Blue Jean Monster (1991)

Shing Fui-On is one of those character actors you see time and again in mostly the same kind of roles. He is a big, quite ugly looking guy and is cast often as a violent thug or as bumbling thug or as any other kind of thug. His latest role was in the Pang Brothers flick THE DETECTIVE (maybe I'll write about that one later on, but it didn't impress me so much), but he is more than 30 years in the business, and has appeared in a lot of trash and some classics. A BETTER TOMORROW II, TIGER ON THE BEAT, PRISON ON FIRE and THE KILLER are the most illustrious entries on his filmography, but BLUE JEAN MONSTER is, well, different.
Firstly Shing plays the lead and a good guy in this one – well, sort of, at least. He is Tsu Hsiang, a cop, devoted husband and expecting father. Being played by Shing, he also is quite violent, when he hunts criminals. While pursuing a very dangerous group of bank robbers, he is killed, but that isn't the end of him. With the help of a cat, a lot of electricity and the wild imagination of the script writer, he comes back to life. Or better said: to the Frankenstein kind of pseudo-life. Tsu now has only two goals: stay alive long enough to see his child and punish the evil gangsters who killed him.
Hm, so it is a straight horror thriller with a monster on the rampage, right? Wrong! Sure, there are a lot of bloody killings (mostly not by Shing), but this is mainly a comedy. Tsus wife (Pauline Wong) gets the wrong idea about his behavior and thinks, he became guy, while his crippled young sidekick and his cutie pie girl friend (Gloria Yip) are convinced, he is a ghost and try to exorcise him. Crazy hi-jinx occur, including a cameo by Amy Yip and her two biggest assets, a lot of bad puns, offensive jokes about sexuality and handicapped people, wild plot shifts and explosive stunts.
Exploitation to the max, this a quintessential movie to understand, what made Hong Kong movies so unique and enjoyable in the late Eighties and early Nineties. There is no clear distinction between comedies, dramas, action thrillers and horror movies. Just throw everything into the blender and don't forget to add the kitchen sink! Sorry to offer an old cliché, but BLUE JEAN MONSTER is really a roller coaster ride of a movie. Never a dull moment and a lot of fun to watch. And (sorry: another corny phrase) sadly they don't make 'em like this any more. And that's a shame!

Been awful quite for a while

But now I'm back. I have big pile of movies I watched and planned to write about, among them TRIANGLE, THE DETECTIVE, NARAKA 19 and a lot of others, but couldn't bring myself to do it. They just didn't triggered my brain into action. Maybe, because there was a vague sense of disappointment with the most of them, that wasn't enough to make me write a scorcher. And just to say "it was kind of alright but not really either" would have been to much work and too much of a bore.
So it took a lot of rethinking and the unexpected joy in watching BLUE JEAN MONSTER to make me realize the point of this blog: I don't have to review all the new movies I happen to see, I want to share flix I enjoyed, when ever the were made. And so I put the pile of mediocre new releases on the shelves, where they belong, and give you stuff I really like (or dislike).
Maybe I'll write about some of them later, but at the moment I don't see any point in saying anything about the mentioned movies.
All right, and now back to business!

Flash Point (2007)

Not so very long ago, I used to call Donnie Yen the "unsung Hero of Martial Arts movies". While this wasn't really true then, it happily has radically changed in the last couple of years, and now Yen is one of the most respected action choreographers and screen fighters since the glory days of Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan. He reached his apex 2005 in the rightly highly praised SPL where he co-starred with Sammo and Simon Yam. And so it isn't very surprising that he returns to that gritty world of cops, robbers and lethal fighters.

Original planned as a sequel or prequel to SPL, FLASH POINT tells the story of Hong Kong cop Ma Kwan (Yen) who is a loose cannon in the Lethal-Weapon-tradition and doesn't bother how much heads he has to bust to solve a case or catch a criminal. He is on the trail of a vietnamese gang and his colleague and friend Wilson (Louis Koo) was able to infiltrate the organisation as a mole. Finally a raid is maid and gang boss Archer can be arrested, while his two brothers Tony and Tiger escape.
To prevent, that their older brother will be convicted, they go to great lengths – and that means, they kill all witnesses for the prosecution. And one of the people on their hit-list is police mole Wilson.

