B Plus Movies

I studied the martial arts for a couple of years formally and have had an interest in them all my life. The grace, power and majesty of a person well trained to do extraordinary things is something to admire regardless of what those things are. When the thing is turning an opponent into a crumpled ragdoll who should be reviewing his life choices while his bones knit, that’s just bonus.

The glory of the martial arts is something that many have tried to convey on film.  When it’s done poorly, you see a few guys beat up on other guys in over extravagant or lame fashion and hold that action up like it’s enough to keep you in your seat for 90 minutes. When it’s done well, you get something like Redbelt.

Redbelt focuses on Brazilian Jui-Jitsu instructor Mike Terry (played by the amazing Chiwitel Ejiofor of Serenity and Love Actually). Terry takes his art seriously and sees it as a way to a better life as much or more than a way to dismantle his fellow man. His school is barely hanging on financially, partially because of his idealism which sits none too well with his wife and business partner.

Terry stops a bar fight and in the process impresses an action movie star, a situation that leads to some lucrative possibilites for Terry and his wife. The light at the end of the tunnel, turns into an oncoming train and Terry finds himself forced to do something he did not want to do: Enter a Mixed Martial Arts tournament, which holds the promise of a full purse and the end to his financial difficulties but also tests his resolve as a man and a warrior. Whether the tournament will be his triumph or downfall is the question driving the whole story.

Redbelt is not your standard kung fu flick (aside from the fact that the main character doesn’t practice Kung Fu, but a form of South American wrestling). It’s not a martial arts film, but a drama that happens to include martial arts. If taken from this perspective, it’s a moving and powerful movie but unfortunately not a perfect one.

The movie’s pacing is a bit odd. The first two thirds of the film is basically the set up, which gives us a great deal of time to get to know the characters but at the same time makes us wonder if they’re getting to a point. Also, while much of the interactions between characters is vibrant and realistic, many passages of the dialogue (especially when it turned to direct plot exposition) seemed if not forced then a little too plain.

Terry as a character is very morally black and white, but the villians are also black and white and have little problem saying it, up to almost directly coming out with “Yes, I’m a villian. Here is how my villiany works. Here is why I think you will not be able to overcome my villiany.” With a character built on principle, this makes him seem more iconic. With a villian supposedly corrupt and double dealing, it comes off as simplistic.

These sticking points aside, Redbelt includes some wonderful acting, delivered with integrety worthy of the characters being portrayed. The action in the film is very realistic, virutally without embelishment. The story is honest, forthright,  and subtle; a tale of a knightly crusader in an environment hostile to his very nature, yet never overcoming him completely.

This movie had a host of real fighters in it, from MMA champion Randy Couture  to Guru Dan Inosanto, a man who has been a respected name in martial arts for over 40 years. The movie at times seems almost directed at the martial artists in the audience more than the average moviegoer, but never inaccessable to anyone. It’s a story about being true to one’s self, and that is something you never have to throw a punch to relate to.

I wanted to love this movie and I do, but as a reviewer I cannot say that it’s flawless. Redbelt is transparent, which lets you see it’s misses easily, but it also keeps it’s high points undisguised. As a result, it get’s a B from me. I would recommend this movie to anyone who’s stuidied the martial arts, anyone who has felt the practical infringe upon principal and anyone that hopes that at the end of the fight, skill is still required to take home the prize, but just as much it requires heart.

I trained for about a year and a half at an amazing martial arts school in Atlanta, once upon a time. The school, named the Francis Fong Academy, taught at least six or seven styles from Filipino stick fighting to  Brazilian jujitsu to Wing Chun Kung Fu. The classes were intense at times, always enjoyable and challenging, but there was one class, one art taught at the school that, while I admired it, I would look at and say “those guys are crazy.” Specifically, it was Muay Thai kickboxing.

If you’ve never seen it performed, I recommend checking out Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior.

Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior is a primarily a vehicle to display the considerable talents of Tony Jaa, an up and coming martial arts star. This man does things with his body that most people only think possible in video games. In the tradition of one of his inspirations, Jackie Chan, he did all his own stunts in Ong-Bak,  including doing running jumps through hoops about the diameter of a hubcap and leaping over people using other people as launchpads.

But enough with the fanboy talk. Let’s talk about the movie.

Ong-Bak starts with Tony’s character living in a remote village and respected as the town’s golden boy, the protector of it’s golden Buddha statue, the title referenced Ong-Bak. The statue gets stolen by art smugglers and Tony has to go into the city to get it back. He hooks up with a cousin living in the city, a small time hustler who seems to be trying to forget his country past. The cousin helps Tony reluctantly, mostly because he thinks he can use Tony’s skills to make a lot of money in boxing matches, and after a few sidetracks, they eventually find out that their statue’s theives are headed up by a Bond worthy villian (complete with wheel chair and implanted voicebox) and his drug injecting psycho second in command badass. The two will face them (well mostly Tony) to return the village treasure and prove that good guys still win.

