Day: October 28, 2013

Keanu Reeves & Tiger Chen Show Their Chops: LFM Reviews Man of Tai Chi

By Joe Bendel. It was Tiger Chen who really knew kung fu. He was the stuntman responsible for Keanu Reeves’ martial arts training during the production of the Matrix trilogy and he made quite an impression. For his directorial debut, Reeves introduces Chen to the world with his old school beatdown, Man of Tai Chi, which opens this Friday in New York.

“Tiger” Chen Lin-hu is the last student of Master Yang, a great Ling Kong Tai Chi teacher. In contemporary Beijing, Tai Chi is mostly associated with old men doing their “soft” qigong in the park. However, Chen is starting to get noticed in the above board MMA world for his traditional “hard” practice of the ancient discipline. He also catches the eye of the shadowy Donaka Mark. When shady developers conveniently threaten to condemn his master’s temple, the lowly deliveryman becomes easy prey for Mark’s overtures.

Initially, Chen truly does not understand what he is getting involved in. However, as he notches victories in Mark’s underground fight circuit, Chen starts to enjoy the money and adrenaline. Unfortunately, the matches make him more aggressive, jeopardizing his relationships with his master and Qingsha, the cute-as-a-button paralegal helping him save the temple. Nonetheless, he cannot help noticing the stakes escalate with each bout.

Hong Kong police captain Sun Jing-si knows where it all leads: fights to the death broadcast over secure online connections for Mark’s exclusive clientele. Always a step behind the malevolent mastermind, she needs an informant to take the place of the one Mark just killed – someone like Chen, if she can find him.

With Tai Chi, Reeves had the good sense to make a film he would enjoy for his maiden directorial outing. Frankly, he shows serious action helmer chops, staging fight sequences that are crystal clear and easy to follow. There are no barrages of close-ups here. Reeves gives us the full Fred Astaire body shots, precisely so we can appreciate the technique of his main man, Chen.

The results are convincing. While Tai Chi is not the most original narrative under the sun, it deliberately harkens back to the gritty low budgets classics that launched the careers of legends. Chen maybe is not the most expressive actor you will ever see (after all, Reeves is his thesp-mentor), but his earnest gee-whiz persona works well in the context of the film. Oddly enough, Reeves is a bit of a surprise here, making a dynamite villain with his piercing stare and apparently insatiable appetite for the scenery around him.

Karen Mok is also seriously hardnosed as Sun, bringing real supporting heft to the film. Simon Yam adds further HK action cred as Superintendent Wong, her suspiciously unhelpful superior. Qing Ye is not exactly a natural on-screen either, but she still represents Chen’s lost innocence rather effectively. Yet for genre fans, nobody tops Shaolin veteran Yu Hai, doing his thing with stately gravitas as Master Yang. Bizarrely though, The Raid’s Iko Uwais is completely wasted in a mere tease of a cameo.

Reeves might not be Clint Eastwood’s successor as the next great actor-director, but Tai Chi is a pretty slick calling card. If need be, he should easily find a second career as a straight-to-DVD action director, which is considerably higher praise than it sounds (those cats actually have to be good). Likewise, Chen might not be the next Daniel Day-Lewis, but watching him kicking butt is hugely entertaining. Way better than you think, Man of Tai Chi is recommended for martial arts fans and Karen Mok admirers when it opens this Friday (11/1) in New York.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 28th, 2013 at 9:58pm.

James Toback & Alec Baldwin Want to Make a Movie: LFM Reviews HBO’s Seduced and Abandoned

By Joe Bendel. Alec Baldwin loves making movies so much, he is now a boring talk show host. Perhaps this was the last hurrah for the star of Rock of Ages. He and director James Toback hit the Cannes Film Market hard in search of financing for a prospective indie production, simultaneously filming a documentary of their cold calling, at least guaranteeing they would not leave empty-handed. There is plenty of pitching but not a lot of closing in Toback’s Seduced and Abandoned, which airs this evening on HBO.

The idea is to remake Last Tango in Paris in Iraq during the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam. Baldwin will play the Brando role, re-conceived as a rightwing military advisor and Neve Campbell will step into the Maria Schneider part, transformed into a leftwing journalist. Campbell cannot make the trip to Cannes, but Baldwin and Toback assure her they would never make the film without her. However, they do not make it past their second pitch session before they start throwing her under the bus. They still love Neve, but maybe she can play the maid who comes to change their sheets.

Before long, they are also pitching actresses like Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, and Bérénice Bejo, along with prominent sales agents and the assorted eccentric millionaires. Of course, Last Tango in Tikrit sounds so gob-smackingly un-commercial we almost have to wonder if it is all an extended Borat gag, except Baldwin and Toback take themselves so seriously. On behalf of the nation’s film critics, I would like to thank the Cannes financiers for not stampeding to fund what sounds like a Frankenstein combination of The Canyons and The Green Zone.

Of course, in addition to the market, there is also a film festival going in Cannes, allowing the fundraising duo an opportunity to talk to some world cinema’s leading lights. Since S & A is a documentary about the movies, Martin Scorsese duly sits for an interview. Perhaps the best sequence involves a sit-down with Bernardo Bertolucci in a hotel suite named in his honor, at which time the Tango auteur gives them his blessing for their pseudo-remake. Among the many other big name participants, James Caan has some particularly colorful things to say about the industry.

