Category: Narrative

By Joe Bendel. Kim Woo-jin is a furniture designer, a sensitive hipster job if ever there was one. However, viewers will not envy his cool sounding gig. It is, after all, lonely work and Kim has some peculiarly unique issues that makes it feel ever more so. Shape-shifting romance gets a fresh spin in BAIK’s The Beauty Inside, which opens this Friday in New York.

Ever since he was eighteen, Kim wakes up from each slumber in a different body. He has the same consciousness, but he could be man or woman, young or old, Korean or a foreigner. Naturally he dropped out of school and has never had a relationship past a one-night stand. Refusing to forget his high school friend, Sang-baek discovered Kim’s secret and now manages his exclusive custom-made furniture business. His otherwise lonely world is about to be rocked by Hong E-soo, the beautiful and knowledgeable sales associate at his favorite limited edition furniture store.

Falling hard, Kim will wait until he finally has another handsome face to ask her out. When she says yes, he presses his advantage as best he can, resisting sleep for several days, he manages to make quite an impression, but a crash is inevitable. Despite his disappearing act, Kim cannot make a clean break of it. Eventually he will try to explain himself when he is hired as a sales trainee while outwardly appearing to be a fragile young woman.

Up to a point, BAIK and co-screenwriters Kim Sun-jung and Park Jung-ye adapt Drake Doremus’s corporate-sponsored social-media produced film that you probably haven’t seen in the first place. However, they take the story far deeper, exploring the day-to-day issues that plague Kim’s relationship with the understanding Hong. Some challenges are obvious and comparatively pedestrian, but the overall stress on Hong is more serious than the cloistered Kim initially understands.

Beauty Inside sort of compares to the honestly not so bad Adam Sandler vehicle 50 First Dates, but it is more fantastical and more serious in the treatment of its premise. Some real thought went into the implications of Kim’s condition. BAIK also stays faithful to the conceit, by never using a consistent Kim Prime for voiceovers or scenes reflecting how he sees himself. Instead, we have to adapt to a new Kim right along with Hong.

As a result, Beauty Inside is like the Korean It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of intimate romantic fantasies. Not only do some of South Korea’s top stars play Kims, their agents were also press-ganged into service, along with most of the crew. Somehow, everyone seems to connect with the pathos of Kim’s unusual state. Even those appearing briefly manage to express deep angst and loneliness. Yet, none of the leading men Kims can hold a candle to Chun Woo-hee’s delicate vulnerability as the sales trainee Kim. It is also pretty impressive watching Han Hyo-joo’s smart and sophisticated Hong play off dozens of radically different Kims.

Beauty Inside would be one of the best rom-coms of the year, but it is much more rom than com. There are some slightly absurd situations, but what humor there is can never be described as low or broad. For what its worth, the film also seems to be genuinely interested in fine furniture, which is kind of nice. Highly recommended for those who enjoy romantic fantasies that come with surprising substance, The Beauty Inside opens this Friday (9/11) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on September 9th, 2015 at 5:28pm.

By Joe Bendel. They look like they stepped out of a Robert Palmer video. Frank Martin’s latest clients are highly synchronized and they need a driver. They will repeatedly break his rules, but their desperation makes them quite persuasive. Of course, Martin always keeps his cool in the latest re-configuration of Luc Besson’s strangely resilient franchise. Deliveries will be made in Camille Delamarre’s The Transporter Refueled, which opens today nationwide.

Clearly, Martin got his keenness for punctuality from his chop-busting father, who has just retired from an ambiguous government career that came with a cover job as a salesman for Evian (it’s “naïve” spelled backwards). He ought to be a little more resourceful, but somehow Frank Senior allows himself to be taken hostage by four women trafficked into prostitution by a Russian vice lord. Anna, Gina, Maria, and Qiao know they cannot simply run away from Arkady Karasov. They will have to hit his network where it counts—in the wallet. Thus, Martin reluctantly serves as their wheelman for a series of clever heists, while his father jolly well enjoys being a hostage.

When it comes to films set in Monaco, Refueled beats the stuffing out of the justly infamous Grace of Monaco. Delamarre understands what Transporter movies are supposed to be and executes accordingly. There are at least two action sequences that are ludicrously over the top, but what of it? It is not like the film slows down long enough for us to analyze the aerodynamics of any given scene. Cinematographer Christophe Collette also makes the Principality backdrops sparkle quite alluringly.

