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5 Apr
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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I hadn’t been on io9 for a while, so I checked it out today and found a whole bunch of shit I wanted to read. There are two great relevant articles too, linked here:
In Vietnam, a huge 440 monster turtle that probably eats a dozen babies for breakfast was hauled out of a lake and checked over for illness. This beast is probably over 100 years old, so instead of eating it, the people who pulled it out just released it back into the lake to kill and kill again.
Also, they featured a couple clips from some Shaw Brothers fucked-up-ness, Seeding of a Ghost. ‘Seeding’ here means ‘knocked up’, and the seeding happens (I think) when this witch doctor guy calls up some dead lady’s spirit to fuck a corpse and then give birth to a creature that will avenge her death, or something. And later on, some other lady gives birth to a gross tentacle monster that kills a bunch of people. And I thought 14 hours of labor and an emergency c-section was bad…
Thank You Shaw Brothers for This Awesomeness
And more on this delightful romp:
| Category: Uncategorized | Tag: animals, Hong Kong, io9, Movie, seeding of a ghost, Shaw Brothers, turtle, vietnam |
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14 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Death Trance desperately wants to be a Ryuhei Kitamura movie. And it succeeds. Unfortunately, only about half of Kitamura’s movies are really entertaining; the other half are stupid and boring. Death Trance, as a Kitamura wannabe, falls into the latter category.
In a world similar to Edo-era Japan (but way weirder), a mysterious coffin has been kept at a temple for centuries, wrapped in chains. Only the monks know what it really contains, but rumor has it that whatever sleeps in the coffin can grant any wish. The temple’s courtyard is crammed with would-be coffin thieves, turned to stone by some monastic magic.
But in some kind of epic battle that is barely shown, a sword-wielding rogue named Grave (Kitamura favorite Tak Sakaguchi) manages to extract the coffin, and, instead of opening it right away, decides to drag it around by the chains for awhile. He’s trailed by a weird and adorable little girl, whose presence is never quite explained but who apparently comes with the coffin. Grave hauls the kid and coffin all over the damn place, including, bizarrely, to some kind of outdoor diner where people are apparently tortured and sold as lunch. Of course, once every thug in the place sees the coffin, they want a shot at it, wielding swords, guns, gun-swords and their bare fists. He flicks most of them aside like tiddlywinks, but one guy with some seriously impressive Flock of Seagulls hair (played by Kentaro Seagal, and if you knew Steven Seagal has a half-Japanese son, you knew more than I did). Flock of Seagulls keeps popping up to fight some more. All the while, the creepy kid just watches (and eats). There’s also a monk sent by the temple, not to retrieve the coffin- because he can’t fight for shit- but to tote around a sacred sword that can only be drawn from its scabbard by the Chosen One, who is supposed to beat down the thing in the coffin should it escape. He also helpfully explains what is really contained in the coffin, which is not going to grant any wishes. Unless your wish is for the world and everyone in it to be destroyed.
Three guesses as to whom the Chosen One ends up being, and the first two don’t count. Hint: it’s not Anakin Skywalker.
Death Trance pretty much fails at plot and character development. You could sail a cruise ship through the holes in the plot. Grave has absolutely zero personality or even a sliver a charm. The little girl’s role remains unclear; exactly what she is and why she accompanies the coffin is never explained. There is a weak attempt to give Flock of Seagulls a reason for our sympathy, but it falls flat.
As we all know, all of these things could be forgiven if only the movie has some kick-ass action; the only thing that saves many Kitamura film. Death Trance has loads of action (the onset of which is always signaled by heavy metal music from Japanese band Dir en Grey), but it’s less ‘kick-ass’ than ‘technically competent’. Frequent cuts, and the sheer number of combatants in most scenes, often make it hard to see what’s going on.
One thing- no, the only thing- Death Trance has going for it is style. The whole film is shot in moody gray and blue, the costumes are hardly historically accurate but look pretty cool, and there is the afore-mentioned Flock of Seagulls hair. There’s speeded-up action, slowed-down action, and people making elegant arcs with their elegant swords.
And to be honest, I would have sacrificed some of that style for just a teeny-tiny bit of substance.