Ong-Bak has a lot of the hallmarks of a freshman movie. It goes down well trod roads in terms of plot and the characters are not exactly vast conudrums of personality.  The action is beautiful to watch but in some scenes appears forced and practically screams “hey, watch this… it’s going to be cool,” which would be really obnoxious if wasn’t actually so bloody cool.

I’ve seen precisely two Thai made movies, this and Monday’s murky gunplay drama Bangkok Dangerous. Based on those two extremes, I’m gladlly looking forward to exposing my eyeballs to more Thai work because of the potential and gutsy film making that they represent. Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior is not as challenging as some other films, but it is fun and visually interesting, a popcorn flick with a side of drunken noodles. Take a look at monday’s review to see what I thought of Bangkok Dangerous, but as for Ong-Bak, I give it a very enthusiastic B.

But I wouldn’t say that to Tony Jaa’s face. That guy could beat the crap out of me.

And now announcing, the very first B+ Poll:
I recently saw Watchmen in the theater, and now having had a week or so to brew the details in my head, I think it might be worth reviewing here. My reservation is that it’s a big budget movie that everyone has heard about, so not exactly the sort of thing I usually review here. Would you like to see me break character for Friday’s review and pass on my opinion of the movie or would you like another movie reviewed from the bargain bin?

Please leave comments below.

Movie trivia is a strange comfort for the film buff, not because it lets us know more about the story but because we connect more with business of movie making. Knowing that Viggo Mortensen wasn’t the first pick to play Aragorn (it was Stuart Townsend) doesn’t make the movie better in the telling but it does speak to the actor’s ability and connect us more to the efforts that went into making the Lord of the Rings trilogy so amazing. False trivia, conversely, disconnects from that experience and reminds us that we are but consumers of a product.

For instance, I’ve been mistaken for years that the abandoned script for the propoesed sequel to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, reviewed Wednesday, was cannibalized to make the script for the movie I’m reviewing today, Big Trouble in Little China.

Big Trouble in Little China brings us into the life of Jack Burton, played by Kurt Russel, a loud mouthed truck driver who has friends in Chinatown including Wang Chi (played by Asian character actor Dennis Dun) who is on his way to meet his bride, a Chinese woman with green eyes. Unfortunately, Wang’s would be bride gets kidnapped at the airport by members of a Chinese gang. Jack and Wang (I feel dirty typing that) head down to Chinatown to find her and end up in the middle of a war between rival gangs. This might all be well and good except the battle is joined by three mythical Chinese warriors, the Three Storms in the service of their master, Lo Pan who is a wheelchair bound invalid during business hours but spends more of his time as immortal evil sorcerer (played by another master character actor, James Hong).

Then it gets weird.

We meet Egg Shen (played by Victor Wong), a historian and peasant magician who drives a Tour bus and is the guy who knows what’s going on. Also joining the fight is Gracie Long (played by the still hot Kim Cattrall), a woman looking into the disappearance of Asian girls into prostution rings. Together with the help of one of the gangs of Chinatown, this group must take on Lo Pan, his warriors and demons to keep the sorceror from becoming immortal.

Big Trouble in Little China plays on sterotypes, the unexpected mixed with the expected.  Where a drama would break those stereotypes with insight and displays of humanity, director John Carpenter decided to break those sterotypes with explosions, lightning and the flash of swords. But the thing that makes this movie memorable is Jack Burton, the ugly American.

For the most part, Jack has no idea what’s going on even as he’s trying to overcome the dangers of his situation. In Asian cinema, the viewer is often handed bucketloads of concepts and cleverly named artifacts (Six Demon Bag!) and just expected to accept that these esoteric references are vitally important to the situation. I have no idea if Asian veiwers are any less confused than American ones, but if you’re born in the states and don’t have a degree in Asian Studies, then you probably just look up at the screen and just like Jack Burton go “okay, I can deal with this… whatever this is”.

Because of that aspect of confusion in the midst of action, we connect with Jack and take this fantastic and over the top world at face value, so no matter how strange or twisted the next scene is, the suspension of disbelief stays firmly in place and the time that might be spent with long and complicated plot exposition for the Anglos in the crowd is instead spent shooting things and in general kicking butt.

