Day: July 11, 2012

By Joe Bendel. Arguably, Ai Weiwei is the single most important artist of our time. One might expect the Chinese government to take pride in his international preeminence, but instead they are threatening him with specious bigamy and pornography indictments. While best known for his architecture and large scale installations, he is also a filmmaker—and rather a muckraking one at that. Indeed, it is easy to understand the Communist regime’s relentless campaign against Teacher Ai after viewing his fearless documentary investigations of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Defiantly exposing the hypocrisies of the Chinese justice system, Ai Weiwei’s Disturbing the Peace and So Sorry will screen as part of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ enormously timely retrospective, now underway in San Francisco.

Still prohibited from traveling, the artist will not be present for these screenings. The series includes several of Ai’s films recording his ambitious artistic projects that are surely well worth your time and attention. However, Disturbing and Sorry are particularly relevant to the legal purgatory he now finds himself in. Following the 2008 quake, Teacher Ai and his assistants launched a campaign to tabulate an accurate death toll of the students killed by shoddy so-called “tofu” school construction and record each name. Yet, every time they asked the authorities for fatality statistics, they were branded American or Japanese spies.

While both Sichuan documentaries cover overlapping events, Disturbing concentrates on Teacher Ai’s direct challenges to the government authorities. As the film opens, Ai has returned to Chengdu to appear as a witness at the trial of Tan Zuoren, an independent researcher also investigating the Sichuan earthquake. Denied his day in court, Ai and his party are rousted and detained by the police at three in morning. Teacher Ai is physically assaulted and one of his assistants is ominously whisked away, without any pretense of due process.

Ai subsequently returns with the woman’s husband and Tan’s fearless attorney Pu Zhiqiang to demand answers. Finally jumping through enough hoops to meet face-to-face with a high ranking bureaucrat, Ai makes it plain they will not leave until they receive a satisfactory accounting. Frankly, the meeting gets rather ugly, with Ai dropping f-bombs and openly questioning the integrity of the man across from him. He had a right to be irritable though, having not eaten for hours on end, as the apparatchiks stalled and dissembled. Clearly, Ai and his colleagues believe any hope they have of securing their colleague’s release depends on them staying in that conference room and in the authorities’ faces. From what viewers see, they do not seem far wrong in their judgment.

So Sorry also covers the Sichuan earthquake and the scandalous aftermath, but the focus is slightly different. We see more of the investigation itself and hear from some of the devastated parents, whose grief is compounded by China’s One Child policy. While Ai again confronts agents of the state not so subtly surveilling him, the grim drama in Sorry centers around Ai’s cerebral hemorrhage resulting from the Chengdu attack, coming while he is in the midst of preparing a major exhibition in Germany.

Not surprisingly, Alison Klayman’s forthcoming documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry draws heavily on Ai’s Sichuan films. However, if you have only seen the excerpts, you haven’t seen the half of it. Disturbing the Peace is particularly staggering, as Ai “talks truth to power” in a way officialdom is most definitely not accustomed to. Especially telling is the way he needles them with the Party’s own rhetoric. It is also chilling to witness, knowing how dearly he will pay for his boldness.

It is hard to think of two braver, more revealing documentaries than Ai’s Sichuan films. They are literally video dispatches from an Orwellian police state. Viewed together, the two films conclusively establish tens of thousands of young lives were needless lost and that those who ask questions will find themselves in serious jeopardy. One would hardly expect them to meet with the Party’s approval, but they make it easy to understand why so many everyday Chinese citizens have rallied to support Teacher Wei during his Kafkaesque ordeal.

Immeasurably important for understanding contemporary China, Disturbing the Peace screens this Sunday (7/15) as part of the YBCA’s Ai Weiwei series. Recommended nearly as earnestly, So Sorry screens the following Sunday (7/22) as part of a double bill with Ordos 100, Teacher Ai’s record of a yet unfinished architectural project in Mongolia. More than just topical programming, the YBCA deserves great credit for keeping Ai Weiwei and his work, both the political and the artistic, in the public eye at this critical period of time.

Posted on July 11th, 2012 at 4:55pm.

By Joe Bendel. Who would you rather have your butt kicked by 2012 NYAFF Star Asia award winner Donnie Yen, Michelle “The Lady” Yeoh, or Tony Leung? Leung would probably be the safest choice. You certainly would not pick Yeoh, if you know what’s good for you. She is characteristically lethal and rather Machiavellian, but also unexpectedly vulnerable in Michael Mak’s Butterfly Swords, which Well Go USA recently released on DVD.

Once fellow street urchins, Meng Sing-wan, Lady Ko, and Yip Cheung have become the top assassins of the Happy Forest martial arts alliance. Lady Ko is the brains of the operation, reporting directly to Eunuch Tsao. Unfortunately, her patron is not long for this earth. As his nearly dying wish, he asks Ko to retrieve a document proving the conspiracy between a rival eunuch and the rebellious Estates Villa martial arts faction.