The Verdict: Only if you’re really, really bored. And only if you can’t get your hands on a copy of Versus instead.
| Category: DVD Reviews, Reviews | Tag: death trance, japan, Movie, review |
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12 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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So, The Sky Crawlers might actually be the best Mamoru Oshii movie I’ve ever seen. There, I said it. I know, right? I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore.
I generally like Oshii, though I know all about his major fault: the endless philosophical bullshit that takes up approximately 60% of every movie he makes. But I always felt his pros outweighed his one giant con: his slow, dreamy pacing, rich character development, kickass action and of course his partnership with Production I.G. (it also helps that I love dogs, particularly hounds, extra-particularly basset hounds). The Sky Crawlers has all the pros and none of the con.
In the future, wars aren’t fought: they’re staged. Nations don’t go to battle anymore, and the world is at peace. But of course that’s not enough for mankind, which demands conflict, so companies are hired to wage war against each other. The soldiers in these wars are ‘kildren’- genetically engineered fighters who are kept in an artificial adolescence for their entire lives; because, as one character remarks, when your only purpose is to fight and die, why bother growing up?
As the film opens, Yuichi, a kildren pilot, arrives at a new military base. The commander of the base is the ice queen Kusanagi, and the mascot a basset hound (of course). There is some mystery concerning the fate of the pilot Yuichi is replacing, but he doesn’t have much time to consider that between battling the rival company’s pilots, including the mysterious Teacher, who is rumored to actually be…a grown up.
Over the course of the film, some of Yuichi’s fellow pilots are killed, the fragile truth behind Kusanagi’s cold shell is revealed, and the mystery surrounding the Teacher gets curiouser and curiouser. The history of the kildren is revealed, and turns out to be even more horrifying than we thought. Much more happens, and even more on the psychological plane, but I can’t reveal too much without spoiling the impact of this quietly powerful movie.
As with most Oshii movies, The Sky Crawlers is slow-moving. The action is interspersed with halting conversations, long shots of scenery and pauses so drawn out that a couple times I checked the DVD player to make sure the DVD wasn’t frozen. The action scenes- all aerial battles- are frenetic yet graceful. It all gives the movie a haunting, surreal atmosphere that is entirely typical of Oshii. The backgrounds are mostly windswept moors (this base is apparently in England); the open landscapes contrast startlingly with the trapped, claustrophobic situations of the most of the characters.
Production I.G.’s animation is always top-notch, and The Sky Crawlers is no exception. Their blending of 3D and 2D animation is always as close to seamless as you can get. The character designs might look a little simplistic to fans of I.G.’s Ghost in the Shell movies, but since the characters are perpetually young, I could accept the lack of lines in their skin. The planes are futuristic but not unrealistic, and the action scenes are amazing to watch; a couple times I had to remind myself I was actually watching animation.
The music, by Kenji Kawai, is compelling without being too noticeable. The voice actors are all fine (even the bits of English that are thrown around are clear!).
Are all the mysteries going to be cleared up, all the problems solved and put in a little box with a bow? Please. If you’re an Oshii fan, you already know the answer to that. Just like real life, The Sky Crawlers doesn’t answer everything. This isn’t a movie to watch late at night when you’re half-asleep. You might even have to watch it twice to catch all the brilliant, wrenching details, but it’s going to make you think (for instance, it’s shown that Kusanagi- in a youthful rebellion- once had a daughter, who is rapidly growing to the same age that her mother perpetually inhabits. Think about that for a while). And while initially the ending may leave you feeling a bit empty, further reflection tells you that it meant more than you ever realized at the time.
The Verdict: A must-see for any anime fan with a brain.
| Category: DVD Reviews, Reviews | Tag: Anime, mamori oshii, Movie, review, the sky crawlers |
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9 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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One night last week Shapiro Keats came home late to find me curled up on the couch, the living room lights blazing, clutching the cat like a feline shield. “Did you watch a scary movie?” He sighed.
Yes, yes I did. And I fully admit that Filipino horror movie The Maid probably wouldn’t have been half as scary if I had watched it, say, in the day time, when there was someone else in the house.
