Month: March 2014

By Joe Bendel. If Chen Zilong is ever going to return to the regular Hong Kong police force, he will have to fix those gangster tattoos. For the time being, they are part of his undercover guise, as ruthless enforcer Dragon Chen. However, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain his cover amid an ensuing power struggle in Clarence Fok Yiu-leung’s Special ID, which opens this Friday in New York.

Chen’s English is iffy, but his martial arts skills are top-notch. Despite his clandestine mission, Chen loyally defends his juniors-in-crime during the film’s getting-to-know-you dust-up. After the restaurant melee, Chen starts to seriously doubt his position with the big boss. He also hears reports his former protégé Lo Chi-wai is up to no good on the Mainland.  Following his trail to Nanhai, Chen teams up with local detective Fang Jing, who takes issue with his cowboy style. She might be a stickler for regs, but the former Olympic marksman can shoot and fight.

Right, so Donnie Yen stars as Chen and serves as the primary action director. Any questions?Granted, the interpersonal drama is kind of awkward to watch, but the fight choreography is dazzlingly cinematic, yet gritty and in-your-face personal. The film’s real bonus is Jing Tian, who shows spectacular action chops as Fang Jing. In fact, she takes the honors in the film’s best fight sequence, set entirely inside a speeding car—one of the best close quarters throw-downs perhaps ever. She also has considerable charisma, rolling with Yen’s goofball charm as well as can be expected.

The significance of the unruly HK cop and the by-the-book Mainlander sounds pretty blatant, but Fok never overplays the ideological implications of their Odd Couple partnership. Frankly, the narrative-by-committee is about as stripped down and functional as it can get, despite contributions from recently deceased screenwriter Szeto Kam-yuen (who penned Yen’s SPL and the moody Louis Ko noir, Accident).

Still, if you believe fight choreography is an art form, Special ID will only strengthen your conviction. Fifty year-old Yen proves he still has his mojo and Jing should become everyone’s new movie crush. Just like Shu Qi in Journey to the West, she proves Chinese language actresses often get to do cooler stuff than their American counterparts. Recommended for fans of martial arts and gangster movies, Special ID opens this Friday (3/7) in New York at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: B+

March 7th, 2014 at 12:00am.

By Joe Bendel. It is downright ugly when the press and the government start colluding. When a well-connected corporation gets in on the game, it becomes a perfect storm of corruption. However, the world’s’ only honest talent manager will stand up to them in Kim Kwang-sik’s Tabloid Truth, which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles and next Friday in New York.

While paying dues at a large agency, Lee Woo-gon instantly recognizes the raw talent of Choi Mi-jin, but his bosses prefer to push the questionable talent they already have under contract. Striking out on his own, Lee builds Choi’s career to the brink of superstardom. In a cruel twist of fate, a malicious rumor published in an e-newsletter for elites romantically links Choi to a much older congressman just as they start to enjoy real success. Lee struggles to control the damage, but the media has already cast its verdict. When Choi subsequently commits suicide, Lee vows to avenge her.

He starts with the e-scandal sheet, but the small staff led by Mr.Park are just lowly, resentful pawns in a much bigger game. After a rough introduction, Park and his lieutenant Miss Kim help trace to the source of rumor, eventually leading Lee to the national government’s Office of Planning and the O&C Corporation. Unfortunately, Cha Sung-joo and his private security firm seem to have the drop on the crusading manager, in a decidedly painful way.

There is definitely something Zeigeisty about the film’s portrayal of digital tabloid journalism and its obsequious relationship with government officials. The anti-corporate pivot is rather predictable and overplayed, but the film sort of lives in a paranoid place where Tea Party alarmism and Occupy thuggery intersect.

Tabloid is only Kim’s second feature as a director and his first crack at the thriller genre, but he shows a real command of pacing. Shrewdly, Lee is portrayed as a tough customer, but not a superman by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the film gets a lot of mileage out of the savage beatdowns he endures, out of sheer hard-headedness. Still, the chemistry shown in early scenes and flashbacks between Kim Kang-woo’s Lee and Ko Won-hee’s Choi is surprisingly touching.

Those familiar with Korean cinema will also recognize a host of familiar faces amongst the supporting cast, especially Ko Chang-seok (from Quick, Hello Ghost, etc), who supplies comic relief as Baek Moon, Mr. Park’s surveillance specialist, but keeps the shtick relatively restrained. Park Sung-woong is also effectively cold-blooded and serpentine as the ruthless Mr. Cha, whereas Jeong Jin-yeong convincingly plays Mr. Park as a man of somewhat more years and considerably more mileage.

