Month: November 2014

By Joe Bendel. They love their firefighters in Hong Kong. It is easy to understand why when you do the math. Hong Kong has the world’s fourth highest population density, concentrated in a mere 426 square miles, built straight up into the sky. In such an environment, fire equals bad. Ordinarily, no conflagration could withstand the collective manliness of the HKFD, but all bets are off when one of their family members is trapped within the mother of all electrical fires in Derek Kwok’s As the Light Goes Out, which releases today on DVD and digital platforms from Well Go USA.

This is supposed to Ho Wing-sam’s last duty day before transferring out of the Lung Kwu Tan station. Frankly, he has just been marking time since he was passed over for promotion, in favor of his more political astute former pal, Yip Chi-fai. His crusty old mentor Lee Pui-to is also due to retire imminently. Factor in the fact that it is Christmas Eve and you know it will not be long before a four-alarm fire breaks out.

Frustratingly, things would not have been so bad if it weren’t for careerist CYAing and denial. When Sam’s team gets the call for a winery fire in the New Territories, they initially extinguish it relatively swiftly. The responsible Ho starts taking a few additional preventative measures until Yip pressures him to return to the station, to help spit-polish everything for the chief-of-chief’s visit. Unfortunately, the winery is a little too close to the septic tank, which is a little too close to Hong Kong’s natural gas pipeline, which runs directly into the main power station. By the time Ho figures this out, the winery has reignited and the die is cast.

At least he has some good men to face down the colossal inferno, including old Lee, whose withering stare is usually sufficient to make most fires fizzle out. Despite his attempted hazing, the veteran fireman also quickly warms to Ocean, a forty-two year old immigrant rookie and former Mainland firefighter, who is still able to pass his physical training with perfect marks. He is assigned to help power plant engineer Ying Lan close the main pipeline, but her short-sighted boss over-rules their efforts at the plant level, making everything go boom. As if the stakes were not high enough already, the son of “Chill” Yau Bong-chiu, the firefighter who took the fall for Ho and Yip during an administrative inquiry, walked away from his school tour group and is now lost in the burning power plant.

ATLGO makes Backdraft look like an Oscar Wilde drawing room comedy. This is the ultimate one-darned-thing-after-another disaster film, featuring almost as many big name stars as The Towering Inferno. The fire truly rages and when particulate matter gets in the air, it become a massively combustive spectacle. Yet for sheer lunacy, nothing tops Jackie Chan’s early cameo (you’ll know it when you see it).

There will be no metrosexual whininess in ATLGO. Even though his mustache is kind of wimpy, Nicholas Tse is all man as “Sam” Ho, whereas Hu Jun is simply all Hulk as Ocean. Yet, nothing is stronger than Simon Yam’s attitude as the crafty old Lee. Fire-fighting is clearly still a man’s business in HK, but Michelle Bai Bing’s Ying convincingly supplies the brains of the film. Add the likes of Andy On, Shawn Yue, and Michelle Wai and you have no shortage of romantic leads playing supporting roles.

ATLGO is a rousingly old-fashioned film about heroism and sacrifice, but it also has a healthy contemporary contempt for bureaucracy and authority. It is sort of the best of both eras. Highly recommended for fans of fire-fighting action, As the Lights Go Out is now available on DVD, BluRay, and digital VOD from Well Go USA.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on November 19th, 2014 at 3:35pm.

By Joe Bendel. “Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” Jesse Unruh famously said. Uttamrao Jadhav certainly agrees. He even has a cow for a campaign symbol. When on the campaign trail, he spreads around plenty of “walking around money.” However, when he gives the grieving mother of a widely reported farm-suicide several large bills (for appearance’s sake) it leads to no end of trouble in Shrihari Sathe’s 1,000 Rupee Note, which screens tonight at the 2014 South Asian International Film Festival.

Budhi is a notoriously thrifty hard bargainer, but her fellow villagers never object. They are only too aware of the widow’s tragic history. At least she is not alone in the world. Her neighbor Sudama frequently checks up on her. His wife pretends to resent the attention he gives Budhi, but it is really just an act. Naturally, when Jadhav schedules a political rally, which necessarily comes with the promise of a free dinner, they make sure Budhi attends. They also prod her to get into the walking around money line. However, when Jadhav learns of her significance he drops several 1,000 Rupee notes on her.

Finally, Budhi should be able to have her glasses fixed and her son’s portrait reframed, with plenty left over to buy gifts for Sudama and his wife. However, when she and her surrogate son arrive at the big city market, they simply cannot break the bills. Eventually accused of passing counterfeit notes, they will cool their heels in the local police station, perhaps indefinitely.

If you are expecting a somewhat quirky braided story following those bills, in the tradition of Twenty Bucks, you had better think again. Rupee is a dark, caustic indictment of political corruption that opts for naturalism over satire at every juncture. Let’s not mince words, this film is depressing.

While the execution is competent but rather straight forward, there is no denying the effectiveness of Sathe’s leads. As Budhi, Usha Naik gives the film real depth and soul, while her maternal chemistry with Sandeep Pathak’s Sudama is genuinely touching. Pooja Nayak also has some nice moments as his wife. However, the assorted crooked cops and politicians are too clichéd to be fully credible characters, but not flamboyant enough to be engaging villains.

Wearing its class consciousness on its sleeve, the Marathi Rupee shares a thematic kinship with the Hindi Peepli Live, but it lacks the magnetic charm of a Naseeruddin Shah. Still, its skepticism of government and politics is hard to argue with. It just doesn’t really leave us anyplace to go but down. For those looking for something highly respectable and polemical, 1,000 Rupee Note is all that, but it isn’t so much fun when it screens tonight (11/19) as part of this year’s SAIFF.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on November 19th, 2014 at 3:34pm.