If you want to hear Toback and Baldwin kvetch than brother, this is the film is for you. If only they were as funny as they think they are. Toback captures some amusing inside baseball moments at Cannes and he incorporates some cleverly selected film clips, but Todd McCarthy’s Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema delivers far more behind the scenes details. Harmless but conspicuously self-absorbed, Seduced and Abandoned airs tonight (10/28) on HBO.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on October 28th, 2013 at 9:55pm.

Strange Things Happen in Utah: LFM Reviews Skinwalker Ranch

By Joe Bendel. It is an area notorious for weird happenings, but this is northern Utah, so they can’t be blamed on drunken misperceptions. In fact, a private paranormal research team could probably use a stiff shot when things start going bump in the night in Devin McGinn’s Skinwalker Ranch, which launches on VOD and screens in select cities this Wednesday.

Some locals believe the home video purportedly showing a young boy whisked away by supernatural forces is legitimate, while some suspect it is a hoax concocted by his father. Desperate to find his son, distraught rancher Hoyt Miller welcomes a team of scientists from Modern Defense Enterprises and a journalist recruited to serve as a neutral observer, hoping they can supply some answers. They wire the house and surrounding property with motion sensor cameras and settle in, but they will not have long to wait. An unearthly high pitched tone rudely awakens them their first night in the field, with subsequent uncanny events preventing them from getting much sleep thereafter.

Although not entirely found footage, a great deal of Skinwalker unfolds from the perspective of the surveillance cameras. By genre standards, McGinn shows admirable patience in the early going, nicely setting the scene and establishing the ranch’s atmospheric nooks and crannies. For a while, it is surprisingly creepy, thanks to his skillful use of suggestion and mystery to build the tension. Unfortunately, the conclusion seems rather rushed, but with horror movies, a good set-up often compensates for a weak ending.

Although the helmer directing himself is usually a red flag, McGinn is actually quite respectable as Cameron Murphy, the semi-skeptical journalist. Jon Gries is also better than average as the poor, suffering Miller. Frankly, Skinwalker earns a recommendation just for casting the eternally cool Michael Horse (a cult favorite from Twin Peaks) as Ahote, a vaguely shaman-esque figure who offers the helpful advice to get the good golly out of there.

Skinwalker’s fusion of the horror and alien abduction genres is hardly original, but the execution exceeds expectations. After all, for a low budget programmer, not bad is pretty good. Recommended for a Halloween outing with like-minded viewers, Skinwalker Ranch screens this Wednesday (10/30), Devil’s Night, in theaters throughout Texas, Florida, and Alabama.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on October 28th, 2013 at 9:51pm.

Her Father’s Voice: LFM Reviews Blood and Ties

By Joe Bendel. The so-called “Hwaseong Murders” were South Korea’s first recorded serial killings, but the statute of limitations expired before the murderer was uncovered. The case’s impact can still be discerned in Korean cinema’s fascination with serial killers and the ticking prosecutorial clock. Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder was transparently based on the Hwaseong killings and it is easy to see its influence on Jung Byoung-gil’s Confession of Murder. The notorious crimes also directly inspired Kook Dong-seok’s Blood and Ties, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Jung Da-eun’s working class father Soon-man never had much, but he made sure she never lacked for anything. Now a grown adult, she still lives at home with the ever dedicated single parent. All her grad school friends adore dear old dad too, but after watching a lurid new documentary, they cannot help noticing how similar his voice sounds to that of a notorious child abductor. The unknown perpetrator was only recorded during a brief ransom call, but he even uses one the senior Jung’s favorite catch phrases.

Thoroughly confused and suspicious, Jung’s daughter starts poking around. The sudden appearance of Shim Yoon-young further amplifies her anxiety. He is obviously an unsavory character, but seems to share some murky history with her father. As the media trumpets the imminent expiration of the statute of limitations, Jung Da-eun struggles with her doubts and loyalties.

From "Blood and Ties."

B&T is a wicked high concept thriller with ample opportunity for high tragedy, but it does not guard its secret closely enough. The set-up is downright sinister and the top-shelf primary cast maintains the intensity, but viewers will always have a pretty good idea where it is all headed.

Son Ye-jin comes apart at the emotional seams quite convincingly as Da-eun, but it is Kim Kap-soo who commands the film as her father. Somehow he projects steely malevolence and pained sensitivity simultaneously, thereby providing both sides of his character’s Rorschach. Without Kim’s perfectly modulated performance, B&T would not work to any extent. While the supporting cast is mostly adequate, Lim Hyung-joon is also distinctly slimy as the all kinds of bad news Shim.

Based on a story by Kook’s mentor, filmmaker Park Jin-pyo, B&T taps into some deep-seated anxieties, but it is driven by the work of Kim, Son, and Li. Recommended for thriller fans looking for a blend of Mary Higgins Clark and James Patterson, Blood and Ties opens this Friday (11/1) at the CGV Theater in Los Angeles and next Friday (11/8) at AMC Bay Terrace in Flushing, Queens.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on October 28th, 2013 at 9:48pm.