Day: May 18, 2015

By Joe Bendel. Unit 831 was sort of like the USO, except they managed a brothel to keep the early 1960s Nationalist Chinese Military’s morale high. They were not comfort women. It was more complicated than that. A young enlisted man will learn just how complicated in Doze Niu Chen-zer’s Paradise in Service, co-produced by none other than Hou Hsiao-hsien, which screens during the 2015 Seattle International Film Festival.

Lo Pao-tai has the physique to be a frogman, but he literally cannot swim to save his life. Washing out of the Sea Dragons training program, he is transferred to serve out his remaining mandatory term of enlistment at a local Unit 831 brothel. His first day will be quite an eye-opening experience for the naïve young man. However, in his new assignment, he will periodically meet and greet some of his former comrades, including the grizzled Sergeant-Major Chang Yung-shen. In fact, he will see quite a bit of the veteran sergeant, since he has fallen for Chiao, a.k.a. Number 8, the top girl at Lo’s “teahouse.”

Unfortunately, Chiao is a bit of a game-player, whereas Ni-ni is the exact opposite. She came to work at the teahouse under rather tragic circumstances. She and Lo soon become friends, but not yet with benefits. Their courtship will be a slow business that often must be deferred by more pressing Unit 831 business.

Yes, there is probably no better place to come of age in a hurry than a military cat house. While Niu makes it plenty clear just what goes on there, the vibe of the film is strangely innocent. In a way, its concerns are not so very different than Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues, but can you imagine how delighted his sex-obsessed Eugene Jerome analog would have been with this sort of service detail?

The time capsule-like period details of Paradise are often quite eye-opening. The idea of armed conflict with the Communists was hardly idle speculation for the military stationed on Quemoy, where each side constantly blasted propaganda through loud speakers at each other. There is definitely a sense that both sides are in a not so “Cold” War staring contest.

While the setting of a military brothel could easily lend itself to comedy (“no time for procurers”), Niu plays it achingly straight, often diving into pure melodrama. However, the cast sells it like an ensemble of champions. Ethan Ruan has never been better as the innocent Lo, developing some deeply felt chemistry with Regina Wan Qian’s Ni-ni. She is also terrifically sensitive yet restrained as the inherently respectable prostitute. Like a Taiwanese Tommy Lee Jones, Chen Jianbin rock solidly anchors the film as the gruff but vulnerable sergeant, while Miao Ke-li steals scene after scene as Cher, the older, brassier working woman.

Although the Taiwanese military is not exactly eager to talk about the now defunct Unit 831, Paradise never feels like an expose. In fact, there is a strange feeling of camaraderie that develops between the women and the staff. Whether you find it credible or not, that vibe really distinguishes the picture. When it finishes, you feel like you were briefly stationed at Quemoy, which is something. Recommended for fans of the big name Taiwanese and Mainland cast (who do not disappoint), Paradise in Service screens today (5/18), and next Tuesday (5/26), as part of this year’s SIFF.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on May 18th, 2015 at 10:05pm.

By Joe Bendel. Chief Detective Choi’s latest investigation represents something of a conflict of interest. He is under considerable professional and political pressure to close the case quickly, regardless of the truth. Technically, he also happens to be the killer, but you would hardly call him the mastermind of screenwriter-director Baek Woon-hak’s dark thriller The Chronicles of Evil, which opens this Friday in Queens.

After years of plugging, Det. Choi is on the verge of a national appointment. He has just received the presidential service medal, so if he can avoid entanglements for the next few months, his career should be made. Unfortunately, after a night celebrating with the Detective Squad, Choi’s cabbie waylays him, taking him to a remote park, where he tries to kill the baffled flatfoot. Leathery old Choi turns out to be more than his assailant can handle. However, after killing the man in self-defense, Choi covers up the incident rather than risk the inevitable controversy. This will be a mistake in retrospect.

The next morning, the top brass is outraged when a corpse is found very publicly dangling from a crane at a construction site. Of course, Choi recognizes him. To satisfy his superiors, he will have to clear the case quickly, but he knows the DNA under the vic’s fingernails and the blurry CTV images of a passenger in backseat will inevitably lead back to him. Therefore Choi must try to ferret out his mystery antagonist, while struggling to cover his own tracks.