The plot is an old and proven one – or in other words: we have seen this dozens of times before. The characters are quite clichéd, the storyline has nearly none surprises in store and the acting is adequate but nothing special either. So: Why bother? Well, for the same reason, Donnie Yen wanted to make this movie: to watch our hero to kick some serious ass in ways you haven't seen before. Yen turns away from traditional Kung Fu and embraces, what he calls "Mixed Martial Arts" and what I would call free form brawling. Kicks, elbows, Jiu-Jitsu, grappling, wrestling - everything that can be used in a fight is used. This isn't realistic (for what street fighter knows all these techniques and can use them in a fight?) but it looks authentic and makes for some very gritty and exciting action sequences.
The down side to this is that there is not nearly enough action and it comes too late. Director Wilson Yip (who directed SPL and the disappointing TIGER DRAGON GATE with Yen) uses more than half of the running time to get into the characters. since he borrows heavily from INFERNAL AFFAIRS, Louis Koo's police spy is the main character in this part of the movie, and he does a good job with a a variation of Tony Leung's character from IA. Sadly this whole undercover drama with the angst ridden cop is mostly quite boring and not very original. There are only one or two very skillfuly delivered suspenseful moments: one is, when Wilson's identity is discovered, while the other is a nearly Hitchcockian scene concerning a bomb, that is hidden inside a roasted duck. But aside from these scenes it is a relief when the violence of the last act breaks loose. And as soon as Donnie Yen starts his one-man war against the gang, it is nonstop action right until the end.

The last 20 minutes or so, are a brutal hand to hand fight between Ma Kwan and his nemesis Tony (Collin Chou). Those two give no quarter and you'll be on the edge of your seat for the whole sequence, while they knock each other against walls and over balustrades, inflict bone crushing and limb tearing violence and just want to kill each other!
This last part of the movie is completely satisfactory (if you can swallow the revenge and vigilante motive) and shows Donnie Yen at his best: innovative, ferocious and passionate about his art. Sadly by all his passion for showing new and innovative means to fight onscreen, he ands director Yip forgot, that a movie is more than a climactic fight. I hope with their next movie they will be able to deliver a more compelling story as a background for Donnie's action sequences.

Miracle on 1st Street (2007)

As a small child, Myeong Ran (Ha Ji Won) was witness to a brutal beating of her father in the boxing ring. As a result, the former champion became a disabled wreck of a man. About a dozen years later, the small family lives in a slum area, and Myeong Ran works hard to become a boxer and win the championship. Alas, she isn't very good: of her five fights she lost four – and the other one ended as a draw.

One day the gangster Pil Jee (Lim Chang Jung) appears in the shanty town. He has orders to clear the slum, so that a new commercial complex can be built there. While he makes the rounds to convince the inhabitants to leave, he meets some colourful people: There is a young pair of brother and sister that live more or less on their own, because their grandfather is in a hospital; then there is Seon-yu, a young woman who is desperate to get out of her poor live and who has quit her factory job to join a pyramid scheme. And then there is this scowling, bratty girl named Myeong Ran, that wants to become a boxer.

As might be expected, while he settles down to stay for a couple of days, the tough gangster gradually falls under the charm of slum live. He bonds with the small pair of siblings (played heartbreakingly real and at the same time cute by two very gifted child actors whose names I couldn't find). And can it take long, before he falls in love with the would-be boxer Myeong Ran?

It can, in fact, because this isn't quite as generic and stereotypically a comedy as you might expect. It isn't a true comedy at all. Director Yoon Je Gyun takes a break from his all out fun filled farces like SEX IS ZERO or MY BOSS, MY HERO and tries his hand with a somewhat deeper movie. Comedy, drama, melodrama, a touch of action and a dash of fairy tale fantasy are mixed quite uniquely to a satisfying and entertaining whole.
Yoon Je Gyun succeeds for the most part to steer clear of romanticising the lives of his poor characters: He makes it clear, that the cute children have to live from things, other people throw away; he shows, that gangsters aren't funny buffoons or Robin Hoods but brutal thugs (well, with exception of Pil Jee obviously); and even his boxing-obsessed heroine isn't a Rocky-like underdog who beats all odds.
The director permanently undercuts and subverts attempts of his movie, to settle into a specific genre, by shifting from comedy to love story to melodrama and back again. My favorite "subversive" scene is, what would be the money shot in a typically sports drama: Myeong Ran's Big Fight. As part of an action movie it isn't shot very convincingly, and actress Ha Ji Won isn't Korea's next action hero (despite the fact that she was quite convincing in DUELIST). But Yoon intercuts it with a brutal attack of thugs on helpless slum inhabitants. This mixing of two different kinds of violence robs the box fight of its "glory" and evokes very mixed feelings in the audience.
Yoon's constant shifting of tone works very well until the climax. There the problem of tying the divers strands together nearly lets the movie falter. And only a miracle saves it from failing...

MIRACLE ON 1ST STREET is a movie, that makes you laugh and cry. It has interesting characters, a clever plot that veers from the well traveled roads of romances. Somewhere in the background, MY SASSY GIRL nods approvingly: The new film isn't as good as the classic movie from 2001, but it shows encouraging signs of freshness and oddness. And there is a decided taste of yupki-ness involved, that please me, obviously, quite a bit.

