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24 Apr
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Posted by Musashi
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My last game review due for Game Chef, Shari Corey’s Beacon of Hope, is a nice little bit of awesome which combines the End of the World, Navaho myth, time travel, and Lady Blackbird. Given my fondness for John Harper’s tightly designed wondergame, it’s no surprise that I find Beacon of Hope’s mechanics enticing – what really grabbed me, though, were the slight changes made to the system to steer it toward one-shot play – namely the addition of an endgame mechanic leading to a showdown with the PC’s nemesis, Coyote the Trickster.
It’s 2012 (yeah, I know the calendar says 2012, I’m talking about in-game) and the world is about to end, just like the Mayans said it would. Following Native American folklore, the Chosen are being gathered at a focal point called the Beacon of Light to be ushered into the next world. But there’s a hitch - Coyote has sabotaged the Beacon of Hope as a means to test whether humanity is worth of passing into the next world.
Grandmother Spider enlists the aid of six people to help fix the beacon: a reporter, a hippie, a businessman, a supernatural investigator, a tribal elder, and a veteran soldier. The task isn’t as simple as you’d think – the group has to travel through time to undo damage caused by Coyote in each time period. Once they’ve done so, a final confrontation with Coyote occurs to determine the fate of humankind. If the PC’s win, humanity passes into the Fourth World. If they fail? Well, let’s just say you won’t have to worry about the interest rate of your school loans any more.
To re-iterate – I dig Lady Blackbird, and there’s a lot of that game’s DNA swimming around here. Each character has a number of Traits and tags which help build a dice pool, as well as a personal pool of seven dice. Any die which comes up a 4 or higher is a success. Unlike Lady Blackbird, however, success dice add to the Scene Conflict pool. Once that pool is high enough (‘high enough’ being determined by the players), the group moves to the Scene Conflict – the dice pool they’ve been building up is rolled, and successes tallied. The group only needs one success to ‘win’ the scene, but there’s a complication – Coyote will try to interfere. Just before the Scene Conflict is rolled, a Vote takes place, with one person representing Coyote instead of their character (the implication, being, that Coyote is impersonating them). All the characters simply write ‘I’m not Coyote’ on their vote slip, while the Coyote player chooses to Help, Hinder, or do nothing. If Coyote Helps, 1-3 helping dice are added to the pool; conversely if Coyote Hinders, 1-3 penalty dice are added. Helping dice simply increase the odds that the players will succeed, while penalty dice counteract successes. Any leftover successes are added to a Showdown pool which will be used at the end of the game to determine whether or not the players defeat Coyote.
The game stumbles a bit here – the submitted rules don’t give any indication as to who plays Coyote during the Scene Conflict scene. This is clearly an oversight – at the beginning of the document (well, blog post) playing cards are passed around for this purpose, but it’s not explained how to use them.
The final showdown also seems to be a bit of a wash – I haven’t played it yet, but I’d imagine it’s not too hard to come up with a single success in the endgame…and the players can add more dice during the showdown by rolling individual pools and supplementing dice from their own personal pools, with successes further fortifying the pool. My suggestion would be that failure dice subtract from the Scene Conflict and Showdown pools, to create a sort of push mechanic that forces a difficult choice: whether the risk of subtracting more dice from the pool is worth attempting another action.
The theme of Beacon of Hope is a strong one, and well represented in the game’s mechanics. I miss the use of Keys, but given that Beacon of Hope is a one-shot, they’re perhaps not needed…at least for character advancement. It’s a bit of a pity, as the Keys are what tune the characters in Lady Blackbird and effectively point them toward one another. It would be interesting to see if they could be implemented properly in Beacon of Hope.
All in all a nice showing by Shari Corey. Well done.
| Category: Reviews | Tag: game chef 2012, gaming, Reviews, role playing games, rpg's |
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24 Apr
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Posted by Musashi
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You’re sick – like, really sick. Like, so sick that the only way to get better is to travel to a foreign land and brave a fortress with seven walls to find the only man who has the cure.
This, in a nutshell, is the premise behind Samuel Briggson’s Sweating Seven. One or more of the characters is infected with a malady called the Sweat which will kill them in 240 hours. The rest of the party are adventurers who have agreed to help the infected characters break into a fortified castle surrounded by seven heavily fortified walls in the hope of receiving aid from the doctor who lives within.
Sweating Seven is a highly focused design, almost to a fault. The game’s sole mechanic, which takes inspiration from Milton Bradley’s Battleship, adjudicates the player’s actions as they go about probing the wall defenses trying to find weak points and vulnerabilities. At the start of the game the GM has a budget of 240 blocks, which can be partitioned into seven sixty-block walls or any other dimension of their choosing, as long as the total of all seven walls is 240 blocks. The reason for the strict budget is that the game runs on a timer of 240 markers – one removed for each hour of activity. Once they’re gone, the infected characters die.
After generating a wall, the GM marks off the rows and columns with letters and numbers to give each block a reference which the players – as in Battleship – can call out during play. Each block takes one hour to probe, although various character abilities can modify this in various ways. These abilities also increase as you go along, meaning that a smart GM will create lighter outer defenses, and stronger inner defenses. So you can see it takes a combination of luck and deductive reasoning to bypass the defenses. There is a menu of defenses from which the GM can design their walls (a murder hole, for instance, takes up 4 total blocks in a 2×2 formation) – and each defensive measure also must contain a 1×1 weakness. Finding the weakness disables the defense. In addition, each wall has a 1×1 fatal flaw which enables the party to bypass the wall altogether.
There are a number of character roles from which the players may choose: The Coyote, who seems to be a specialist at smuggling people past the walls; The Snakehead, who knows a thing or two about smuggling goods in and out of the fortress; The Marksmen, who excels at destroying entire portions of the wall at once; and finally The Infected, who seem to be good at one thing – being sick. Where the other players have more proactive abilities, the Infected is – appropriately – a burden. Not only are his abilities to help bypass the walls severely limited, he is also something of a detriment to his comrades, making their abilities harder to use. This might seem like a real drag, but in truth I bet the Infected is the most entertaining character role to play.
In addition to their abilities, the players also have the freedom to attack the walls in non-standard ways – although they must still pay a cost to do so. Using the example in the game – bypassing a 3×10 section of wall by hiring a guy to float you over in a balloon, for instance, will cost the players 30 hours.
So far so good – I like the idea of sussing out the weak spots in the wall using Battleship – in play I suspect it would drag me out of the narrative, but a good GM might be able to frame it effectively enough. Unfortunately, I think it’s this tight focus which is something of an Achilles Heel. I don’t see much actual roleplay happening here. As much as the GM would narrate what’s happening, it still seems like an elaborate Battleship hack. This is why I say the Infected would be the most interesting character to play – their abilities lend color to the game, even if they don’t make the character very effective at getting past obstacles. I’d like to see this tweaked a bit to make the roleplay more meaningful. The Coyote has doubtlessly smuggled lots of people through – what’s his deal? Why does he do it? Or the Marksman? There’s definitely room for roleplay – Briggson stipulates that activities outside the scope of attacking the wall don’t count against the 240 hour limit, allowing for down time or other activities. I’d like to see interesting stuff happen there. Also, aside from wasting time, what are the implications of dealing with the wall defenses? There don’t seem to be any.
Ingredient use isn’t bad – they add a little color to the proceedings and the theme is well-represented. I think as the counter reaches zero the players would become increasingly desperate, particularly if they’re on the last wall and close to cashing in the last marker.
