The Thieves

July 2, 2013ByTars Tarkas

The Thieves

aka 도둑들 aka Dodukdeul

2012
Written by Choi Dong-Hoon and Lee Gi-cheol
Directed by Choi Dong-Hoon

Crosses, double-crosses, and triple-crosses in the midst of teamwork is the template of The Thieves. Not only is there a group of thieves who are all looking out for themselves while planning a heist, but there are TWO groups of thieves working together (and trusting no one) while working each other and planning bigger plots. This is the kind of film a flow chart would help, but it’s designed so well that things rarely get confusing. The various characters are fleshed out and the backstabbing becomes more personal. It helps that The Thieves is not a short movie, but it keeps the game going even after the heist and the eventual fallout. Things become really deadly, and the question of who will live, who will win, and who will die will be answered.

Sprawling across much of Asia, from Korea to Hong Kong to Macau, The Thieves sports an impressive cast of faces and names that will be familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in Asian cinema. The Thieves manages to build on the concept of the Ocean’s 11 film (which is the obvious starting point of comparison due to the heist and big cast angles) while instead being more about the twists and turns and secret motives of the various participants in the crime. The big score, while a central action piece, is nothing but a stepping stone for one character’s true motivation. And everything revolves around his eventual plan, that doesn’t go according to plan at all.

Partnerships are forged by desperation and motive, but easily fall apart as soon as the winds change. Some characters are more loyal than others, and some betrayals are clear from the start. The con artists will each try to stack the deck in their favor, and the fun is watching how everything plays out. So let’s deal…

	Popeye (Lee Jung-jae) – A local boss of a theft ring who gets his crew attached to a potential big score, but has his own motivations for becoming involved.
	Macau Park (Kim Yoon-seok) – A bigger boss who used to work with Popeye and now runs a crew based out of Hong Kong, he gets Popeye involved in a huge score.
	Pepsi (Kim Hye-soo) – A safecracker fresh out of jail, was part of Popeye’s crew and is welcomed in again just as they head off to their mission, breeding mistrust as some members don’t know her at all, and others had previous relationships.
	Yanicall (Jeon Ji-hyun) – A swindler and con artist who uses her beauty to separate rich men from their money. Immediately doesn’t like Pepsi. Has a sort of mother/daughter relationship with Chewing Gum.

InBad, Movie Reviews

Yellow Line

June 4, 2013ByTars Tarkas

Yellow Line

aka 黄線地帯イエローライン aka Osen Chitai

1960
Written and directed by Teruo Ishii

Teruo Ishii’s films have a unique quality is hard to describe without watching the films. There is a constant undercurrent of body obsession, with both body parts and with deformities or oddly shaped people. Many characters have scars, limps, or are just lit or made up to look more physically extreme than they are. Ishii’s films for Shintoho often feature underground prostitution rings, and are shot in realistic styles that border on documentarian at times (rumored to be to lessen influence from Shintoho’s boss Mitsugu Okura!) The Shintoho era films are less extreme than the ero guro work for Toei that would gain Ishii fame overseas, but you can see the roots beginning to take form. Some of Ishii’s more creative early work can be seen in the Super Giant films – or Starman as we know and love him in the States – (and also discussed in this Infernal Brains Podcast!)

Yellow Line is a noirish tale of suspense about gangsters, prostitutes, kidnappings, sex slavery, reporters, and saving the girl. In Yellow Line, every character has a quirk or mannerism – Emi giggles before everything she says, the reporter Mayama is constantly snapping his fingers, the Hitman grins a sickly toothy sneer. This adds to their characterizations and are slipped in naturally enough they don’t become distracting. Characters fall into their stereotypical roles, but remain distinctive enough that you remember aspects about them more than their allotted place in society.

Yellow Line was screened as part of the Shintoho retrospective that stopped by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and I had the pleasure of watching with both Todd from FourDK and duriandave from SoftFilm, making this a powerhouse of Bay Area obscure Asian cinema blogging.

