Month: July 2013

LFM Reviews The Rooftop @ The 2013 New York Asian Film Festival; Opens Friday, 7/19

By Joe Bendel. That’s right, “Wax” is the word. Named for his hair styler, Wax is a singing kung fu motorcycle gang member, who is out to win the heart of the innocent ingénue. There will be dancing, fighting, and swooning in Jay Chou’s The Rooftop, the closing night film of the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival (and also part of the Well Go USA spotlight), which opens theatrically in New York this Friday.

Wax and his bowling biker buds live in the Rooftop section of Galilee, under the shadow of the huge outdoor billboards. They do not mind the scenery, though. In fact, they are rather fond of the one featuring Starling, a budding starlet and supermodel. Wax’s three stooges, Tempura, Egg, and Broccoli refer to her as “Sister-in-Law” to needle the big smitten lug. Everyone assumes nothing will ever come of his impossible crush until the day Wax picks up some part-time stuntman work getting the snot beat out of him on the set of her next picture.

Of course, she notices him. As their chaste courtship heats up, William (the one-named), Starling’s mobbed-up movie star patron, contrives to sabotage their romance. We know he is bad news because he is an associate of Red, one of Tempura’s unfriendly rent-collecting rivals working for the corrupt housing authority. That’s right, some of the villains are Taiwanese HUD bureaucrats, albeit decidedly more flamboyant than our homegrown variety.

From "The Rooftop."

For his second outing in the director’s chair, pop idol and action super-star Chou channels his inner Baz Lurhmann, unleashing a kaleidoscope of colors and staging big, flashy, razzle-dazzling musical numbers. Clearly not afraid of a little sentiment, Chou indulges one big melodramatic set piece after another. One minute Wax and Starling are strolling through a carnival, next they are dancing in the rain, and shortly thereafter they stare into each other eyes in his quaint rooftop neighborhood as fireworks explode in the background. It’s all good.

Chou and the radiant Li Xinai look like an attractive couple and develop some half decent romantic chemistry together. She even does some legit acting in her own scenes. However, the crafty old HK vet Eric Tsang often steals the show as Dr. Bo, the lads’ martial arts mentor and local snake oil salesman. Alan Ko also has his moments as Tempura, the enforcer trying to go straight. Unfortunately, the shticky comic relief delivered by Egg and Broccoli becomes embarrassing over time.

Still, Rooftop has a few gags that will have viewers laughing in spite of themselves. Truly, this is kitchen sink filmmaking. Chou throws it all in, including a way over the top framing device. Yet, Mark Lee Ping Bin, considered one of the world’s finest cinematographers for his work on films like Norwegian Wood, makes it all look bright and sparkly. If you want spectacle, Chou has your spectacle right here. Recommended for those who thought The Great Gatsby was too staid and did not have enough martial arts, The Rooftop officially closed this year’s NYAFF last night, but will open this Friday (7/19) in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on July 16th, 2013 at 10:57pm.

LFM Reviews Thermae Romae @ The 2013 New York Asian Film Festival + The 2013 Japan Cuts

By Joe Bendel. When in Rome, do as the Japanese do. Time-travelling Roman architect Lucius Quintus Modestus unwittingly adopts this strategy. Sure, you might think he looks more Japanese than Roman, but there is no need for pedantry when Hideki Takeuchi’s Thermae Romae screened this weekend as a co-presentation of this year’s Japan Cuts and the New York Asian Film Festival.

Nursing his wounded pride at a Roman civic bath, the recently fired Modestus is inexplicably pulled through the drainage system into modern day Japan. Initially contemptuous of the old-timers soaking in the neighborhood bath, the man has to admit their facilities beat anything Rome has to offer. It all rather overwhelms his Roman pride, while his chiseled looks overwhelm aspiring manga artist Mami Yamakoshi. After causing a great deal of naked commotion, Modestus quickly returns to his era, just as mysteriously as he left it. Soon he is the toast of Rome, applying the innovations he observed in Japan.

His new found fame earns Modestus the ear of the stern but wise Emperor Hadrian and his thoughtful counselor, Antoninus. Of course, the Emperor’s hedonistic adopted son Ceionius is a different story. Each time Modestus needs inspiration for a major commission, he somehow finds his way back to Japan and Yamakoshi, whether it be at the upscale bathroom showroom where she works part-time or at her mother’s rustic mountain spa. Eventually she will be pulled back to classical Rome with him, just in time for a major imperial power struggle.

From "Thermae Romae."

