Bleeding Steel (Review)

December 24, 2017ByTars Tarkas

Bleeding Steel

aka 機器之血

2017
Story by Leo Zhang Li-Jia
Screenplay by Cui Si-Wei and Erica Xia-Hou
Directed by Leo Zhang Li-Jia

In the climax of Bleeding Steel, Jackie Chan battles goth cyborgs on a Star Destroyer in the futuristic world of 2020 to save his dead daughter who was revitalized with magic blood and a robot heart. That is just the tip of the iceberg here, folks! Moviepass has become a blessing, enabling me to go catch the various Asian flicks that sporadically appear unannounced at the local multiplex for a few days before vanishing into the ether. Chasing the Dragon, Never Say Die, and The Thousand Faces of Dunjia were all benefits of this, and when Bleeding Steel popped up in the listings while I was trying to find times for The Shape of Water, I knew merman love could wait a day! And thank goodness it did, because Bleeding Steel is one of the most bonkers films I have seen all year, it delights in being insane, continually going over the top and then continuing to climb and climb. I filled two pages of notes and then gave up because things were happening too fast to keep up with, and just enjoyed the ride!

Jackie Chan is a super cop named Lin, who leaves his young daughter Xixi dying in the hospital (how many kids has Jackie buried in films now?) because he needs to lead the police escort of a mad scientist named Dr. James, who has switched sides and brought the magic biotech he was working on along with him. Despite there being around 50ish heavily armed police officers, that is not even slightly enough. The villain Andre appears (Callan Mulvey, from Captain America Winter Soldier and Batman v Superman) along with four goons dressed as Cobra B.A.T.S., armed with high powered weapons and a robot snake that plants bombs (and is never seen again or even acknowledged!) Andre is dressed like Emperor Palpatine, bald with pale white skin but his entire jaw is painted black (probably from chewing all the scenery!) He randomly fires grenades at the cops, and when a repeatedly shot Jackie Chan tries to run him over, Andre starts shoving the car! Jackie Chan does manage to blow up Andre, but Chan’s daughter dies alone, Jackie almost dies, every cop except Su (Erica Xia-Hou Qi-Yu) is dead, and the scientist is mortally wounded.

InMovie Reviews

The Thousand Faces of Dunjia (Review)

December 21, 2017ByTars Tarkas

The Thousand Faces of Dunjia

aka 奇門遁甲 aka Qi Men Dun Jia

2017
Written by Tsui Hark
Directed by Yuen Woo-ping

The Thousand Faces of Dunjia isn’t just another martial arts film, it is a wuxia fantasy with science fiction elements, including alien invaders in search of weapons of ultimate power. It’s directed by Yuen Woo Ping,a remake of his 1982 The Miracle Fighters, except it is completely different, more of a remake in concept only. The script is by Tsui Hark, and it stars some great actors like Zhou Dongyu and Da Peng. The film should have worked, which makes the fact that it didn’t even more disappointing.

Ultimately The Thousand Faces of Dunjia falls into the same trap that has ensnared so many other Chinese films, it becomes as soulless as the big budget blockbusters it tries to live up to. In a weird example, the best scene in the entire movie is a mid-credits scene where they basically roast on some of the more ridiculous concepts that happened earlier. It’s the kind of heart and good-natured ribbing the rest of the film should have been filled with. There were some humorous scenes, but mostly slapstick style humor, nothing that is basically on the same level.

Despite the group of heroes being made up of a solid core of actors, the villains are largely CGI creatures. They mind control a few martial arts masters into their bidding, but it is largely just CG villains arguing with each other and vaguely working against the heroes. Basically the entire villain side of the film completely fails, and that sort of sucks. Of the CGI monsters, the initial fish monster is the most fun, largely because they designed it to look like a crazy stop motion creation running around. When the larger villains show up, one is made of a bunch of red tendrils while the other is like a gargoyle. One of the heroes also turns into a CGI character, a blue phoenix that is vaguely symbolic.

InMovie Reviews

Dave Made a Maze (Review)

November 27, 2017ByTars Tarkas

Dave Made a Maze

2017
Story by Steven Sears
Screenplay by Steven Sears and Bill Watterson
Directed by Bill Watterson

Sometimes life is a journey of frustration. Sometimes every direction you turn just ends up in the same dead ends, you feel like you are going no where and stuck in the same rut you’ve always been. Dave Made a Maze takes this and runs with it, throwing in some millennial angst to churn the butter. It isn’t just about a guy who made a maze out of cardboard. It’s about the passion of wanting to make your mark in the world and getting totally lost and overwhelmed while doing so. Dave Made a Maze is not for everyone, you’ll do better if you haven’t hit your 40s or if you spent years of your life wandering in an aimless haze, thinking you were destined for great things but never actually making or achieving those great things.

There is a lot of love with the design of Dave Made a Maze, it takes a lot of care to make things look so good at looking so cheap. The effects are crafty, like the whole thing is an Etsy project that began multiplying and mutating out of control. The walls are made of a million cardboard boxes sacrificed for the good of art. There are traps in the maze, the traps are lethal, people die, but their blood is an explosion of red strings and glitter. Like all good labyrinths, the layout is constantly shifting, this maze is growing, and there is a minotaur running around. At one point the characters become paper bag puppets, and there is a mysterious seductive vortex that looks suspiciously like a vagina.

