Shaolin monks are made illegal, so all monks have to run or fight or die. Monk Fong (Wong Fei-hung in Drunken Master III the same year) and Carman Lee (between Wicked City and Lifeline) are on the run, get thrown in a trap-filled prison temple and have to fight and scheme their way out. One of the best-looking HK blu-rays around, the blood and intense brutality coming through crystal clear.
Blackie and his bestie, the thinner-mustached Marko are communists in 1941. The nearby zoo is bombed, panicking Marko’s brother, the stuttering zookeeper Ivan, and nazis overtake the town. Enter Natalija, Blackie’s girl, an actress also beloved by Marko and Nazi Franz. Marko hides Blackie and his fellow revolutionaries in a basement and when the war ends he decides not to tell them, so he keeps Natalija above ground and the undergrounders keep manufacturing weapons for him to sell. When a monkey blows a hole in the wall during Blackie’s son’s wedding they escape, come across the set of the film reenacting Blackie’s war heroism, and he starts killing German actors. Thirty years later as Yugoslavia is violently dissolving, Ivan finds his lost monkey then everybody dies tragically.
Young Ivan and flock:
Marko and Nat preparing to take drastic measures:
Inserting Blackie into documentary footage from the era was well-done. I think the internet is saying the movie is pro-genocide, but I don’t follow why. Even if so, this is counterbalanced by the movie’s major macaw presence. Won the top prize at Cannes versus Dead Man, City of Lost Children, Shanghai Triad, Hou, Oliveira, Terence Davies, and a pissed-off Theodoros Angelopoulos. Blackie appeared with a couple of James Bonds and played Santa Claus in the nutty-looking anthology Goodbye 20th Century. Marko was in Ozon’s Criminal Lovers, and Franz was in Ozon’s Frantz. Natalija came to Hollywood and ended up hundredth-billed in Maid in Manhattan, playing a maid, that’s embarrassing.
Old Blackie:
Old Ivan finds Old Marko:
A good bird movie, with emus and cockatoos and budgies. Kate Winslet falls in with guru Baba and decides to stay in India, so her parents trick her into returning home and hire cult deprogrammer Harvey Keitel. But he lacks his required assistant and fucks up the assignment – the sight of Kate nude leads to a fully degraded Harvey selling out his whole plan. Keitel in the Emil Jannings tradition, a master of playing an apparent tough guy who becomes a blubbering mess. When his would-be assistant does arrive it’s Pam Grier, who I just saw in Ghosts of Mars.
L-R: Kate, Cockatoo
L-R: Robbie (Chopper), Yvonne (Muriel’s Wedding), Tim (Farscape)
Harvey, tough as nails, uncorruptable:
Ah, well, nevertheless…
Doctor Yang (Yu Rongguang of Supercop 2, which is a different movie from Police Story 4 even though Supercop 1 was Police Story 3) goes around in disguise acting like Disney’s Robin Hood, with assistant Orchid (Jean Wang, kicking much more ass here than as 14th Aunt), making mockeries of corrupt governor James Wong (a major songwriter, also in Twin Dragons) and his lead cop Yuen Shun-Yi (of Drunken Master). Wong Fei-hung’s dad Donnie Yen (confusingly, he’ll play the title role in the sequel) is passing through town, the governor holds his son prisoner so he’ll help them catch the righteous bandit. But of course they all team up to defeat the evil master (also the evil master of Heroic Trio the same year).
Twin monkeys:
Much action ensues. I saw this on VHS or something back in the day, but it’s extremely helpful to have seen a bunch of kung-fu movies leading up to this, getting used to their plots and moves and sound effects, to appreciate this one’s particular excellence… in context of the OUATIC sequels going slowly downhill, this feels like the best movie ever made.
Like father like son:
U.S. Go Home (1994)
Nénette and Boni (1996)
Two early Denis movies where Alice Houri and Gregoire Colin play siblings. The earlier is a downright rock party, full of popular songs which probably ensure the TV bootleg version I watched is all we’re ever going to get. Teenage longing for experience, for cooler parties, and for soldier Vincent Gallo.