InBad, Movie Reviews

Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons

June 2, 2013ByTars Tarkas

Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons

aka 大話西遊之三藏付魔 aka Xi you xiang mo pian

2013
Written by Stephen Chow Sing-Chi
Directed by Stephen Chow Sing-Chi and Derek Kwok Chi-Kin

Stephen Chow makes his triumphant return behind the camera for Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons! While early trailers played up the comedic aspects, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons is thematically very different from what you would expect. It is mainly a horror comedy with romance elements. A sort of prequelized tale to the Journey to the West mythos, with the usual liberties and elements of true love and wackiness sprinkled in.

Stephen Chow spent most of the time since CJ7 running his own company (including work on the CJ7 cartoon) and randomly getting attached and unattached to various Hollywood projects. Even with this return to directing, Chow did not appear in front of the camera, despite rumors to the contrary. Those rumors have even started for the eventual sequel, of which I don’t think work has even begun. Whatever Stephen Chow wants to do is fine by me, because despite the flaws in Journey to the West 2013, it is still a marked improvement over a lot of the boring big budget garbage coming out of Chinese cinema lately.

Chow’s usage of actors with nonstandard physical appearances is still happening, the look of the background actors becoming as much of their role as their actions. There is even a sort of comment on the usual lack of problems with a woman getting hit by a man in Hong Kong comedies. Everyone freaks out when it looks like Shu Qi is about to get smacked by Monk Chen, and of course she then beats up the guy who almost hit her.

Chow’s fantasy retake is unconnected to the prior A Chinese Odyssey films, and is stylistically very different. The depiction of Monkey King is more of a mean-spirited animal than a practical joker, but again this is before he became “reformed”. But don’t fret, the classic songs from the original Chow films still show up in unexpected ways.

The true main character is the Monk Chen Xuan-zang (more commonly known as Tripitaka), here just beginning his monkhood service as a demon hunter. Chen Xuan-zang follows a particular philosophy where there is good in everyone, even demons, and he doesn’t set out to kill the monsters. His travels cause him to repeatedly cross paths with professional demon hunter Duan, who ruthlessly stops her targets with magic flying rings she wears as a bracelet.

Soon their continual meetings is revealed to be more than just an accident, as Duan chases after Chen Xuan-zang in an attempt to get him to marry her so she can settle down. The Monk is adamant in his devotion to his faith, dismissing romance as “Lesser Love” and he is following “Greater Love”. But despite the problems, their paths continue to merge, leading to drama when the Monkey King is unleashed.

The different portrayals of Monkey King by Huang Bo and then some guy in makeup are a great example of building a complex character. Monkey King appears as a friendly, grateful guy who is convinced to help to try to regain some cosmic karma. But he’s far more than that, and soon the demeanor changes as his plan for freedom falls into place. Monkey King is then a wild animal in a costume, basically a cartoon character, who then has a big cartoon violence fight with several demon hunting champions, each with their own ridiculous powers. The kindly grey Huang Bo would not work in these action sequences, just as the monkey costume version would not be believable as a captured and tormented soul yearning for freedom.

Chow’s borrowing of other properties takes a turn to the lazy here when various scenes are lifted wholesale
most notably an action cinematic that is swiped directly from the Asura’s Wrath video games. Other characters are takes on some classic wuxia characters through history, including one called Almighty Foot, who is basically Sek Kin from The Furious Buddha’s Palm, right down to the identical foot growing sequence (even the music and foot growing sound effects are borrowed!) but with a bit of CGI enhancement. Heck, even the concept of a prequel-style movie with Tripitaka in a love story was done before (by Jeff Lau, in A Chinese Tall Tale!)

All is forgiven thanks to Prince Important, who is Law Chi-Cheung doing a ridiculous impression of Stephen Chow. He plays him sickly and carted around by four “beauties” – older women who talk back at everything Prince Important tries to do to look cool.

Journey to the West‘s biggest problem is it needed an editor. The pacing in any Stephen Chow flick is always off, but here it also rather long. Certain comedic scenes could have been cut down without losing anything important, and making the film tighter as a whole. While not as original as I could have wanted, and prone to meandering off on random topics, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons was still a joy to watch, and hopefully helps give a needed kick to the seat of Chinese big budget cinema to bring more to the table than the blandness. Anything that ups the game is always welcome.

