughter, Soo-an (Kim Soo-ahn), in her father’s care though apparently wants custody in the ugly divorce battle that now seems inevitable. It’s Soo-an’s birthday but all she wants is to catch a train to Busan to see her mum and if she has to she’ll even go by herself. After his attempt at a birthday present spectacularly backfires, Seok-woo gives in and agrees to take Soo-an to her mother’s before catching the next train back after dropping her off. Unfortunately, they have picked a very bad day to take the train.

Yeon Sang-ho takes his time to build to the central train based set piece but is is careful to create an atmosphere which makes it plain that there is something very wrong with this seemingly everyday set up. After a brief dig about pig farmers losing out to government policy on foot and mouth disease and irresponsible hit and run drivers leaving deer corpses behind them for someone else to deal with, he has a parade of emergency vehicles racing past Seok-Woo and Soo-an on their trip to the station while ash rains down on their car. Seok-woo is still focussed on work though sleepy on the train so he misses Soo-an’s shocked reaction to a station guard being rugby tackled just as the train is leaving while a mass of improbable early morning revellers are trying to break through the line of staff holding them back at the platform steps.

Patient zero bounds onto the train just as the doors close though one wonders why no one is paying much attention to this obviously distressed young woman as she stumbles and writhes around in the train carriage before the virus fully takes hold. Just as we think someone is about to come to her aid, it turns out to be a case of a snooty passenger taking offence at the presence of an “odd person” on the train. The “odd person” turns out to be a homeless guy whose mutterings of “dead, all dead” take on a prophetic air rather than the ramblings of a mad man that the train guards assume them to be.

This kind of stereotypical othering and the selfish refusal to help fellow humans in need is at the very heart of the film. Seok-woo admonishes his goodhearted daughter when she repeatedly makes an effort to be a kind and decent person by giving up her seat for an old lady or wanting to stop and help others escape the zombie onslaught. However, Soo-an’s goodness wins through as she in turn chastises her father and explains that his selfishness and lack of regard for the feelings of other people is the very reason her mother left the family. Even if he begins by cruelly closing the door on the film’s most heroic character and his pregnant wife, Seok-woo gradually begins to develop a sense of social responsibility whether out of simple pragmatism or genuine fellow feeling.

Workaholic fathers with minimal connections to their offspring may be something of a genre trope but, as father-to-be Sang-hwa says, fathers often get a bad rap – making all of the sacrifices and enjoying none of the rewards. In an attempt to show solidarity with Seok-Woo, Sang-hwa assures him that his daughter will understand why he worked so hard all the time when she grows up and reiterates that true fatherhood is about self-sacrifice. This is one sense plays into the earlier themes of Seok-Woo’s self-centred viewpoint in asking if he really is working hard for his family or only wants to been as such, maintaining his own social status and upperclass lifestyle and completing it with a perfectly posed family photo. A father is supposed to protect his daughter and now Soo-an has only him to rely on, if Seok-woo is going ensure her survival he will have to decide what kind of sacrifices he’s prepared to make on her behalf.

If the film has a villain it isn’t the rabid zombie hordes who, after all, are only obeying their programming, it’s personal, corporate, and political greed. The clearest embodiment of this is in the panicked businessman who frequently tries to issue orders to the train staff and insists the train take him to his preferred destination. After trying to get the homeless man thrown off the train early on, the fascistic businessman picks up a lackey in the form of a steward and begins trying to exclude all the “suspicious” people from his general vicinity. Cruel and cowardly, the businessman’s selfish actions only cause more problems for everyone else whilst whipping up unhelpful paranoia among those who will need to work together to survive. Literally feeding even his most loyal comrades to zombies to buy himself time to escape, this egotistical CEO is the perfect metaphor for cannibalistic nature of the capitalist system which is, as Sang-hwa said, content to let the “useless” fall behind.

That’s not to forget the actual undead threat. Yeon Sang-ho’s walking dead take inspiration from his animated work and move quickly with jerky, uncanny movements more like Butoh dancers than the usual stupefied shufflers. The set pieces are expertly choreographed and well shot, maintaining the tension throughout though the increase in scale towards the final stretch is at odds with the leaner, meaner approach of the early scenes. Despite eventually giving in to melodrama in a heavily signposted script, Yeon Sang-ho’s live action debut is an impressive effort making room for his standard social concerns whilst also providing innovative zombie thrills. Yeon Sang-ho’s message is clear, when disaster strikes no one can survive alone, the only chance for salvation lies in altruistic compassion. In the end the best weapon against the darkness is a children’s song as innocence finally triumphs over fear.