Big Trouble in Little China is sort of an ubiquitous find in department store $5 bins. I’ve seen in packaged on the same disc with movies that have nothing in common with it except gunfire. I’m not sure if this is a testament to its logevity or a mark against it’s public opinion, but either way it’s easy to find.

If you buy only one obscure, cheap 80’s movie this year, make it this one.  Big Trouble in Little China is fun, confusing, cool and bizarre. It’s a B+ film all the way and perhaps one of the best weird Asian flim with an American main chracter and that wasn’t made in Asia.

Watch it and see if you don’t end up quoting it for a week. I dare you.

Jet Li, in my humble opinion, has gotten a raw deal since he started doing American cinema. The man is far more than a martial artist, but a complex actor capable of bringing a number of subtle, tender moments to characters who might otherwise might just be brutal brawlers. The scripts he’s been handed in the States have all missed that dimension in him, even though some have tried. His efforts as an actor in China display a much greater range and depth to his acting.

For example, there is Fist of Legend.

In this movie, Li stars as a student of a great martial arts master who has been killed while at a tournement. Li returns to his master’s school and tries to help the students put themselves back in order, but finds himself and the school set upon by irreverant and viscious students of a rival Japanese school. Soon, Li begins to suspect foul play and is forced to go on the run, the local government being in the pockets of the Japanese. Li must fight to find justice, to keep his master’s legacy and to avoid being put in a jail cell… or worse, the grave.

If this plot sounds familiar, it’s because it’s identical to Fist of Fury,  Bruce Lee’s epic, one of the greatest martial arts films of all time. This is a remake and homage, no a rip off like so many other movies that came out China screaming “You killed my master”! Fist of Legend in many ways is a more hopeful film than Fist of Fury and distinguishes itself from it’s predecessor enough that comparing them does no harm to either one.

Fist of Legend uses all of Jet Li’s considerable talents, from his graceful work as a martial artist to his subtle and reserved talents as a dramatic actor. The film takes time to explore both the world that Li’s character lives in as well as the character himself, leaving one with a sense of a world larger than just the spaces in which the film’s fight scenes take place.

And what fight scenes they are.

Where the film kind of risks losing the viewer is in it’s pacing. In it’s attempt to be thurough, Fist of Legend seems to drift here and there.  I never really felt like I was just waiting to get to the next round of fisticuffs, but I did occasionaly wonder when they were going to get on to the happier part of the film. Admittedly, knowing the plot from Fist of Fury, I may have just been one step ahead of where I needed to be, but still this movie felt to me like it had enough material in it to be broken into to movies, a drama and a martial arts epic.

Before you sit down to Unleashed or Romeo Must Die, check out Fist of Legend. Better yet, skip those movies and go straight to this one. Jet Li has made entertaining films in the US (some of which I’ll have to review here at some point) but  to get a proper measure of how talented the man really is, go look at where he began. I did and because of that, I give Fist of Legend a B+.

Watching Jackie Chan’s American films, I often wonder if people who have not seen his Chinese films understand just how cool this man is. It’s not just that he did incredible stunts, but that he did them usually with no more to go on than some hand written calculations and a good guess. It’s not that he’s a comedic actor, but also a stunt choreographer and director, sometimes editing his own film. And it’s not just that he has made good movies, but that he’s made movies that completely change one’s expectations from cinema.

Case in point: Police Story.

The film starts with a slight goofball of a cop, played by Jackie Chan, who through a bit of luck and a lot of near fatal moments manages to arrest a crime lord. Afterward, he has to baby sit the crime lord’s secretary until the trial, causing tension and a great deal of misunderstanding between him and his girlfriend. As things progress, the crime lord starts making life a living hell for the cop, framing him for murder. The cop then must take extreme measures to clear his name, which leads to a great deal of mayhem and some really find martial artistry.

Jackie Chan made this movie as a reaction to the film The Protector, an American made action movie that he starred in but in the end thought was kinda bad (I only saw the end of that one, but I can see where he got his opinion). His efforts produced a work that elevated action movies to the next level.  Police Story did a number of things right, but the thing that set it apart was the intense, breathtaking stunts.

We see a shanty town destroyed by a car chase. We see Jackie holding onto a moving double decker bus by an umbrella. We see a motorcycle used as a melee weapon. And then there’s the climactic scene in the mall which is invariably listed as one of his best stunts ever.

Other movies have offered stunts of similar caliber, but what stitches Police Story together is the comedy that happens (mostly) when people aren’t flying across the screen or getting punched. Chan’s character, unlike the square jawed and humorless action heroes with which we are all familiar, seems remarkably approachable and believable, a man just trying to get through his day rather than someone who lives to stomp the wicked and spew bullets towards villainy.  Even when he’s doing things that humans shouldn’t be able to do, he seems the underdog and his success in no way seems inevitable, creating not only sympathy but tension for the viewer.