	Chen Xuan-zang/Tripitaka (Wen Zhang) – Newly minted demon hunter from a sect that believes that the demons are still good creatures at heart. After capturing the demons, he reads t them from The Demon Hunters Handbook – just a book of 300 Nursery Rhymes! His sifu believes in him and thinks he’s just missing that little something. During his missions he continually runs into Miss Duan. Cares more about the people he is saving than any of the other demon hunters we see in the film.
	Miss Duan (Shu Qi) – Demon hunter and posesser of the Infinite Flying Ring, which she uses to destroy her unholy opponents and wears as a fashion statement. Duan keeps running into Monk Chen, falling for him despite his incistance that he isn’t into that lesser physical love stuff. The flying ring concept is borrowed from the Buddha’s Palm films.
	Chen Xuan-zang’s Sifu (???) – Monk Chen’s master, who knows almost everything that is going on in the spiritual world even if he can’t keep things straight in the physical world. Spends most of his days srawing images on walls that tell the past and future.
	KL Hog (??? and CGI) – Former good man turned revenge demon after his wife cheated on him with a beautiful man. Is a powerful demon and spends much of the film chasing the heroes.
	Monkey King (Huang Bo) – Monkey King has been trapped in a cave for 500 years, but is always eager to please anyone who stops by asking for help. I’m sure the master trickster has nothing up his sleave….

InBad, Movie Reviews

A Chinese Odyssey Part Two – Cinderella

May 31, 2013ByTars Tarkas

A Chinese Odyssey Part Two – Cinderella

aka 西遊記完結篇仙履奇緣 aka Sai yau gei: Daai git guk ji – Sin leui kei yun

1995
Written and directed by Jeff Lau Chun-Wai

Thus continues the fairy tales and romantic adventures of a guy named Joker who is really Monkey King with A Chinese Odyssey Part Two – Cinderella. The sweeping action and epic timescope of the original is expanded on, while the extra time gives us a chance to get to know a few of the characters we saw little of in the first part. Don’t worry, there are generous amounts of ridiculous slapstick, special effects fights,

Part of the fun of these Hong Kong films is the varying quality of the copy that is used for DVDs. In this case, the copy has burnt in subtitles, which calls some characters slightly different names than in Part 1. I’ve done my best to try to rectify the situation, but welcome to planet reality. If you missed the review of A Chinese Odyssey Part One – Pandora’s Box, it is here.

Even more fun, the plot of Part Two is vastly more complicated, and is rendered further difficult because several characters switch bodies in the second half. And yet, despite the zaniness, it works, as actors get more to do and the danger of repetitiveness is staved off for a while. While a tale as large as this can run the risk of becoming far too long, the brisk pace prevents fatigue from setting in. Some reviews I read thought this section was confusing and ruined the film, but I see it more as helping things from getting too stale. And if you try to follow things too logically, your brain will explode, as the timeline gets completely disrupted by all the time travel. Let’s just say there is probably a reality where King Bull opens a casino in Hill Valley…

The lovers on the roof scene at the end has become an iconic shot that is instantly recognized by people who haven’t even seen the movie in years. It’s also one of my favorite moments in Hong Kong cinema, because the whole thing is perfect. The closure of the lovers story, the chance for Monkey King to talk one last time to the woman he loved but cannot love, the looks of the torn emotions of the two characters on the roof, the look back as Monkey King walks away, and especially the music, all making a perfect storm of awesome.

The tales of destined true love that endures lots of hardships and doesn’t usually end in happy endings are common themes in the works of both Lau and Chow. This time they even have characters literally speaking to the heart to learn the heart’s desire and true love. Another common thread in Steve Chow’s films is him having a whole host of women who fall for him. It’s good to be the king! Add to that to his reputation as a playboy and how different the women are in some of Chow’s later films, and you get the feeling there is some sort of hangup about women. But that’s a whole article to itself.

