Heads For Sale! Strange chop socky

So I have not bought kung Fu movies in a awhile, outside of signed hardcover books and old Sci-fi pulp novels Kung Fu DVD’s are about the only thing I collect anymore. So for my birthday this year I bought myself three movies. I know big spender.

So I have access to renting great Kung Fu movies here in town at movie madness, so if I’m buying movies it’s because they are ones that are hard to find. First up was an old Shaw brothers classic from 1972 called ‘Heads for Sale.’

The director went on two years alter to make the classic film King Boxer(AKA Five Fingers of Death). I first heard of Heads for Sale on a commentary track for King Boxer. The commentators on the track were Quentin Tarintino and NY times Movie reviewer Elvis Mitchell. Both of whom have fantastic taste in martial arts cinema.

At one point they talked about what a strange Kung Fu movie Heads for Sale was. They compared it to Deadly China doll and Lady Snowblood which are women’s revenge films. This one stars Chiao Chiao who is best known for her role in the one armed swordsman (rare role for a woman in a Chang Cheh film).

While this is a great chop socky masterpiece for sure there was not as many decapitations as I expected. The plot is ultra strange and is best seen. It’s not exactly a revenge film. Chiao’s charter falls in love with a swordsmen but his family rejects hers. So she goes on sword wielding rampage. Her lover ends up getting arrested and she starts decapitating the people who jailed him.

Yep. That is the plot. Does it make a lot of sense. Not the point. Great movie check it out. Worth the $14 buck to buy from HK flix if you like chop socky.

Che movie roadshow in Portland

Che movie Roadshow in Portland


What a crazy awesome weekend to be a geek in Portland. Friday night the second to last episode of Battlestar Galattica played at the Baghdad theater. They have shown all 10 of the last episodes but this time Starbuck herself (Katie Sackoff) attended and did a Q and A. It was strange because she sat in the next row over from where Randall, Megan and I sat. Strange watching and like “oh shit there is fracking Starbuck.”

Saturday I had an old friend come into town who is a PHD student in Latin American history. Dude knows his shit about Radicalism everywhere but especially in Latin America. So when I read in the paper that Director Steven Soderberg (Traffic, Ocean’s 11 movies) was personally screening his new Che Bio pic I knew we had to go.

Mind you this is a 4 and half hour movie. Now that I have seen the movie, I can say that it is really two separate movies. Just like Kill Bill the tone of the two parts are so different. The first two hours were an off hook amazing treatment of Che’s struggle in jungles of Cuba and his stunning political show downs at the United Nations in New York.

The first film has some of the most brutal and realistic revolutionary battles scenes seen in a film since the Battle of Algeries. The non linear story structure was done perfectly to explain the man and his motivations at the time.

There was a short intermission and the second film skipped Che’s failed revolutions in Venezuela and Congo and focused his struggle in Bolivia. During the intermission we discussed Che’s crucial error was thinking what worked in Cuba could work everywhere.

In Bolivia his attempt at a Mao style peasant uprising failed to even get off the ground. Coming on the heals of a movie about the Cuba revolution it made a much less exciting of a movie that we all knew was going to end with Che being executed. I am not sure how Soderberg would have felt about this but I am personally glad that the Motorcycle Dairies had already told the story of his young life.

I couldn’t help thinking of that film as he stood at the firing squad. In the Q and A Soderberg said they had been working on the film since Traffic and intended at first just tell the story of Bolivia. That was odd to me since that was the most boring part. What the fuck do I know but everyone I talked to after the film agreed that the first film was perfect and the Boliva stuff while important could have been done in a half hour.

None the less a lot was left out, Che’s role in the post revolution Cuba most glaringly obvious. That is just too bad, the man had a lot of life to tell. Think of it this way the first film was Che’s greatest achievement and the second was his greatest failure.

Here is the real point. Between awesome Battlestar geekery, Che roadshow and our usual amazing vegan food I was reminded what I love about Portland. Even if I rode to the store on bike through hail and super strong gorge wind blowing crazy gales in my face. I feel lucky to be a nerd in this city.

* Note when I went to post the trailer I saw most places are seeing this released as two separate films. I still stand my belief that one three hour film would have been better.

Reviews: Sounds Like, Southland Tales

I’m on a roll with horror director Brad Anderson. If you’ve seen the Machinist and didn’t think it was that great then I know you didn’t seen it in the theater. It was an engrossing experience, bleak and horrifying on the big screen and I shocked when people evn argue that it is not a horror film.

I was excited when I saw that he had directed ‘Sounds Like’ an episode of the show The masters of horror. I have been mostly disappointed by these episodes outside of Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns, Coscarelli’s Lansdale adaptation and Dante’s Homecoming. Dante’s one was funny so I’m not sure that counts. Miike’s Imprint was disturbing but was ruined by the English language.

Anderson’s Sounds Like was the best offering yet, again he shows his skill at making the audience uncomfortable. It was a great little horror film,well acted, written, directed and like I said disturbing. A + for Brad Anderson can’t wait to see what he does next.

The other film we watched that same night was Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko follow-up “Southland Tales”. While this was being filmed there was a lot of geek buzz generated based on the cult status of his first film and the strange casting that included Justin Timberlake, The rock, Buffy, Connor Mccloud, Dan from Night Court and about half a dozen SNL veterans. This should have been a clue that Kelly was making a satire but the movie was released like a wet fart.

