The (Not) Fantastic Four

I was sorely tempted to walk out on a few films I've seen over the past two months.

The Raid: Redemption starring Iko Uwais; directed by Gareth Evans; Indonesian with subtitles; (2011) - Official Website

The Philly Kid starring Wes Chatham; directed by Jason Connery; (2012) 

MIS Human Secret Weapon; directed by Junichi Suzuki; English & Japanese with subtitles; (2012) - Official Website

The Avengers starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson & Jeremy Renner; with Samuel L. Jackson; directed by Joss Whedon; (2012) - Official Website

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I saw The Raid at the Century Daly City, Philly Kid & The Avengers at the Balboa and MIS at the Castro.

The Raid: Redemption was billed as a gritty action film about a SWAT team that try to take down a criminal kingpin.  To make the arrest, they have to work their way up an apartment building to the penthouse.  Most of the residents of the building are vicious criminals in the employ of the kingpin.  So they have to fight their way floor by floor.  Sounds like a decent plot but it gets a little tedious.  After most of the team is killed, it's up to Rama (Iko Uwais) to make the arrest.  It's one of those deals where the only way out is to capture the bad guy and use him as a shield to make his escape.  There was one fight scene between the enforcer of the gang vs. Rama and his brother which dragged for so long that I grew numb.  A little less action and a little more character development would have elevated this film tremendously.

The Philly Kid was a film about an NCAA championship wrestler (Wes Chatham) who is mistakenly convicted as part of an armed robbery that goes sideways.  When he gets out, he is forced to fight MMA matches to save his best friend who is in debt to the local gangster (who also runs the Friday night MMA bouts).  There are some crooked cops and love interest and you can probably guess the rest.

The Philly Kid was part of a five film marathon from After Dark Films which screened at the Balboa for 4 or 5 days.  The other films included Transit (with Jim Caviezel), Dragon Eyes (with Jean-Claude Van Damme), Stash House (with Dolph Lundgren) and El Gringo (with Christian Slater).  In a different era, these films would likely have been straight to DVD.  I chose The Philly Kid because I needed to use up the remaining films on my Balboa Discount Card.

Predictable to a fault, The Philly Kid at least kept a brisk pace at 94 minutes.  Neal McDonough, a character actor with a familiar face, shines as the Philly Kid's MMA trainer, LA Jim.  I'm not sure if his performance was really that good or it just shined in comparison to the plodding acting of his co-stars.

From the director of 442: Live with Honor, Die with Dignity (2010) and Toyo's Camera (2009), MIS Human Secret Weapon follows yet another story of Japanese Americans during WWII.  Junichi Suzuki has made a cottage industry by exploring the Japanese American experience.  With each successive film, he seems to lose some of his perspective.  Whereas Toyo's Camera was about one man in a Japanese American internment camp and 442 was about one combat regiment in the European Theater, MIS strays into areas far afield from its nominal topic.  MIS stands for Military Intelligence Service which decoded Japanese military material.  Separate from the famed Magic Project which deciphered coded Japanese messages and helped give the US the edge at the Battle of Midway, MIS translated military and personal material captured on the battlefield and provided translation services during interrogation of Japanese POWs.

That would have been a fine film.  For example, they explained how the Japanese Army published an officer listing which showed name, rank and unit.  That information by itself doesn't seem tremendously valuable, but consider how it was used by the US.  If a prisoner was captured, he would be asked to name his unit & commanding officer which would be cross-referenced against the officer list.  If confirmed, it gave the US valuable information about troop locations.

MIS went astray as a result of undisciplined editing.  Actress Tamlyn Tomita shows up for one talking head shot.  What she has to do with MIS is still a mystery to me.  In another interview, Senator Daniel Inoye discusses why he didn't join MIS.  Then the final portion of the film dealt with post-WWII use of MIS to fight communism in Japan.  To much expository narration and an annoying soundtrack doomed MIS.  That's too bad because the topic was more compelling than 442 and Toyo's Camera, in my opinion.

442 and Toyo's Camera, played at the Viz before it became the San Francisco Film Society Cinema.  That modest sized theater would have been a better venue.  The cavernous Castro only accentuated the sparse audience at the screening I attended.

There isn't much to be said about The Avengers, one of the highest grossing films of all time.  My favorite parts of the film occurred when the superheroes bicker with each other which is another way of saying Robert Downey Jr's snarky Tony Stark is the best thing about the film.  The fight scenes were in desperate need of editing.  The finale where half of Manhattan gets destroyed dragged on and on...and on.  I grew bored and distracted and went to the bathroom.