Sweating Seven is an intriguing design – I’d like to see it breathe a little. If Briggson does that, I think it would be a memorable experience.
| Category: Reviews | Tag: game chef 2012, gaming, Reviews, role playing games, rpg's |
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24 Apr
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Posted by Musashi
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So here’s an interesting one. The premise: create a shattered, post-apocalyptic world by defacing a Thomas Kinkade painting (or rather, a print – as I’m sure an original Kinkade would be well outside the budget of the average gamer).
I’m not going to get into a discussion of whether or not Lester Ward’s ‘inkaida is or is not a game – it certainly isn’t a role-playing game. There are no roles to play (unless you fancy yourself the disembodied hand from Populous or something similar). No, this is more of a world-building exercise with an amusing conceit. I don’t particularly have a problem with that, but you should know what to expect. The basic idea is that you tack a Kinkade print to a whiteboard and then take turns adding to the image or tearing bits of it off – doing so allows you to inject narrative into the world. There are a number of moves, each with a different narrative effect – for instance, ‘Beyond the Four Edges’ allows you to draw something outside the boundary of the painting. Doing so adds it to the game world – adding a giant mountain called Odin’s Phallus creates said object in the world. Thereafter, anyone can ping it in their own narrative…such as adding an orc lair at the top of Odin’s Phallus or somesuch. With ‘Doctor the Report’ you can change something about the painting itself, creating narrative which may (or may not) be true…the important thing is that people in the game world believe it to be true.
The various moves are interesting and I suspect would create an amusing back and forth as players collaborate and bounce off each other’s ideas. inkaida controls the flow through the use of dice – two per player. The numbers don’t matter during gameplay – they only serve to determine who goes first at the start of the game. Afterwards they all get placed into a bag and people draw one at the beginning of their turn. When the dice run out, the game’s over. This means that everyone gets two turns…probably a good thing as it ensures the game doesn’t overstay its’ welcome.
Ward also smartly corrals the player’s capacity for mayhem by dividing the image into Fragments – a fragment is a piece of the painting which depicts a single thing: a window, a tree, a flock of birds. Background fragments are defined as fragments with no defining object, so you could target a portion of the sky with a move. Some moves (like Art for Millions) only work on background fragments.
I should say: this is a game you probably don’t want to play while you’re drunk. One move (‘Ritual Territory Marking’) requires you to pee on a fragment, while another (‘Lighter of Paint’ *snort*) requires you to set fire to one. I think the potential for inadvisable pissing and house fires is a bit high. Then again, you may have to be drunk to play inkaida. I don’t know. Even the game’s creator says he’s unlikely to ever play it.
I will probably never play ‘inkaida either. I think it does exactly what it’s designed to do, and I find the concept amusing…but I think there are far easier ways to go about world-creation than the method suggested here. Also, I’m on the fence regarding Ward’s Ingredient usage. Mimic is cleverly employed in the move ‘Mimic to Rule’ which allows one to copy something in the game world and take absolute control over its usage….while Coyote only shows up in a brief play example using a theoretical Coyote as a fragment.
‘inkaida definitely has one thing going for it: it’s unique. I’d love to see the result of other group’s efforts, and Ward has set up a space to display such efforts online. I’ll probably be bookmarking that on the off-chance anyone actually gives it a shot.
| Category: Reviews | Tag: game chef 2012, gaming, Reviews, role playing games, rpg's |
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23 Apr
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Posted by Musashi
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After several years of waffling, I finally pulled off an entry for the annual Game Chef contest. As stipulated by the contest rules, entrants are assigned four games to peer-review and recommend for the finals. This is the first of my four reviews.
I’ll say this up-front – I’m a total sucker for post-apocalypse scenarios. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s will do that to you. So imagine my delight when the theme of this year’s Game Chef competition was announced – ‘Last Chance’…guaranteed to deliver dozens of games about people eking out an existence in the ruins of civilization.
William Shattuck’s Farewell, My Dear Post-Apocalypse is certainly cut from this cloth. The game text opens up with a really evocative bit of flavor text explaining exactly what happened to the world . An alien invasion which has left parts of the globe a dusty wasteland; notice I said ‘parts’ – apparently the invaders were selective…and the countries which remain untouched are aiming their nuclear arsenals at the blighted countries in the hope the alien taint can be scoured off the face of the planet with nuclear fire. I’m sure that will work out just fine.
Collectively the PC’s are members of a caravan, presumably travelling from town to town taking care of trouble, ferrying goods, etc. There are four character roles: Lightbearer, Doctor, Merchant, and Tough. The roles are clearly defined and their abilities distinct. All the roles are evocative in their own right – the Doctor can heal physical damage and provide a means to regenerate Drama and Awesome points (which are essentially the game’s ‘push’ mechanic, allowing players to manipulate the die rolls in their favor). The Merchant is something of a fixer-type, wheeling and dealing with settlements as well as scrounging for parts. The Tough is just what it sounds like: the muscle. I particularly enjoy the optional ability for the Tough to tame and keep coyotes…these are not Earth-coyotes, but rather alien beasts of war brought along by the aliens to help decimate the populace – and this dude keeps them as pets. I particularly like the Lightbearer, as it implies a Pitch Black-esque scenario as the Lightbearer desperately tries to keep the Caravan illuminated while a host of shadowy monsters circles the characters waiting for the light to go out.
The system itself is simple enough – roll d6’s equal to your stat. 6’s give you extra dice, 1 per…although it’s not stated whether or not 6’s rolled on those also merit extra dice. 1’s subtract from your total. It seems to work well, and could result in all kinds of wild results which I find appealing. All rolls appear to be oppositional, and in fact almost all of the mechanics are geared toward combat…which is a little disappointing as the premise sets up all kinds of neat things which don’t show up in the rules. The setting stipulates that a nuclear Sword of Damocles is hanging over your head, but it doesn’t seem to meaningfully impact play except that everyone gets bombed into oblivion at the end. It’s a nice bookend, but I’d like to see it push the gameplay directly. Characters can become fatigued in combat, which I like – being fatigued makes one more likely to fall unconscious during combat…probably not a good thing. The whole thing feels appropriately deadly.
Shattuck describes the game as ‘Dark Action Tragicomedy’ – the ‘Dark Action’ part I get, but I don’t see any ‘Tragicomedy’ in these rules. The GM and players create staged Missions for the caravan, and each character creates a personal mission – Shattuck provides a list, but I presume these are more suggestions than a finite list of choices. It would be easy enough to inject whatever the group feels appropriate into the setting.
There’s also a nicely-defined list of baddies, everything from the aforementioned coyotes to the shape-shifting Facsimiles. I’d have liked a little background on the aliens – we know nothing about them other than their abilities. Then again, as a means with which to freak out the players they’re effective enough…and perhaps it’s best they remain a little mysterious.
Shattuck makes good use of the ingredients (especially the aforementioned ‘Lamp’) – none of them seem forced or out of place.
Farewell, My Dear Post-Apocalypse is a bit rough around the edges. I’d like to see more robust rules for non-combat situations and some mechanical reinforcement for the game’s tone – particularly with regards to the endgame, and perhaps to push character motivations to the foreground.