Based on a popular manga series that also spawned a short-lived anime incarnation, Thermae Romae has plenty of pratfalls and fish-out-of-water humor, but the cast plays it surprisingly straight. In fact, Masachika Ichimura and Kai Shishido play Hadrian and Antoninus as if they thought Sir Derek Jacobi might be popping round the set in his I, Claudius costume.

Hilariously stone-faced Kore-eda regular Hiroshi Abe does not really have that option, given how much time Modestus must run about in his altogether. Still, he conveys a sense of the architect’s principled rectitude, even when embroiled in truly outrageous situations. In a role original to the film, Aya Ueto is likable enough as Yamakoshi, but she is saddled with a problematically passive character. There are plenty of Euro-looking Romans as well, dubbed into perfect Japanese to keep the madness chugging along at full steam.

Partly filmed in Italy’s celebrated Cinecitta studio, Thermae’s period production scenes frankly look better than they needed to. It also observes the conventions of time travel movies, without getting bogged down in them. Lightweight but entertaining, it is a goofy romp that avoids all the cheap excesses of recent “Blank Movie” spoofs. Recommended for fans of time travel and manga-inspired films, Therma Romae will screen during this year’s Fantasia Film Festival, but Japan Cuts and the New York Asian Film Festival had it first.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on July 16th, 2013 at 10:56pm.

LFM Reviews It’s Me, It’s Me @ The 2013 New York Asian Film Festival + The 2013 Japan Cuts

By Joe Bendel. The expression “delete bad copies” sounds like relatively benign office work, until you start encountering your own personal doppelgangers. Much to his surprise, Hitoshi Nagano gets along rather well with his first other “me.” He is okay with the next one, too. Then things start getting complicated in Satoshi Miki’s It’s Me, It’s Me, which screened as a co-presentation of the 2013 Japan Cuts and this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Nagano does not have a lot going on in his life. Having thrown in the towel on his photography ambitions, he limps through each day as a clerk in a big box appliance store. One fateful day at a fast food restaurant, a loud mouth young wheeler-dealer named Daiki inadvertently leaves his smart phone on Nagano’s tray. Acting on a perverse impulse, he uses the phone to con Daiki’s mother into depositing a few hundred thousand yen into his account. Feeling remorseful, Nagano tries to return the money. However, Daiki’s mother will not take it back. She also seems to think he is her son, Daiki.

As it happens, they could indeed be twins. Yet, when Nagano visits his own mother, she does not recognize him. Instead, she insists Daiki the Doppelganger is actually Hitoshi Nagano. Later, the man who admits he kind of/sort of is Daiki explains to Nagano that his mother was particularly upset because a third doppelganger had been coming round, making scenes. That would be Nao, the hipster student.

When the three get together, they are like three peas in a pod—different but the same. They start calling their bolt-hole “Me Island” and cover for Nagano when he needs to bail on work. As if meeting his second selves were not eventful enough, he also starts cautiously pursuing Sayaka, an attractive older customer, who is married to a gangster. The mood darkens drastically, though, when Nao starts bringing round even more doppelgangers.

From "It's Me, It's Me."

Based on the novel by Hoshino Tomoyuki, IMIM is one of the most original takes on the doppelganger archetype since Capt. Kirk battled his evil twin in the late Richard Matheson’s “The Enemy Within.” Part urban fantasy, part dark thriller, and part surreal head-trip, it is devilishly difficult to classify. In a way, IMIM has a vibe similar to Sion Sono’s Love Exposure, in which strange and bizarre circumstances take on nationwide significance that everyone accepts with matter-of-fact nonchalance. Indeed, the straight-faced media reports on the mushrooming “copy deletion” phenomenon serve as a sly social commentary, but they are deadly serious for the original Nagano.

J-pop star Kazuya Kamenashi nicely steps into the postmodern Alec Guinness role of Nagano et al, creating intriguingly distinct personas for each “me.” Yuki Uchida adds some grace and sophistication as Sayaka, while Ryo Kase is all kinds of creepy clamminess as Nagano’s abusive store manager, Tajima.

It’s Me, It’s Me is a very clever film that patiently establishes its character(s) and premise. As a result, the payoff is subtle but satisfying. A smart genre hybrid, It’s Me, It’s Me is recommended quite highly when it screens at Fantasia Festival following its Japan Cuts and New York Asian Film Festival joint presentation in New York.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on July 16th, 2013 at 10:54pm.

LFM Reviews Pacific Rim

By Joe Bendel. At least they do not destroy New York City. For an apocalyptic film that constitutes real restraint. The bad news is it is only a matter of time before all of mankind finds itself on the business end of the next major extinction event in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, which opened Friday nationwide.

