Spring Cleaning

My backlog of films is over 100 so I need to start blogging again.

I saw a number of films which I considered mediocre at best.

The Girls in the Band; directed by Judy Chaikin; documentary; (2013) - Official Website
Age of Consent starring James Mason & Helen Mirren; directed by Michael Powell; (1969)

Raze starring Zoë Bell; directed by Josh C. Waller; (2013) - Official Website

Special ID starring Donnie Yen and Andy On; directed by Clarence Fok; Mandarin & Cantonese with subtitles; (2013) 

I saw The Girls in the Band at the Landmark Opera Plaza, Age of Consent at the Castro, Raze at the Roxie and Special ID the 4 Star.

I saw The Girls in the Band in January.  It's a documentary about all-girl jazz bands from the 1930s to 1950s.  Jazz is a genre of music I'm largely ignorant of so I'm not sure what I was doing at this film.  I was kind of expecting something on par with 20 Feet from Stardom or Muscle Shoals.  Actually, The Girls in the Band starts by detailing some fascinating women.  However, it doesn't know when to stop.  From profiling a select group of women, the film expands by the end to kind of Who's Who of Female Jazz artists and director Judy Chaikin seemed to not offend by omitting them from the film.  A significant portion of the 2nd half of the film is a series of profiles about female jazz musicians I was unfamiliar with and who, by comparison to the musicians profiled earlier in the film, seemed less interesting or impressive.  Frankly, I was ready for the film to be over about 20 minutes before it ended.  The Girls in the Band seemed better suited as a 60 minute PBS special and would benefit from some editing.

I chose to see Age of Consent in February mainly to see a young (22 years old at the time of filming) Helen Mirren.  The Castro film calendar trumpeted that it was screening the version with Mirren's nude scenes restored.  Age of Consent was directed by Michael Powell as in Powell and Pressburger.  Finally, it starred James Mason, an actor whom I have long admired.  Age of Consent was paired with  his seminal work, Lolita.  I passed on Lolita, having seen it several times before.  In hindsight, I wish I would have skipped Age of Consent and watched Lolita again.

I have to admit that my concentration flagged for extended periods during the film.  Mason's character is an artist who tires of New York and moves to remote Australia to regain his artistic inspiration.  It is there that he meets Helen Mirren, a congenial juvenile delinquent of sorts who he keeps out of trouble by hiring her to be his model...nude model.  The premise seems ridiculous but rather than skip past it, the film is slow paced for much of the first half.  Mirren's alcoholic grandmother and Mason's deadbeat friend spoil Eden for Mirren and Mason although they find bliss through her death and his...I guess rape would be the best film.

As the title alludes to, Mirren's character is underage which makes the ending scene where Mason & Mirren embrace romantically, a little uneasy for me.  Perhaps she had a birthday when I wasn't paying attention.  Mirren certainly was sexy; still is.  A creaky plot and some dated 1960s sexual revolution ethos left me bored with this film.  Even the sight of Mirren's nude form barely roused me from my stupor although that may say more about me than the film.

I saw Raze in the Big Roxie on a Friday afternoon (strange 6 PM showtime) in February.  Including myself, there were only four people in the auditorium.

The premise of Raze is that women with fighting or self-defense skills are kidnapped, held prisoner and forced to fight each other to the death.  Sounds like grindhouse film from the late 1970s or early 1980s.  In fact, Raze has the look and feel of homage to grindhouse rather than a film made based on its own merits.  Zoë Bell is the main prisoner although time is taken to flesh out several of the characters.  Rosario Dawson makes an appearance as one of the female gladiators.

There is an endless parade of fight scenes in Raze which left me bored and confused.   Zoë Bell tries to hold it together with intense emoting but ultimately I felt like the girls in the film - can I just go home now?  It reminded me of a film called Bitch Slap which also extended the fights scenes beyond the limit of human concentration.  Coincidentally (or perhaps not), Bell was the fight/stunt coordinator on Bitch Slap.

The most memorable part of Raze was poor Sherilyn Fenn as the matron of the "prison."  One of the sexiest actresses from the late 1980s through the 1990s, age and weight gain have made her barely recognizable.  It's like seeing ia middle-aged  Elizabeth Taylor after watching Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or Suddenly, Last Summer.
Of the four films mentioned in this post, Special ID is the best.  I didn't regret the 100 minutes or so that I spend at the 4 Star on a Wednesday night in March but as far as HK action flicks go, I've seen much better.  Like Raze, I think there were only four people in the auditorium.

Donnie Yen plays a HK cop who goes under cover as a mid-level gangster.  He is sent by his mob boss to mainland China to deal with Sunny (Andy On), his one-time gangland protege who is no looking to expand his reach.  Once on the mainland, Yen's new handler is a sexy, no-nonsense, ass-kicking female cop who doesn't like him because a) he's been undercover too long and b) he's from HK.