UK release trailer:

My Best Friend’s Wedding (我最好朋友的婚礼, Chen Feihong, 2016)

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My Best Friend's WeddingChinese cinema screens are no stranger to the event movie, and so a Chinese remake of the much loved 1997 Hollywood rom-com My Best Friend’s Wedding (我最好朋友的婚礼, Wǒ Zuì Hǎo Péngyǒu de Hūnlǐ) arrives right on time for Chinese Valentine’s Day. Purely by coincidence of course! However, those familiar with the 1997 Julia Roberts starring movie may recall that My Best Friend’s Wedding is a classic example of the subverted romance which doesn’t end with the classic happy ever after, but acts as a tonic to the sickly sweet love stories Hollywood is known for by embracing the more realistic philosophy that sometimes it just really is too late and you have to accept that you let the moment get away from you, painful as that may be.

This time the story focuses on Gu Jia (Shu Qi), recently made editor-in-chief of a Chinese fashion magazine her career is riding high but there’s something nagging at Gu Jia’s happiness that she’s been content to keep on the back burner. On an important work assignment in Milan she begins remembering a wonderful holiday she had there with her childhood friend Lin Ran (Feng Shaofeng). Lin Ran is a football reporter who has been working in London with the BBC so he and Gu Jia have not seen each other for a while. Just as she’s going into her first fashion show, Gu Jia receives an unexpected phone call from Lin Ran who has some surprising news – he’s getting married. The following weekend. Suddenly Gu Jia’s world crumbles.

Jumping on the next plane to London, Gu Jia makes a fool of herself as a crying mess but meets a very nice, sympathetic guy who does a good job of pretending not to mind very much when she chucks champaign all over him during a drunken “conversation” with her mental Lin Ran. On arrival she’s thrilled to see the real Lin Ran but much less so to meet his wife to be – Xuan Xuan (Victoria Song), a very young, bubbly, and slightly silly girl from an extremely wealthy family. Gu Jia is even more determined than ever to derail Lin Ran’s wedding and win him back for herself.

There was undoubtedly something very 1990s about My Best Friend’s Wedding and its daring acknowledgement that sometimes the happy ending lies in learning to accept there are things you will always regret, but you just have to learn to live with them. Somehow it’s difficult to imagine a romantic comedy making a success of a “realistic” ending rather the dash to the airport final confessions and reconciliations the genre is known for in these more troubled times. It’s surprising that in switching the action to China the ages of the leads have increased – Julia Roberts’ character was 28 in the original film (the idea being to get married before 28) but Shu Qi and Feng Shaofeng are playing characters in their ‘30s who have already established themselves in extremely successful, international careers.

The majority of the film takes place in London and is filled with picturesque, touristy images of the various famous landmarks, sunshine filled green parks, and of course big red buses. This is the London inhabited by the elite super rich who flit between upscale boutiques and live in spacious Kensington townhouses with flashy convertibles parked in the paved driveway which is enclosed inside a large metal gate (at one point Gu Jia and Lin Ran take a ride on a double-decker as an “experience” because he hasn’t been on one in years). It’s all very “aspirational” in one sense, but also a little unpleasant as rich people hang out with other rich people because they’re all rich together and all anyone’s interested in is how much money everyone else has.

This becomes the film’s central problem as it indulges in some the least subtle product placement to ever grace the cinema screen. On arrival in Milan, Gu Jia heads into the Bulgari hotel which has adverts for Bulgari watches on the TV screens (as the real hotel undoubtedly does) with the brand then turning up on shopping bags and even prominently on the lid of a wedding ring box. The film also makes a show of everything from whiskies to airlines and fashion houses including an actual cameo from designer Christian Louboutin.