In the not too distant future, way down in Deep Thirteen . . . a mysterious alien race has begun rising through a breach in the Earth’s crust, sending gigantic monsters up to ravage Pacific coastal population centers. They become known as “Kaiju” in honor of the great Japanese genre monster movies. To combat this threat, the frontline nations joined forces to create giant Iron Man-like fighter-crafts they call “Jaegers” (the German word for hunters). For a while, the Jaegers were taking care of business, but the Kaiju evolved, becoming bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.

Nobody understands this better than Raleigh Beckett. Siblings like Beckett and his brother Yancey were often recruited as Jaeger pilots, because they are highly “drift compatible,” meaning they can form a strong neural bond with each other to control their massive fighting machines. Unfortunately, when Yancey dies in battle his surviving brother shares the experience. Shortsightedly, the Jaeger Project is discontinued in favor of a public works boondoggle of a barrier wall. When that predictably fails, Beckett’s former commanding officer Stacker Pentecost rounds up all the mouth-balled Jaegers and a motley crew of pilots for a last stand.

There are the odd environmental implications to Rim, but frankly the film only mentions the ozone depletion mumbo-jumbo explanation in passing. Of course, in old school Kaiju movies, the atomic bomb was always responsible for creating the monsters. Ironically, a nuclear warhead might represent humanity’s salvation in Rim, if Pentecost’s team can slip one past the goalie, deep enough down the breach.

Even if it is an effects driven tent-pole, most cineastes will be interested in any film starring Idris Elba and Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi. As one would expect, Elba is one of the very few name actors who has sufficient presence and masculinity to pull off the gruff on the outside, but slightly less gruff on the inside Stacker Pentecost (by the way, is del Toro’s Ronco character name-generating machine still under warranty?).

Yet the real breakout star is Kikuchi, who exhibits both acute sensitivity and legit action cred as rookie Jaeger pilot Mako Mori. Charlie Hunnam is basically adequate as the out-for-redemption Raleigh Beckett, but that constitutes a significant improvement from his embarrassing turn in the laughable atheism advocacy potboiler, The Ledge. Mana Ashida also deserves great credit for her tremendous green screen work as the young Mori, but viewers will start to absolutely despise del Toro for making her look so terrified.

From "Pacific Rim."

Obviously Pacific Rim is inspired by Kaiju classics, like the Godzilla and Daimajin franchises, but in terms of tone, the film feels more closely akin to anime, with its battling bots and angst-ridden crews. In fact, the Jaegers bear a distinct resemblance to the Eva units in the Evangelion series. Frankly, a cheesy j-pop theme song would have come as a welcome relief from Ramin Djawadi’s ridiculously ominous score.

The visual effects are suitably impressive, particularly when rendering a sense of the enormous mass and scale of the Jaegers and creatures. Still, it is too dark overall, never really giving viewers a good daytime shot of the Kaiju. You start to wonder if they are allergic to Vitamin D. As usual, the 3D adds little to the experience.

Frankly, the 3D surcharge might just price Rim out of a recommendation. Kikuchi and Elba are excellent and the concept of a big budget, updated take on the Kaiju genre is pretty cool. However, the script is rather workaday and a little of the bickering scientists’ comic relief goes a long, long way. For Kaiju fans looking to beat the heat, Pacific Rim opened Friday nationwide, including at the Regal Union Square in New York (screening both the 3D and glorious 2D versions).

LFM GRADE: B- in 2D/C+ in 3D

Posted on July 15th, 2013 at 9:34am.

Don’t Hock What You Can’t Afford to Lose: LFM Reviews Pawn Shop Chronicles

By Joe Bendel. How did we get so pathetically starved for entertainment as a society that we made reality TV stars out of pawn shop dudes? At least this slightly macabre anthology film puts hock shops back in their properly sleazy place. Everyone doing business at the General Lee Pawn Shop will be getting the shaft, but it will be fate and human nature doing the dirty work in Wayne Kramer’s Pawn Shop Chronicles, which opened Friday in New York.

Alton and his crony Johnson sit about the store grunting and guffawing, pausing to deal with the occasional pawn. Each transaction will cause big time trouble and regret for the General Lee’s walk-ins, like Vernon the meth head, who hocks his shotgun right before meeting up with his white supremacist buddies, Raw Dog and Randy, to hold-up their dealer. Of course, they are rather disappointed in his short-sightedness.

On paper, “The Shotgun” sounds like a cheap bit of hicksploitation, but it features some of the wickedest dialogue in the film, which Paul Walker and Kevin Rankin chew on with proper relish. Gleefully embracing cartoonish violence and a bizarre redneck brand of tolerance, PSC arguably puts its strongest foot forward first.