That said, Shattuck’s document is a great framework for an interesting game. With a little tweaking I think he’ll have something pretty cool on his hands.
| Category: Reviews | Tag: game chef 2012, gaming, Reviews, role playing games, rpg's |
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24 Mar
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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The King and the Clown bears a strong resemblance to the Hong Kong movie Farewell, My Concubine. Both feature a pair of performers, one of whom always plays female roles. Each of the more feminine men is gay and in love with his partner. In both films the performers are threatened with destruction by powers far beyond their control. But in Concubine the menace is the Communist government’s Cultural Revolution; in Clown it is a traumatized, maddened king.
Gong-gil and Jang-saeng are 15th-century street performers. Gong-gil’s feminine beauty dictates that he plays women’s roles, and the troupe’s manager often pimps him out to rich audience members. This infuriates Jang-saeng. Eventually things come to a head; in the resulting confrontation the manager is killed. Gong-gil and Jang-saeng flee to Seoul, where they join up with other street performers and create a new troupe. The ruler of Korea is the cruel, tyrannical Yeonsan, and when the troupe puts on a play mocking him and his favorite consort, Nok-su, they find themselves swiftly arrested. Jang-saeng manages to get the troupe an audience with the king; if their skit makes him laugh, he reasons, then they’ll be allowed to live. It works, and the performers become King Yeonsan’s personal entertainers, put up in the palace itself.
Yeonsan is especially interested in Gong-gil, and often calls him to his chambers, to the dismay of Jang-saeng. But Yeonsan seems almost as enamored the troupe’s art as he is in Gong-gil; instead of buggering him silly, as one (well, I, because my mind is filthy) might expect, instead he asks Gong-gil to teach him the art of puppetry. He inserts himself into the troupe’s plays, to the surprise of the performers who have to improvise around him. Finally he writes a play for the troupe to perform before an audience that includes the king’s grandmother and some of his father’s former concubines. The play details the story of his mother, who was forced to kill herself due to the machinations of the other jealous concubines and his grandmother. The play causes quite the uproar, and ends in bloodshed.
Things go rapidly downhill from there.
Nok-su decides she doesn’t like her man being more interested in a dude than her. She schemes to get Gong-gil tossed out- or better yet, executed- but her plans go awry when Jang-seang comes once again to his defense. Meanwhile, both the ministers and the citizens are getting tired of their crazy king, which means the joint is ripe for a revolution…in which Gong-gil and Jang-seang will inevitably be caught up.
The King and the Clown, despite being made a budget Hollywood would consider laughable, is a visually lavish historical film, rich with color. The costumes and sets are minutely detailed. The clothes and jewelry alone are enough to keep any girl’s attention, but it’s the acting and the subtle love triangle that really draw the viewer in. King Yeonsan (Jeong Jin-yeong) veers convincingly between brutal tyranny and an almost childlike vulnerability; his eagerness to be accepted into the troupe is almost pathetic. He’s a character that’s hard to like, but easy to pity despite his cruel acts. Jang-saeng (Kam Woo-seong of R-Point, reviewed previously by me) is easily angered, but his affection (love?) for Gong-gil is tender, and his brashness makes you like him whether you want to or not. Gong-gil (Lee Jun-gi) is hauntingly beautiful, a stark, quiet contrast to loud, personable Jang-saeng. But though the men around him variously want to own or protect him, Gong-gil has his own steel backbone, prominently displayed at the end of the film.
The King and the Clown is a movie that should make you cry, much as Farewell, My Concubine does. Yet the ending, while appropriate for the movie, doesn’t bring the tears. I think this is due to the relatively short amount of screen time given to the relationship between Gong-gil and Jang-saeng. Nothing is overt, and it doesn’t need to be. But the tense silences and angry words would be more deeply felt if we saw more scenes of them alone together. Once Yeonsan shows up, the film gives only short nods to the increasing frustration felt by Jang-saeng; Gong-gil’s feelings for him are shown only in tears and pleading. What the second part of the film needs is more of the quiet moments we see between the two in the beginning.
But despite these minor flaws, The King and the Clown will suck you right in and not let you go for two whole hours. It’s definitely a must-see for anyone with an interest in Korean cinema or history.
The Verdict: Not as good as it could be, but certainly worth your two hours.
| Category: DVD Reviews, Reviews | Tag: review, south korea, the king and the clown |
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1 May
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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POP! Goes the Dead Kid
I’ve seen nearly all the famous Asian horror films. And by ‘famous’, I mean the ones that Hollywood tried to remake: The Eye, The Ring, A Tale of Two Sisters, Pulse, Dark Water. There was just one I’d missed: Ju-on, aka The Grudge. That’s been rectified.
The movie begins, as all good movies do, with a murder. More than one murder, actually. We don’t know who or why, but you do know where- so it’s hardly a surprise when Social Welfare Office volunteer Rika shows up on the doorway of the House’o’Murders to check up on the joint’s inhabitant, a really old lady who has let the place go to hell. Like all the idiots in Pulse, when Rika finds a door that’s sealed shut with packing tape, she just has to open it. She finds a cat. Oh, and a little dead ghost kid.
The film then jumps to some unspecified time (but the same bat-location), when the old lady’s son and daughter-in-law are complaining to each other about the mess and ruckus the old lady’s making at night. The daughter-in-law, Kazumi, finally seems to get a clue when little-dead-ghost-kid handprints show up on the doors, and a random cat appears in the house. The son (who has a truly wretched haircut) comes home from work to find his wife all comatose with terror, just before she becomes an ex-parrot. Then Kazumi’s sister comes over for dinner, barges in without knocking, and is promptly treated to the son acting fucking crazy. He kicks her out.
Then we get the sister’s POV- she’s called Hitomi, and we also get our first clue toward placing these sections in some kind of chronological order. She sees some creepy shit in the big, weirdly depopulated building where she works. In her predictably deserted apartment complex, there’s elevator scariness, and her freak-ass brother shows up. So she logically hides under the covers, because if she can’t see him, he can’t see her, right? Then there’s creepy TV stuff and creepy dead people under the covers stuff.
And then it jumps to a Social Welfare Office employee, who goes to the Death House. He finds Rika, comatose with terror, and calls the cops. The old lady has kicked the bucket with the help of a blackish misty spirit ghost thing. The cops show up and find Kazumi and her husband, who have become living-challenged. Rika finds her voice and tells the cops all about the little dead ghost kid, only to learn that some time back this dude went nuts and got all stabby with his wife and their son disappeared, and since then all the people who lived in that house have turned into worm food Welfare Office guy buys the farm and the cops get the old detective who worked on the original murder case to help them. Toyama has some serious PTSD from that case, and it just gets worse.
Meanwhile, dead people keep dogging Hitomi. Toyama wisely decides to burn the haunted place to the ground, but the other cops stop him and are treated to some creepy long-haired dead chick action. Toyama joins the Choir Invisible, and then we’re off again, to the point of view of Izumi, Toyama’s daughter, four years after Toyama dies. She brilliantly goes into the house with some friends on a dare, and all her friends immediately go the way of all flesh like it’s some mass schoolgirl extinction event. Izumi loses her shit. Izumi then takes a dirt nap.
Finally the movie jumps to Kayoko, the perforated housewife, except even though the title says “Kayako” it actually just goes back to Rika, who’s awakened at night by a chorus of cats wailing (like I am, because my neighbors lets her damned felines roam around outside and use my yard for a litter box) and is generally all touchy and shit. Her friend (also a Welfare Office person) calls to say she is at some house where a kid hasn’t shown up to school, and the kid is there, but the parents aren’t, and three guesses as to which house it is and which kid it is and the first two don’t count. Though why the hell Rika’s friend doesn’t know where the Cursed House is and all about it is a mystery to me. Seems like information you might want to tell your friends/co-workers, you know? So Rika books it back to the Evil Abode to save her stupid friend, only to meet her maker when the ghost of the stabby husband pops in to murder her. The end.