The Chinese Odyssey films would end up becoming so beloved that attempts would be made to recapture the magic. Lau would return with A Chinese Odyssey 2002, and try again with A Chinese Tall Tale, and then Yet Another Pandora’s Box. While each of those films have their own merits, none of them achieve the level of special significance that the originals did. Chow also used the nostalgia of these films to excite everyone with his return to directing for Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, though that film is so tonally different that they are only connected by the true love theme. Several other adaptations of Journey to the West are in the pipeline, the popularity of the stories will ensure their retelling for generations. Some will attempt to be creative and unique, while others will rely on the past and be lazy and derivative. We may one day see a challenger to the throne, but for now, it is time to hail to the Monkey King, baby!

	Joker/Monkey King (Stephen Chow Sing-Chi) – Joker is trapped in the past and realizes he is also Monkey King. But his whole thoughts are based on trying to get back to the future to be with his love Jing Jing. Except now this new lady Lin Zixia is insisting that he is her true love. And Monkey King’s old friends and foes show up, leading to a confrontation between powers.
	Lin Zixia/Lin Qingxia/Purple/Spider Web Immortal (Athena Chu Yun) – Lin Zixia escaped from Heaven to find her true love, along with her twin sister Lin Qingxia. This gets confusing as they are in same body, Qingxia comes out at night and is the crazy one. Zixia looking for a lover who can pull out her magic sword from its sheath, proving that he is the one. This has so much sexual innuendo going on they might as well just have done it XXX style to be more subtle! Zixia is called Purple in most references to this film, but not in the subtitles of the version I have.
	Longevity Monk (Law Kar-Ying) – Thanks to time travel monkey shines, Longevity Monk is still around and is very annoying. That’s his super power. He’s also targeted for becoming dinner, and is fond of singing song by The Platters.
	Pigsy/Assistant Master (Ng Man-Tat) – Ng Man-Tat spends most of this film as Pigsy, underneath the pig mask (though for a good chunk of the film he’s bodyswapped!) Is usually with Sandy trying to follow Joker to find out what he’s up to this time.
	Sandy/Blind Bing (Johnnie Kong Yeuk-Sing) – Last member of the Journey to the West crew, as is tradition he doesn’t do much except be around Pigsy as Monkey King does his thing. Is the level-headed one of the trio.
	King Bull (Luk Shu-Ming) – Villain who captures Longevity Monk to eat, desires Joker to marry his sister to get rid of her, and wants to marry Lin Zixia so he can have a mistress. Something his wife Iron Fan Princess does not approve of.
	Miss Xiang Xiang (???) – King Bull’s sister who is set up to wed Monkey King, though Monkey King just agrees to it to try to recapture the Pandora’s Box to escape this time.
	Iron Fan Princess (Ada Choi Siu-Fan) – King Bull’s wife, who is none too pleased that he’s off trying to collect mistresses. But that doesn’t stop her from chasing after Joker/Monkey King, who was her former lover.
	Jing Jing/Boney M of Spider Devil (Karen Mok Man-Wai) – Jing Jing shows up 500 years in the past, having not studied under Spider Web Immortal for all that time and with no memory of her love affair with Joker, as it hadn’t happened yet.
	Spider Woman (Yammie Lam Kit-Ying) – If one of the two sisters shows up, you know the other one will, and as soon as she figures out who Joker is and that he can lead her to Longevity Monk, all bets are off!

InBad, Movie Reviews

A Chinese Odyssey Part One – Pandora’s Box

May 30, 2013ByTars Tarkas

A Chinese Odyssey Part One – Pandora’s Box

aka 西遊記101回月光寶盒 aka Sai yau gei: Dai yat baak ling yat wui ji – Yut gwong bou haap

1995
Written and directed by Jeff Lau Chun-Wai

Stephen Chow and Jeff Lau’s classic masterpiece, the A Chinese Odyssey films are among the most important cinema to come out of Hong Kong. And I don’t just say that because I love the films. A combination of many factors at just the right time collide and create a lightning in a bottle event that films have been attempting to repeat ever since.