Sukeban Deka - The Movie 1 & 2 (1987 & 1988)

While the recent YO-YO GIRL COP was a disappointment, it led to two things: I got myself a yo-yo (and I'm proud to say, I learned some basic tricks!) and I bought the only dvd-releases available with english subtitles of the "Sukeban Deka"-franchise. Since this series isn't widely known outside of japan, here a very short and rough outline (courtesy of wikipedia and the Sukeban Deka entry on Encyclopedia Idollica): "Sukeban Deka or "Delinquent Girl Cop" started as a manga series in the 70s and was made into a tv-series in the 80s. It ran from 1985 to 87 and is divided in three seasons, each of which starred a new girl. The heroine of the series is an girl cop that goes undercover to investigate crimes, committed at schools. Sort of like "Jump Street". But then, "Jump Street" never had pretty girls, wielding a steel yo-yo as their weapon of choice!
When the tv-series ran out, the stars of Sukeban II and Sukeban III were featured in a couple of movies.
When SUKEBAN DEKA – THE MOVIE starts, Yôko Godai(Yôko Minamino),the second Sukeban, has just resigned her undercover job to become a normal student. But then she stumbles into a refugee from a very strict school for delinquent boys and girls. she learns that the pupils in that school are being brainwashed and made into a sort of fanatical stormtroopers for a mastermind who wants to overthrow the government.

Yôko quickly rallies her tough friends - including her successor as sukeban, the enthusiastic young Yui (Yui Asaka) - and forms a plan to storm the school and free the pupils. And so, one night, five girls in bright pink coveralls paddle to the rocky, Alcatraz-like island and sneak to the fortress-like school. Oh, I forgot: before they start the sneaking, they change from their overalls to traditional japanese school uniforms – perhaps not the beast thing to wear in a raid....

Fights, double-crosses and sacrifices follow, including some cool yo-yo-wielding with an utterly ridiculous super-yo-yo.
The plot is very straight and to the point, the action not too shabby (nearly everything is obviously done by stunt-men), and Yôko Minamino and her friends are looking quite good with their yo-yos, marbles and bizarre weapons.

SUKEBAN DEKA - THE MOVIE 2: COUNTER-ATTACK FROM THE KAZAMA SISTERS not only has a long and tedious title, the movie itself is much less fun than the first film. Yui (Yui Asaka), the third Sukeban Deka, has been transferred to new "student police" that aims to stop bad behavior among youths, raids discos and bullies everybody who strays from the straight and narrow. One day, Yui has enough from the fascistic group and resigns. Now her former colleagues go after her and her sisters and Yui must go in hiding. She finds refuge with a group of outsiders that try to live an alternative lifestyle on an abandoned property. From there she starts - together with her new friends - her resistance-fight against the fascistic police-troop that plans - once more - to take over the government.

The action is much less believable than in the first movie and Yui isn't nearly as tough (and nimble) as Yôko. The plot is quite convoluted and the movie slower than the first outing. A nice time-waster, but not much more.

Interesting in both movies is the distrust of authority, they convey: The enemies are always law & order types, the only good persons are outsiders - Yôko's bad-girl friends in the first movie, the group of punk-like squatters in the second feature. Even the only nominally positive authority figure - the boss of the sukeban dekas - is a real bastard: He manipulates his girls and lies to them, only to steer them into suicide missions.

The SUKEBAN DEKA movies can't be compared to the "real" sukeban movies of the 70s. Those earlier exploitation films with Miki Sugimoto, Reiko Ike or Meiko Kaji were gritty films with a lot of blood, violence and even rapes, and the stars were girls with a real bad ass attitude. These later movies aim for a younger audience and entertain them pretty nicely. While I prefer the older flix, these juvenile movies have a certain charm - and a film with deadly yo-yos, thrown by pretty girls can't be all bad, can they?

Simply Actors (2007)

"Crap Acting!" This note is found on a killed undercover cop, and the police chiefs of Hong Kong decide that it would be good to brush up the acting skills of the troop. As a first try out, they send PC Man Long (Jim Chim) to a drama school. Man Long is thrilled, as he always dreamt of being an actor, but his new co-eds and the teachers are underwhelmed by his constant enthusiastic overacting.

There is another new pupil in class, the soft-core porn actress Dani Dan (Charlene Choi), who has two prominent talents and a very friendly personality. She and Man Long bond immediately and becomne partners for the coveted roles of Romeo and Juliet in the play, the class will stage at the end of the term.