In Ju-on, the curse given by the dead housewife is far-ranging and pretty damn random. Anyone associated with the dead ghost people or the house or people who know other people who were in the house, will die. You’ll probably die if you walk past the house or see it in a real estate ad, too. Apparently we’re just meant to assume that every single character in this movie will eventually die, and from there everyone in Japan, because this curse is like the bird flu. Because of this pervasiveness, there’s no resolution: Rika’s dead, along with about a hundred other people, and none of it matters a bit because the stabbed housewife is so incredibly pissed off that she will never be sated, at least not for several more movies.
Ju-on isn’t scary in the least, mainly because every horror convention it whips out has been done to death before and since. Dead kids in kabuki makeup. Dead women creeping down the stairs on all fours. Dead people in the mirror behind someone. Dead women with their faces hidden by hair, lurking in a bathroom, or under the covers, or under the stairs, or in the attic. TV reception going bonkers, creepy static voices on the phone. The horror bits are really just bloody housewife/little dead ghost kid’s oil-painted faces repetitively popping up into the frame like some kind of weirdo jack-in-the-box. Yawn.
The POV-hopping is interesting enough, but overdone- we never really feel like we get to know any of these characters enough to actually care what happens to them (I mean, they’re all going to die obviously, but I really didn’t give a shit). The way the movie plays with chronology is cool; the curse apparently even gets to time-travel, for poor old freaked-out Toyama gets to see his daughter Izumi in the house, in some kind of future vision, right before he croaks.
Now, I am a big baby. One time I watched a (totally, obviously fake) alien abduction video while my husband wasn’t home, and I didn’t turn off the lights for two days. I sit up nights because if I fall asleep, the Mothman might get me. If I ever actually saw a ghost, I’d run screaming like a little girl. So if I say Ju-on doesn’t do it for me, it honestly doesn’t do it for me, and It definitely won’t do it if you are more skeptical than me- and I believe in damn near everything.
The Verdict: I am holding a grudge against all the people who claim this is the “scariest horror film ever OMG”.
| Category: DVD Reviews, Reviews | Tag: horror, japan, ju-on, movies, review, takashi shimizu |
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24 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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So I decided to give the Pang Brothers a third chance. They’ve made so many movies, after all, they can’t all be as flawed as The Eye and Re:Cycle, right? But…three strikes and you’re out, boys. Sorry. Forest of Death is even worse than either of their other films I watched.
Somewhere unspecified in China, there is a vast, deep forest where people like to go to off themselves, for whatever reason. The number of suicides there is tabloid fodder, but it gets even more sensational when a woman turns up dead in the forest…only she didn’t kill himself (though not for lack of trying), she was raped and murdered. The cops are pretty sure they have the right guy in Patrick Wong, a slimy fellow who wears his Oxford shirt buttoned all the way up (a sure sign of a psycho killer if there ever was one; that should be evidence admissible in court), but there’s no physical evidence against him.
Detective CC Ha, the only female detective in her precinct, has been assigned to wrap up the case before her boss retires. She’s stumped, until she sees a botanist on TV explaining his pseudo-scientific BS theory about how plants are sentient and can communicate with humans through magnetic waves or some shit. Anyway, Detective CC Ha (I am going to use her full title and name because it looks funny typed out) calls up Dr. Shum Shu-Hoi (played by Ekin Cheng, who has grown from Pretty Boy to Foxy Man, although maturity has done nothing to improve his acting) and asks him to help a girl out. He eagerly takes off to the Forest of Death with all his equipment, and Detective CC Ha brings Patrick Wong out as well. The trees reveal to them what happened- he totally did it- and Shu-Hoi is suddenly sent from poor obscure fringe scientist to instant celebrity. It causes tension in his relationship with his girlfriend, May, a whiny, clingy little bitch who is also a TV reporter who has been reporting on the Forest of Death.
Even though the murder is solved in a spectacularly anticlimactic manner, Detective CC Ha isn’t satisfied; she wants to tackle all the missing persons and unidentified suicides lost and found in the forest. She’s helped by wise old park ranger Mr. Tin, whose daughter also killed herself in the forest. Mr. Tin warns them not to meddle because there are, of course, all sorts of supernatural things haunting the forest, from ghosts to fox spirits to whatever. They persist until May, after being yelled at by her big meanie producer, decides to kill herself and goes to the Forest of Death. Of course she runs off right as a big thunderstorm rolls in, gets kidnapped by the ghosts or foxes or whatever, and is rescued by Shu-hoi, which makes every problem in their relationship A-OK and saves the souls of all the dead people in the forest or something.
The main problem with Forest of Death is that it’s, well, boring, badly-acted, not scary in the least, and it doesn’t make sense. There are a couple intriguing ideas, but they never go anywhere, ditched in favor of the lame relationship crap- the fox spirits, and one scene where an elderly woman identifies one of the bodies found in the forest as her brother, who has been missing for forty years- though he only looks to be about twenty years old. The plant communication thing is too ridiculous even for the suspension of disbelief required by horror movies. The story arc should have ended with the discovery of the murderer; everything that comes after is disjointed and uninteresting, as if the writers thought they could change the characters’ goals halfway through the film, discovered they actually couldn’t, then decided they didn’t give a shit and tacked together a bunch of gibberish to pad the time to an hour and a half.
The acting is not great; no one seems to be trying very hard (though Rain Li, who plays May, does a pretty good pout…for the entire freaking movie). Luckily Shu-hoi and Detective CC Ha don’t do any flirting- thank God, because they have zero chemistry.
The special effects are decent; lots of fog and a few wispy specters floating around the forest. Much of the grand finale is shot in the dark, so it’s hard to tell what’s going on. Not like you care at this point, but it’s still annoying.
The movie ends with a text warning of sorts, that there are three other forests in the world just like the Forest of Death (meaning, presumably, that people like to commit suicide there), but doesn’t name any of them, just mentions vaguely which continents they’re on. It claims that the number of suicides in the Japanese version of the Forest of Death has risen incredibly in past few years (there actually is a forest like this in Japan, I remember reading an article about it some time ago), though it doesn’t bother attempting speculation on why- if the claim is ever true. I suppose we are meant to think the fox spirits or ghosts are out to get people who are already planning to die, for supernatural reasons of their own.
The Verdict: Living people cannot possibly fathom the logic of a fox spirit. Or the Pang Brothers.
| Category: DVD Reviews, Reviews | Tag: forest of death, Hong Kong, movie review, pang brothers |
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23 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Ha Jin is one of those writers; the guy you love or hate. You’ll find his stories, all set in Communist China, to be either utterly fascinating or completely boring. I’d already read Waiting and War Trash when I started The Crazed; based on my experience, I’d have to say The Crazed is not a good Jin novel to start out with, but if you’re already familiar with his work, it’s thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking.
Jian Wan is a graduate student of classical literature at a small Chinese university in the 1980’s. His teacher/advisor, Mr. Yang, has been felled by a stroke, and the Communist party official in charge of his department has decreed that Jian is to sit with his teacher every afternoon, because there are only enough nurses at the hospital to look after Mr. Yang at night. Jian doesn’t mind, at first- Mr. Yang is not only a beloved and respected teacher, but also Jian’s future father-in-law.