Rosa is a cute 18-year-old Filipino girl who arrives in Singapore to work as a maid for a Chinese family living there. Her employers are a retired Peking opera star and his wife. They seem like pretty cool people, except- oops!- they forgot to mention they have a mentally challenged adult son. But Ah Soon is a good guy, a grown man who acts like a toddler (a lot like my son, actually). Rosa doesn’t actually seem to do much work; she spends most of her time peeking into dark closets and opening and closing creaky doors. She finds a mysterious bag of clothes stuck under her bed, and does the only logical thing; she starts wearing them.
Rosa has had the bad luck to start work during the Chinese seventh month, when the gate to the afterlife is supposedly open. Her employers spend lots of time placating the ancestors by burning money and leaving food in front of the house. Her mistress even flips her shit when Rosa goes to the mailbox by herself; the ‘hungry ghost man’ is everywhere, just looking for some cute girl to terrorize. But Rosa doesn’t know all the superstitions: at an opera performance she sits in a seat reserved for the ancestors, and she nearly sweeps up a pile of ash from a burned offering. This pisses off the ancestors to no end, apparently, because immediately she starts seeing ghosts, all the usual Asian kinds- little kids, long-haired women, dead peeps in various stages of decomposition. But it’s cool, her mistress assures her. Once the seventh month is over, the ghosts will split and leave Rosa alone.
Then Ah Soon eats some of the food left out for the ancestors, and he starts seeing ghosts too. Rosa gets more and more freaked out, until it doesn’t look like she can wait until the end of the month to get rid of the dead people. Of course there’s a reason why Rosa’s employers are so hell-bent on keeping the ghosts at bay. Rosa’s not their first maid, after all. Esther ran off with some guy…or maybe she didn’t.
The plot of The Maid is pretty straightforward, and, in the end, predictable, except for one nice little twist that took me by surprise (but I tend to be rather dense about these things, too; Shapiro Keats would have figured it out in five minutes).
Most of the scares in The Maid are shock effects; quick cuts that flash a ghostly face at you, accompanied by a sudden burst of background music. None of the ghosts seems particularly menacing, besides being, well, ghosts; a dead child deliberately scares Rosa, but the ones who occupy the empty row at the opera house just wave cheerfully at her. There are hands popping out of laundry piles, ghosts showing up in the reflection in a cabinet door, translucent figures floating past doorways. There are nicely creepy dream/vision sequences, as when Rosa follows a trail of blood through a deserted apartment complex. In another, a Filipino girl Rosa has befriended is struck instantly mad when she is hit by the shadow of a coffin as a hearse passes by.
The dialogue is conducted in Cantonese and English. Alessandra de Rossi , who plays Rosa, speaks perfectly fine English, but the Asian actors are harder to understand, and there are no subtitles. I had to go back a couple times and listen to a couple conversations twice to figure it all out. The acting is decent; Benny Soh as Ah Soon is endearing if occasionally annoying. de Rossi is a little wooden, but it may simply be because English isn’t her first language.
One of the irritating things about The Maid is that the sound levels are uneven. I had to turn it up several times to hear the dialogue, and down when the music was overwhelming. Since I watched it on the Netflix Instant Stream and not a DVD, this is a problem with the sound mixing.
The Verdict: Watch it alone, and it will freak your shit out. Even if you watch it during the day, it’s interesting to learn the various superstitions associated with the Chinese seventh month.
| Category: DVD Reviews, Film Reviews, Reviews | Tag: horror, Movie, phlippines, review, the maid |
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6 Feb
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Due to some weird shifting of the Earth’s crust, every continent and island in the world sinks beneath the ocean waves in full-color CGI. Every continent and island…except JAPAN. This wee island chain is promptly overrun with refugees from all over the world, and the famously insular Japanese must learn to live with the strange, aggravating foreigners.
Sounds like a potential goldmine of politically incorrect comedy, right? The World Sinks Except Japan starts out promising, but soon sinks into a morass of mean-spiritedness, boring fake science and jokes that just plain aren’t funny.
The World Sinks Except Japan follows the post-sinking situation by weaving together several storylines: there’s the refugee heads of other governments, who help us identify them by wearing ties printed with their (now pointless) national flags; a young Japanese man and his American wife, a glamorous pair of married actors from America, a Japanese journalist and his creepily perfect homemaking wife, and the scientist who predicted the sinking of the world (but not soon enough, apparently), who has become a celebrity.