Tiring of the assassin’s life, Meng wants to settle down with Butterfly, the daughter of a reformed martial artist. As far as she knows, he is just a humdrum businessman, who happens to know an awful lot about weapons. However, since the fate of the empire is at stake, he agrees to go undercover with the Estates Villas. Ko is supposed to look after Butterfly while he is on assignment, but she rarely holds up her end of the bargain. Even though Meng considers her “Sister” Ko, she has always carried a torch for her not-really brother. Likewise, Yip pines for her, but his feelings are definitely not reciprocated.

Given Meng and Ko’s status as sort-of but not really siblings, Butterfly Swords has an odd, vaguely Tennessee Williams-V.C. Andres vibe that sets in apart from other wuxia swordplay spectacles. While consistently preposterous, many of the action sequences choreographed by Ching Siu-tung are quite inventive, particularly a gravity-defying melee atop a bamboo forest (remember, those trees bend but do not break). The exposition is brief, yet confusing. However, the longing triangle of Ko, Meng, and Yip works surprisingly well.

The lynchpin of the film is unquestionably Yeoh. She has some great action scenes with her decapitating scarf, but is also quite convincing expressing Lady Ko’s yearnings and insecurities. Of the trio, Donnie Yen is probably the one short-changed for screen time as Yip, but he still has some decent drunken fight scenes. Tony Leung does not have the same presence he would display in subsequent John Woo and Wong Kar-wai masterworks, but he develops some engaging chemistry with Yeoh and Joey Wong’s Butterfly, nonetheless. It is also nice to see the latter in one of her final screen roles before she entered her semi-retirement (periodically interrupted by special return appearances), even if the character is a bit of a stock type.

Butterfly Swords is not a transcendent wuxia classic, but its willingness to go for broke is certainly entertaining. Yet its best moments are the relatively quiet ones. Fans of Yeoh and Yen (and isn’t that just about everyone?) should enjoy checking it out on DVD, now on-sale from Well Go USA, a company with offices in Texas, China, and Taiwan, so they ought to know and thing or two about brawls and beatdowns.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on July 11th, 2012 at 4:55pm.

By Joe Bendel. What do you get when you combine the labors of Hercules with Make Me Laugh in feudal Japan? A disgraced samurai with a lot of deep bruising. Yet, his dignity will take the hardest hit in Hitoshi Matsumoto’s physically demanding Jidaigeki dramedy Scabbard Samurai (trailer here), which screens this weekend as a co-presentation of the 2012 Japan Cuts and New York Asian film festivals.

Kanjuro Nomi is not even a ronin. He is a deserter, who symbolically emptied his scabbard after his wife’s death from the plague. He aimlessly roams the countryside with his young daughter Tae, who makes no secret of the higher expectations she had for her father. Thanks largely to his thick head, they elude three distinctive looking bounty-hunters: O’Ryu the Shamisen Player, Pakyun the Pistol Boy, and Gori Gori the Chiropractikiller. However, his luck runs out when the Tako Clan captures him.

Rather than a quick execution, Kanjuro will have to face the “thirty day feat.” Like a Gong Show Scheherazade, Kanjuro has thirty days to make the lord’s emotionally catatonic son smile, or its hara-kiri time. At first Tae is disgusted by the sight of her father performing belly dances and shoving foreign objects up his nose. However, when his well-meaning guards start coaching him, she also gets with the program. As his stunts become more elaborate Sisyphean exercises, the entire town rallies behind Kanjuro, but Matsumoto is not going for the easy Hollywood ending here.

Scabbard’s period details are passable enough, but they are hardly the point. Frankly, it is hard to think of another film that mixes such liberal helpings of slapstick humor, maudlin sentiment, and high tragedy. Yet, somehow it all blends together easily in Scabbard. The impressively straight-faced Takaaki Nomi is quite the good sport, putting up with all sorts of Fear Factor humiliation, while managing to maintain Kanjuro’s dignified bearing. As Tae, Sea Kumada is truly something else giving the old man what-for, but she is also shockingly good in her big dramatic scenes. One-named actress-model Ryō also brings an icy charm to the proceedings as the lethal shamisen player.

Kanjuro is no Sanjuro, that’s for sure. Yet there is something deeply heroic about him. It is that unlikely integrity that gives the film such a unique spirit. Sensitively helmed by Matsumoto, Scabbard Samurai is definitely not for the jaded, but that is what makes it such a nice surprise at the overlapping festivals. Recommended without reservation for those who appreciate earnest father-daughter stories, as well as the odd pratfall, Scabbard Samurai screens this Saturday (7/14) as a joint-selection of the 2012 Japan Cuts and New York Asian film festivals.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on July 11th, 2012 at 4:54pm.

By Joe Bendel. Brazil was the only Latin American country to commit troops to the Allied cause during World War II, but the country’s early strategic alignment was decidedly slippery. However, they evidently prosecuted the war quite zealously after the armistice. As home to the largest expatriate Japanese community, Brazil outlawed the Japanese language, the public display of the Japanese flag, and the free assemblage of Japanese-Brazilians. Ironically, this would isolate the targeted enclaves, making them susceptible to extremist groups that refused to accept Japan’s defeat. A decent man loses his soul to those Shindo Renmei nationalists in Vincete Amorim’s Dirty Hearts (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Premiere Brazil! showcase at the Museum of Modern Art.