It's all just window dressing.  Yen & On get to strut around like peacocks and there are some hellacious fight scenes which keeps the film moving along briskly.  As has been the case in the past few Yen films, rather than standard kick and punch action scenes, Yen displays some MMA/Brazilian jiu-jitsu fight techniques which set Special ID apart.  By the way, the title refers to the police identification Yen's character has.  His character is desperate to become a "regular" cop as he has spent his whole career undercover.

Ip Man 2 Take 2

I saw three films at the Asian Movie Madness series at the 4 Star in June.

Iron Fan and Magic Sword; Mandarin with subtitles; (1971)
Ip Man 2 starring Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung; directed by Wilson Yip; Cantonese with subtitles; (2010) - Official Website
Tiger Cage 2 starring Donnie Yen; directed by Woo-ping Yuen; Cantonese with subtitles; (1990)

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I'll be honest and say I can't clearly remember Iron Fan and Magic Sword. I may be confusing parts of Deaf Mute Heroine (which I saw in May) with Iron Fan and Magic Sword.

Instead of a deaf and mute heroine, Iron Fan and Magic Sword features a blind heroine. Wait a second, was she blind? Her mentor was killed and she had these iron fans that she used as a shield. I think the magic sword belonged to her late father who was murdered. I remember a battle scene on the beach and another at a grave or something.

Let's just say I have forgotten most of Iron Fan and Magic Sword in less than a month and leave it at that.

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I saw Ip Man 2 at the 2010 Chinese American Film Festival at the 4 Star in November 2010. As they seem to do every year, the 4 Star screened a Chinese language film without subtitles. In 2010, the film was Ip Man 2. I sat through the film because I had enjoyed Ip Man and wanted to see the sequel. At the time, I didn't think I missed much due to the lack of subtitles but there were a few scenes I wanted translated.

What did I gain by seeing Ip Man 2 with subtitles. Sammo Hung's character dies from asthma and not a heart attack which I would have assumed give Sammo's girth. Sammo is packing a huge spare tire around his gut and this is the second film I have seen where he is a kung fu master and 50 pounds overweight. It's laughable to see Sammo doing his kung fu moves in the shape he is.

Also, I thought Ip Man (Donnie Yen) and Sammo's character had some profound conversation before Sammo is beaten to death by the English boxer. Instead, Ip Man simply suggests that Sammo attack the boxer's mid-section. Later, while being pummeled by the boxer, Sammo returns to Ip Man in a hallucination and suggests he attack the mid-section which Ip Man does and eventually leads to his victory.

Despite these underwhelming insights provided by subtitling; Ip Man 2 is the best film so far in the Asian Movie Madness series.

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Ip Man 2 was the second half of a Donnie Yen double feature. The first film that evening was Tiger Cage 2. Before re-watching Ip Man 2, I said Tiger Cage 2 was the best film in the Asian Movie Madness series. Now I say it is the second best but not by much.

In Tiger Cage 2, Donnie Yen plays a cop (or ex-cop) who is getting divorced. His wife's lawyer or the divorce arbitrator witnesses a murder and Yen is the prime suspect. Eventually, the two of them are on the run from the law while trying to find the real killers. Rosamund Kwan plays the lawyer and is for the most part a whiny pain in the ass.

The film has some nice action sequences as David Wu shows up as a third wheel. The climax of the film is quite good. Yen has to face three bad guys in a row - white guy John Salvitti in a hellacious sword fight, black guy Michael Woods in something like an MMA bout crossed with a WWE match and finally Chinese guy Robin Shou in a running battle from an office to a warehouse.

I'm becoming a Donnie Yen fan and Tiger Cage 2 only reinforces my opinion of Yen. I'd like to see Tiger Cage which also starred Jacky Cheung & Simon Yam.

Ip Man and the 2010 Chinese American Film Festival

Earlier in November, I stopped by the 4 Star Theater to see Ip Man

Ip Man starring Donnie Yen and Simon Yam; directed by Wilson Yip; Cantonese and some Japanese with subtitles; (2008) - Official Website

Ip Man is loosely based on the true story of Ip Man (frequently spelled Yip Man). Yip was a noted martial arts instructor whose many students include actor Bruce Lee.

According to the SF Chronicle review of the film, the "movie, a huge hit in China and Hong Kong that finally made Donnie Yen, a second and third banana for a quarter of a century, a major box office star. He is the It Man of the moment, even if his Ip Man is largely fictional."