At first things are okay; the Japanese are a bit baffled by the foreigners, but are also excited at the influx of foreign moviemakers, foreign foods and foreign ideas. But their disenchantment sets in as food supplies begin to run low, and foreigners are kept in line by special military forces, shipped to internment camps and sometimes deported (to the mountains of Tibet, the only other surviving land- giving a little lie to the title of the film- where, according to one character, they will be raped to death by barbarians). The Japanese man and his wife hit some seriously rocky spots in their marriage because of this, especially when he hires three foreign girls as maids (a status symbol), and she ends up leaving him for the glamorous actor, whom she’s always idolized. The actor’s wife becomes a prostitute to survive. The journalist and his creepy wife float through the plot with no change to their lives at all, providing commentary on the situation, such as that now they can eat all the whale meat they want because all the animal-rights activists are gone. The scientist provides long monologues of pseudoscience in between getting carried away by his newfound celebrity.
Meanwhile, the former heads of state fight to see who can suck up the most to the perpetually-smirking Japanese prime minister, and the head of the now-defunct U.N. tries to keep everyone in line. Things get steadily worse, but instead of actually proposing a solution to the foreigner problem, the story cops out by sinking Japan as well, killing the last of the human race.
There’s a lot about The World Sinks Except Japan that is funny, some of it is just tired, and some is actually a bit distasteful. When the American president flees his waterlogged country, he gives a moving speech to the survivors from Air Force One, while being served whiskey by a Playboy Bunny. Foreign actors with no other skills are force to perform scenes from their movies for change. The South Korean and Chinese PMs fawn like lap dogs over the Japanese PM (near the beginning, he asks if they liked their tour of ‘the shrine’- presumably Yasukuni Shrine- and they reply that they loved it); which, considering the amount of shit Japan has rained down on those two countries, seems highly unlikely. At one point, a character comments on mindless American consumers, which just seems like the pot calling the kettle black.
But, as I said, quite a bit of it is funny. The Japanese general who wants to expel the foreign barbarians, the nursing home residents who hire foreigners from countries they fought in World War II as ‘horses’ to race down the halls, and the fact that the American wife- supposedly from Texas- has a very noticeable Eastern European accent.
But in the end, The World Sinks Except Japan brings international unity by whipping out a world leader everyone can hate together (coughcough*DearLeader*coughcough) and turns unexpectedly maudlin, as the creepy wife explains the plot of Jan Brett’s children book The Mitten to her husband (bunch of animals of different species crawl inside a mitten and learn to live in harmony and all that crap), and everyone finds a moment of peace right before they all drown as Japan succumbs to the rising water.
The acting isn’t bad. The many foreigners in the film speak in good/tolerable/awful Japanese, depending on their characters (although, not speaking Japanese myself, I can’t really say for sure how good the good ones are, but even I can tell terrible Japanese when I hear it).
Shapiro Keats, who watched the movie with me, thought that The World Sinks Without Japan was less a satire on world relations than a Japanese power fantasy, but I have to disagree. It’s obviously meant to make fun of Japan’s legendary distrust of foreigners and its perceived superiority complex. But it doesn’t always work, simply because it’s often not funny.
The Verdict: Promising beginning, lackluster ending. Certainly not on my list of funniest movies ever, but maybe worth a watch to get a peek into the Japanese psyche.
| Category: DVD Reviews, Reviews | Tag: Movie, review, the world sinks except japan |
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26 Jul
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Trailer Addict has a spot up for Priest, the Paul Bettany film based on the Korean manwha that was kind of popular about a decade ago (I chose to read another horror manwha, Island, that was released by Tokyopop around the same time…man, I wish someone would make an Island movie).
I hate what vampires have become (fuck you, Anne Rice and Stephenie Meyer) with their prancing and whining and glittering shit, so I’m happy to see some real vampires: gross, violent, ugly and damned. I’ll probably see this, or at least Netflix it.
| Category: Film, Uncategorized | Tag: manwha, Movie, paul bettany, priest |
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6 Jul
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Here’s a couple videos about the latest from the revered Studio Ghibli- an adaptation of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers. We’ll definitely be seeing it (Shapiro Keats is all about stories concerning little tiny people, and hey, it’s Ghibli).
