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Reviews
Tien ya ming yue dao (1976)
wow
Contains cannibalism, exploding peacock feathers, ninjas who turn into trees, people getting chopped in half and blown up, crater-sized plot holes, nonsense proverbs, and a scene where one guy escapes death by having practiced for 20 years to move his sinuses by an inch. It's an absolutely stupid movie that makes Master of the Flying Guillotine feel underwhelming.
But at the same time, there's a sophistication to its dreamlike, fantasy feel in that it roots the martial arts/wuxia thing firmly in the enduring realm of myth and legend. There are twists and role reversals that make no sense other than to drive home the moral of the film, unlikely dialogue motifs, and some of the sets border on scenery porn. It's like watching a proverb play out.
Ren pi deng long (1982)
hm
Hammer horror meets wuxia. It makes about as much sense tonally as it sounds. Storywise, it's a barely coherent morality play about pride and greed that comes across like an excuse to string together some swordplay, some reasonably nasty flaying scenes, and very pretty setpieces. It is a great looking movie, I have to admit--the use of lighting is otherworldly. Sun Chung was easily one of the best directors Shaw Bros ever had, but when he wasn't doing cookie cutter martial arts stuff, he was seriously wasted on misguided crap (let's face it) like this.
There's something really "off" about how simultaneously Asian and European this movie feels. My instincts tell me it's not supposed to exist. Dramatically it never really takes off, but it's interesting enough in the context of "what were they thinking?" curio.
Tang shan da xiong (1971)
yeah man
Despite his figurehead status, Bruce Lee's films were for the most part pretty atypical of the kung-fu genre. This is a good example of the heavily westernized slant his stuff had: modern settings (rather than that vaguely ancient "lost in time" approach), dated jazzy funk, cheap nudity and very little philosophical pretenses or emphasis on tradition.
Not that the two dollar budget movies with white-wigged guys fighting in fields are in any way a "pure" representation of martial arts--of course they're not, that's half the appeal--but Bruce Lee's stuff is better seen as exploitation than anything. Which is fine, in a way.
With that said, it's hard not to appreciate this movie for how aggressively 70s it is. All the thugs look like retarded anorexic sailors, and it's awesome.
The Godfather (1972)
yeah
It's considered a classic because it was cynically designed to be a classic; it knows the the secrets of tension and payoff, it hooks the idiots with some random moaning broad getting boned in the first few minutes, and enough money was pumped into it that it looks like a painting in motion. You got tits and glamourized gangster machismo for the men, and scenic rural Italy for the women.
It would be obvious how paper-thin and sadly calculated it all really is if the performances didn't propel it into something approaching three- dimensionality. I think I prefer Goodfellas because it deconstructs everything this movie is, and is a much more natural, interesting movie in the process.
Enter the Dragon (1973)
more 70s than thou
I've sort of come around to this. It's not a good martial arts movie, but it is a good ultra-70s blaxploitation acid kung-fu spy movie, or something like that. The scene where afro man and the persian-stroking James Bond bad guy burst through the wall of his imperial Chinese looking office and into a psychedelic lounge full of drugged up hos perfectly encapsulates the movie's curious sense of cultural juxtaposition. This really only could have been made in a very specific time and place.
It's sleazy, brainless, and the philosophical bent Bruce Lee brought to a few scenes feels a little contrived, but I have to admit practically every scene bursts with life; it's just beat after beat of good (or at least interesting) ideas. Hell, a soundtrack like this could get me to love a horrible movie, so who knows.
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
ugh
Somehow or another, when every other 2000-something remake of an old horror movie set off most horror purists' "Hollywood BS" alarms, this one managed to sneak under them. The irony is that this might be the worst of the lot, as well as the most insulting considering the original's incisive anti-consumerism subtext.
Zack Snyder's directing style is everything soulless, overproduced and superficial about Hollywood regurgitated and dumbed down 10 times over, left in the freezer for a year and microwaved. Who needs grisly and grainy when everything can be shot super-clean and "sexy" like an MTV music video? Ah, the art of missing the point.