Not the film’s fault. It’s a strange hybrid destined to be misunderstood by most viewers and panned by critics who would object to it’s non-traditional pacing. Take one part Phillip K. Dick, one part David Lynch and a dash of Pink Floyd’s the wall and you have Southland Tales. Kelly manages to spin a Sci-Fi plot around a satire that manages to get a lot of targets. Left wing radicals, Right wing politicians, pop-culture of every kind and most of all the patriot act.

In an alternative 2007 the America that survived a dirty bomb attack is the home to a movie that manages to be interesting and boring at the same time. Everyone did a wonderful job expect maybe director Richard Kelly. Maybe the movie is brilliant and I don’t get it, but Kelly breaks every screen writing rule there is. This should be a good thing, original and inspired but if he didn’t have DD in his past this would be rejected everywhere.

Does that make it bad? No, But do I care about the characters? A few. Is the pacing there no, there are moments that drag, all that sad I going to give this movie a skeptical thumbs up. My biggest problem with this movie is my fear that Kelly’s career might be like a balloon. Donnie Darko filled it up with air and southland Tales may have popped it. Hope not.

Jet Li returns in The Warlords

Jet Li continues to prove he can act. Lets forget about the embarrassing turn in last year's War. He has said he knew it wasn't working on the set. Anybody watching the movie knows he was phoning it and cashing the check. What did War buy him time to do? well he returned to china and made a little bad ass film co starring Andy Lau called The Warlords.

Much was made in the press about how this was not a fighting role for Li. It maybe true that he does less fighting than acting in this one, but it would be false to give the impression he didn't use his Wushu skills.

The Warlords is directed by Peter Chan. Last year saw the American release of his stylized overblown Wuxia pan fantasy film The Promise. I enjoyed this film that all the grand color and imagery of Hero but was muddled by an embarrassing loony tunes-ish scene with some of the worst CGI I've ever seen. Chan struck back with this film hard.

It is brutal war film that follows three blood brothers on several back breaking military campaigns in china around the time guns first appeared. It tells the same story as the Shaw brothers film Blood brothers but this movie has more in common with Saving Private Ryan. Jet Li has said he took this project because he was tired of seeing "killing made beautiful." Well Jet it's pretty ugly here.

The battles are well done, several cringe worthy scenes would've had a deeper impact on me if I hadn't seen the new Rambo recently. And there lies my only complainant. The DVD I rented at Movie madness seemed to be cropped just perfectly so several times the violence was hidden. I can't believe the filmmaker intended this.

Either way as a pure Kungfu movie fan I was thrilled. As a Jet Li fan even more so. Lets also not forget the gut wrenching performance of Andy Lau.

Also last week Randall, Bru-Dawg and I rented an amazing new Hong Kong gangsta film called Exiled. It was directed by Johnnie To and it was not as brutal as Election. That being said I enjoyed this one even more. It was heartfelt loving tribute to Italian westerns set in Hong Kong. How can you go wrong?

This is Awesome!

I don't have much say except Hell yeah!

Kungfu stars have aligned

To your left Jet, Jackie and Woo-Ping

The Kungfu movie stars have aligned just right for the first time Jet Li and Jackie Chan are working together on a film. At first I was skeptical about the project that despite being filmed in china was going to be written and director by Americans and in English language. The writer is talented having written John Fusco (Young Guns -which is not great movie but could have been worse) and Directed by Rob Minkoff who directed the Lion King and Stuart Little. Say what you will about those kid movies they were well made kids movies. Most important is Yuen Woo-Ping directing the action.

He should have just directed the movie, the man has made some brilliant films as a director – two of my favorites being Iron Monkey and Tai-Chi Master.

Woo-Ping and Jet Li working together always has fantastic results, Fist of Legend was some of the best onscreen fights ever(by anybody), Tai-Chi master over the top like no other Kungfu Comedy and recent fights in Unleashed and Fearless are some of the best in Li’s career. Jackie Chan and Jet fighting on screen should be interesting although I have to admit that It pales to onscreen matches between Jet Li and Donnie Yen(Hero and Once Upon a Time in China II)

The film is called Forbidden Kingdom and has an American kid falling through some kind ring/closet type thing into the story of the Monkey King(AKA 15th century Chinese classic novel Journey to the west). This story is one of the most important mythologies in Chinese literature and pop culture there just is no Western equivalent. Part Lord of the rings, part Mark Twain the Monkey King is more than just a classic to the Chinese.

As the owner of over Twenty Jet Li DVDs I am a devoted fan to his work more so than any other actor working in the world. I’m not the biggest Jackie Chan fan but I am excited about this project even a little more than I am for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Not that anyone cares but I paid homage to the Monkey King tale in my first novel Hunting the Moon Tribe. The story of the Monkey King is so important to Chinese mythology I just didn’t think I could avoid it. It’s that important. Films have been done based this book (several hundred years old) mostly notably when Stephen Chow of Kung Fu Hustle fame starred in a 1994 production titled Chinese odyssey which had several sequels.

Let’s hope they get it right.