Without question, Tabloid successfully taps into people’s frustration with all things big and overly collegial. Nevertheless, its thriller mechanics work to the extent they do because of the very human foundation laid down by the cast, particularly Kim Kang-woo and Ko Won-hee. Recommended on the basis of their work rather than any potential socio-economic implications, Tabloid Truth opens tomorrow (3/7) in Los Angeles at the CGV Cinemas and next Friday (3/14) in New York (Flushing) at the AMC Bay Terrace.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on March 6th, 2014 at 11:55pm.

By Joe Bendel. Pianist Thomas Selznick has done the nearly impossible, creating buzz for contemporary classical music. Much to his embarrassment, he did so by crashing and burning during an attempt to perform his late mentor’s “impossible to play” composition. After years of nursing his wounds, his celebrity wife has coaxed him into making his concert hall return, playing the very piano once owned by his famous teacher. However, a criminal mastermind will hijack the program in Eugenio Mira’s Grand Piano, which opens this Friday in New York.

Before the show begins, Selznick’s friend and conductor William Reisinger counsels him not to sweat a flubbed note. Considering the density of the music they are about to perform, nobody in the audience will possibly notice. It is good advice musicians of all styles should take to heart. Unfortunately, Selznick will not have that option. Instead, the shadowy “Clem” demands, through an earpiece secretly slipped to Selznick, that he must play each selection perfectly. One missed note and it is curtains for him and his wife, Emma.

Of course, it gets even more complicated. Clem also has a last minute set change. For his solo closer, Selznick is to substitute “La Cinquette,” the very piece that gave him so much trouble before. Naturally, his mentor owned a Bösendorfer, because his unplayable piece requires those extra keys. As the concert progresses towards it climax, Selznick engages in a cat-and-mouse game with the gunman, while remaining rooted at the keyboard, in plain view to all.

Written by Damien Chazelle, this year’s Sundance sensation for Whiplash, Grand Piano has a nice ear for how musician’s talk and think. Shrewdly, his script takes its time establishing the Selznicks and Reisinger, as well as the elite classical world they inhabit. Mira also sets the scene quite effectively, making the mostly digital concert hall feel like a very real and ominous place.

Evidently, Elijah Wood’s youthful piano lessons paid off, because he looks credible enough at the keys. More importantly, he conveys the perfect level of nervous, ticky stress for a socially awkward artist like Selznick. Don McManus also adds a nice touch of flamboyance as Reisinger. Frankly, the revelation of the actor playing Clem feels like it is intended to be a surprise, even though his name is above the title on the one-sheet. In any event, he is more or less adequate as the mystery villain, even though Grand Piano is by far his best film since at least 2003. In contrast, it is safe to say Bill & Ted’s Alex Winter largely upstages the mostly unseen Clem as his henchman with an attitude.

Grand Piano is a nifty thriller that archly capitalizes on the claustrophobic setting and the neurotic nature expected from musicians of Selznick’s rarified caliber. Cinematographer Unax Mendia gives it a wonderfully dark, stylish look, suggesting a cross between giallos and Hitchcock (whose Royal Albert Hall sequence in The Man Who Knew Too Much stands as an obvious inspiration for the film). Well played and tightly constructed, Grand Piano is enthusiastically recommended when it opens this Friday (3/7) in New York at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on March 4th, 2014 at 9:26pm.

By Joe Bendel. You would think if H.G. Wells’ Martians could master space travel and death rays, they could also develop antibiotics. It turns out they have shored up their immunological vulnerabilities and have come back for more in Joe Pearson’s animated feature War of the Worlds: Goliath, which opens in select cities this Friday.

Germs saved our butts in 1899, but the vigilant understand it is only a matter of time before the Martians return for round two. Under the leadership of U.S. Secretary of War Teddy Roosevelt, the multinational A.R.E.S. defense force is formed, employing abandoned Martian technology reverse-engineered by their science advisor, Nikolai Tesla. However, by 1914, tensions in Europe threaten to pull A.R.E.S. apart.

Captain Wells struggles to hold his team together, but he has issues stemming from the first Martian invasion, when he witnessed his parents getting zapped. The IRA also hopes to capitalize on the potential European war, striking the British with advanced weaponry they expect Corporal Patrick O’Brien to steal from A.R.E.S. Obviously, this would be a good time for Mars to attack.

Ordinarily, you do not expect steampunk science fiction with a touch of art deco from a Malaysian animation studio, but here Goliath is, with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman on-board as executive producer. While the jaws of its characters could not possibly be any squarer, it creates a surprisingly cool world, where A.R.E.S. battles Martians with era-appropriate biplanes and EVA–Jaeger-style tripods, the latest model being the titular Goliath, piloted by Captain Wells and his crew.