The Chinese Odyssey flicks are a mish-mash of classic literature is melded with Jeff Lau’s love of hugely complex plots with dozens of characters and love stories through reincarnation, combined with Chow’s singular wit, fast talking, and physical comedy making cinematic bliss. A classic tomb is hijacked and reworked into a sprawling tale that still uses much of general mythology of its source.

The complex plot and phone book of characters (with most of the headliners playing dual roles) does not help with an easy description, but the basic idea is Monkey King has been punished and trapped for 500 years. In the interim, he was reincarnated as a local head of a gang of thieves, a group largely incompetent and filled with lovable losers. Now named Joker, he runs the gang as they dress fierce to claim control of the area. His chief lieutenants are Assistant Master and Blind Bing, who we also know as Journey to the West characters Pigsy and Sandy.

The actual world of Journey to the West has not stopped during this time, so there are still creatures searching for Tripitaka/The Longevity Monk to devour his flesh, and they plan to use Monkey King to find him. Of course, they first have to find the Monkey King, only knowing where he was imprisoned. Those who knew Monkey King recognize him in Joker on sight, despite Joker’s insistence that he is no one special. Regardless, he gets dragged into a world of spider demons, ghost ladies, bull men, giant goddesses, and reincarnated characters.

Despite the large amount of plot going on, the films aren’t adverse to just stopping for a while to let Stephen Chow do his thing. Which is a wise decision, because the comedy is great! The physical comedy transcends all languages and cultures, while many of Chow’s zingers manage to produce laughs despite terrible subtitle translations. It’s a testament to just how good things are when it overcomes some of the usual stumbling blocks.

Monkey King is historically a defiant character, he stands against the forces of Heaven and against anyone who stands in his way. His adventures feature a lot of visits to fantastic lands and fighting gods and demons. Pandora’s Box brings him down to a more human level, which is even a point in the sequel, as his human emotions are what must be shed to continue on his journey, even though in these films he falls in love repeatedly. That’s called conflict, people!

While Joker doesn’t remember anything Monkey King did, he gets involved in the consequences of Monkey King’s various shenanigans. In the course of Joker’s lying and double lies and triple lies to get out of trouble, he ends up connecting with someone Monkey King hurt as well as dealing with Monkey King and Longevity Monk’s enemies, the huge crowd of characters who want to eat the Longevity Monk’s flesh.

Monkey King ruined the marriage of Jing Jing, and then left her waiting alone. A hard lesson in not trusting Monkey King to do anything right, but thanks to Joker being Monkey King, Jing Jing is able to confront the person who messed up her love life, and Joker is able to make a sort of amends as he falls for Jing Jing. Due to even more convoluted plot development, Jing Jing is poisoned, Joker is imprisoned attempting to get her the cure, and she believes he abandoned her and tries to kill herself, though is saved by King Bull.

The reprieve is temporary, as later she does kill herself amidst a battle in the middle of the Cave of the Silken Web after thinking Joker betrayed her. Joker is then desperately attempting to go back in time just in time to save her, but keeps being just too late. If you think repeatedly watching someone kill themselves can’t be funny, then here is a way to change your mind.

The Chinese Odyssey films have gone on to be cult classics, and are one of the first Hong Kong films I saw back in the days of getting movies from the one cool video store. Luckily for me, a roommate had vcd versions, which I managed to watch just after watching Black Mask – thus Karen Mok became a reoccurring theme in Hong Kong cinema for me, and eventually an avatar I use in many locations online. The films themselves were just so unlike anything I had seen to that point, only some of the Hong Kong films I had watched at that point had fantasy elements. At that point I was totally unfamiliar with the Journey to the West story, so everything was new to me. So while Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan may have been my gateway drugs into Hong Kong cinema, Stephen Chow became the chocolate-covered crack that kept me coming back. And decades later things are very different, the films still remain and still entertain. Thanks to the internet, many are just a few clicks away. Gone are the days of wandering through the “Foreign” section hoping for anything new, but the films I saw then – Chinese Odyssey, Drunken Master, A Chinese Ghost Story, Hard Boiled, many others – will always have that nostalgic feeling.