SIMPLY ACTORS s mainly a show-case for comedian Jim Chi, who goes over the top as far as possible as the over enthusiastic wannabe actor. Ironically - or appropriately - Chim is a respected acting-coach, and one of his protegés is Charlene Choi. Choi is the main female lead but plays second fiddle to the Jim-Chim-Show. And she is really fine. I have seen nearly all of her pictures, starting with FUNERAL MARCH, and while at first the enjoyment was more of a "guilty pleasure", in the last couple of movies she really begins to shine as an actress: ALL ABOUT LOVE, DIARY, the not quite satisfactory SUPER FANS - Charlene really starts to widen her range. And playing a porn actress (with obviously fake breasts) is indeed far away from her usual clean cut, innocent girls, even though her "Dani Dan" has a certain lovable spontaneity and naivety that is not incongruous with her earlier screen persona.

But this film is not about Charlene Choi, it is about Jim Chim and - even more - about the art of acting and the love of an actor for his craft. The plot of the movie takes a back seat to (very funny) acting lessons for Man Long and the audience.
and these lessons are delivered by some of the biggest and beloved people in HK movie business: Eric Tsang and Anthony Wong have cameos as teachers (okay Wong plays a janitor, but he is a much better mentor than all the "real" teachers) and even Chapman To, who plays a gangster, gives Man Long very good advise.
But these are not the only cameos. Indeed the movie sometimes seems to consist of nothing but cameos. It starts right at the beginning with the police chiefs, discussing the acting abilities of their subordinates: all of them are played by movie directors. Off hand I recall Ann Hui and Vincent Kok. Later on, Alan Mak plays himself in a funny scene. but this are only the directors. In a street scene we see Sandra Ng, Isablla Leong, Josie Ho and numerous others in very small but funny parts.

The funny cameos and the string of Jim-Chim-mugs-it-up routines are the attraction and the weakness of the movie. One and a half hours of funny acting lessons and wacky over-acting tire you out and you begin to wonder how to wind up the movie in a satisfactory way. Well, the filmmakers came to a quite unfortunate solution: forget all the plot about undercover cops and start a NEW storyline about a gangster (Lam Suet)threatening the father of one of Man Long's co-eds. And that takes another half an hour to conclude.

Directors Chan Hing-Kai and Patrick Leung are too much in love with all the little details, performances and cameos and forget the movie as a whole. A much tighter script, more substantial roles and less cameos and primarily a better constructed story would have benefited the movie and we would have a really good film and not only SIMPLY ACTORS.

Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000)

Yun-ju (Lee Sung-jae) is an unemployed professor and lives in a depressing, shabby apartment complex. His pregnant wife is the breadwinner, while Yun-ju sits brooding at home, tries to figure out, how to get the money to bribe his way into a job - and gets slowly mad over the constant yelping and barking of a dog somewhere in a neighboring flat.

One day he just snaps and decides to kill that noisy mutt. Alas, Yun-ju is not the greatest of he-men and lacks the true killer's instinct: Not only he gets the wrong doggie, but the poor mutt ends in the cooking pot of the delighted janitor. But at last Yun-ju catches the guilty dog and throws it from the roof – and is watched by Hyeon-nam (Bae Du-na), a bored young estate clerk in the apartment complex. Luckily he escapes unrecognized, but his troubles are not over: Hyeon-nam does the Sherlock thing and tries to find the presumed serial dog killer, and Yun-ju is confronted with his wife's new pet: a dog…

My main reason to watch this movie was Bae-Du Na. I enjoyed her tremendously in LINDA LINDA LINDA and wanted to see more of her. This was her second feature after THE RING VIRUS - and she is great in it. She plays a directionless, lazy and bored young woman who is nevertheless quite lovable, and she fills her role with a lot of life and realism.
Her counter-part, Lee Sung-jae is equally good in portraying the frustrated Yun-ju, while the rest of the cast has to work with more sketchy, caricaturesque roles. Most fun of them is the gourmet-janitor and dog lover (Byeon Hie-bong is the actor's name, I think). But the many, seemingly one-dimensional roles (I have to mention Hyeon-nam's chubby pal, who was a very nice and fun character) form a surprisingly complex picture of the "biotop" they live in.

The movie is equal parts social satire, comedy and drama. It often gets quite absurd and the it becomes touching or biting (but there are no biting dogs in this movie!). First time director Bong Joon-ho went on to make the critically acclaimed MEMORIES OF MURDER and the smash hit THE HOST (with Bae Du-na in an important supporting role). all of his films are more complex and deeper than you would expect from the genres, he works in (comedy, thriller, horror). All undermine these genres in a subtle way and all of them have at least a touch of absurdity to them. While HOST goes the most over the top and MEMORIES has the best characterizations and goes deepest, I prefer his debut. The movie carefully balances his different aspects and is, for me, his most entertaining work - even though I love dogs very dearly (and NOT in the way, the janitor does).