The one thing it doesn’t showcase is any kind of emotional connection with the material. Shu Qi does what she can with an extremely underwritten part which provides her with no real way to explain just why it is she finds it impossible to reveal her true feelings to Lin Ran, but there’s little chemistry between any of the co-stars and the various connections between them never ring true.  Unlike the original film, Gu Jia’s “boyfriend” stooge (a Mandarin speaking British Chinese guy, Nick, played by Rhydian Vaughn) is not gay though he does briefly pretend to be to open a path for Lin Ran to choose Gu Jia over his wife-to-be.

A big budget, prestige picture moving from upscale Chinese high rise cities to biscuit tin London and elegant, neo-classical Milan, My Best Friend’s Wedding is a shallow affair which attempts to cover up for its lack of soul with high production values. Shu Qi does her best and turns in another characteristically charming performance with good support from her co-stars but they can’t make up for the lack of any real connection throughout the overly glossy proceedings. A mild misfire despite its starry cast, My Best Friend’s Wedding fails on both the comedic and romantic fronts yet does offer some very pretty shots of various picturesque European locales.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Cold War 2 (寒戰II, Longman Leung & Sunny Luk, 2016)

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coldwar 2Cold War 2 (寒戰II) arrives a whole four years after the original Cold War rocked Hong Kong with police corruption scandals and fantastically convoluted internal plotting. Heroic policeman Sean Lau (Aaron Kwok) may have won the day, even if he ultimately had to compromise himself to do it, but the police van is still missing and MB Lee (Tony Leung Ka-fei) is still lurking in the background. As is his son, Joe (Eddie Peng) – languishing in prison but apparently still with the resources to cause trouble whilst behind bars.

Joe Lee has Lau’s wife kidnapped, forcing Lau to compromise himself by giving in to his demands all of which culminates in an intense subway set piece in which Lau inadvertently ends up handcuffed to an exploding smoke bomb while Joe Lee escapes. Embarrassing is not the word. Lau now looks bad, and old rivals have their eyes on the police chief’s chair. An enquiry is currently underway into goings on at police HQ lead by top lawyer Oswald Kan (Chow Yun-fat) but his impartiality is severely damaged when one of his own is caught in the crossfire whilst investigating Joe Lee’s nefarious activities.

Like the first film, Cold War 2 is an intense interpersonal thriller though this time the enemies are even closer as the old boys network becomes the means by which commissioners are unseated and installed. Service records are everything – Lau is unpopular with his colleagues because he started out at ICAC and has never served as a rank and file policemen. From one point of view, this makes him an ideal candidate because he has no personal ties to the body of serving officers but his rivals despise him for this very reason. He isn’t one of them, does not have first hand understanding of front line policing, and most importantly is not a part of their interconnected layers of military style brother-in-arms loyalties.

Lau’s predictable miscalculation regarding Joe Lee creates an opportunity to get rid of him and take back the force. “Save the police” is a message which is repeated over and over as the plotters attempt to win others over to their cause, insisting that Lau has lost the media battle for the hearts and minds of a public now trained to be afraid of their police force. Lau is the continuity candidate – mistakes have been made, but his stately manner and apparently steady hands may yet win the day. Those same hands are getting dirtier by the second, but they’ve been brushing the morally grey, not (yet, at least) immersed in the red of innocent blood like those of the corrupt top brass at police HQ.

If the plotting is intricate and filled with double crosses and betrayals, directors Luk and Leung have ensured a steady stream of explosive action sequences to accompany the ongoing cerebral games. Cold War also had its share of action packed spectacular set pieces but Cold War 2 may surpass them with the surprise factor alone including one shocking multi-car pileup inside a tunnel in which cars, buses and bikes go flying before an all out fire fight ensues. Lau’s constant gazing at the “Asia’s Safest City” signs which adorn police headquarters (right next to the metal detectors you need to pass through to get in) has never looked so melancholic and drenched in irony.

It’s a battle for the soul of the police service, but it’s being fought as a dirty war. Lau is the decent and honest man forced to behave in a slightly less honest and decent way, even if for the best of reasons. His rivals are running on pure ambition and pettiness. Despite their claims they do not have the interests of the people of Hong Kong as their foremost concern. The corruption stems far further back than anyone might have previously guessed and is more or less coded into the system. The police van and equipment are still missing and the central plotters are still in place. This is a partial victory at best but then what kind of action fest wouldn’t leave a door open for a sequel. The cold war maybe about to turn hot, but you can rely on the steely eyed Police Commissioner Sean Lau to be there, ready and waiting, when the first shots are fired.