But Mr. Yang’s stroke has completely changed the strict but encouraging teacher. Much of the time he is utterly loony tunes, his brain sometimes in the present but more often in the past, reliving his life: from his ravings and snatches of relived conversation, Jian learns of Mr. Yang’s life as an intellectual, a father and a husband. During the Cultural Revolution he was humiliated, beaten and eventually sent to a labor camp; since then, he’s become a respected scholar of poetry. But his ranting shows Jian that Mr. Yang is not content with his lot, with his career, with what’s become of his country. Jian learns of marital strife, illicit love affairs and all sorts of things you definitely don’t want to know about your in-laws. Mr. Yang, far from being steady and content, is brimming with rage, despair and resentment. His apparently pointless ranting is nothing less than a personal history of China in the twentieth century.
All of it starts to affect Jian. Mr. Yang’s doubts and resentment strike a chord in Jian, who begins to have second thoughts about the path he’s chosen in life. Jian’s doubts lead him to reject the constricted life of a scholar in China. He leaves the city on an assignment for the Party, and is shocked by the poverty he sees there; he returns with a heavier heart. When he does, he discovers that he’s been at the center of a complex web of political and personal maneuvering, designed to take away everything he has. In despair, he makes what appears to be a minor decision to get out of the city and get some fresh air, so to speak. But his choice destroys his future and his identity, and leads him on a path to Beijing and the most notorious event in modern Chinese history. And eventually, it also leads him to a kind of freedom.
Most of Ha Jin’s work novels are slow to develop; but in his case, that pokiness gives the reader time to really absorb what he’s saying. The Crazed is no exception. It takes a little patience; at first the reader, like Jian feels that his mentor is simply nuts, spewing all sorts of craziness to no apparent purpose. By the time Jian finally gets out of that claustrophobic hospital room, you’re panting for some air just as much as he is. But in the end you see that every little thing is meaningful; all the stories, hints, and little, apparently meaningless details weave themselves into an elaborate tapestry.
But Jin’s writing style (he writes in English) is also deceptively simple and unassuming. He utilizes the sparest of details, so when you occasionally come across an entire paragraph of description it seems decadent, or sometimes annoying (since you want him to move the story along as he has been so efficiently). Because of the bluntness of his style, the characters might seen emotionally inaccessibly, or at least distant. In most novels that would be unsettling, but with The Crazed it doesn’t feel that way, since by the time this occurs to you, you’re already aware of Jin’s real meaning.
The ending will not satisfy all readers, or even most of them; it’s an open ending, but it gives you something to think about.
The Crazed is filled with fascinating insights into life inside a totalitarian state. For readers who’ve grown up in a democracy, some of Jin’s descriptions will be all but unbelieveable.
The Verdict: You’ll probably like it if you’ve read some of Jin’s other pieces and liked them as well. If not, start with Waiting, then move on to The Crazed.
| Category: Print Reviews, Reviews | Tag: china, ha jin, novel review, the crazed |
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22 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Nightmare Inspector wants to be The Twilight Zone so badly that it hurts. It also wants to be Pet Shop of Horrors. It’s a noble effort and it’s an entertaining little series, but it’s simply not as good as what it aspires to be.
The setting is the Silver Star Teahouse in pre-WWII Japan, in the 1920’s (the setting might be confusing to some, but one story mentions the Great Kanto Earthquake as happening a few years previous, so there you are). The proprietors of the teahouse are a young woman named Mizuki, and the baku (a spirit that devours dreams) named Hiruko. Baku are traditionally depicted as looking like tapirs, but this one looks like a regular guy- well, as regular as any manga character looks. After all, if he was a tapir he couldn’t be dressed in a ridiculous ensemble dripping with buckles, right? The Teahouse for some reason serves mainly coffee, but no one comes there for hot beverages anyway, so whatever. They come to see Hiruko, to ask him if he can help them get rid of their nightmares. He usually does, and the only payment he asks is to eat the nightmare afterwards, so it’s a pretty sweet deal.
Each chapter is a story revolving around a new customer, and with few exceptions the stories are only a chapter long. In volume 1, the clients include a servant who dreams of his mistress’ death, a man so obsessed with a popular actress that he can’t bear seeing her character die in her latest movie, a girl who’s sick of her daily routine, and a man who has fallen in love with a mysterious woman who calls him on the phone, and desperately wants to see her face, if only in his dream. This last story ends volume 1, and is a cliffhanger leading into the next volume. In volume 2 the new customers are a woman who wants to live in the last painting her dead lover made, and a blind girl whose keen hearing is picking up a repetitive sound that is driving her crazy.
The stories are mostly self-contained, but not entirely; there are threads that run through the manga that tie things together. Volume 2 sees the addition of Hifumi, a weird rich kid who visits to see where a baku lives, but ends up taking a room above the teahouse when he falls in love with Mizuki. Hiruko’s job also takes him pretty frequently to The Delirium, some kind of club where people’s deepest desires can be brought to life. As the series progresses you learn who/what Hiruko really is: a baku who took over the body of Mizuki’s emo brother when the brother decided he didn’t feel like living anymore.
There are some neat things about Nightmare Inspector; more than once the human clients turn out to be animals or even objects in disguise (the blind girl, for instance, is a cat). The historical details are scant but interesting, and the twists inherent in every story sometimes work and sometimes don’t, but they’re rarely predictable. After a while though things start to feel terribly repetitive; customer comes in, Hiruko sends them to sleep, solves their problem, all is well, and THEN the twist pops in.
The characters, unfortunately, are right out of the Catalog of Manga Archetypes. Mizuki is sweet and polite and secretly sad about her brother. Hiruko is reticent and rude and secretly angsting about something not mentioned in these volumes. Hifumi is annoying as hell, dopey and silly. The guy who runs The Delirium is all secretive and flirty, very reminiscent of Pet Shop of Horrors’ Count D.
The art is pretty standard; the clothes are the most interesting thing about the designs. Most everyone wears historically accurate garb, except the aforementioned Hiruko, who looks like he fell into an s&m shop and then accessorized at Claire’s. Backgrounds are decent; not crowded but not too spare either.
So how does Nightmare Inspector stack up against its influences? The Twilight Zone was an innovative series that made viewers think; many of the episodes have so permeated the culture that even people who have never seen them can recognize references. Pet Shop of Horrors was a series of striking Japanese morality tales, often haunting and compelling.
Nightmare Inspector is entertaining, but ten minutes after finishing a story, I couldn’t remember what had happened in the chapter (which makes writing a review a pain in the ass, let me tell you). Do I feel like continuing the adventures of Hiruko and crew, and ferreting out their various secrets.
The Verdict: Not really.
| Category: Print Reviews, Reviews | Tag: japan, manga, nightmare inspector, review |
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21 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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The Great Happiness Space takes its title from a bit of Engrish advertising for an Osaka host club, Stylish Club Rakkyo. Being a host at a Japanese host club seems like the easiest job ever; all you have to do is sweet talk some lonely chicks, get them to buy a ton of expensive champagne and make some cash. Simple, yes? Harmless, flirty fun.
No. The dynamics of a host club are complicated, emotional, and sometimes heartbreaking.