In a way, Chronicles somewhat parallels Kevin Costner’s breakout hit No Way Out, but Baek gives the story some grittily distinctive cops-and-stalkers twists. He shrewdly positions Choi as a figure compromised enough to deserve his predicament, but decent enough to root for. Baek nicely keeps one darned thing coming after another, getting flat-out Biblical down the stretch.

Recognizable to genre fans from Huh Jung’s Hide and Seek, Son Hyun-joo is perfectly cast as Det. Choi. He looks like a migraine personified and has vinegary world weariness sweating out of every pore. Ma Dong-seok (a.k.a. Don Lee) is also reliably charismatic and hardnosed as Choi’s chief deputy, Det. Oh. This is a manly ensemble that has little time for romantic subplots or comic relief. They are all about covering-up and settling scores. When you spy a somewhat metrosexual character, be suspicious—very suspicious.

Baek is a wickedly smooth director, who pulls the audience through this murky morality tale at warp speed. Even though it is a supporting role, Chronicles (along with The Fives, Kundo, and Nameless Gangster) suggests Ma/Lee has enough cult/genre credibility for Hollywood to start calling. They could use someone with his action cred and screen presence. Highly recommended for fans of anti-heroic cop thrillers, The Chronicles of Evil opens this Friday (5/22) at the AMC Bay Terrace, in Flushing, Queens.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on May 18th, 2015 at 10:05pm.

By Joe Bendel. At various times, the public sale of alcohol was illegal throughout what was then Bombay State. Of course, for the mobbed-up nightclub managed by Johnny Balraj, Prohibition was good for business. The new vocalist is not bad either, but their inevitable romance gets caught up in an underworld power struggle in Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet, which opened Friday in New York.

Balraj and his sworn-brother Chimman grew up on the streets together, but it is Balraj who has the necessary crazy to go far in gangtserism. Even when he starts fronting the swanky Bombay Velvet club in the early 1960s, he still blows off steam fighting in underground steel cage matches. Technically, it is Balraj’s business, but it is really part of the newspaper mogul and syndicate boss Kaizad Khambata’s vast empire. Still, Balraj has a free hand to hire talent like Rose Noronha. She makes quite the impression on him. Unfortunately, she is a plant sent to seduce Balraj by Jimmy Mistry, the ambitious editor of a rival Communist newspaper.

It works. Balraj falls for Noronha hard, but as her star rises, it becomes mutual. Of course, when undesirable elements from her past try to assert themselves, it leads to friction. Frankly, Balraj does not think much of either Khambata or Mistry, but he stays in business with his ostensive boss in hopes of getting a piece of the action. In this case, the pie getting sliced up is the massive real estate fortune to be made from the anticipated development of Bombay/Mumbai’s Nariman Point business district.

In a way, Velvet echoes the infighting gangsters and politicians of Yoo Ha’s real estate-driven Gangnam Blues, but at times viewers can see the not so subtle influence of De Palma’s Scarface. Probably the only thing separating the wildly erratic Belraj from Tony Montana is a small mountain of cocaine. He has the Tommy Gun.

Regardless, Velvet is clearly Kashyap’s most commercial film to date. He is no stranger to underworld intrigue having helmed the gritty epic Gangs of Wasseypur, but he really cranks up the glossy flashiness this time around. Yet, since the film is largely set in a jazz club, he can have his cake and eat too, by confining the ample musical numbers to the Velvet stage. In fact, they work rather well. Amit Trivedi’s tunes, sounding like Bollywood show-stoppers as arranged by Nelson Riddle, should definitely get heads nodding.

Ranbir Kapoor makes Balraj’s unstable lunacy strangely charismatic. You would never want to be anywhere near such a person, but he is consistently fun to watch. Likewise, Karan Johar shamelessly chews on the scenery as the flamboyantly snide and villainous Khambata. Manish Choudhary is also terrifically sleazy as the greedy Red Mistry. Oddly enough given his prominence, Kay Kay Menon gets somewhat shortchanged on screen time, even though his honest Inspector Kulkarni is a potentially intriguing character.

For fans of Wasseypur, it is important to note there is no shortage of dead bodies in Velvet. It has a high polished sheen, and some appealing big band vocals, but it is really about getting down to business. An impressively mounted decade-spanning period production, Bombay Velvet is recommended for fans of the gangster genre and high-end Bollywood while it plays in New York, at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on May 18th, 2015 at 10:03pm.