A Chinese Odyssey is ultimately about love. The gags and costumes and violence is all dressing for a tale about love. Not about finding love, but about love itself. Love that is destined. Love of a master and a disciple. Love that is joyful. The pain of love, and of love lost. Of love and duty, of casting love aside, or taking chances for love. Even the final ending pushes this home. The dealing with love of all types and not just romantic love expands the universal appeal, reaching audiences who don’t respond to just your average romance tale.

As we shall see with Part 2, one love can just be a stepping stone to your true love. But even then other things may be destined for you. Life can be funny that way…

But let’s first knock out the Roll Call for A Chinese Odyssey Part One – Pandora’s Box, and the drop a huge plot recap and discussion! Because that’s how we roll…

	Joker/Monkey King (Stephen Chow Sing-Chi) – Joker is just your average leader of a gang of thieve who is also unknowingly an immortal trickster monkey. I can’t tell you how many times that has happened to me! Joker then gets involved in all sorts of supernatural shenanigans as the truth of his past begins to come out. Check out our takes on Out of the Dark and Kung Fu Hustle for more Chow fun!
	Spider Woman (Yammie Lam Kit-Ying) – Spider woman who arrives to hunt down the Legacy Monk to consume his flesh and become immortal. Usually takes the form of a beautiful woman, but becomes a spider at night. Is a great fighter and can hypnotize and poison enemies.
	Jing Jing/Boney M of Spider Devil (Karen Mok Man-Wai) – Companion to Spider Woman, both are deciples of Spider Web Immortal. She was (or was to be) married to Chilian Devil, but that was ruined by Monkey King when he seduced her, then ran off because that’s what Monkey King does. She becomes a ghost zombie in the full moon, though can be stopped by kiss.
	Assistant Master/Pigsy (Ng Man-Tat) – Joker’s second in command who then becomes hypnotized by Spider Woman and forced to spy for her side. Eventually accidentally fathers a child with her. Is also the mortal form of Pigsy, though he doesn’t realize it for most of the film.
	Longevity Monk (Law Kar-Ying) – Monkey King’s master who sacrifices his life in exchange for Monkey King, who is then imprisoned for 500 years. But the Longevity Monk will be reborn, and Monkey King will be released, and that will cause great excitement in the world of the supernatural.
	Blindy/Sandy (Johnnie Kong Yeuk-Sing) – Joker’s third in command, who also happens to be the reincarnation of Sandy, though he is also unaware of who he is. Is the whiny comic relief character.
	King Bull (Luk Shu-Ming) – Local tough boss of all the cows and cow demons, who also wants to eat the Longevity Monk’s flesh, so he comes in to cause trouble.
	Spider Web Immortal (Athena Chu Yun) – This mysterious woman shows up at the very end of the film as Joker is trapped in the distant past. Could she be a main character in Part 2? Of course!

InBad, Movie Reviews

The Heat

May 12, 2013ByTars Tarkas

The Heat

2013
Written by Katie Dippold
Directed by Paul Feig

Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy give us a fucking hilarious action comedy with The Heat. The swear word is used in spirit with the film, which throws F-bombs like an NFL quarterback. Before we continue, be advised I saw this at a free public screening, so once again Tars has sold out.

The Heat is not afraid to be rough around the edges and show violence as it is, violent. Characters are killed with large bullet holes and blood splatters, while a villain who dismembers his victims is the target of Ashburn’s investigation in Boston. The Heat takes advantage of the R-rating to not sugar coat the consequences. Paul Feig gives a worthy Bridesmaids followup that is still female focused, which is great because that film inspired a whole host of woman-centered comedies that have shined more than not.

The two female lead roles are unique in that the reasons no one likes their characters has nothing to do with the fact that they are women and everything to do with them being terrible people to work with. This doesn’t mean they are bad at their jobs, they are among the best. But they work best alone because they are on such a different page than their coworkers. Rowdy Detective Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) berates and yells at her boss (played by a hilarious Tom Wilson from Back to the Future) so much he’s rapidly aging. Straitlaced Agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) spends most of her field ops criticizing her fellow agents and upstaging everyone with finding hidden evidence, including the dogs.

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