There’s no narration here; the film relies on interviews with Rakkyo’s hosts and their clients and footage of the club in action to tell its story. The first set of clips feature various hosts praising Rakkyo’s number one host, Issei, a painfully stylish young man in a sharp suit. Interviews with Issei’s regular clients introduce the first bit of discomfort; without exception they all declare themselves to be in love with him; one woman even says she broke off her engagement after falling for Issei. They then move on to the details of hosting, and what makes a good host; the concensus being that the most important skill is to lie, and lie well. Footage from the club shows their skills in action. The hosts are variously sensitive, kind, affectionate, big-brotherly, sweet, raucous, lecherous…whatever their particular client wants. Their chameleonic abilities are actually unnerving to watch, but not half as unnerving as the string of women declaring their love for a man who’s actively playing them.
Being a host is a complex job; in one scene the hosts are shown picking up business on the street, halfway between animals hunting and prostitute looking for johns. Issei points out that while he’s cleaning up financially, he’s screwed himself in other ways; working at night, in a host club, makes it impossible to meet women elsewhere, so he has no serious relationship. And his excessive drinking at the club is setting him up for health problems.
Several of the women say they love the host club because there, they are treated like princesses. It doesn’t seem like an unusual wish; most women want to be a princess at some point. But the kick in the teeth comes when they are asked about their jobs. Almost all the women interviewed are Soap Land employees (prostitutes), dancers, or even hostesses themselves. And the worst part is that, deep down, most of them seem to know it’s a sham. But they need it badly enough to pretend. And at the same time, they go to other host clubs and pay other hosts for their attention.
Issei is the voice of experience in this documentary. While some of the other hosts are flippant or even disgusted by their clients, Issei seems to have real sympathy for them. He’s very perceptive about clientele and matter-of-fact about the requirements of his job; some footage shows him giving tips to new hosts. It’s easy to see why the women fall for him.
Over the course of the documentary, Rakkyo hires some new hosts, and watching the new hosts learn their duties (and their first awkward attempts at luring clients) are funny and even touching. But none of it makes up for the depressing interviews with Issei, who details how to stretch out a relationship with a client to keep her around (and paying) as long as possible; once they snap out of it and realize he’ll never seriously date them, they –and their money- are gone to some other club, some other host.
It’s all depressing, every bit of it. The deception, the self-deception, the endless vicious cycle of nights where some facsimile of love can be bought. It’s emotional prostitution where everyone ends up more damaged than when they started. And where will the hosts go when they lose their looks, what happens to the clients when they age and have no real relationship? The documentary shies away from even contemplating these possibilities.
Host clubs are full of men who no longer know who they are, beneath their suave exteriors, and women whose dream of love destroys their chances at finding the real thing.
The Verdict: Pretty boys, cute girls, but they’re all too sad to enjoy the view. A penetrating documentary that will change everything you think about host and hostess clubs.
| Category: DVD Reviews, Reviews | Tag: documentary, host clubs, japan, review, the great happiness space |
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20 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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I am of the opinion that lesbians don’t get nearly enough screen time. Gay guys are pretty much completely mainstream at this point (remember that show with the gay dudes? Yeah, me too); they show up on CSI, and there was that one series that was all about this gay guy and his female roommate). But lesbians are still stuffed into the network TV closet.
Not so in anime and manga. There’s an entire genre called yuri, which focuses on lesbian relationships…and these titles are all kind of stuffed into the closet, at least in the U.S. The ones that do escape are unbelievably mild, because if we ever saw two chicks getting it on, all women might think it’s just too awesome and turn lesbian and the human race would die out. Or something.
Blue Drop is one of those barely-there yuri escapees. It’s a yuri, science fiction, boarding school story all rolled into one 13-episode series, and it’s honestly better than I thought it would be.
Mari has lived with her grandmother for six years, ever since her parents died in a bizarre incident- all the inhabitants of their small island died in one night, either killing each other in a frenzy or dying in the subsequent tidal wave. Mari was the only survivor, and she has no memory of her life before her rescue.
Mari’s grandma is getting up in years and feels she can’t take care of her anymore, so she ships Mari off to a swanky girls-only boarding school with a headmaster who looks just like Yanni, if Yanni was animated and had purple hair. Mari is understandably pissed off, and is even more pissed off when the class president tries to strangle her on their first meeting. Hagino is the golden girl: the best at everything and the focus of many girl crushes. She also has a secret: she’s really an alien (or from another dimension; differing explanations are offered on this point). Hagino herself isn’t sure why Mari freaks her out so much, so she gets herself assigned as Mari’s roommate to find out.
Hagino’s people came to earth years ago to scope it out for possible invasion; Hagino (aka Echoreal) is the captain of one of their recon ships. It was actually a terrible accident involving her ship that drove everyone on Mari’s island crazy. Hagino’s guilt has caused her to hide from her own people, taking on the persona of a schoolgirl while her ship waits in the ocean, tended by her loyal lieutenant, Subael.
As Mari begins to discover Hagino’s secrets, their relationship develops from antagonism to friendship to more (Hagino’s people are all female, so it’s no big whoop for her). Their feelings even survive Mari’s learning that Hagino was more or less responsible for her parents kicking the bucket. When the aliens commence with their invasion plans, Hagino decides to stop them- for Mari, and for the fragile human race she’s come to love.
Taken on their own, each of Blue Drop’s storylines is nothing new: alien invasion/ boarding school girl crushes. Blah. But tie them together, and you have something different, and fairly interesting.
Mari and Hagino’s relationship develops as naturally as you expect, considering that one of them is an alien who destroyed the other one’s early life. It’s tentative, and angsty, and often sweet and genuinely touching. But as this is mainstream yuri, they never do anything more risqué than holding hands. Mari is a fun sort of heroine; instead of the sickeningly good-hearted girls you see in so much anime, Mari is touchy, angry and fierce. Hagino appears to be the stereotypical perfect schoolmate, but her guilt and regret make her more interesting than the average alien girl. The other characters are generally likable, if not particularly fleshed out (except the morbidly obese RA in Mari’s dorm…haha). One teacher who seems flighty and uber-cheerful is actually a secret agent there to observe Mari in an attempt to find out what happened to her island’s population; as a flaky teacher she’s annoying as hell, but the secret agent bit balances it out nicely.
The show is relatively fast-paced, with a only a couple ‘time-out’ episodes where the girls hang out at the beach or whatever.
The character designs are pretty standard, though the alien ship designs are really neat. It’s Gonzo, so the animation is really slick and the backgrounds are detailed; there’s a lot of sun shimmering on the ocean waves and the like. The ship-on-ship action is rendered in 3D CGI, which is a bit jarring at first but quickly comes to look pretty decent.
I watched the show dubbed (thanks to Netflix’s Instant Stream, where much of the anime is only available dubbed). The voice acting is tolerable all around, though all the girls (save Hagino’s Monica Rial, who barely manages more than a shy whisper) can be strident and shrill when they’re excited. Kind of like real teenage girls, I guess.
The ending of Blue Drop, while not entirely unexpected, manages to be quite touching, especially as it ties into the framing story in the first episode.
The Verdict: Probably not very rewatchable, but definitely enjoyable the first time around.
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19 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Forbidden Dance is a manga about a high school girl who has to work hard to achieve her dreams and get with the incredibly hot and perfect guy she loves. Because, you know, no manga has ever done that exact storyline before. Even worse, Forbidden Dance indulges in every tired cliché of the genre; the gorgeous ex-girlfriend, the mean girl(s) who pick on the heroine, the apparently arrogant and cruel dude who turns out to have a sad, sad past…it’s enough to make you gag.