Although I think the story should be called The Takers because really, they never give your stuff back, do they?
| Category: Anime | Tag: Anime, Arietty the borrower, Movie, Studio Ghibli, trailers |
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4 Feb
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Posted by Mazinga
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For many of my generation whose initial exposure to anime was through imported television series of inconsisten quality, the movie Akira was revolutionary in the artistic brilliance of its animation. Now one man has teamed up with Pittsburg’s ToonSeum to create The Art of Akira Exhibit, whose mission is “To teach the entire world just why the movie Akira is a cinematic, artistic and technical masterpiece.”
The exhibit will include selections from Joe Peacock’s personal collection of Akira production art and cels, which he claims is the larges private collection in the world, and is planned to include a traveling show.
(via MeFi)
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21 Nov
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Space Battleship Yamato Undies, like Underoos for grown-ups.
I like the ones that say, “Save our Earth Yamato!” I’m not sure the crew will see your heartfelt plea, unless you’re showing off way too much flesh.
Desslock will be eager to see your plea, though. Especially if you’re a ripped dude. That’s how he rolls.
| Category: Anime | Tag: Anime, japan, Movie, promotional, space battleship yamato, underwear |
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21 Nov
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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I’ve gone on-call at the bookstore where I used to work, and last night was my first night back. I got to have this great conversation:
Co-worker: “AnaKhouri, there is a customer on the phone who wants this movie…” >consults slip of paper< “‘Nailin’ Palin’. Do we have it?”
Me: “…that’s a PORNO. Um, don’t ask me how I know that.”
I said it kind of louder than I should have, but I was surprised and luckily there was no one around. The bookstore does carry DVDs, but not of that…ahem…nature.
Sarah Palin did a signing at the bookstore earlier that day, but even if someone had brought that DVD I somehow doubt she would have signed it.
Hustler made the movie, by the way, and there is a sequel in the works called “Obama is Nailin’ Palin.”
| Category: Uncategorized | Tag: funny, Movie, porno, sarah palin, weird, work |
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13 Nov
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Finally, the last of my Halloween Asian horror reviews! Unfortunately, the movie sucked. There are spoilers.
Cure (Japan, 1997)
Cure is billed as a horror movie, but it’s really more of a psychological thriller. I wanted to like Cure, I really did. The concept is, as far as I know, unique among suspense films. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get into it; despite the interesting idea behind it, the movie is a jumbled mess.
Takabe is a police detective with a face like a basset hound and Richard Gere hair. His wife is disabled; she seems to have short-term memory loss so severe that she can go to the convenience store and get lost on the way home. It’s a stressful situation for Takabe, who secretly feels that his wife has become a burden instead of a partner. As if that weren’t weird enough, he’s stuck on a really bizarre case: a string of serial murders with one connection; every victim has an X cut into their throat, severing both carotid arteries. In each case, the murderer is apprehended quickly, because they make no attempt to hide or cover up the crime. They’re all normal people: a doctor, a loving husband, a cop. All of them seem to have no memory of the events leading up to the murder, and are horrified by their actions afterward.
In his investigation, Takabe turns up another connection between the killings. Shortly before each murder, the perps had encounters with a scruffy young drifter named Mamiya, who seems to have no short-term memory whatsoever. Takiya finally gets his hands on Mamiya, who plays dumb. But Takabe knows he is hiding something.
With the help of a police psychologist, Takabe learns that Mamiya is a former psychology student who is obsessed with hypnotism. He’s not actually an amnesiac at all; he uses that as an excuse to approach people and hypnotize them into killing others. But Takabe seems immune to his powers, which fascinates Mamiya. Mamiya eventually escapes from police custody. Takabe chases him down and kills him, then apparently takes up Mamiya’s mantle, mesmerizing others to make them kill.
The main problem with Cure is that is explains nothing. Nothing. I am all for open endings and for some mystery to make the viewer think, but Cure doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. Why is Mamiya all about hypnotism? Why does he want to make other people- total strangers- kill? Why can’t he hypnotize Takabe? Why does Takabe kill him? Why would the detective take over Mamiya’s work? What the Hell does the title mean? Takabe learns that the Japanese are traditionally leery of hypnotism. At one point, the police psychologist shows Takabe an old film of a woman undergoing hypnotherapy, and explains that the woman later killed her son, cutting his throat in an X. They make much of the fact that you can’t see the hypnotist’s face in the film – but nothing ever comes if it. They make the vaguest suggestions about an underground secret society of murderous Japanese hypnotists, but the hint is so obscure you can’t even be sure that’s what they’re getting at.