The running zombies are stupid. I don't care about or want realism in my walking corpse movies, but turning zombies into athletic killers affects something fundamental: fear. With slow but savage, drone-like enemies, you get a sense of hope, and your mind starts mapping things out. Conversely, when everything starts falling apart, there's genuine panic, balanced and exacerbated by a faint possibility of survival. When the characters are surrounded by a thousand leopard-fast killing machines, there is no hope, so you don't care what happens, thus, there is no fear.
More importantly, though, the characters are cardboard cutouts. To top it off, when the movie ends and the credits roll, we get nu-metal. The cycle of 13 year old appeal is complete.
Horrible.
Gokudô kyôfu dai-gekijô: Gozu (2003)
brilliant
Gozu is a lot of things. It's a mock-Greek epic, a yakuza yarn gone wrong, a black comedy, a horror movie, and a twisted, Freudian love story. And at the same time, it's really none of the above. As much as it crosses the line, it's much more subtle and deadpan than it sounds, and it refuses to fit into any marketable niche. Gozu is the most accurately I've seen a movie emulate the logic of a bad dream. The Lynch comparisons this movie gets are lazy at best; Lynch likes to let the audience put the pieces together into something that may or may not resemble what was originally intended. With Gozu, your subconscious can't miss what it's about: the guilt of betraying a friend, a sense of unworthiness, repression, isolation, etc.
Above all deeper analysis, Gozu is a lot like being lost in a town where things just feel "wrong". Minor characters speak in meaningless inanities: "I said it was hot the other day, and he said nah! But it was hot the other day, ask anyone!" One character repeats this mundane, banal mantra until it becomes eerily unfamiliar, then hilarious, then all too familiar. The third wall is broken to pieces and gender roles are tossed out the window. As surreal as it gets, though, the humanity of the characters keeps us grounded and caring about what happens. At its kindest moments Gozu evokes a sense of childhood adventure, and when a movie taps into such a vulnerable part of who you are, that's when it can truly get scary. Up there with The Seventh Seal and Stalker as one of the most perfect movies I've ever seen.
Stalker (1979)
...
This is a subtle film. One of the most gripping scenes is a half-asleep conversation between two characters, with eyes closed, great distance separating them, but the eerie quietude of the forest carrying their voices. The shots are long and sublime, and the camera obsesses on the juxtaposition of industrial ruination and nature. If you haven't come to terms with life you probably won't come to terms with this movie, because it enriches and examines life, rather than distract or provide escapism from it.
Stalker almost becomes "stagey" at times with its emphasis on monologues, but retains a purity of meaning in every sense. A seemingly never-ending, close up pan through a gentle, golden stream full of mechanical debris, religious symbols and fish seems to suggest vast, vital universes hiding in every corner. Weather and environment become coloring for the individual plateaus of a shared spiritual pilgrimage. The wordless ending is somehow one of the most disturbing I've ever seen. This film is not just a vehicle for abstract philosophy, it is very pure and unpretentious. However, it does not pander to low attention spans.
Gummo (1997)
hipster poverty voyeurism
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Gummo. I love its non sequitur, surrealist structure and general craftsmanship. I love its fragmentary nature and lack of obvious narrative. I hate how it has nothing to say about this rural, poverty-stricken town except "haha, look at this shithole." I've heard Harmony Korine talk about his ideas of universal transcendent beauty, and how nothing portrayed in this film is "ugly" to him, so it can't be exploitation. In other words, the guy pimping out his disabled sister? Beautiful. That boy eating spaghetti in a bath filled with brown water? Beautiful. Hiring ex-glue sniffers as actors for the sake as authenticity? Beautiful.
Then later in the interview I mentioned, Korine recalls getting stabbed by some cast member as payback. Payback for all the non-exploitation and transcendent beauty, right? Sure.
None of these subjects should be taboo, but a filmmaker who deals in such extremes should be able to fess up to what he's really portraying rather than assume some lackadaisical, hippie-dippie approach, and then hypocritically derive sardonic humor from it all. I think what makes Gummo exploitation is its insincerity.
Gummo has a lot of blackly hilarious, and dangerously quotable dialogue. It's full of downright eerie imagery, and has a great soundtrack full of high tier underground metal. But it has no content.