Original trailer (English Subtitles)

League of Gods (3D封神榜, Koan Hui & Vernie Yeung , 2016)

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league of godsOften, people will try to convince of the merits of something or other by considerably over compensating for its faults. Therefore when you see a movie marketed as the X-ian version of X, starring just about everyone and with a budget bigger than the GDP of a small nation you should learn to be wary rather than impressed. If you’ve followed this very sage advice, you will fare better than this reviewer and not find yourself parked in front of a cinema screen for two hours of non-sensical European fantasy influenced epic adventure such as is League of Gods (3D封神榜, 3D Fēng Shén Bǎng).

Based on a classic Chinese text – the Ming Dynasty epic Investiture of the Gods by Xu Zhonglin, League of Gods begins with its despotic monarch, King Zhou (Tony Leung Ka-fei) and the story of how it was he came to lose his soul to Black Dragon and fall under spell of the nine-tailed fox, Daji (an underused Fan Bingbing). The couple have kidnapped Wizard Jiang (Jet Li), who may have been the only one with the knowledge to end their demonic rule – if it weren’t for the fact he’s subject to an anti-ageing curse and keeps regressing each time he uses his powers. Nevertheless, a group of warriors from Xiqi attempt to rescue Jiang and a group of orphan children who are also being held prisoner though their partial success leads them to undertake a new mission to find the Sword of Light which may finally help them to cut through the darkness and restore their kingdom to glory.

The primary bearer of this quest is Lei (Jacky Heung) who is second heir to the Wing Kingdom though also an embarrassment to his father because unlike his countrymen, he’s never been able to find his wings and fly like the rest of his brethren. Jiang entrusts him with three bags to help on his journey, one of which contains “magic grass” (ahem!) which is basically a healthier version of Clippy, the second a CGI baby version of once ruthless warrior, Naza, and the third a baby Merman who had his spine removed by Naza to stop him growing up and just wants to go home. Lei runs into automaton spy and tragic love interest Blue Butterfly (Angelababy) who does at least lend a degree of pathos to the proceedings and Louis Koo also turns up riding a giant panther, which is quite a ride, it has to be said.

The biggest problem facing League of Gods is one common to every fantasy film – that is, constructing a fantastical world which is still 100% internally consistent and completely believable throughout. League of Gods throws so much information out so quickly that it’s impossible to keep a handle on everything that’s going on, let alone try to work out how all of these various warring kingdoms fit together. There is a lot of story to go around, and directors Koan Hui and Vernie Yeung have recruited a host of China’s biggest stars to help tell it. This obviously means that some stars are appearing for mere minutes with barely anything to do save show their face, making an already bloated premise overloaded beyond any sustainable level.

Narrative excitement has largely been sidelined in favour of visual flair but League of Gods is constantly let down by poor quality CGI some of which might look more at home in a late ‘90s video game. League of Gods operates as a kind of hybrid movie, mixing heavy CGI animation with live action actors but can’t decide just how po-faced it really wants to be. Lei is accompanied on his quest by a fearsome warrior, Naza, apparently an arrogant and dangerous criminal who has been imprisoned in the body of a toddler. This CGI baby grins, burps, farts, and high kicks his way out of trouble in a decidedly bizarre fashion with his grown up language offered from a cute baby face. Naza is countered by his sometime enemy – an adorable Merman baby who just misses his dad but seems to have no other purpose so it’s a mystery why Jiang gave Lei this particular bag. Magic Grass is obviously an advisory figure, but is an apt way to try and explain what’s going on.

League of Gods moves from set piece to set piece with some muddled character development along the way as Lei finds love and develops his wings but never makes any kind of attempt at unifying its disparate plot strands. Squandering the talents of its extremely high level of A-list stars, League of Gods relies of campy fun to get by but is far too serious to make the most of its over the top potential. Disappointingly, after it’s intense build up League of Gods refuses to stage its finale – ending on a cliff hanger which is heralded by the most ridiculous evil laugh offered by a despot clutching a baby which is actually the regressed form of his rival and a formerly powerful wizard. It sounds good, but it isn’t. Read the small print, sign with caution.

US release trailer (English subtitles)