The movie isn’t particularly well-shot, either. There are numerous long-distance shots – entire scenes are shot from far away, so the characters look like insects while they converse in voice-overs (there’s lots of talking in this movie, but none of it really tells the audience anything) and long, slow scenes that had no apparent purpose other than padding Cure’s running time.
Because the movie gives us nothing concerning Mamiya’s or Takabe’s motivations, the actors don’t have much subtlety, or even much to do at all. Koji Yakusho is alternately mopey and angry as Takabe. Masato Hagiwara, is annoying as Hell, but since that’s the nature of the character I guess he did what he could with what he was given.
Cure could have been good, or at least entertaining in an outrageous, Dan Brown-y way; the idea is neat. But the writers just didn’t put in enough effort. It’s fine for a movie to leave a few untied strings, but when there are far more questions than answers, we have a problem.
Recommend-o-meter: Cure doesn’t fulfill its potential. Don’t waste your time.
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4 Nov
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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You go on a British TV show and wow everyone. You become a Youtube sensation. You start recording a CD.
But you haven’t really made it until you do an anime theme song.
Susan Boyle Does Anime Movie Theme
I wanna be in the cast of 10, 000. Ta-ka-no-tsu-me!
| Category: Anime | Tag: Anime, japan, Movie, susan boyle, theme song |
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29 Oct
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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If it’s released under the Criterion Collection label, it’s probably either awesome or boring. Which is this?
Jigoku (Japan, 1960)
In the beginning of Jigoku, two young men hit someone with their car, then drive off, leaving him to die in the street. What they don’t know is that someone saw them. But this isn’t I Know What You Did Last Summer. Instead, Jigoku is nothing less than a front-row tour of Hell; or rather, of Hells: the Buddhist Eight Hells of Fire and the Eight Hells of Ice. The first half of the film is a riot of debauchery: murder, suicide, greed, lust, deceit, neglect, sins of action and sins of omission. The second half is the aforementioned journey through Hell, which isn’t quite as gripping. Eternal torment is interesting, sure, but it’s the sins that get you there that are really fascinating.
Shiro is a student in Tokyo, on the path to a life of academia and engaged to his theology professor’s virtuous daughter. But on the very night their engagement is formalized, Shiro unwisely accepts a ride from his classmate Tamura. Tamura is a nasty piece of work; selfish, rude, licentious and cruel. So when they accidentally run down a drunken Yakuza, it’s no surprise that Tamura takes off, leaving the man to die. But they don’t get away like they think they do; the Yakuza’s mother witnessed the accident and soon she and the gangster’s lover are out for revenge.
Shiro decides to tell his fiancée what happened. She’s properly horrified and insists they tell her father and ask his advice, but on the way to her parents’ house she’s killed in a taxi wreck. Shiro returns to his hometown to visit his critically ill mother. He finds her near death, and his father openly living with his trashy mistress. There are new neighbors, too: a drunken artist who’s painting a Hell scroll, and his daughter, who is identical to Shiro’s dead fiancée. On top of that, Shiro’s father is one of the directors of a nearby nursing home. The nursing home patients are dying of neglect while the Board of Directors and the head doctor are stealing the government funds they receive to care for them. On top of that, Tamura suddenly arrives. He’s gotten wind that Shiro told his fiancée about the accident, and he’s pissed. Shiro’s fiancee’s parents then breeze into town. Then the Yakuza’s mother and lover show up, loaded for bear. It all comes to a head during a party to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the nursing home. The result is an orgy of death: death by falling, death by poisoning, death by hanging, death by gunshot wound, death by strangulation…you get the picture. And pretty much everyone involved quite literally goes to Hell.
Shiro is then treated to a meeting with his dead fiancée, who reveals she was pregnant when she died. Now he has to chase down the spirit of his unborn daughter and save her (from what, exactly, is never made clear; I mean, she’s already in Hell). Along the way he gets to see the punishments inflicted on various kinds of transgressors. And they are gruesome: people are flayed, boiled alive, forced to swim in blood and filth. Thirsty people are tortured by a pool of water that shrinks when they get close. Troll-haired demons put out eyes, cut out tongues, chop off limbs and heads.