This may be true but I've been a fan of Donnie Yen since Hero (2002) with Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung and Ziyi Zhang. Apparently, the 4 Star Theater's programmers are fans of Yen as well because they have two of his recent films screening soon - Ip Man 2 (2010) and Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010)

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The film is a throwback action film - lot's of kung fu action, a reluctant master who is pushed into fighting and even Japanese as the bad guys. The premise of the film defies belief. At the start of the film which is set in the mid-1930s, Ip is a gentleman of leisure with a beautiful wife and precocious toddler son. He does not deign to teach martial arts although his city is known as the martial arts capital of China. Ip has a source of income which is not explained as he is able to employ servants, live on a large estate and bankroll his friend's textile factory.

Actor Fan Siu-wong comes to town as a small-time robber and martial arts master. He kick ass on all the city's kung fu masters and figures he'll strong arm everyone until he hears about Ip Man. He goes to Ip's villa and they engage in a hellacious but decisive fight in Ip's living room. After vanquishing the bandit, Ip is the toast of the town. I suppose the first half of the film was to estabish Ip's bona fides as a peaceful gentleman who practices martial arts to test himself but the film painted Ip's inner contemplation with strokes as broad as the kung fu moves he used to dispatch opponent after opponent.

The second half of the film takes place a few years later when the Japanese have invaded China and are the occupying force in the region. Ip is reduced to working at a coal or petcoke facility. He gets a piece of bread and a yam for lunch everyday. He dutifully saves the yam for his wife and son who now live in a tenement.

One day some Japanese soldiers come by looking for the famed practioners of kung fu they have heard about. They want to test Japanese karate vs. Chinese kung fu. A few of the men, including Ip's friend and former student, accept the challenge. For his part, Ip has put aside childish things and just wants to eke out a living and feed his family.

Ip's friend is killed by the Japanese and that adjusts his attitude towards the Japanese and fighting. The next time the Japanese come by, Ip takes up their offer and comes out victorious in a 10-on-1 match. Having sufficiently exorcised his anger, Ip once again retreats to his life of hard work and peaceful existence. Two things interfere with his life - Fan Siu-wong comes back to town and terrorizes the textile factory which Ip previously bankrolled. The factory is still in operation and the Japanese rely on it since all the other textfile factories have been destroyed. Ip goes to the factory to teach the workers how to protect themselves from Fan and his gang. The other problem is that Miura (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi), a Japanese general and karate master, is anxious to test his skills against Ip. He sends out his troops to look for him.

Since I've mentioned Ip Man 2, one can imagine how the film turns out. Ip Man is not about plot or surprises. It's about fight scenes and a devotion to the conventions of old-school, HK kung fu films. By that measure, Ip Man is a smashing success. Donnie Yen, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi and Fan Siu-wong play their roles just right. Shibuya Tenma as the sadistic Japanese colonel gets to sport coke bottle eyeglasses and buck teeth but still delivers a memorable supporting performance despite having to play the stereotype.

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Ip Man 2 is being screened at the 4 Star as part of the 2010 Chinese American Film Festival. The festival officially opened on October 31 at the Marina Theater but all the other screenings are occurring between November 17 and 23 at the 4 Star. The line-up consists of 10 films. Films that interest me in addition to Ip Man 2 include

The Treasure Hunter - the northwest desert where countless prosperous dynasties have flourished and fallen, there is a rumor that buried amongst the sand exists a tomb containing countless riches. A group of mysterious guardians have been guarding the map to the location of the treasure until a fierce rivalry erupts. A notorious international crime group, The Company, manage to hunt down the map keeper but not before he manages to pass the map to a young chivalrous man, Ciao Fei (Jay Chou). Ciao Fei was forced to give up the map to save the live of his mentors daughter Lan Ting (Lin Chi Ling). Teaming up with Hua Ding Bang (Chen Daoming) (a famous archeologist) and Lan Ting they embark on a dangerous journey to recover the map and fight to protect the ancient treasure.

Cool Young - The film adopted elements from Western structuralism and Chinese theatrical aesthetics. It depicts different pictures of people from different social class within modern Chinese community through an artistic angle. All the characters in the film have different emotions within the different plot. The story is about lives of different people in the city and relationship between them each other.

Confucius - In the 6th century B.C. China was still a patchwork of feudal kingdoms and states, fighting with each other for supremacy. Kong Qiu was born in the kingdom of Lu, where the court ruled in name only and real power had developed to the three most powerful local clans. Kong Qiu’s reputation as a social and ethical thinker led the ruler of Lu to appoint him to ministerial office, and he scored some brilliant successes in restoring prestige and authority to the court. His efforts to curb the ambitions of the powerful clans also appeared to succeed, but the Lu army (led by the young general Gongshan Niu) turned against him and the ruler of the kingdom of Qi used bribes to turn the ruler of Lu against his minister...

In the past, they have screened films without subtitling although the program guide explicitly states that all films are English subtitled. Let's hope all the prints have the right subtitling this year.