Ed Skrein has a strange look. It’s like you can see the exact shape of his skull because there is only a thin layer of skin stretched over it. He also has an odd screen presence, coming across as intense, but somehow simultaneously disdainfully disinterested in everything around him. Yet, that sort of works for Frank Junior. He has all kinds of cred in the fight scenes, but Ray Stevenson gets all the laughs as his cooler, funnier dad. His shameless scenery chewing is a major reason why the film is such deliriously guilty pleasure.

Loan Chabanol, who attracted notice with her short but memorable appearance in Fading Gigolo, can’t project the same élan as Anna, but it is hard to compete with all the black Audis flying through the air. It is also a shame former Miss World Yu Wenxia does not have more screen time, because she seems to have a bit of a spark, but most of the time Anna’s three amigos just strut about in the background, to raise our awareness of human trafficking. What did you expect, really? Frankly, the film’s real shortcoming is its interchangeably generic villain. We have seen plenty of cats like Radivoje Bukvic’s Karasov done before and done better (Michael Nyqvist in John Wick springs readily to mind).

Refueled does not want to hear any whining about messages or characterization. It is a self-aware meathead movie that delights in its own shallowness. Style and energy are all that matter in a Besson-produced action joint, but Delamarre brings more than enough to keep the boss happy. Sort of a weird early 2000’s nostalgia trip for franchise fans that will also resonate for the original MTV generation, The Transporter Refueled is recommended for those who want a shiny object to distract them. It opens across the country today (9/4), including the AMC Empire in New York.

LFM GRADE: B-/C+

Posted on September 4th, 2015 at 8:47pm.

By Joe Bendel. For Sherlock Holmes fans, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s embrace of spiritualism has always been an embarrassment. However, in the days following his first wife’s death, the great mystery writer also distinguished himself by exposing at least two grave miscarriages of justice, notably including the George Edalji case. The premise is completely true, but Julian Barnes’ fictionalized treatment cranked up the mystery and intrigue, as Doyle had done from time to time in his own historical fiction. Following in the tradition of two popular incarnations of Sherlock Holmes and the Murder Rooms series featuring Doyle and his mentor Dr. Joseph Bell, the television adaptation of Barnes’ Arthur & George premieres this coming Sunday as part of the current season of Masterpiece on PBS.

Doyle was always technically faithful to his first wife, even though appearances often suggested otherwise. He was indeed attracted to a Miss Jean Leckie, but still scrupulously respected his marriage vows. Nonetheless, when his wife succumbs to tuberculosis, guilt drags him into a deep funk. Somewhat ironically, the prospect of championing George Edalji’s cause rouses his spirits.

At one time Edalji was an aspiring solicitor, but his life was derailed when he was convicted of a rash of animal mutilations that shocked the provincial village of Great Wyrley. The crimes seemed to be related to a nasty spate of poison-pen letters, whose vitriol were primarily directed at the mixed-race Edalji family. Yet, the constabulary hastily concluded they were all the work of Edalji’s deranged, attention-seeking mind. Although Edalji has already served his sentence in full, he still seeks to clear his name, so he can once again pursue a legal career. Doyle is immediately convinced of the man’s innocence, but his Watsonish personal secretary Alfred Wood is not so sure. Unfortunately, Edalji’s squirrely behavior seems to justify his skepticism.

Martin Clunes is absolutely perfect as Doyle. He is blustery and larger than life, but in a way that suggests confidence and joie de vivre rather than the bumbling shtick of a Bertie Wooster. We can believe he created Holmes and is capable of conducting his own investigations. He also shares some rather earnest and engaging romantically-complicated chemistry with Hattie Morahan’s Leckie. In fact, their relationship subplot is not the empty dead weight you might expect. As Edalji, Arsher Ali is all kinds of awkward and standoffish, contrasting with his sociable benefactor quite effectively.

Veteran television director Stuart Orme realizes several impressively atmospheric sequences and maintains a healthy energy level, but it is a little embarrassing how long it takes Doyle to figure out who really did it, despite said villain’s compulsively suspicious behavior. Nonetheless, watching him apply his Sherlockian principles in practice is good clean fun. The three-part series is a reliably classy period piece with enough social conscience to give it some edge, but not so much that it gets preachy. Recommended for fans of all things Holmesian and Clunes (from Doc Watson), Masterpiece’s Arthur & George airs over the next three Sundays (9/6-9/20) on most PBS stations.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on September 3rd, 2015 at 5:14pm.

By Joe Bendel. The ambitions of a corrupt Roman consul would belittle Alexander’s conquests if he could realize them. He intends to assert control over the entire Silk Road, starting with the sleepiest stretch in western China. However, the impossibly upbeat captain of the Silk Road Protection Squad and a band of maverick centurions will stand against him in Daniel Lee’s Dragon Blade, which opens this Friday in New York.