The point of it all being: Hell sucks.
Shiro runs after his daughter the whole time, trying to catch her and maybe, just maybe, get a ticket to Heaven.
Jigoku has that theatrical feel you see in Japanese movies from the period (like in Ugetsu or Kwaidan). Sets are highly stylized and obviously shot on a sound stage. The pacing is slow, sometimes tedious, and the acting is exaggerated, as if this were a play and not a film, and the actors are trying to emote to the audience in the back rows. Yoichi Numata, as Tamura, is particularly over-dramatic in the Hell scene, but conveys an effective air of leering menace in the first half of the movie. Shigeru Amachi is solid as Shiro, but it’s hard to have sympathy for a character who lets himself be pushed around by others all the time, and who is finally killed by an old woman.
The scenes of gory punishment are pretty gross, even if the blood is obviously red paint, and I can imagine it was pretty shocking in its time. The sets are dark and cramped, quite Hellish. The music is similar to Kabuki or Noh music, with lots of traditional instruments and quavery female singers warbling lyrics about destiny and the cycle of life. It lends even more weight to the idea that you’re watching an elaborate play and not a film.
Gorehounds won’t come away from Jigoku satisfied, but if you’re into long discussions about sin and redemption and the nature of good and evil, you’ll find some ideas to worry at in this movie. Overall, the film doesn’t quite work, but it’s obviously influenced many movies since its release.
Recommend-o-meter: A must for scholars of Japanese cinema and philosophers or theologians; the rest of us can take it or leave it.
| Category: DVD Reviews | Tag: criterion collection, japan, jigoku, Movie, review |
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27 Oct
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Spoiler-free!
Acacia (South Korea, 2003)
Acacia looks to be a ‘bad seed’ movie, where the evil adopted kid insinuates himself into a nice family and then proceeds to weak havoc. But in a clever inversion of the genre, the ‘bad seed’ has every right to be pissed, and the movie turns what appears to be a worn-out theme into a wrenching tragedy.
Mi-sook and Do-il are a lovely suburban couple who live in a nice house with Do-il’s widowed father. Do-il is a doctor, and Mi-sook a textiles artist. Their only problem is that they can’t have a kid. They decide to adopt; Mi-sook insists on adopting an older child, a six-year-old boy, based on his artwork- unsettling Edvard Munch-like drawings of faceless people. Jin-Sung is a quiet kid with a troubled past, who believes the spirit of his deceased birth mother lives in the dead acacia tree in the backyard. Mi-sook tries to draw him into the family, but she isn’t sure how, and in her attempts she makes some painful missteps. Jin-Sung gets along best with Do-il’s father, and makes friends with the little girl next door. But his relationship with his adoptive mother suffers when her incredible bitch of a mother visits and makes nasty comments about adopted children in general and Jin-Sung in particular, right in front of him.
Things get worse when Mi-sook unexpectedly becomes pregnant. Jin-Sung doesn’t think much of his new baby brother, which leads to more friction. One night, after a particularly vicious fight, he runs off into the rain and disappears. After the boy vanishes, the dead acacia tree suddenly begins to bloom. As the tree comes to life, the family falls apart. Fatal accidents start happening, all of them under the acacia tree. As the truth about what really happened to Jin-Sung comes to light, Mi-sook and Do-il spiral out of control and into violence and madness.
Acacia has a vaguely David Lynch feel, with the perfect suburban family and neighborhood that hides dark secrets. But Acacia lacks Lynch’s brand of delicious weirdness, settling instead into a dark psychological thriller with some supernatural aspects. The movie’s misdirection initially succeeds, but the scenes meant to show Jin-Sung’s ‘evilness’ are absurd (for example, in one scene he sees a loose thread and unravels Mi-sook’s latest tapestry, while she watches in paroxysms of horror- but anyone who has ever known a six-year-old boy can tell you they don’t have to be evil to do that). The viewer quickly realizes that the kid is the victim here.