Aya is a high school kid and devoted ballet student. She’s the pride of her ballet school, until she chokes up at a competition and falls off the stage. After that she can’t bring herself to dance in front of an audience, despite the encouragement of her teachers and best friend, second-rate ballerina Nachan. This makes Yoshino, her main dancing rival, very happy.
Then one day Aya is chilling in the park and a random guy gives her a free ticket to a performance by a small ballet company called COOL (he’s actually not that random, turns out he’s a classmate/fellow dancer she just noticed before). She attends the show and is blown away by the athletic performances of the dancers, especially the lead dancer, Akira, who is apparently unbelievably attractive. Aya decides that the only way on God’s green Earth that she will ever ever ever be able to dance again is if she can dance with unbelievably attractive Akira. She approaches him after the show and asks to be allowed to join COOL. Unfortunately, she was so obsessed with Akira that she somehow failed to notice that every single member of the company is male. Amused by her pathetic desperation, Akira says he’ll let her in if she can win the National Ballet Competition.
Which she does, despite her rivalry with Yoshino and the fact that Nachan secretly envies Aya’s talent and tries to sabotage her performance. Along the way Aya makes peace with everyone and impresses Akira with her drive and learns about his sad, sad past and blah blah blah.
But then she discovers that she’s kind of out of her league with COOL, and Akira has an ex-girlfriend who is a famous ballet star and who visits Japan and makes Aya jealous, and she has to save COOL’s anniversary performance and gets mixed signals from him and whatever. Honestly, I’m just too bored to write the rest of the summary. You can probably figure out what happens anyway. Luckily the manga is only four volumes long, so it didn’t waste too much of my time.
You might wonder why I am so down on this manga. Sure, it might be familiar, sure it’s packed with clichés, but it’s silly, harmless fun, right?
Wrong. Aya is every bit as bad a role model for girls as that stupid bitch in the Twilight books. Wah wah wah, she fell and lost her confidence. Oh look, she can learn to dance and follow her dreams again, but ONLY if she can dance with this douchebag who treats her like shit but eventually comes to love her because she is so incredibly clingy and pathetic. Oh look, this asshole secretly has a heart of gold or some shit, and he said I made him hit me and he’d never do it again…(OK, the only hitting in this manga is by accident, or chicks slapping each other, but you can totally see where their relationship is going).
And the art? Ick. Unbelievably attractive Akira is…not attractive. None of the characters are. Hinako Ashihara’s characters look like mutants. Their foreheads are huge domes, their eyes are large as squid’s eyes, and all their features are crammed into the bottom 1/3rd of their faces. Her sketching of dance sequences is nice, but while dancing the characters only seem to have three poses apiece.
Maybe that’s because in the (frequent, boring) mangaka’s notes, Ashihara admits she knows sod-all about ballet and doesn’t know why she chose it as a subject. Now, I also know sod-all about ballet, which is why I don’t write about it. I don’t know how accurate her information about ballet is, but with her confession of ignorance being right there in the first volume, I don’t really trust her.
Besides the author’s notes, volume three contains a very long instructional manual on working out like a ballet dancer, which I read while cramming Fig Newtons into my piehole, and a short story called “Princess Line”.
The Verdict: Please God, give me back my two hours of time. I promise I’ll never randomly pick a manga to read out of the library again.
| Category: Print Reviews, Reviews | Tag: forbidden dance, japan, manga, review |
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18 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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If you are reading China: Land of Dragons and Emperors by Adeline Yen Mah, you are A) a teenager who needs cool facts for a report or B) one of those people with the attention span of a goldfish.
China was written with young adults in mind, as the many, many sidebars and little boxes full of trivia and the attention to the most lurid details of Chinese history prove. Mah begins at the beginning, a very good place to start: the ancient time before recorded history. There are half a dozen little sections that lay out the basics of Chinese mythology, the history of silk production, the importance of colors in Chinese culture, and other interesting but ultimately unsatisfying little facts.
Chapter Two moves on to the First Emperor- you know, the guy from Hero- and a brief history of his (short) dynasty, inevitably including a box about the terracotta army. Next is the Han dynasty, which demands a longer chapter since it lasted 420 years (See? Facts, facts everywhere). Along with the in-fighting an betrayals, there are boxes with information on Confucius (OCD, misogynist), the major religions of China, and lots of information on how awesome the Chinese were at inventing stuff, like paper and seismographs.
Moving right along, we come to the Tang dynasty, chock-full of more betrayal, in-fighting, much murder and women being bitchy and awesome, along with the invention of printing. Next up are the Song, who had it even worse and deprive women of the freedom they’ enjoyed under the Tang. There’s also a blurb on the Chinese New Year, and the most cringe-inducing chapter title in the entire book, “No singing for the Song.” Also, there’s a significant bit on more Chinese inventions.
Then the Mongols came crashing in, and the Yuan dynasty began. There’s a quick peek at Genghis, and a longer look at his son Kublai (and his famous palace). Marco Polo gets his introduction here, as do gunpowder and the Moon Festival. Next up is the Ming dynasty, they of the incredibly expensive vases, and Mah helpfully explains what a eunuch is. This is when China was sailing around the world, when they invented porcelain, and there’s an extensive (for this book, anyway) digression on the history of the Great Wall (which can’t be seen from space, after all- disappointing).
And then, the Qing. Here Mah outlines some interesting connections between China and America’s war for independence. There’s some bits and pieces about the Chinese pictographs and dialects.
The shortest chapter in the book, oddly enough, belongs to post-Imperial China; perhaps Mah thought there had been so much written about it already that more would be overkill. She breezes through Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao himself, to Deng Xiaoping. There’s even a mention of Hu Jintao (which startled me for some reason, though the book is hardly old; it was released in 2008).
China: Land of Dragons and Emperors covers two thousand years of history in 240 pages, so if you’re looking for in-depth analysis of people and events, look elsewhere. Mah skims over centuries, bringing up only the most significant (and sometimes, gruesome or lurid) incidents. The book is obviously meant for the younger set; Mah often defines things most reasonably well-read adults would know (such as what a eunuch is, as I’ve mentioned).
There’s a pretty noticeable “We’re number one!” vibe here. Mah’s endless lists of Chinese inventions are interesting, but she also adds the (often, much later) dates when the West discovered the same things; maybe it’s just that I’m American- and thus, used to being number one- but there’s a bit of superiority in her tone.
The book is a quick read, shallow but fun, if not entirely satisfying. It was nice being able to place where the Battle of Red Cliff occurred (there’s a nice chronological chart in the back), and finally realize that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon takes place during the Qing dynasty. But the book isn’t good for much else, except filling your head with interesting facts.
The Verdict: Definitely enjoyable, and you’ll probably learn something. But don’t expect too much.
| Category: Print Reviews, Reviews | Tag: adeline yen mah, book review, china: land of dragons and emperors |
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17 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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By the end of The Good, the Bad, the Weird, you’ll be thinking, “Damn! Did I really just see a Korean Western set in 1930’s Manchuria with crazy awesome chase scenes, train heists, and cowboys, with the Gobi Desert as a stand-in for the Mojave?” Why, yes, yes you did.
Chang-yi (the titular Bad) is a nasty, violent gang leader whose group of thugs has been hired to retrieve a treasure map from the head of a Japanese bank. Since this is a Western, he’s traveling by train across the desert. What the Bad doesn’t know is that small-time thief Tae-goo (the Weird) is also on this train, out to rob whoever looks good- and he robs the banker before the Bad and his gang can stop the train and climb on. There follows a long, gruesome scene involving murdered civilians, explosions, and a Mongol gang with spears, who seem to be a completely different faction and are also after…the map! Tae-goo realizes he has something valuable and takes off, just as poker-faced bounty hunter Do-won (the Good; he comes with a duster and cowboy hat) shows up to take down the Bad.