I don’t knock Jackie Chan’s American offerings. The Rush Hour films were enjoyable and I even liked The Medallion and The Tuxedo. But it’s his work done in China, the one’s where he’s operating without a safety net, by which all his other work must be compared. He may never outdo himself, but even 19 years after it’s release, Police Story shows that he’s got nothing to prove.

And around here, that gets a movie a B+

Any action movie that comes out today has a high bar set for it. After the influence of Asian Cinema, which pushed up the standards for what action could be, anything that doesn’t make the viewer twitch in their seat a little or pump their fist in triumph is going to seem flat, even if fifteen years ago it would have been spectacular. If you doubt me, go back and watch any martial arts movie from the 80’s and then compare it to the lamest of Jackie Chan’s pics. Compare Commando against The Matrix for gunplay. You’ll see the difference in what audiences have come to expect.

Once you know how hard it is to make a good action flick, pop in Equilibrium.

The story Equilibrium  starts with a crawling bit of text that informs you that mankind has nearly bombed itself into non-existence and concluded from it’s mistakes that the enemy of peace was emotion all along. The totalitarian state that rose up out of the ashes removed that little problem with a powerful mood leveling drug. Take it and you can live out a dull, repetitive life without a care  because, well, you can’t care. Dont’, try to feel or look at art or have a pet and you face the enforcers of this grey world, the Grammaton Clerics.

Equilibrium was a film that came from development hell, sojourned in US theatres for a weekend or so, then found it’s devotees when it made to rental racks. It would have been a sadder world if this had never seen the light of day if for no other reason, we would have never been introduced to the fanboy’s wet dream of a martial art: Gunkata.

The clerics are trained in this mythical art, a series of postures and movements designed to make the user hard to hit in gunfights while at the same time raining lead down upon his enemies. And in the process, look damn cool.

A  Pre-Batman Christian Bale plays the hero of the film, a cleric who has dutifully served but through the course of the film misses a dose of his drug and begins to question the society he lives in. He has to hide his doubts from those he works with, a task that proves daunting as every senstion is suddenly new and vibrant. Bale does an excellent job with this, conveying a genuine wonder and bewilderment as his character sees the world for the first time with unclouded eyes.

The movie doesn’t pull punches when convincing you the government is evil. If you’re squeamish about the idea of soldiers executing animals, you may want someone to tell you when to close your eyes and when to watch again. The overall feel of the movie is depressing and harsh such that when we do see color or humanity injected into the landscape, even the most commonplace joy seems something worth dying for.

The cracks in the movie come from the fact that other characters, still loyal to the government, show a little too much joy in enforcing the will of the state. There are places that the pace feels a little odd and others where the plot seems a little too tidy. None of this makes the film less enjoyable.

Equilibrium is B+ and then some. If you are a fan of action films, martial arts films or dysotopian future films and you’ve not seen this, watch this movie next. Though I take no responsibility if you then grab a pair of toy pistols and start posing oddly in front of the mirror… don’t be ashamed, we all do it.

When you think post-apocalyptic action movie hero, your mind doesn’t usually jump immediately to Patrick Swayze. Dancing with girls who can’t be kept in a corner, yes. Messily making pottery while making out, yes. Swinging a sword at guys in biker leathers in a hellish future of our own making, not so much.

But then agian, that’s because you’ve never seen Steel Dawn.

Swayze plays a wandering swordsman named who walks the deserts of what’s left of world after World War III. World weary, he takes up the mission of a fallen mentor who was going to a small town with a lot of trouble brewing in it. He hires on with a lady farmer named Kasha who has a secret that makes her farm very valuable, attracting the attention of a local bully/landowner who wants her land. When she won’t sell, he hires someone to persuade her, a nasty, death dealing  piece of work named Sho, the man who made Swayze’s mentor “fallen”, and who sports a hairdo that makes you wonder if World War III wasn’t justified.

If this  plot line sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the plot of about every third western in existence.

If anything can be said for Steel Dawn’s story its that while it lacks anything resembling complexity, it uses it’s cliches as well as it can. In addition to the aformenetioned excuse for a end of the movie showdown, we also get Kasha’s son helping to soften up Swayze’s world weary exterior and adding some humanity to the movie. There’s also a bit of conflict with Kasha’s right hand man, played by the late B movie virtuoso Brion James,  who feels replaced by the new man in his boss’s life. Without watching this movie, I’m guessing you can guess which one of these guys gets kidnapped and which one gets stabbed.