Frankly, the warfighting scenes are more graphic than you might expect, particularly for those unfortunate enough to get caught in the Martians’ flesh-melting lasers. However, the historical details are sort of clever, including the hotshot Captain Von Richthofen, engaging the Martians’ air support as the ace of A.R.E.S. Wells’ backstory and his relationships with his squad members are a bit clichéd, but Goliath has a real ace in the hole. Any film that features Teddy Roosevelt shooting Martians earns a pass.

Since it exists in an alternate universe, Goliath manages to be both hawkish and internationalist in its galactic world view. The animation might be just a cut above passable (if that), but the world-building details are well thought out. Fans of the Highlander television series will be particularly interested in its voice cast, which includes Adrian Paul, Elizabeth Gracen, and Jim Byrnes (probably best known for Wiseguy), with the latter being a standout as Roosevelt. It is not a classic, but it is fun in an ambitious meathead sort of way. Recommended for fans of H.G. Wells and T.R. looking for an animated distraction, War of the Worlds: Goliath opens this Friday (3/7) in select theaters.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on March 4th, 2014 at 9:07pm.

By Joe Bendel. Wu Cheng’en’s classic Ming era novel is a big thick multi-volume work that has inspired many film adaptations drawn from various points throughout its epic time frame. Still, you might not find the exact story of Stephen Chow’s latest comedic spectacle in there, but several of the characters will certainly be familiar. The Monkey King and his fellow demons will tangle with a young and awkward Xuan Zang in Chow & co-director Derek Kwok’s Journey to the West, which opens this Friday in New York.

As a novice demon hunter, Xuan Zang hardly seems likely to reach enlightenment. However, he will do his best to fight the water demon plaguing a provincial fishing village in the go-for-broke opening sequence. While he is more effective than the charlatan that took the first crack at the creature, he is no match for the prowess of Miss Duan, a demon hunter extraordinaire. She does not think much of his use of a collection of nursery rhymes to appeal to the demons’ inner youthful goodness. Nevertheless, she falls for Xuan Zang hard, which confuses the devout Buddhist no end.

While Miss Duan handles the Water Demon with relative ease, KL Hogg (the Pig Demon) turns out to be elusively slippery.  Their pursuit of the latter will bring them into uncomfortably close contact with Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. At this point, all bets are off.

Wen Zhang (recognizable from Ocean Heaven) is appropriately wide-eyed and innocent as Xuan Zang, but the film is completely dominated by Shu Qi. As Miss Duan she shows all kinds of moves and a flair for physical humor we never knew she had in her. Watching her kick demon butt is a sight to behold, but it demonstrates the superior action opportunities for actresses in Chinese language cinema, especially when contrasted with their Hollywood counterpoints.

The prospective Expendabelles film is a case in point, with the embarrassing casting rumors centering around Meryl Streep (all dingos beware). On the other hand, every major Chinese language star takes on action roles throughout their careers, as a matter of course. Recent examples include Gwei Lun Mei in Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, Zhou Xun in the same film, as well as The Great Magician, Michelle Yeoh in nearly all her films, with Reign of Assassins being a recent example, Angelababy in Tai Chi Zero, Ziyi Zhang in The Grandmaster, and Mi Yang in Wu Dang. Now its Shu Qi’s turn and she makes the most of it.

When Shu Qi does her thing, Journey is wildly fun. Nevertheless, Chow did not return to the Monkey King character that made his name and reputation in A Chinese Odyssey just for a quick paycheck. As a reboot/prequel/film-within-the-margins, Journey starts as a massive beatdown and explodes on a cosmic scale, ending with more divine retribution than you will find in the entire Left Behind franchise. The message is simple—do not tick off Buddha.

So you have Shu Qi, a trio of demons, and an apocalyptic showdown. What more could you possibly need?  On the micro level, Ku Huen Chiu’s action choreography is impressively cinematic yet true to Chow’s eccentric aesthetic. On the macro level, Ken Law’s special effects really do not look like anything we have seen before. Plus “pseudo-model”-turned actress Chrissie Chau appears as Miss Duan’s lieutenant, Killer Four, giving her lessons in seduction that go fantastically awry. This is indeed the full assault to the senses Chow’s fans have been waiting for. Recommended with the enthusiasm of a fanboy, Journey to the West opens this Friday (3/7) in New York at the Cinema Village.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on March 4th, 2014 at 9:00pm.