Acacia is slickly made, with high production values. There are no truly scary scenes , but several disturbing ones: one memorable scene near the end shows the interior of the house draped with skeins of red yarn, like blood dripping down the walls.
The acting is solid. Hye-jin Shim is good as a woman who is trying- and failing- to learn to be a mom. Jin-geun Kim feels a little rehearsed; he isn’t quite believable as the husband/father whose behavior descends into fury and violence after Jin-Sung disappears, but he sure tries hard. As Jin-Sung, Oh-bin Mun just has to sit quietly and look unhappy. Most likeable is Na-yoon Jeong as the grandfather who seems to be the only person with a hope of understanding Jin-Sung.
Recommend-o-meter: Acacia is a slow-moving film with plenty of atmosphere that will keep you hooked, so long as you don’t mind being thoroughly disgusted by the way adults can treat children.
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26 Oct
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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Spoilers abound. You have been warned!
Wag Kang Lilingon (The Philippines, 2006)
Wag Kang Lilingon (Don’t Look Back) is two films for the price of one, tied together at the end by a clever plot twist. The twist is the best part of the movie, and it’s kind of a shame you have to sit through both films before you get to it, but such is life. The second movie, Salamin, is much better than the first, Uyayi.
Uyayi centers on Melissa, a heavily made-up young nurse who works the night shift at one of those typical decrepit Asian horror movie hospitals. The mortality rate of the hospital has shot up recently, and Melissa suspects foul play on the part of a rude doctor. She and her reporter boyfriend James concoct a plan to get him admitted so they can do some investigating. Their investigation turns up ghosts, and lots of them. But then Melissa discovers that James was once admitted to the psychiatric ward at the same hospital, and wonders if maybe he has some ulterior motives for wanting to be admitted again.
Of course he’s not. The big, totally predictable twist in Uyayi is that Melissa is nuttier than your Grandma’s fruit cake and is going around killing the crap out of the hospital’s clientele for some unspecified reason.
In the second movie, Salamin, Angel, her little sister Nina and their sick mother move into a huge, old house (that actually looks pretty cool). The rent is incredibly cheap, maybe because the electricity doesn’t work, but the landlord claims nothing else is wrong with the house, and especially that no one ever died there. Angel and Nina find a mirror in the basement and play a game involving a candle, asking the mirror to show them their future husbands. The mirror does not oblige, but it does open a portal to the afterlife and the future, so ghosts from both the past and future start wandering into the house. In an apparently unrelated incident, Angel learns that the landlord is a big fat liar, and that a woman was attacked by intruders in their house and raped and murdered. Then the intruders come back for Angel, and little Nina has to watch her mom and her sister be killed.
Nina grows up to be a nurse, changes her name to Melissa, and starts killing people in a misguided attempt to regain her dead family.
Wag Kang Lilingon’s main problem is that some of the plot is obscure to the point of not making sense. It’s never quite explained how Melissa’s murders keep her mother’s and sister’s spirits with her. Nor is it made clear how the mirror is letting in spirits from other times, or what that has to do with what happens to Angel and her mother. In one scene, a hospital patient clearly sees some of the resident ghosts, and he appears to die of fright, so how was Melissa responsible for his death? I’m all for a little mystery, but it’s frustrating not to be told basic stuff like that (even beyond the usual cinematic silliness; like how the cops can’t connect a dozen hospital murders to Melissa, or why people keep living in an obviously haunted house).
That said, the movie has some nicely creepy aspects. Uyayi is shot with a greenish camera filter, so all the footage looks like a horror video game. The hospital ghosts are seriously weird: one looks like Heath Ledger’s Joker after being locked up in Arkham Asylum for ten years; another is a naked black man with a scary leer. Salamin has a poltergeist scene that is well-done, culminating in the appearance of another creepy ghost.
Salamin is slowly paced, and you have to wonder why it’s taking so long to get through apparently irrelevant stuff before you reach the end.
The acting is decent, though Anne Curtis, who plays Melissa, needs to lay off the eye shadow and rouge- she’s pretty enough without it.
Recommend-o-meter: The ending is pretty neat, but you have to sit through two hours of mediocrity to get there. If you read this whole review, you can skip the movie entirely since you already know the ending.
| Category: DVD Reviews | Tag: horror, Movie, review, the philippines, wag kang lilingon |