InMovie Reviews

Drink Slay Love (Review)

November 22, 2017ByTars Tarkas

Drink Slay Love

2017
Screenplay by Eirene Donohue
Based on the novel by Sarah Beth Durst
Directed by Vanessa Parise

A vampire novel about a vampire girl in high school that falls in love with a human, it’s Twilight in reverse! With a bunch of extra stuff thrown in to make the perfect YA fantasy novel. Combine that with a director that obviously knew the material needed to get some campy elements thanks to airing on Lifetime, and some actors delivering some neat performances (and a few skeletonizing the scenery every second they are on screen!), we get a surprisingly entertaining but incredibly cheesy flick with Drink Slay Love!

Vampire teen Pearl (Cierra Ramirez) is confident, way confident, so confident that life is but a bore as she’s so confident she’s already done it all. The invincibility of youth mixed with the actual invincibility of vampires. That all gets shattered like the mirrors that she can only vaguely see her reflection in (it’s complicated!) when she discovers she can survive in the sunshine! Sure, this happened right after a mysterious attack where she almost died but woke up fully healed at home. Suddenly a whole new world is open to her, but only her, the rest of her clan is still killable by the sun.

This coincides with the King of the Vampires deciding the family will host the 100 year huge party where everyone feeds the King their blood and then drinks his blood, which means everyone serves the King. Which isn’t all sorts of screwed up at all. To feed all the vampires coming for the party, Pearl is sent to school to recruit a whole host of victims, as vampires must be invited into houses and high school means she’ll be invited to slumber parties. Or would be if she wasn’t a goth girl. We all know she’s going to soon fall in love and the script gets flipped.

InMovie Reviews

Never Say Die (Review)

November 2, 2017ByTars Tarkas

Never Say Die

aka 羞羞的铁拳 aka Xiu Xiu De Tie Quan

2017
Directed by Yang Song and Chiyu Zhang

A fun body swap comedy that throws any sort of sexual politics to the wayside in favor of lots of wacky antics, Never Say Die often runs into mo lei tau territory. That is fantastic, there just hasn’t been enough weird, fun stuff coming from Chinese cinema, and if they have to crib from Stephen Chow’s playbook to do it, fine with me. Never Say Die has been rewarded for being funny with some good box office returns (some of which might even be legitimate!), and gets the TarsTarkas.NET Seal of Approval! (Note: Seal of Approval does not contain actual seals.)

The film is merciless towards ultimate fighting, depicting it as an incredibly corrupt institution controlled by a family that profits off of the use and destruction of the other fighters, while promoting their son, Fight King Wu Liang (Xue Haowen) as the undefeated champion for years. Edison (Allen Ai Lun) is even introduced as being part of this machine, his first appearance is holding own on throwing a fight while demanding more money, and his character is coming off a suspension for giving bribes to the Fight King (for a match Edison lost and had his arm broken during) Later fighters are obviously bribed, including one who complains that the fighter won’t even try to attack them so they can fake lose.

Reporter Ma Xiao (Ma Li) is a no-nonsense sports reporter who will do whatever it takes to get her story, which is usually about how awful the various ultimate fighters are. Which is ironic, given that she is engaged to the Fight King himself! As Edison is announcing his big comeback for a rematch with the Fight King (provided he wins enough qualifying matches to do so), she harasses him at the press conference and then overhears him discussing with his manager, Ma Dong (Tian Yu), about how Ma Dong bribed enough fighters to take a dive to ensure a rematch. An attempt by Edison to retrieve Ma Xiao’s take with incriminating evidence results in the two switching bodies thanks to the power of accidentally kissing while falling in a swimming pool when lightning strikes. You know, the usual stuff. The fun then begins as they both walk several miles in each others shoes and realize things aren’t as simple as they first appear (or as I have described them above!)

InMovie Reviews

Chasing the Dragon (Review)

October 31, 2017ByTars Tarkas

Chasing the Dragon

aka 追龍 aka Chui Lung aka Zeoi Lung

2017
Written and directed by Wong Jing and Jason Kwan Chi-Yiu

A stellar performance from Donnie Yen elevates Chasing the Dragon to being a film that Hong Kong fans need to see. Yen gets to stretch his acting muscles underneath some early ridiculous wigs, and is joined by Andy Lau, who also spends some time doing actual acting while taking bribes and consolidating power. Wong Jing proves he can still put out some good stuff, and every time he does it just makes his bad movies even worse. If Wong Jing was consistent, he’d be the greatest filmmaker of all time. But then he wouldn’t really be Wong Jing, so I guess this will do.

Despite a slow start that fumbles around before it gets focused, Chasing the Dragon becomes a pretty good crime drama. Yen plays Crippled Ho, who is based on real gangster Ng Sek-ho (his story was previously told in 1991’s To Be Number One, of which this is a sort of remake, though I’m confused on if it is an actual official remake or just similar.) Andy Lau plays his Lee Rock character from the Lee Rock series (which was based on real life corrupt policeman Lui Lok), which makes this one of those weird films that is a remake but also a reboot but also based on real life. You know, something very easy to classify!

Crippled Ho begins as an illegal immigrant from the mainland who turns to fighting with street gangs for easy cash, and soon catches the eye of up and coming policeman Lee Rock. Fate binds them together through series of ups and downs of both characters as they begin flexing their muscles in controlling the various criminal elements in a very corrupt Hong Kong. Lee Rock has learned that just being the honest cop sort of sucks when everyone else is on the take, while Crippled Ho is forced towards crime by the same system that keeps the Hong Kong people down, Mainlanders even below them, and the corrupt and brutal British on top.

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