Tae-goo gets away and holes up to decide what he should do with the map. Meanwhile, Chang-yi goes back to his boss and takes care of his boss’ disappointment in him by killing the guy. Do-won follows the trail. What ensues are several more bloody gun battles, a couple torture killings, and a tentative alliance between Do-won and Tae-goo. While they’re making nice, the Japanese army gets wind of the map’s whereabouts, and decide they need it. For rumor has it that the treasure in question is a big chunk of the ex-ruling dynasty, the Qing, and getting their hands on it will cement Japan’s power in Manchuria (at the time, both Manchuria and Korea were under Japanese rule).
Predictably, Tae-goo double-crosses Do-won and takes off in search of the treasure alone, pursued by Chang-yi (who is pursued by Do-won), the Mongols, the Manchurian army, and the Japanese army. There’s a terrific extended chase sequence across the desert, involving Jeeps, horses, trucks, motorcycles, and some awesome post-traumatic wish fulfillment when Do-won singlehandedly decimates the Japanese army. It all ends with the Good, the Bad and the Weird at the spot marked by the X, in a tense Mexican standoff. And they do end up finding the treasure…it’s just not what anyone would ever have expected.
This movie is unrelentingly kinetic. Hardly have we had time to digest one ultra-violent battle than the next one begins. The action is well-filmed and well-played, but it gets confusing when three or four different factions are fighting each other in the rain. It’s also insanely violent and gory, with graphic beatings, severed limbs, shootings, and, in one memorable scene, a knife rammed into the back of a guy’s neck.
The Good, the Bad, the Weird is billed (at least on Netflix) as an action comedy. While it has its funny moments, they’re more funny-whoa (as in, “Holy shit, did they just ram a spear up a dude’s ass?”) than funny-haha. , as Tae-goo, is the most comedic of the characters, though his dopey exterior doesn’t totally conceal a slyness that’s unsettling.
The movie is obviously a nod to the spaghetti Westerns of the 1960’s and 70’s, from the title to the music, which is Ennio Morricone infected with techno. But it’s not a parody; The Good, the Bad, the Weird is a loving, detailed tribute to Sergio Leone and crew.
At a little over two hours, the film is about half an hour too long (the aforementioned confusing fight in the rain is part of the ‘too long’ bit), but even with that fault, The Good, the Bad the Weird is worth it for the final forty minutes: the extended chase scene involving everyone in the world hunting down Tae-goo, and the Mexican standoff between our three title characters. It’s amazing to watch.
The cameramen pull out all the stops; there are aerial shots, running shots, single-take shots. The Good, the Bad, the Weird is a good deal more stylish than the old Westerns it adores, both in how it’s shot and in the props and costumes. Do-won is the cleanest cowboy around, Tae-goo’s outfit is as quirky as he is, and Chang-yi is twenty-first century metrosexual, in a GQ suit and spiky mullet. Some of the bandits wear furs and skins, some of Chang-yi’s thigs have cornrows or dreads. It’s hardly historically accurate, but it sure looks good.
The Verdict: Fun and entertaining despite the slow middle, with a killer finale. A strong stomach is required.
| Category: DVD Reviews, Reviews | Tag: korea, movie review, the bad, the good, the weird |
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16 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Mak and Nak are an unbearably clean-cut young couple, about to be married, who are looking for their first house. They seem to find a perfect fit in a hundred-year-old starter home; it needs a little work, but the price is right. They fix it up and move in, unaware that their every move is being watched by a couple of thieves who are out to rob them when the time is right.
Immediately weird shit starts to happen. Mak hears a ghostly female voice beckoning him from inside the house, and the real estate agent who sold them the joint dies in a horrible subway accident. Mak sees a spectral female figure inside the house; oddly enough-or not- she’s identical to a creepy woman who’s been showing up in his nightmares. At the same time, an old boyfriend starts stalking Nak, trying to make her call off the wedding. Doesn’t work; they’re duly married (in a combination Thai/Western wedding), but on their wedding night Mak wakes up with another nightmare. Then the thieves strike, and Mak is hit by their getaway van. Mak is in a coma! But he wakes up long enough to tell Nak that she has to find Mae Nak, whoever she is…
Nak’s ancient grandma tells her the story of Mae Nak, a young bride who died while her husband was at war, but showed up as a ghost when he came back (a very convincing ghost, since he didn’t notice she was dead for a while). Mae Nak placed a curse on the villagers who’d told her husband the truth, but an exorcism laid her to rest. OR DID IT?!
Meanwhile, the thieves are killed by the same creepy woman from Mak’s dream. Nak finds out that their old house is…the place where Mae Nak used to live (da da DAAAA!). Nak then discovers that Mae Nak wasn’t exactly exorcised, but her spirit was trapped in a necklace made of bone taken from Mae Nak’s body…a necklace that has, coincidentally, fallen into Nak’s possession. The fortune teller’s assistant tries to swindle Nak out of the necklace, and promptly dies in a horrible manner.
Intuition or divine guidance or whatever tells Nak exactly where to go and what to do to set Mae Nak’s spirit free. Nak talks some friends into helping dig up Mae Nak so the piece of bone can be reunited with the rest of her skeleton. While she’s working on that, an operation is performed on Mak to keep his brain from exploding or something. Nak gets the necklace back with the skeleton, but Mak doesn’t come out of his coma. So his parents do the logical (well, it may really be logical for Buddhists) thing and ship him off to a monastery to be exorcised.
Nak’s ancient grandma hauls her off to a medium (and automatic writer, which is kind of cool), who says Mae Nak STILL isn’t at peace, the needy bitch, and the damned movie still isn’t over. So now Nak has to stop the exorcism, which the medium says is really bad for Mak, and figure out what’s up with Mae Nak. Which is totally predictable, so I’m not sure why she had to hit up a medium for advice. But this is an Asian horror movie, so it has to be one of the cool kids and have the The End…no, not really! twist.
If you thought that summary was long and boring, it’s nothing compared to actually watching Ghost of Mae Nak. Sure, newlyweds are going to be all googly-eyed all over each other, but it’s no fun to watch for long, long, loooooong minutes.
The way the thieves are killed is unintentionally hilarious; one is crushed into a cube when his van is scrapped, and the other falls into a vat of hot oil and, flailing in agony, crashes onto a grill, where he is barbequed to death. Also hilarious is the way a fortune teller goes into convulsions when he sees the necklace containing Mae Nak’s spirit, and the way his assistant is somehow sliced in half by a falling pane of glass…if Ghost of Mae Nak didn’t take itself so seriously, it would be a pretty decent horror/comedy. Horromedy.
Nothing about this movie is scary. Nothing. After your first look at Mae Nak, you get used to her, and since she’s the only ghost popping up, there’s nothing else to look forward to. It’s repetitive, what with her killing people over and over.
I will say, in sharp contrast to most Asian horror movies, the hospital is not completely dark and creepy and decrepit. It actually looks like a decent modern hospital, with no leaking water pipes or dark corridors. So that’s a nice change, I guess.
The Verdict: I’ve already seen it. But spare yourselves.
| Category: DVD Reviews, Reviews | Tag: ghost of mae nak, movie review, thailand |