Most Japanese immigrants in post-war Brazil only speak Japanese. Already shunned by the Brazilian establishment, they have little need of Portuguese within their cooperative. Ekemi, the young daughter of the cooperative president is an exception. She often translates for Takahashi, the mild mannered portrait photographer. Takahashi is a simple man devoted to his wife Miyuki, but his lack of confidence makes him vulnerable to the venom of Colonel Watanabe, a retired Imperial officer and big wheel amongst the community.

According to Watanabe, anyone who believes Japan has surrendered and the emperor has renounced his divinity has willfully bought into Allied propaganda and must therefore have a “dirty heart.” The characters for that ominous epithet start to appear on the walls of Portuguese speaking Japanese, serving as none too subtle death threats. Perhaps because of his size, Watanabe taps the reluctant but impressionable Takahashi to be their lead hatchet man. Assassinating former friends, Takahashi jeopardizes his wife’s love, the affection of Akemi, and his sense of honor.

Regardless of what we have seen in samurai films (like for instance 13 Assassins, in which lead actor Tsuyoshi Ihara also appears), it is rather hard work killing someone with a sword. Dirty features some of the ugliest, messiest, least glamorous swordplay viewers are likely to see on film. This is an anti-war film after all, positing ideology as the real killer.

Ihara’s portrayal of the guilt-ridden Takahashi is viscerally intense, yet the film’s most memorable work comes from young Celine Fukumoto. Her earnest but utterly natural performance makes Akemi a worthy successor to Scout Finch in the annals of youthful cinematic consciences. Likewise, Tokako Tokiwa is quite arresting as the increasingly horrified Miyuki. The Portuguese-Brazilians are rather few and far between in Dirty, but fans might recognize Eduardo Moscovis (who went crazy rather nicely in The Last Madness) as the local ineffectual lawman.

Frankly, Dirty largely lets the Brazilian authorities off the hook, despite creating the conditions that gave first rise to the Shindo Renmei movement and then allowing them to tear the Japanese immigrant community apart. Granted, Amorim employs plenty of emotional manipulation, but he illustrates the danger of extremist group-think quite effectively.

Often riveting but also eye-opening, Dirty Hearts is strongly recommended when it screens this Friday (7/13) and Monday the 23rd as part of MoMA’s Premiere Brazil!, the only game in town for Brazilian cinema after Petrobras unceremoniously withdrew the funding for Inffinito’s New York Cine Fest. (FYI: New York taxpayers, that would be the same Petrobras that potentially stands to receive controversial U.S. Export-Import Bank loans and continues to fund the London Cine Fest.)

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on July 11th, 2012 at 2:58pm.

By Joe Bendel. It feels like the 1970’s again, in a good way. Strutting through the streets of Shimonoseki in a leather coat, slapping about petty thugs like little girls, while some funky soul-jazz s chugs away in the background, Gu Su-yeon’s latest film certainly follows in the tradition of vintage 70’s era exploitation films. Yet Gu’s story of life amid the zainichi underworld is reportedly based on real life experience. His alter-ego namesake should definitely be considered an anti-hero throughout Gu’s Hard Romanticker (trailer here), which screens as a co-presentation of the 2012 Japan Cuts and New York Asian film festivals.

Bleached-blond Gu is a lone wolf freelancer, who treats the North Korean gangs with the contempt they deserve. He enjoys the limited protection of his childhood friend Shoji, who has risen up through the ranks of the legit Yakuza. However, when a couple of knuckleheads bludgeon to death the grandmother of an up-and-coming NK delinquent (supposedly with Gu’s encouragement), it ignites a war among street gangs that threatens to engulf the unaligned Gu. With a crooked cop dogging his trail and his pal Shoji playing a dangerous game with the boss’s wife, Shoji is in for a rocky patch. Of course, that does not stop him from making enemies among mobbed-up lowlifes or putting the moves on the ostensibly demur Naksuko Chieko.

Romanticker might be intended as a cautionary confessional, but its pure testosterone and adrenaline will key-up viewers to the point many will be ready to grab a length of rebar and jump into the fray. If you want to see some spectacularly violent street fights, than this is the movie for you. Yet, despite the wardrobe, attitude, and greasy soundtrack, Gu is no Shaft. Frankly, there is a decidedly mean-spirited misogyny to the film that Gu the character explicitly contributes to.

An electric presence, Shôta Matsuda is all kinds of intense as the hardnosed Gu. Sei Ashina looks great in Chieko’s sailor suit and she is quite affecting in her big dramatic scenes, almost completely undercutting viewer sympathy for the ethically challenged protagonist, as a result. While the large ensemble of juvenile delinquents does not look particularly youthful, they are all pretty convincing when either giving or receiving a massive beatdown.

In Hard Romanticker’s world, life is cheap and sex is cheaper. The action and attitude are highly cinematic, but the nihilism becomes a tad exhausting over time. Recommended specifically for those who enjoy hardcore blaxploitation or Yakuza films, Hard Romanticker screens this Friday (7/13) at the Japan Society as a joint presentation of the 2012 editions of Japan Cuts and the New York Asian Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on July 11th, 2012 at 2:57pm.