“The Ring” also has its exploitation merits, but viewers should be warned that it is the most explicit and disturbing installment of the film. Making amends for Crash, PSC’s pretentious evil twin, Matt Dillon plays a newlywed who chances into the General Lee, only to discover his presumably late first wife’s custom ring in the display case. Following the chain of wrongful ownership takes him into the lair of Johnny Shaw, the latest serial killer to be played by Elijah Wood.

Despite a sly riff on the crossroads legend, “The Medallion” is PSC’s weakest link. Seriously, a little bit of Brendan Fraser shticking up the joint as Ricky Baldoski, the low rent Elvis impersonator, goes a long, long way. Eventually, strands of the previous stories will transect this Faustian tale, but first viewers must sit through an extended gag involving the town’s rival barbershops that feels like it runs longer than The Winds of War.

Many have long awaited the film that features Wood, Lukas Haas, and DJ Qualls, but since they never appear here in the same scene together, we still cannot definitely say they are not one and the same person. Vincent D’Onofrio and Chi McBride are mildly amusing in the General Lee framing segments, but it is Walker, Rankin, and Dillon who are the film’s overachievers.

Much like a chaotic pawn shop, the inspired and the stupid comfortably sit side-by-side in PSC. To his credit, Kramer (in a radical departure from his excellent more-or-less feature debut, The Cooler) helms the madness with considerable energy and absolutely no shame. On balance, b-movie connoisseurs will enjoy checking it has appeared on VOD. It has also opened theatrically in New York at the AMC Empire and in Colorado at the AMC Westminster Promenade.

Posted on July 15th, 2013 at 9:32am.

Death By Webcomics: LFM Reviews Killer Toon

By Joe Bendel. Maybe those fuddy-duddies at the Comics Code Authority were not completely off-base regarding the corrupting influence of comic books. Take for instance Kang Ji-yoon’s webcomics. Her lurid depictions of supernatural vengeance are certainly popular, but they also seem to be coming true in real life. How exactly does she get her ideas? That will be the question in Kim Young-gyun’s Killer Toon, which opened Friday in Los Angeles at the CGV Cinemas.

Kang is not great when it comes to deadlines, so her editor Seo Mi-sook is initially quite relieved to finally receive her latest comic via e-mail. Then she starts reading it. Oddly, the first panels self-referentially depict her working late on the very same webcomic, but then flash back to her deepest, darkest secret. A malevolent presence starts terrorizing the understandably freaked out Seo, eventually forcing her to commit suicide, both in the comic and real life.

Responding to the call, Detective Lee Ki-cheol finds Seo’s body and the suspicious comic open on her computer. Having evidently never seen a horror movie before, he decides this could be a career making case. Logically, Kang becomes their prime suspect after she mysteriously arrives on the scene of another ostensive suicide foretold in her comics, at least until yet another interested party kidnaps her.

Like the E.C. Comics that obviously inspired it, everyone is guilty of something in Toon and therefore has it coming to some extent. Combining live action with liberal samples of Kang’s work presented in a motion comic style, Kim’s film clearly evokes Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt, but it takes the concept even further.

From "Killer Toon."

As a result, Toon looks very cool, but it has an unfortunate habit of contradicting itself. In fact, it seems compulsively driven to pull late inning switcheroos with the true nature of a primary character that simply become exhausting. Still, Kim consistently maintains the heavy atmosphere of portent, slickly transitioning between Kang’s comics and the film’s objective reality. The past clearly haunts the present, regardless of the exact nature of the machinations at work.

In probably his darkest role to date, musical theater veteran Um Ki-joon is surprisingly good as Det. Lee, an arrogant and ambitious man, but not a dumb flatfoot by any stretch. Likewise, popular rom-com movie star Lee Si-young is quite the convincing basket case as the gruesome graphic novelist. Kim Do-young’s ill-fated editor makes a memorable opening scene victim and Hyun Woo is also appropriately cold and clammy as Det. Lee’s twitchy junior.

Indeed, Toon boasts a strong ensemble and a darkly stylish look. Unfortunately, screenwriter Lee Sang-hak’s adaptation of Lee Hoo-kyung’s novel just doesn’t always add up. There are far too many “wait, why did …” moments. Still, for fans of horror movies and comics, there is some fun stuff to be found here, as well as some hardcore retribution to keep them on the straight-and-narrow. Recommended for genre enthusiasts who value visual flair over narrative logic, Killer Toon opened Friday in LA, at the CGV Cinemas.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on July 15th, 2013 at 9:31am.