This movie is a bit of a Frankenstien’s monster, a film cobbled together from existing movie plots and sewn together in a working if not terribly pretty package. While not the worst post apocalypse film to come out of the 80’s, there’s not alot to distinguish it besides having the star of Dirty Dancing in it.

Steel Dawn gets a C as it walks off into the sunset. It’s worth renting or even purchusing if you find it on the second half of a double feature DVD. Even without  going MST3K on it, it’s an interesting film.

Just please, somebody explain the hair to me.

If you’d only watched John Woo’s recent American films (Windtalkers, Paycheck), you might miss why he is such an important figure in the evolution of cinema. Woo has, more than perhaps any other director, bridged the gap between Asian and American cinema. Directors like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, the Wachowski brothers and almost anyone who has made an action film in the last fifteen years have taken notes from John Woo’s style and touches.

Well before he was sending actors flying through the air, shooting a pair of pistols while surrounded by doves in a church, Woo was, like most Asian directors having people fight it out with swords. During this period in the director’s career, he gave us Show Lin Men which in the States was called Last Hurrah for Chivalry.

I found this movie by chance one day on cable and was amazed by what I saw. The plot is engaging and has more twists than a bowl of noodles. In the beginning, we meet Martial Artist 1 who who wants revenge against Martial Artist 2, but can’t gain it himself. He therefore seeks the aid of Martial Artists 3 & 4, both legendary swordsmen, one of which has sworn off fighting. The story includes in its telling villains both comical and deadly, a magic sword, heavy drinking, the best in male bonding and the worst in betrayal.

The reasons to watch this movie are manifold. It’s got beautiful action, exemplary of the Wu Xia style of martial arts movie. The characters and story are not neglected, giving each character having real and understandable motivations. The movie is nigh flawless for it’s genre.

Where the “nigh” comes into play is that the movie is hard to figure out at first and you have to trust that it is going to be understandable in the end (which it is). Also, especially towards the end, some of the sets look cheap and the special effects are kind of crap, but that’s mostly because it was made in 1979, not because they weren’t trying.

I just found out that the movie has been released on DVD and the new cut looks pretty spectacular, as evidenced by the trailer.

John Woo would go on to make even greater films, but I don’t have any qualms calling this one great. Last Hurrah for Chivalry is solidly in the B+ category and if you’ve got any appreciation for classic kung fu movies, this one is worth your time.

Bruce Lee is a name that conjures images both fantastic and historical, an icon in the worlds of both martial arts and movie making. He had a forceful personality, incredible physical ability and a passion for the craft of movie making. His untimely death denied the world of what would have been outstanding moments in film, to be sure. His impact upon cinema and popular culture can’t be denied.

One of the things that Bruce left behind was a script written by him and James Coburn, later to be acquired and retooled by David Caradine. The resulting work was a 1978 movie entitled Circle of Iron.

Circle of Iron (also released as The Silent Flute) is a fable, a tale of a martial artist who seeks The Book of All Knowledge. He is told he is too undisciplined for the journey, but proceeds to take it anyway. Journeying through a dreamlike landscape, the seeker confronts a number of guardians along the path who test him and a blind flute player who guides him. His quest turns out be much more and very different than he expects.

David Carradine played four roles in this movie, three of the aforementioned guardians and the flute player. The lead was played by Jeff Cooper, who went on to play a number of bit parts n 80’s television. The parts were originally to be played by Bruce Lee and James Coburn, respectively.

If you watch this movie looking for an action film, you’ll get disappointed.  This isn’t to say there isn’t a goodly amount of butt kicking, it’s just that it tends to run at a slower pace than one might expect. The fights are less about blood and punches and more about the young seeker learning about himself and what it is he’s seeking.

I caught this on cable when I was a kid. It was on in the middle of the night and I was riveted. Watching it as an adult, I was not utterly disappointed with my love of the film and was glad to see that it’s been making rounds on cable again.

Dare I say anything negative about a story inspired by the work of Bruce Lee? Well, in fairness, I have to. The movie tries to evoke an ethereal quality but it comes off in some scenes as just goofy and wears on the suspension of disbelief. The pace of the film is sometimes agonizing by modern standards and while a very deep story is being told, Jeff Cooper’s acting sometimes doesn’t keep up. The fact that Circle of Iron is more myth than grit makes the less convincing stretches more bearable, but a viewer today might find the movie a bit hokey.

In the ratings, this one falls solidly in the B category. It’s also a film I’d love to see remade with today’s technology and standards. I can’t judge if Carradine did justice to Lee’s vision, but Circle of Iron is definitely worth watching for fans of either man’s work or of martial arts films in general.