Huo An always tries to avoid physical violence. Yet, despite his status as a heroically departed general’s only true protégé, he has been banished to the provincial Wild Geese Gate due to trumped-up corruption charges. Apparently he is quickly rehabilitated, because he has already re-assumed command of the Silk Road forces when a Roman remnant arrives in all their glorious belligerence. First they fight, but they quickly forge a wary truce. Real camaraderie between the Han Silk Road forces and Roman soldiers follows soon after.

When word arrives Huo An’s men must rebuild the crumbling city in fifteen days, the Romans agree to help in exchange for assistance reaching the legitimate Roman authorities in Parthia. Combining Roman engineering with good old fashioned Chinese slave labor, they do indeed rebuild a shining city on a hill, throwing in a few extra aqueducts just because they enjoy building them. Unfortunately, the villainous Tiberius does not appreciate Han do-gooders aiding his enemies. After all, he has a young brother to kill in the astonishingly annoying Publius, who has thus far been protected by the world weary Lucius and his band of brothers, which now includes the honorary centurion Huo An.

Dragon Blade is not terrible, even though it has nearly all of the shortcomings you would fear. Of course, it starts with casting of John Cusack and Adrien Brody as Lucius and Tiberius. Probably no actors have looked or sounded more out of place in a classical antiquity setting since Edward G. Robinson appeared in the Ten Commandments. While Cusack seems to be trying to slouch through the film unnoticed, Brody is conspicuously dull in role that requires serious flamboyance.

Chan is hardly blameless either. Although he thankfully reins in the shticky comedy, Dragon Blade is a perfect example of his burgeoning martyr complex, which he shamelessly indulges. It also reflects his increasingly problematic Mainland-centric China chauvinism. According to Huo An, Westerners are trained to kill people, whereas Chinese soldiers serve to protect. Okay, while you’re at it, why don’t you explain to the emperor how the common people would like more say in issues of governance—or try telling it to Beijing today. Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers came to the Admiralty to do exactly that, but Chan didn’t want to hear it.

Yet, one of the coolest things about Dragon Blade is the democratic idealism represented by Wild Geese Gate, as well as the massive CGI awe of the place. There are also some pretty spectacular warfighting scenes that inventively combine the styles of the two rag-tag forces united against Tiberius’s armies. Old Man Chan can still handle himself in a hand-to-hand scene, when he is not lecturing his audience and Lin Peng similarly makes the most of her limited screen time as the Hun warrior princess Lengyue. Costume designer Thomas Chong also takes full advantage of the opportunity to create costumes in the traditional styles of at least a dozen distinctive nationalities.

Regardless of Chan’s ideological baggage, director-co-screenwriter Lee takes viewers on a rough narrative ride. There are more conspicuous gaps in Dragon Blade than Hillary Clinton’s email archives. Reportedly, twenty-some minutes were cut from the Chinese version for the American theatrical print, including a modern day framing device featuring Karena Lam. That was probably one of the easiest parts to lose, but as it is currently cut, characters’ allegiances will change drastically and considerable geographic distances will be traveled all quite suddenly without anyone taking any notice. That is just life on the Silk Road.

A chaotic mixed bag, Dragon Blade lacks the mature and engaging heft of Chan’s work in the unfairly dismissed Police Story: Lockdown and The Shinjuku Incident. For diehard fans, it opens tomorrow (9/4) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on September 3rd, 2015 at 5:13pm.

By Joe Bendel. For London loan shark Tony Lord, Italy is light years away from the world he knows. He is in Abruzzo, not Naples. How he got there is a mystery to him. Frankly, he sort of has an inkling but he would prefer to ignore the dramatic implications in Antonio Simoncini’s Lords of London, which releases today on DVD from Lionsgate.

Essentially, Lord inherited his father’s trade, even though the old troglodyte never took much interest in him. We will witness his dysfunctional formative years through Lords, fils’ many flashbacks. He will have some time for meditation whether he wants it or not. After getting shot by one of the many people he did wrong, Lord wakes up soaked in blood, but otherwise none the worse for wear in a dilapidated villa outside a ridiculously picturesque Abruzzo village apparently stuck in the 1950s.

Much to his consternation, the entire village ignores him, except for the twinkly-eyed Francesco. The café owner is concerned the English punk his daughter has been seeing is no good, so he asks Lord to keep an eye on him. Unfortunately, the displaced gangster more than confirms Francesco’s suspicions.