The Avengers showed everything that is wrong with action films - obvious and predictable characterizations, extended fight sequences and reliance on CGI.  At an interminable 143 minutes, I was glad for it to be over.  I stayed until the bitter end knowing there were two Easter eggs in the final credits.  The very final one where the superheroes share a falafel (or was it a gyro?) hint at what could have been.  Six superheroes in costume eating falafels in silence was the one of the best scenes in the film.  That pretty much summarizes my opinion of The Avengers. 

Japanese Soldiers and Internees

I saw three films at Viz Cinemas in August.

The Burmese Harp directed by Kon Ichikawa; Japanese with subtitles; (1956)
442 – Live with Honor, Die with Dignity; documentary; directed by Junichi Suzuki; (2010) - Official Website
Toyo’s Camera; documentary; directed by Junichi Suzuki; (2008) - Official Website

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The Burmese Harp won the 1957 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. It should not be confused with the 1985 remake also directed by Ichikawa. The Burmese Harp established Ichikawa reputation as a master of Japanese cinema.

The plot involves a company of Japanese soldiers in Burma during the final days of WWII. PFC Mizushima is the scout for the company. He has a natural skill at playing the Burmese harp or saung which is an unusual shaped instrument. Mizushima, dressed in local clothing, plays certain tunes on the harp depending on what he encounters while scouting as a warning to his company.

Eventually Mizushima is separated from his company and presumed dead. As the soldiers are interned and await repatriation, they repeatedly encounter a Buddhist monk who strongly resembles Mizushima. I won't give away the rest of the plot - partly out of laziness, partly because I could not do it justice.

This is a textbook film of what I would call "gentle, Japanese film making." "Gentle" and "Japanese" conjure a certain unique style of pacing and plot devices. The film has a number of scenes which stand out in my memory. The first is when the Japanese are in a village and realize they are being watched and surrounded by enemy soldiers. In fact, the war is over and the Allied soldiers are trying to make contact with the Japanese soldiers without starting a firefight. The Japanese soldiers sing to bolster their confidence and as a diversionary tactic. The Allies respond with a slower paced song to sooth the Japanese fears.

Another memorable scene occurs towards the end of the film when the Japanese soldiers stand behind the fence of the POW camp while the monk is on the other side of the fence playing his harp.

The overall effect of the film is humanizing the feared and hated Japanese soldier of WWII. As portrayed in The Burmese Harp, the soldiers are young men with gentle natures and strong sense of camaraderie. The monk makes a supreme sacrifice to honor the war dead which affected me emotionally.

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Toyo’s Camera was a documentary about Toyo Miyatake and his work at Manzanar Internment Camp. Miyatake was a commercial photographer in Los Angeles who relocated to the camp during WWII. He smuggled in a camera to document camp life. Later, he took photos under the auspices of the camp commander who was sympathetic. Miyatake was a skilled photographer who was friends with Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.

The film didn't teach me too much new stuff about Manzanar or the Japanese American experiences during WWII. The photos were evocative and Miyatake's life was interesting. However, the documentary seemed to lose its focus as it delved into the No No Boys, 442nd and the subsequent Manzanar Pilgrimages. I think I would have enjoyed the film more if it had stayed more on Miyatake and his photos during the internment period. As it was, the film was engaging enough to merit a tepid recommendation; more for the subject matter than the film itself.

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In some ways, it seems a if director Junichi Suzuki was already preoccupried with 442 – Live with Honor, Die with Dignity when he made Toyo’s Camera. 442 seemed to stir his soul while Toyo’s Camera evoked a sense of sadness. 442 – Live with Honor, Die with Dignity is a rousing and tear inducing film. More than once, I had to wipe some moisture from my eyes. For those unaware, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was the most decorated regiment in the history of the US Army. The unit was composed of Japanese American soldiers (many of whom had been at Manzanar and other internment camps) and operated in the European Theater. Time and again, the unit was given the most difficult assignment. It's implied that initially, the unit was considered expendable but later in the war, the unit was the most elite regiment in the Army & hence the only one that could accomplish the impossible missions given to it.

I was struck by how the Japanese American soldiers invoked traditions and attitudes that the Imperial Japanese Army also held. In both cases they resulted in horrendous casualties. Not to be an apologist for the Imperial Japanese Army, but in one case the men are held up as heroes and on the other, they are war criminals and fanatics. Indeed, I wondered if the 442nd "Go For Broke" attitude caused needless deaths. It's a moot point though. The film had a clip of Harry S. Truman congratulating the unit after war. HST said, words to the effect, "You have not only battled the enemy and won but you have battled prejudice." I think he could have added that they battled their own insecurities and feelings of inadequacy. The boys of the 442 weren't "American enough" so they were going to prove it by killing as many Nazis as possible...no matter how many of them died in the process.

I was repeatedly moved by the stories of combat bravery and how the men of the 442 coped with the wounds (physical and emotional) after the war.

442 – Live with Honor, Die with Dignity is one of the best films I've seen in 2010.