By Joe Bendel. Remember the good old days, when Isis was merely a vengeful Egyptian demigod determined to wreak havoc upon the earth? Well, she’s back and more scantily clad than ever. A group of randy college students will feel her wrath in Lisa Palenica’s Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy, now available on DVD from TomCat Films.

Centuries ago, Osiris and his wife-sister Isis were murdered by their power-mad brother Set. The thing is, you can never kill a black arts practitioner like Isis dead enough. All she needs is a half dozen college kids who frankly look too old to be undergraduates trying to get stoned off some resurrection incense and she’s back in business. As luck would have it, Professor Shields’ star pupil Amy and five of her dumbest classmates have volunteered for an all-night research session in the local natural history museum.

Evidently, some strange collector has donated a trove of hitherto unseen antiquities to the museum, including said incense, as well as Isis’s Book of the Undead and her mummified corpse. It is so spectacular, internationally renowned Egyptologist Dr. Nasir has joined the party, hoping to uncover evidence to support his theories (which basically boil down to if Isis were still here, she’d be really hacked off). So yes, you could probably say he’s in for a case of good news-bad news.

If you are wondering why Isis looks more appropriately dressed for the Luxor Hotel in Vegas than Luxor, Egypt, it might help to know she is played by adult entertainment star Priya Rai in her mainstream breakout debut. However, her established fanbase is likely to be disappointed with Rising, since it really only delivers the obvious cleavage and one carefully cropped sex scene featuring other cast members.

It is hard to fairly judge Rai’s performance because her screen time is relatively limited and what little dialogue she has is electronically distorted. Still, it is easy to see how she found success in her chosen field (feel free to insert your own joke about orbs here). Evidently, co-producer James Bartholet also works in “the business,” but you can’t really see why from his supporting turn as Henry the goofball security guard, which is probably a blessing.

As you would expect from a B-movie, the supporting ensemble varies widely in terms of professionalism. Without question, Jing Song and Seth Gandrud score the highest marks as Amy the A-student and Dr. Nasir respectively. You really have to give the latter credit for all the cheesy exposition he duly establishes with a straight face. As for the other classmates, including writer-director Palenica’s Felicia, they just can’t get killed soon enough.

The special effects throughout Rising are uniformly bad—even by the production standards of mid 1980’s straight-to-video sci-fi-horror knock-offs. However, they found a small but legit natural history museum to shoot in, so the mummy-less contemporary scenes looks surprisingly good. In fact, it is sort of bizarrely entertaining to watch them madly dash about the dinosaur exhibits, like having a museum sleepover as a kid with half a dozen of your nuttiest friends.

There was probably room in the world for a low budget film about a curvaceous mummy overstocked with awkward conversations, so Palenica and company have filled it. If you keep your expectations low enough, like basement level low, it is sort of fun, or at least hard to actively dislike. Frankly, every cult film expert probably needs to see it, just so they can address the Rai connection. For her fans and diehard mummy enthusiasts, Isis Rising is now available on DVD from TomCat Films.

Posted on November 19th, 2014 at 3:34pm.

By Joe Bendel. This vampire wears a chador rather than a cape. She is clearly not an Anne Rice kind of vampire, but you will still find plenty of vice in Bad City, where she stalks her victims. Ana Lily Amirpour finally delivers the Iranian existential rock & roll vampire western the world has been waiting for with A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, which opens this Friday in New York.

The dialogue is Persian, but it was shot in a California boom-and-bust oil town that easily passes for a lawless provincial corner of Iran. Although not explicitly political, there is no way the regime would ever cotton to a depiction of Iranian society rife with prostitutes, pimps, pushers, and junkies (frankly, they are just no fun whatsoever). Of course, this seedy environment makes a perfect hunting ground for “the Girl,” who prowls through Bad City’s dark streets late at night on her skate board.

Like an old school E.C. Comics blood-sucker, the Girl generally bites those who have it coming, such as “the Pimp,” who has been hassling “the Persian James Dean” over his junkie father’s debts. Or at least he had been. Yet, the Girl somehow develops a friendship with “the Prostitute” despite their very different temperaments. However, it is her halting mutual attraction to the Persian James Dean that really challenges her choice of undead lifestyle.

AGWHAAN sounds absolutely crazy on paper and indeed in many ways it is, but it is an art film through-and-through rather than a cult midnight movie. Amirpour’s pacing is slow and deliberate, in a seductive kind of way. If audiences are not careful, Bad City will anesthetize them. Fortunately, the driving alt rock-rockabilly soundtrack supplies plenty of aural caffeine (this is a case where a soundtrack album could easily out-perform the source film).

Regardless, viewers should stick with AGWHAAN, because it is a truly unique cinematic experience, starting with Lyle Vincent’s gobsmackingly arresting black-and-white cinematography. Arguably, the film is stylistically most closely akin to the work of Bruce Weber (best known for directing Calvin Klein commercials and the Chet Baker doc Let’s Get Lost).

AGWHAAN is the sort of film that washes over you, yet it still heralds the arrival of a major star in Sheila Vand. As the Girl, she gives a quiet but deeply expressive performance. Somehow she is able to look exquisitely vulnerable and eerily sinister at the same time, which is quite a trick. Likewise, Mozhan Marnò defies all clichés with her sensitive work as the prostitute.

There is something wonderfully subversive about a delicate looking lady vampire wreaking havoc on Iran’s low life men. Who wouldn’t love to see her take the bite to the oppressive theocrats in a sequel? A rich feast for eyes and ears, it is completely unlike any other vampire movie you have previously seen. Highly recommended for fans of ambitious genre film and Persian cinema, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night opens this Friday (11/21) in New York at the IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on November 17th, 2014 at 7:49pm.