By now you probably have a good guess just who everyone really is and what their relationships to each other are. That means you are exponentially quicker on the up-take than Lord. Yet, for some reason Simoncini insists on nursing his transparent secrets until an anti-climactic third act reveal. Arguably, the film might have been more effective if it had laid all those cards on the table rather than pretending to fool us.

Frankly, as director and screenwriter, Simoncini somewhat bungles the light fantastical elements, inadvertently creating a scenario where Ray Winstone’s Lord Sr. presumably ages about three or four decades in the span of five or six years. Maybe that would be possible during Callaghan’s Winter of Discontent, but not the swinging Macmillan years when he appears to be prowling about.

On the other hand, the ancient village and surrounding countryside look amazing thanks to cinematographer James Friend, who gives it all a classy chiaroscuro-like glow worthy of the Old Masters. Similarly, Giovanni Capalbo (whose wildly diverse credits include both Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and Abel Ferrara’s Napoli, Napoli, Napoli) is quite the old Zen charmer as Francesco. He also manages to maintain some sense of mystery regarding what his character is up to. Glen Murphy is also pretty solid as the rather dense Lord, the sort of hardnosed role one could easily imagine Craig Fairbrass assuming. However, Ray Winstone is a surprising let-down as the elder Lord. All snarl and no swagger, he just doesn’t seem to be having fun with it.

Simoncini is going for the vibe of warmer, fuzzier Richard Matheson, like Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come. He doesn’t consistently pull it off, but earns credit for trying. At least it always looks great. Recommended for anyone considering an Italian vacation, Lords of London releases today (9/1) on DVD and digital from Lionsgate.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on September 1st, 2015 at 2:55pm.

By Joe Bendel. On the fateful day of December 2, 2013, the Icelandic Police finally shot and killed someone dead for the first time in their two hundred twenty-five-plus year history. Instead of congratulations, they ordered a round of counseling all around. Typically, the rank-and-file do not carry firearms, relying instead on plenty of optimism. That arrangement suits the new Serbian kingpin in town just fine. However, an Internal Affairs cop with a chip on his shoulder will try launch a secret operation against the gangster and the high level officer protecting him in Olaf de Fleur’s Brave Men’s Blood, which launches today on VOD from Oscilloscope Laboratories.

Hannes Ámason’s old man was a legend on the force, but their relationship was always rather frosty. It becomes even more so when he washes out of the elite training program for the SWAT-like Armed Police division. Frankly, it is easy to read plenty of resentment into his decision to subsequently take an Internal Affairs posting. However, a major case with implications beyond the force drops in his lap when old school gangster Gunnar Gunnarson requests a jailhouse meeting. Having been pushed out by Sergej, the Serbian upstart, Gunnarson is slightly out of sorts. As a last resort, he is willing to funnel information to Ámason that will help him take down his rival and his chief protector, Narcotics Squad chief Margeir, one of his dad’s old cronies.

Playing it close to the vest, Ámason only recruits two allies: Ívar, the Armed Police squad leader who formerly thought so little of him and Andreas, Margeir’s former protégé, who has been assigned to desk duties following a violent assault. Yet, the bad guys still catch wind of his operation, which puts his family directly in harm’s way.

Somehow de Fleur makes Twenty-First Century Reykjavik look like Chicago in the 1920s. For such a violence-averse force, he manages to get the Armed coppers into a heck of a lot of fire-fights (they’re going to need some serious counseling after all this). He gives the super-slick Miami Vice tradition a cool Nordic makeover, but he is a little too enamored with the flashback as a narrative device. There are an awful lot of them in Blood, but some are much more effective than others.

Darri Ingolfsson slow burns perfectly well as the annoyingly moralistic Ámason, but as is often the case in genre cinema, the colorful supporting cast really helps make the film. Ingvar E. Sigurdsson is clearly having a blast as the devious Gunnarson, while Sigurður Sigurjónsson oozes rodent-like oiliness. J.J. Field also does his best Jude Law impression in his brief appearances as Sergej’s British money man, chewing on as much scenery as time will allow.

Technically, Blood is a sequel to de Fleur’s City State, but no previous familiarity is required to enjoy the follow-up. It doesn’t even feel like it is calling back to a previous film, but presumably it is even richer if you have that background in your mental DVR. Frankly, nobody does these sorts of films better than Hong Kong auteurs like Johnnie To and Andrew Lau, but de Fleur makes a real go of it. Recommended for fans of stylishly cynical crooked cops-and-gangster movies, Brave Men’s Blood launches today (9/1) on VOD, from Oscilloscope Laboratories.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on September 1st, 2015 at 2:49pm.