As Boni, Colin works a food truck and sells stolen goods then comes home to his late mom’s house where he shoots cats in the yard and has rape fantasies, until his pregnant little sister comes to crash. I liked the two movies about equally, but between 1994-1996 you can witness how Denis and company are moving from narrative cinema to pure visual poetry.
Mad Lau stars in a firefighting action film with choreography by Yuen Bun, whose Once Upon a Time in China sequel I just watched. Alex Fong Chung-Sun (The Iron Angels series) is the strict new boss feuding with his ex-wife. Ruby Wong is the female officer trying to put career first until her boyfriend starts poking holes in the condoms. And rookie Raymond Wong Ho-yin (Ruby’s fellow PTU cop) is just a rookie with an embarrassing dad. Mad tries to date suicidal doctor Carman Lee (hot traitor cop of Wicked City). Then all these personal dramas have to be set aside when the team, from a firehouse known for accidents and bad luck, is first on the scene to a massive warehouse fire set by arsonist Lam Suet, and the movie gets extremely, impossibly fiery.
Due to my copy’s wonky subtitles and my general lack of historical context and, uh, my inability to pay close attention to plots and alliances in movies, I dunno what exactly happened, but I know they all died heroically in the end, for the future of China.
The Big Sword lays waste to the Japanese:
Wang Wu (Yang Fan) is our main furious swordsman, getting his entire Big Sword troop killed by the Japanese in the opening scenes. He meets young masters Ti Lung (A Better Tomorrow) and Cynthia Khan (star of a Yes Madam sequel/ripoff the same year), they team up with some government guys who are trying to “reform” the government (sword-involved reform).
Our Boy Sammo:
Plenty of wire jumps and trampolines, swordfights and beheadings, people getting shot in the face, Sammo over/under-cranking every action scene. Clearly made in the wake of the Once Upon a Time movies, with its mix of action and historical politics – and from the writer of parts II and III, and with a small role for Rosamund Kwan as a rich lady who thinks Wang is quite nice. Sammo gives himself one fight playing a prison guard – it’s great, but all the fights are great. Not sure where James Tien appeared – one of the camel riding raiders? – but this movie notably has the same ending as his Fist of Fury, which I should’ve seen coming from the title.
Nefarious Ngo (Master Wong’s dad in OUATIC3) loses to The Big Sword:
I’ve been biased against this movie since it first came out on video. At Georgia Tech anime kids would follow you around talking about anime, even if you don’t care about anime, as I did not, and Perfect Blue was their idea of a movie which would instantly convince the doubters. Nowadays I like anime just fine, including Satoshi Kon, whose Millennium Actress was good, and Paranoia Agent was incredible, so I finally gave this a chance. If anyone from Tech is reading… I’m sorry… I’m glad y’all have got your own Anime Fight Club, with its multiple-multiple personalities and identity twists and breakbeat soundtrack, but it’s not for me.
The words every girl wants to hear:
I can relate:
OK, boobs, I get it, we all love boobs. The most 1995 thing I’ve ever seen. The only thing I remembered from the VHS is that shot where the cyborg supersoldier pulls something so hard her arms come off, and it’s still the coolest thing here by far (the invisibility-suit effects also nice).
Android moral quandaries ripped from Robocop. It’s so talky in a self-important sci-fi cop-show way, but all this chatter is background noise to the actual plot (reminisce: Nemesis), which leads to a Lawnmower Man ending. The writer worked on Pistol Opera, which needs to come out on blu-ray.
This is who comes for you if you haven’t turned on multifactor authentication:
Jake Cole:
This really isn’t a thriller because the sporadic action merely punctuates a story that uses nearly every plot element as a macguffin to ruminate on the nature of identity and how technology alters our perception of self. The finale, in which a cyborg evolves to propagate itself, recasts the internet and global networking as the next stage of reproduction.
Adding this line to my resume:
