RolandCPhillips Reviews

The Keep (1983)

One of a kind

[7/10 · 2 December 2009]

Romania, the Carpathian Alps, 1942. In this European backwater, a squad of German troops, led by Captain Woermann, occupy an isolated hamlet, with orders to guard the mountain pass. They enshrine themselves in the vast, lowering, Gothic Keep which overshadows the whole valley. Some of the troops make no attempt to disguise their boredom, and despite the warnings from the odd, reticent 'caretaker', it isn't long before two of the restless soldiers prise open part of the keep's heavily fortified interior, seeking their fortune. What they find is something else entirely other… One-by-one a malevolent force murders the men, and the beleaguered Woermann asks for re-location – but instead gets a squad of bloodthirsty SS troops, hell-bent on ferreting out the supposed 'partisan' threat. The local priest forces them to pursue a more investigative, by saying that a scholar, Dr. Cuza, might be able to shed some light on the keep's origins… Cuza, who is summoned with his beautiful daughter in tow, is Jewish. Meanwhile, a mysterious mariner, awakened from afar by a change in the earth, crosses land and sea to get to the keep.

And thus the stage is set for WW2 and man's various grievances and foibles to be played out in mythic miniature. The Keep was Michael Mann's second theatrical feature after Thief, his third if you count (the terrific) Jericho Mile. It pretty much flopped on its original release, and interest in the film is pretty small. There's been the odd screening on TV, a small VHS release in the UK in the early 2000s (when I first saw it), a big fan website being started up, run by a Mr. Stephane Pieter, the odd rep screening, and also a comic book drawn by Matthew Smith. However, the film's hard-to-find nature and its overwhelming oddness in the Mann canon has worked against it. Paramount pictures don't seem to have a great deal of enthusiasm for their film, so it isn't out on DVD yet. Furthermore, the writer of the novel, F. Paul Wilson, has never made any attempt to hide his disgust for the film.

The films is obviously the product of a stressful production in which there were to many influences jostling for dominance. This isn't to say that it isn't eerie, frightening, compelling or thought-provoking, because it's all those things. However, it's never any of those things for long enough. It's often a bit pretentious, boring and never as blood-curdling as Wilson's original book, which was a straightforward, no-frills shocker. What's odd about Mann's film is that while it strains for a sophistication above it's generic roots, it misses out on the un-forced passages of contemplation in the book, where Wilson ruminated on his different character's inner desires. This no-nonsense approach on Wilson's part had a crucial grounding effect. Without it, the film often comes across as a curious fairy-tale (in a bad way), and at other times plain daft. It's hinted at that the soldiers might be there to harness the monster for military use (why else would they be there?), there are nods Vampire mythology (Scott Glenn's magical weapon resembles a vampire hunter's kit and the monster literally feeds on the men) and Romania's relationship with German at the time, but otherwise the film is divorced from any kid of reality or genre. This means that Mann's big idea, to explain the emotional attraction of fascism and then confront the Nazis with the ultimate embodiment of fascism, which proves too much even for them, has no gravity at all: it's just rootless drama with no consistent stylistic grounding. The film's set design and cinematography do help him somewhat, though, overshadowing all the characters like much of Nazi architecture and enforcing the idea that human and supernatural evil share a common ambition to control everything.

Ultimately, the film fails to confront the same challenge all films in the war-horror sub-genre: how can you convince the audience that the other-worldly horror is greater than the evil of man. To his credit, Mann addresses in it in an original way, and tries to say the two are differently similar: the age old evil of 'Molasar' (never named in the film, but listed in the credits and faithful to the book), designed to look like some demonic Teutonic Knight, was born of hatred and a lust for power, much like the Nazis. When Major Kaempffer is finally confronted by the monster, he asks where he's come from, vainly trying to ward him off with a cross. Molasar replies with a weary condescension: "where am I from. I am… From you." This exchange, one of the film's more frightening and atmospheric moments, takes place in The Keeps main entrance, knee deep in the blasted corpses of troops Molasar has just massacred, bringing to mind charred, piled corpses of Holocaust victims.

The Keep is considerably more thoughtful and ambitious than the likes of Outpost, The Bunker and Deathwatch (films it obviously inspired), but in the end it's broken-backed film, because Mann fails to marry of the war and horror genres with the same success he had in matching crime and horror in Manhunter. At times, the film is simply too frustrating, or tedious, to be compelling. The Korean R-Point was a much more creepy war-horror movie, making the grim observation that the horror unleashed on its small island setting is cyclical, like the cycle of war, an idea Mann never touches upon.

However, The keep remains more than just an interesting 'curio' as it's often termed, thanks largely to the scale of the production and some truly draw-dropping visual effects: the Nazi troops passage through the mountain pass in the opening credits, with Tangerine Dream's distinctive score rattling in the background, is a triumph, and the troop's violation of the vast crypt, the 'camera' pulling away for an age, is magnificent. It's up to you if you want to invest the time, energy and money is discovering this little-known, little-loved but memorable film.

Blood: The Last Vampire (2009)

You've seen it before... Do you want to see it again?

[6/10 · 2 December 2009]

Stuck in that limbo between a being decent popcorn movie and a pile of nonsensical rubbish, Chris Nahon's enjoyable but disappointing tale basically conforms to type; it's as exactly as you would expect. This is film-making of the tick-box style. Young, attractive, impetuous and imperilled heroines? Check. Mysterious secret organisations controlling everything? Check. Secret, ancient war between man and beasts? Check. Special powers? Check. Imposing, super-powered female monster who's pretty on the outside? Check? Lots of running and leaping around? Definitely a check.

Actually, the film is a touch better than my sarcastic analysis might suggest, but it's over-familiarity proves to be its Achilles heel. Based from Hiroyuki Kitakubo's short animated feature made in 2000, it's basically a more frenetic adaptation, and though it inherits the earlier film's poor narrative, it lacks the anime's beguiling, sinister atmosphere. This would be forgivable if the new film's other virtues were more to the fore. Chris Nahon has a great technical team and all credit to the designer Nathan Amondson DoP Poon Hang-Sang who create a garish but claustrophobic world, and composer Clint Mansell whose thunderous soundtrack is mostly good fun. There's also a fantastic, old-school, stand-out ruck in a forest-set flashback when Blood's loyal retainer Kato takes on a fistful of sword-brandishing ninja, hopelessly outnumbered but (almost) unstoppable. It's a terrific conflagration, and lays the film's inspiration bare, harking back to the Lone Wolf and Cub movies in it's slightly grubby, grainy camera-work, occasional lapses in focus and in-your-face close ups. Watching the old, wounded man face his foes down with implacable courage is thrilling, and the choreography is imaginative.

Sadly, nothing in the film can quite match it. The rest of the fights are too rapidly staged and edited to be truly engrossing and become messy. Worse, the film's reliance of over-familiar tropes becomes stultifying. It lifts brazenly from The Matrix, Blade, Underworld, Twilight, Push and (unbelievably, in the finale) Star Wars. So much of its plot is recycled it's never very compelling. Worse, the film's 'narrative' logic disappears as it rumbles on. The basic plot centres around Blood's unending search for Onigen, the ultimate demon in 1960s Japan. She gains an ally in Allison Miller's tearaway air force brat, the tale beginning in an American base. A boring but serviceable plot, with an interesting military angle, you might think. Wrong: Nahon and screenwriter Chris Chow just throw incidents onto the screen, the non-existent story a framework for fight scenes. There's plenty of potential: Blood's tortured soul, her dependence on Blood, the references to America's dirty war in Vietnam and the military-industrial complex, Blood's convoluted family history, the allusions to alternate realities, racism. The list goes on, but Nahon has no interest in these themes or the vampire myth, and thunders (put less kindly, blunders) along from set-piece to set-piece. Given the lack of character, there's no real suspense.

The later fights are also run-of-the-mill, one on, in and around a stricken truck and the actual climax suffer from too many special effects: the earlier fights were more down-and-dirty. The demons are also pretty limp villains. One reason the Alien and Predator films remain exciting is because their monsters were make-up, rather that CGI, creations and they just LOOK more authentic. The demons here are just bundles of pixels, and the total failure to sketch the war between them and mankind means we never believe they're dangerous at all. Onigen herself is a terribly bland nemesis, another tall, placid, pale demoness you saw portrayed better in any number of 1960s horror movies. The ending, too, is opaque to the point of being impenetrable. It helps a bit if you've seen the anime, but otherwise is as confusing as the end of Silent Hill: Nahon either wants to leave the ground clear for a sequel, or is just an incompetent storyteller. I got the impression a good deal of footage had been cut out, hence the slightly disjointed construction, to hasten the pace.

However, the film remains a serviceable action yarn, and the first act (on the American air-force base) has a healthy sense of humour. Lower your expectations and you'll have a fun but forgettable time. A group of friends watching the film behind me called it the 'ultimate date-kill' when they were getting up to go at the end. I wouldn't go that far, but I don't think it'll inspire any company to throw themselves into your arms.

The Chaser (2008)

Thrilling, thought-provoking - overrated

[21 October 2008]

Jung-ho has gone to seed. Once a cop in Seoul's police Task Force, he now claws a dubious living pimping out girls of his 'massage parlour' business keeping them, his meat-headed assistant Meathead and sometimes dangerous clients in check with a mixture of sweet-talking, intimidation, bull-headed business-acumen and the odd beating. Imagine the cop out of Public Enemy as a pimp, and you're halfway there. Jung-ho, however, is more vexed than usual (he's a pretty surly S.O.B.) because three of his girls have absconded of late, along with his generous loans. Coincidence or bad luck? Then he gets a call from an infrequent but regular client, a chap identified by his phone number, 4885. The same client the vanished girls were last sent to. Smelling a rat, Jung-ho rushes to the rescue, or re-acquire the prostitute he just sent out to service 4885, that prostitute being a sick but absolutely devoted mother to a little girl. Blessed with both a crook's and ex-cop's savant (and a stroke of luck), Jung-ho quickly tracks down 4885: a placid, seemingly totally ordinary Ha Jung-woo. What Jung-ho doesn't know is that 4885 has already mauled his girl, and done for two Christians investigating his pad. This is an intriguing set-up; the killer is unmasked right at the start thus allowing for an unfamiliar narrative progression as Jung-ho tries to discover the killer's lair, the anti-hero as a sad-sack ex-cop pimp immediately introduces ideas of moral compromise and self-doubt, and as the film unfolds it neatly subverts our pre-conceptions of serial-killer police procedural films.

Bloody, brutal and laced with that Korean tang of black humour, it's a gutsy and exciting film. I admired the excellent location cinematography, great production design which neatly (and convincingly) integrated real locations and genre flourishes such as the killer's doodling on walls, and go-ahead performances which push the film forward. There are two well-choreographed foot-chases trough dimly lit alleyways and for all the stylisation, the film manages to suspend disbelief (for the most part) thanks to the scuzzy, ordinary setting.

Also very impressive is how the sub-plots of the mayor being heckled at a PR event and being daubed with faeces and the legitimate police investigation being run parallel to Jung-ho's feverish efforts. Jung-ho's moral quandary, desperation and slow self-realisation are well-conveyed; we watch him slowly but surely come to see how he is part and parcel of the system that has allowed so many young women to be murdered. The escalating tension is generated not so much by the search for the killer's lair and his impending release but Jung-ho's attempt's to redeem himself through this long, long dark night (and dawn) of the soul.

On the down side, this is also quite manipulative film-making which finally doesn't have the courage of its convictions. Crucial flaws are evident in the way the director uses children to tug at our heartstrings and demonstrate how Jung's paternal instincts are being reawakened. Worse still, the film betrays one of its strongest elements: its killer. Neither terribly charismatic not outwardly menacing, Ha Jung-woo is superbly cast and gives terrific performance, a worthy counterweight to Kim Yun-seok's volatile turn. The film up-ends many of the clichés that surround cinema's mass-murderers, showing it to be a grubby human failing rather than a super-human achievement (re: The Silence of the Lambs, Seven). But as the film continues, it reverts slightly to type, with the powers-that-be deigning the police investigation unfit (thus unleashing the killer on the innocent public again) in attempt to provoke our anti-establishment ire. This change of direction results in a act of bludgeoning violence that is gruesomely compelling, beautifully horrific and rather suspect, since it also undercuts some the sympathy that previously been extended to the victims and gives Jung-ho carte blanche to lather the sh**e out of the murdered, any pretences of moral complexity now having gone out the window. The climax is disappointing: a run-of-mill punch-up that bears too great a resemblance to the finale of Public Enemy. At the end, the film is left poised between gripping, semi-realist policier and a messy, vaguely dull genre piece.

The film's stupendous success at home and rapid international distribution is cheering, but as Memories of Murder showed, film-makers can have it both ways: to be simultaneously entertaining and witty, while also incisive and caustic. The Chaser doesn't get the balance right quite as well – but it's still a very superior, thought-provoking thriller.

Hatchet (2006)

Bloody good fun

[8/10 · 18 February 2008]

Among the precious few only horror films I have seen and truly enjoyed in the past couple of years, this small, low-budget effort became something of a cause célèbre with genre fans, owing to the comic trailers ("It's not a remake. It's not a sequel. And it's not based on a Japanese one"). I was very happy to hear that it was screened at the Frightfest a second year running, apparently due to popular demand. Bravo Green & Co., your film belies its modest resources brilliantly.

While not original, the film makes a joke out of its origins, as a group of tourists go on a nocturnal swamp tour. Inevitably, they are set upon by a dark, deformed being, modelled on the basic backwoods monster, who cuts them down one by one. Ostensibly a horror comedy, the film is beautifully shot and lit, the murky swamp surroundings visualised with deep oranges, reds and yellows. The violence was ferocious but managed to be slapstick as well as frightening, and while the characters initially seem mere fodder, their petty squabbles and ludicrous survival plans made for oddly sophisticated comedy. One scene where they debate about what monstrosity might be hiding in a hedge had the cinema in gales of laughter.

What was most surprising was the element of real terror underpinning the parody: one scene in which a girl discovers her father's corpse and her subsequent hysterics was unexpected, likewise the sudden disappearances and labyrinthine swamp. For all its humour, the film functioned as a true horror film, and a true horror comedy, a quality precious few other - more expensive (no, I'm not a fan of Shaun of the Dead) - productions have achieved.

Tae-poong (2005)

Overwrought, over-acted, over-produced, underwhelming.

[6/10 · 3 December 2007]

A secret cargo of nuclear detonators is pilfered in a daring, bloody attack by ruthless, nation-less pirate Sin. Naturally, this potentially damaging and frightening attack is covered up by the American 'Defence Intelligence Agency', but not before the South Koreans set their own man on trying to uncover the identity of the thieves and their intentions. South Korea is wary in the politically fractious 21st-century Asia-Pacific region of being caught in nuclear crossfire, especially when Japan, China, America, Russia are all vying for supremacy… Thus begins an international game of cat-and-mouse as the volatile Sin (heart-throb and superstar Dong-Kun Jang) is tracked by crack, noble Navy officer Kang Sejong (Jung-Jae Lee) over hill and dale and Kang discovers Sin's plot to unleash a nuclear Armageddon on South Korea, using a super-typhoon to transport his payload. Why is Sin set on this terrifying course? As two heart-breaking flashbacks show, he and his North Korean family attempted to flee to the South in the 1980s, but were turned away and thrown to the unforgiving Chinese and North Koreans; victims in the capricious, unsympathetic diplomacy-game. Sin pledges revenge, but not before he's grown into a wiry, hugely capable soldier with a stern group of paramilitary types around him. Kang is (at first glance) the polar opposite to the tattooed and straggly-haired Sin: clean-cut, calm and proud of his homeland.

As we watch these two alpha-male Nimrods strafe and finally lay into each other, their battle might be understood as an unintentionally funny homo-erotic courtship. When they can no longer contain their raging lust and rip into each in self-consciously spectacular finale, their knife-fight will either be very moving or provoke laughter, since their knives almost become phallic in their symbolism, and the final act of seppuku is almost masturbatory.

Some might find that viewpoint unnecessarily crude and mean-spirited, but the film relies too much on hardware to either engage or entertain its audience. The most expensive South Korean movie ever made ($15 million, or something), this purports to be a serious, if populist attempt to reveal the unknown victims of the North-South divide. However, it's another example of the admittedly very shrewd and successful Korean film industry engaging in commercial one-upmanship, with each new blockbuster being more expensive, more impressive, more accomplished than the first. Typhoon obviously has an eye on the international market given that a good deal of the dialogue is spoken (stiltedly) in English and that the production-values recall a Jerry Bruckheimer or Tony Scott venture. The plot, save the historical context, is also a facsimile of innumerable race-against-time action films which you've seen a hundred of times before.

This would be just another dumb, lumbering spectacle, were it not for the commitment to the material that cast and crew show. This style of film-making is now utterly familiar from South Korea, and Typhoon owes an enormous debt of gratitude to Shiri and Taegukgi, with the threat of devastation and recall of the terrible violence between the North and South Korea. I'm getting a little bored of Dong-Kun Jang's acting style, which basically requires him to act bug-eyed and hysterical, but I suppose this won't change anytime soon, since he's making a mint out of it. Jung-Jae Lee is more subdued but equally disappointing; his facial expressions are quite limited. (Credit to them, however, the poor script hardly offers them much acting range.) Director Kyung-Taek Kwak has this type of male-melodrama down pat, having honed it in the terrific Friend and clichéd but moving Champion. Kwak tries to broaden his male-centric universe by introducing Sin's long suffering sister, who has only ever know suffering. Indeed, her history of sex slavery and drug addiction are likely to get one righteously angry, but not for long because Kwak's un-ending emphasis on the brother-and-sister's misery verges on self-parody. Likewise, the burgeoning 'understanding' between Sin and Kang, but their resolve to complete their separate missions, makes for a lack of real frisson, real hate.

Typhoon, from an unsympathetic Western perspective is just a faceless, expensive behemoth that begs for big office (and got it). I found its greatest failing not the constant dramatic overkill and over-emphasis (which at least kept me watching) but rather it's pedestrian direction. Kwak over-relies on his sets, special effects and production team, all of whom obviously put in the hours, but his action scenes are quite unexciting, especially when compared to the Bourne films, which beg comparison given the globe-trotting and the murky past the characters must dredge up. One knife fight is much like another, as is an explosion, a car chase. Even the final, desperate assault on the hurricane-lashed ship is tinged with tedium since its such a familiar scenario. Typhoon skirts boredom on too many occasions.

The film is not helped by poor editing and pacing, which contrives to leave us with a month-long gap in the story at one point, and a bathetic score which drowns out all the action. The film's only real interest is its staunch standpoint that South and North Korea should be left to resolve their problems unmolested by China, Japan or America, and it also provides a slightly compelling international backdrop. The film's use of real locations and constant hopping across Asia help ground it in a relatively realistic context: South Korea surrounded by real countries. Thankfully, the film-makers don't resort to using especially recognisable landmarks so the film doesn't feel too much like a travelogue.

Basically, the budget, stars and political standpoint make this something like essential viewing for fans of Korean cinema, but they should take warning this is hardly the industry at its best. Viewers in search of both fun and gritty politics should ('scuse the stupid metaphor) avoid it like a raging hurricane.

The Illusionist (2006)

Disappointing but, mysteriously, worth it

[7/10 · 1 May 2007]

When reading the multitude of usual press guff in the dailies, this film appeared to be mature, intelligent period piece, which appealed to me because it tried to combine a conventional story of magic and special effects, with something altogether more adult, namely the themes of government and conspiracy.

Turn of-the-century Europe was beautifully evoked with marvellous ornate sets and locations. The highly-polished and painstakingly lit cinematography portrayed a stuffy and hierarchical society and was aided by superb, understated special effects when master-illusionist Eisenheim stuns his rapt audience with amazing tricks. Burger used his scenario of illicit lovers (as Eisenheim tries to steal his childhood sweet-heart back from the arrogant, sadistic Prince Leopold) as a means of providing an alternative history to the birth entertainment for the masses. Leopold's hatred for Eisenheim is generated not only out of romantic competition or the usurper magician's veiled insults, but by the possibility that Eisenheim might steal the Prince's subjects. Eisenheim's generosity to street children, his rags-to-riches story and his attraction of the people are metaphors for the power of the media to undermine a country's rulers. The magic tricks, perhaps made possible by back projection through smoke in one instance, are early forms of computer trickery which typify much of modern cinematic output.Sadly, these themes are dissipated as the story continues.

The script began to focus on the rivalry between Eisenheim and Leopold over Duchess Sophie, and thus the story boiled down to history of rivals in love. Eisenheim and Leopold became crudely delineated protagonist-antagonist, the former generous and mysterious, the latter cruel and boorish. There is no doubt where our sympathies should lie, and this lack of complexity undermines the film's context, that of a Europe on the cusp of the twentieth-century and inevitable war. Eisenheim and Leopold could have acted as a metaphor for an increasingly fractious political climate, but they simply become duellists.

Nor does the film's plot sustain much interest in the third act. The 'twist' that arrives is not unexpected because of a framing device used at the start of the film and Eisenheim's very profession: we know he will save his greatest magic for the end, and it won't be on stage. Furthermore, the subsequent interpretation of Eisenheim's masterstroke by policeman Uhl only further detracts for the air of mystery. As a result, the last third suffers from serious dull patches. The film leaves a lasting impression but only on the technical rather than scripting level: the sepia-toning, excessive grain on the print and frequent iris shots all indicate the birth of cinema, taking place inside the film's time frame. This perhaps makes one reflect on the very construction of cinema, and how much it has changed since the 1900s, but it does not make one think of how history is written.

That said, I'm probably taking this much too seriously. Come on people, when was the last time we saw a film that took such care in telling such potentially hokey story, and succeeded in loading it with such thematic weight? Can't think. And for all my complaints, it remained an engrossing yarn. This is worth seeking out – it cast quite an incredible atmospheric spell over me at times – but be cautioned: it is never quite as entertaining as you might want, nor as intelligent.

Hostel (2005)

Like a rotting corpse: plenty of blood and guts, no brains.

[5/10 · 5 December 2006]

When we first meet our pair of backpacking, holidaying American students and their excitable Icelandic travel-pal, they could be displaced from the American Pie franchise. Loud and foul-mouthed, they look to Europe as a means to sate their lusts before flying headlong in the rigours of adult life. All they went from Eastern Europe is to get backed, boozed and bonked. They are, in short, pretty obnoxious, intensely dislikeable for their blinkered hedonism, overall stupidity and Neanderthal attitude to women.

Thus, when they are told of a mysterious, near-mythical hostel in deep Slovenia by a fellow day-tripper, they can't resist finding out about it. Early signs bode well: buffed, nubile women deck the halls and are liberal with their bodies, and the alcohol and drugs appear to on tap. However, they also start to missing, one by one… Becoming increasingly desperate in his search for his errant mates, Paxton's worst fears are met when he wakes up handcuffed to a chair in a veritable charnel house, an unwilling subject for some wealthier tourist to slash up.

Born out of a mixture of hard-core horror, a seemingly intelligent philosophy on the spectacle of pain, the current climate of global fear, memories of frat-boy ramblings and some dubious European post-war climates, Hostel certainly stirred up the press a bit, and also the box-office, out-running King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia – no mean feat for a low-budget sicko horror flick with racy material and no major stars. So kudos to Eli Roth for pulling off a minor coup; he directs with gusto throughout, clearing enjoying this opportunity to make a film that it is once commercial (it clearly aims to take advantage in the post-Saw thirst for sadism) and also smart. The film raises themes about Americans abroad, the nature of tourism and also the reason why we feel drawn to watching violence on screen. Note: it raise these themes, does not examine. Hostel is a failure.

Technically its put together with some punch, and if not very distinguished, it's still a slick, competent package. Roth also wisely places some confidence in an intelligent narrative device: the first forty minutes of the film are larkish and funny, despite the obviously sinister undertones. Having put the audience on the back foot, Roth lets rip with carnage and guts. Sadly, the film never rises above its initial success. For one, the scenes of torture are purely visual and not psychological: they're nasty to look at but not horrible to think about, because Roth and Tarantino never offer intelligent discourse on WHY people pay to hurt others. We certainly come away thinking they're sick mothers, but we knew that already – and they fail to develop a potentially promising allegory on the similarity of real life and cinematic spectacles of violence. Also, the last quarter of the film fails to be very atmospheric, with Roth, his cinematographer and design team failing deliver a compelling environment; predictably, the bloodshed all takes place within a dank, rotting former factory, and one that has no character. There are hints at some sensitivity for the fallout from wars and the USSR, but again, these are never developed. Worse still, the final third of the film turns in a run-of-the-mill escape-and-heroism story, which trivialises everything that has preceded it and might leave some viewers yawning.

There's been some interesting debate about whether or not the film is an extension of fear or xenophobia on the part of American filmmakers, and though Roth has said that he made the film partly to demonstrate American's ignorance of the world around, but what are they ignorant of? Is it that they're wealthy tourists who blunder into dangerous situations after failing to research properly, in which case they're no different from anyone else, or that they just didn't know that Slovakia has a profitable torture industry, and they should avoid it? Is it a parody of American attitudes, or a warning? I can't make up my mind, and that ambiguity is a flaw. The film becomes disgustingly self-righteous in the closing scenes and indulges in stupid bit of revenge violence, and while the survivors appear to have changed, there's no hint that that they've become wiser to the ills of the world, and they're place in it. They'll be just be more afraid when they travel.

That said, there are a number of moments that do work very well: one character killing themselves when they realise they'll be scarred for life; another mocking the hero as he's dragged off ("that makes you MY b**ch"); a torturer gagging his victim when they realise he can speak his language; or a pack of marauding street urchins, who'll bash heads in for sweets. But those are the only moments that really made me flinch or sit up, and amount to about five minutes out of an hour-and-a-half film.

Session 9 (2001)

Excellent psychological nightmare

[8/10 · 5 November 2006]

Welcome to Danver's Lunatic Asylum - until the '80s home to many a poor soul and a fair amount of controversy. Fast-forward to the present, and the place is condemned. It stands rotting and neglected, a relic of a more ignorant age. Its walls are crumbling, the paint peeling, the whole structure decaying under the burden of time - God knows what dwells that within its poisoned halls. Asbestos for one, which is why Gordo's team has been hired. An asbestos abatement crew, they're pros, but not exactly fit for purpose right now.

The team is riddled with anger and antagonism. Phil and Hank glare at each other, Hank having spitefully run off with Phil's girl. Mike is miffed in general, somehow having flunked out of law school, despite coming from illustrious legal family. Brought on at short notice is Jeff, Gordo's nephew, and despite being a pretty good natured, is also a mulleted ingénue, unused to dealing with hazardous material, and also afraid of the dark… Gordo isn't doing great either, since he's reacted to his new baby and oddly, and is showing the strain of a fraught home life. Despite the myriad issues, he accepts the job, and imposes an ambitious, possibly irresponsible, timetable: they have one week to decontaminate the hospital, a scheme crazy enough to land him among Danver's by-gone patient list, because the facility is huge, a vast winding labyrinth of corridors, tunnels, passages, kitchens, morgues, basements, patient 'treatment' rooms and hidden cubby-holes, the perfect setting for a horror film, in other words.

Sadly, this excellent, intelligent film was deprived of a cinema release in the UK, but that by no means proves it unworthy. It is, in fact, one of the best horror/ghost stories of recent times, belying a low-budget with elements often neglected now i.e. a good script, good performances, good control of mood, good characterisation. Far, far too many horror films rely upon gore and flashy camera-work to terrify, but Session 9 succeeds by virtue of good drama. Is Danver's really haunted? It would certainly seem that way, with the overly curious Mike rummaging through the asylums records and uncovering a batch of taped interviews with a distressed victim of multiple personality disorders, whose shrink is slowly digging deeper into her psyche. While the tapes (sessions 1 through 9) are secretly played and more facts emerge, the strained relationship between the men grows more and more volatile, and each man slowly making discoveries and forming suspicions, about the menacing building (which is both paying and possibly poisoning them), and about each other. Has a spirit been released by the men's violation of the asylum, or is it just basic pressure? How long they all cracks? Session 9 was apparently written about the asylum, with filming in there always an intention. Certainly, the building is a character in itself; with its decrepit structure and mysterious, deadly past, it is a convincing visual metaphor for a deranged mind – you could easily imagine someone going mad within it. Perhaps this is what Session 9 shows best, and why it works so well: it demonstrates that the human mind can conjure up horror without any help from the supernatural - ghosts and demons are all in our heads, but sometimes they can burst out if we let them. Technically, the film is excellent. I read some rather snooty reviews that claimed the digital camera-work was a bit scrappy, and that there were still serious limitations to the format at this early juncture. But the film-makers certainly had me fooled, because overall, the film is very polished (admittedly, I saw it on DVD). In fact, the 24p camera lends the film an atmosphere and lustre all its own, the immediacy, occasional (slight) blurring, and available light giving it the impression of really being shot on super-high quality home video, or through someone's own eyes. I think this film demonstrates much better than Sin City or Star Wars how cinema (particularly low-budget cinema) might benefit from the digital medium.

The performances are also excellent. Peter Mullan conveys real desperation and madness as the increasingly disorientated Gordo (though he occasionally goes slightly OTT), while David Caruso, as Phil flailing against the tide as he tries to keep the imploding gang together, is especially good, communicating the working-man's tragedy on show here. On a basic wage, he has hitherto been sustained by camaraderie and beer, but both are in short supply at Danver's. If the film goes slightly off the rails, it's in the ending, which while it felt like a logical and effective conclusion to me, was unnecessarily complicated by the editing and tried too hard to come across as a 'twist', pandering to genre expectations. That aside though, this is intelligent and confident, proof that assured style, quality acting and mature direction can be far more haunting than any Saw or Hostel style wobbly-cams, blood-letting or shock effects.

Another Public Enemy (2005)

Just seeing the SOB get his dues made the experience worthwhile.

[6/10 · 2 November 2006]

I saw this much-hyped sequel against my better judgement. Having seen the original and some of Kang's other films, I knew it would probably be overlong and only intermittently entertaining. In this, I think I was proved right, but I still enjoyed it more than I expected.

The first film diluted it's manic, almost psychotic, intensity with excessive length and a rather flat delivery. For all its beatings, asides on corruption and justice, monstrous acting, coal-black humour and over-heated atmosphere, it was too long and stymied further by a restricted, almost myopic visual style – plus too much shouty dialogue.

This sequel shares many of the same problems. This cinematography is quite disappointing. Despite being shot by Kim Song-bok, who also shot the stylish, colourful Shiri and JSA, the production is restricted to offices, minimalist interiors and homes, all bathed in bland lighting; it is by no mean a dynamic visual spectacle. It lasts almost 150 (longer than the first film), and draws out what could have been an economical, punchy narrative with repetitive speeches on the nature of responsibility and the role of public servants. Worse still is the overall lack of aggression – this is positively tame in comparison to the original, with no chainsaws, knives or bricks in sight. The social commentary is also simplistic. Many of the issues raised and crimes pursued have world-wide relevance but the debate is terribly laboured and simplified here, and thus the film never takes on an epic dimension (which the films of Michael Mann do) despite the long running-time: there's precious little sense of a wider-world, or even a sense of South Korea on the international stage. At times, it resembles a dreary TV-legal drama.

But for all that, I was gripped. The film takes a thoroughly old-fashioned approach to character distinction: prosecutor Chul-jung Kang is the good guy, a tough, utterly dedicated, incorruptible force for good, living a lonely bachelor's life in the pursuit of justice for the innocent, belying the long-hours, derision and low pay. Sang-woo Han is an absolute b**tard who'd kill his own brother, sell-off his father's charitable legacy and even drive-over elderly, well-meaning street-cleaners who tick him off for littering. He's the bad guy, and the friction between hero and villain makes for a tense match, that protracted dialogue cannot nullify.

The film's meticulous attention to procedural detail and male camaraderie is also interesting. The male-melodrama that underlies so many Korean blockbusters (especially Kang's Silmido) is more engaging here, less forced and makes the prosecuting team quite endearing. The film peters out steadily towards the end, and like the first film the climatic showdown is slightly disappointing because it takes too long to come, only here its worsened by a weak, weak conclusion. That said, there are several other excellent action sequences: a ruck at the start between warring schools, some nasty collisions on the highway involving a motorbike gang, and a few more brutal beatings ordered by the chief baddie.

And what a baddie: greedy, self-obsessed, un-patriotic, incredibly arrogant and happy to delegate all his wrong-doing and GBH to his lackeys, he still maintains that his is of noble blood, above all us proles. Just seeing the SOB get his dues made the experience worthwhile.

The Yards (2000)

The type of film we see all too rarely

[8/10 · 29 October 2006]

Leo Handler comes home after a jail stretch for stealing cars. A full-blown Ryker's graduate, he's a bit inarticulate, a bit reserved and frankly at a loss as to how he can earn some decent money to support his ailing mum. He falls in with his old crowd of friends, who ostensibly are a nice enough bunch. His buddy Willie hustles for Uncle Frank, who's head of a company that contracts out to the New York Subway department, mending the trains. You might imagine that to be a proud, honest and responsible profession, but think again. It's an industry riddled with corruption and intimidation, as murky and brutal as weapons-dealing. Payouts, bribes, kickbacks (all under the banner euphemism "looking after people") grease the wheels of this institutionalised back-stabbing, the rot reaching as high as public officials. Sabotage is rife, as are threats and recriminations as the rival contractors vie for the coveted, profitable subway contracts.

Leo doesn't have the patience – or time – to graduate as a machinist, and before long he's accompanying Willie to clandestine meetings where money, or nice clothes and sports tickets, change hands like the most natural thing in the world. But the best laid plans go off the rails: as fiction has proved time and time again, there's nothing harder than trouble for an ex-con to stay out of. Before long Leo is in over his head, when a night-time raid on rival-Waltech's trains goes badly wrong. Leo finds himself wrongfully accused of murder, and there's a cop in a coma. Worse, Willie and his mates go to ground as Leo legs it, happy for him to take the rap and even happier for him to have to get his hands dirty. Leo is pursed not only cops, but also his extended 'family', who want him silenced before he gets caught. The incident in The Yards turns unwanted media attention on the business' sinister policies; everyone's in jeopardy of a grand-duty indictment.

James Gray has been dormant for too long. This is that rare, rare breed of crime film. It's mature, superbly crafted and while brilliantly stylised, design never overshadows content. It's an adult film. Too many gangster films indulge in OTT violence and gloss, revelling in the brutality they should probably condemn as they try to ape Scorsese. The keynote of The Yards is restraint and a sombre tone. The muted colour scheme and precise 'scope framing (kudos to cinematographer Harris Savides) never draw attention to themselves, but along with excellent, plausible art direction create a dark, dangerous world, where the corruption of the train lines spills over into (or better put, infects) the home. The performances, too, are excellent. Mark Wahlberg's mumbling and stoop captures Leo's uncertainty and isolation very well. James Caan and Joaquin Phoenix are also excellent, always hinting at the violence and betrayal that lurks behind their clean-cut image.

Some viewers might be initially put-off by the downbeat tone, but stick with it. Gray conjures up some superb set pieces, relying on incredible sound-design and lighting to create spell-binding tension, all of which is anathema to your regular shoot 'em-up action sequences. With its use of slow-motion, wide-angle lenses, precise lighting and hinting (rather that showing) of the community that lies beyond the home and 'hood, the films creates the impression of small characters struggling against a bigger, wider system that they seek to control. The use of music, notably Holst's Saturn, gives the film a celestial, timeless feel, but this rarefied atmosphere is married off by a feel for Leo's predicament and working-class background.

There are problems. The filmmakers almost overdo the sobriety and restraint to the extent it sometimes stifles suspense, and the narrative climaxes a good ten minutes before the end, even though the coda is moving. But it's still an excellent film, and I can't wait for Gray's next.

Public Enemy (2002)

One tough cop... In a slightly disappointing movie.

[6/10 · 22 October 2006]

Chul-joong is a cop on the edge: under suspicion of corruption, continually reprimanded for under-hand and over-zealous tactics and frankly very difficult to get on with, he's also saddled with a young family to which he is the sole parent (his wife died), and his partner has just blown his brains out when I.A. move in to investigate some of their dodgy cases. Chul-joong is a wild-card: a former boxer, he likes to beat up, slap and humiliate all those who are unlucky enough to cross him, or just cross his path. AND he's just got a new superior who won't take any nonsense or dirty-dealing from his troop, and also likes to punch those who deviate from his view of policemen. Oh, and he's having difficulty moving a cache of drugs he's pilfered, but he badly needs to because his finances are screwed. His life's a bit of a mess...

Just when you think things couldn't get any worse, he has a nasty, night-time confrontation with a madman. When Chul-joong jumps out of a police van in the pouring rain, desperately searching for a place to take a dump, he bumps into dark assassin who slashes his face. Miffed, Chul-joong resolves to catch the SOB and make him pay. But that's easier said than done. I don't think this is really a spoiler, but if you want to approach the movie with much knowledge of the plot, stop reading here. It's made clear very early on who the assailant was: Cho Gyoo-hwan, an ostensibly sensible, affluent and domesticated businessman with a family and steady job - plus a big bank-balance and cushy life. And when Gyoo-hwan sliced Chul-joong, he did so just after having murdered his parents, in a rage after they threatened to withdraw some funding. Gyoo-hwan may look straight, but in reality he's a shifty degenerate, jerking off in the shower as he fantasises over kinky sex, and re-visiting the site of his monstrous parricide to gloat over his mum and dad's rotting corpses. Imagine Patrick Batemen from American Psycho, but with a family.

And thus Chul-joong and Gyoo-hwan, two unstable, violent men, go tête-à-tête, the former quickly convinced of the latter's guilt when the investigation gets going, yet lacking any hard evidence.

This Korean blockbuster was shipped abroad with great credo: a big money haul, some top stars, an established director, exciting, gory material and a great, in-you-face trailer. All of which should fit it quite nicely in the Asia Extreme category. But for all the beating, running, fighting and shouty dialogue, it's actually quite dull.

There are some strong elements. For one, it has several cohesive, continuous themes, such as a blackly-comic meditation on the class divide that pits slovenly cop against suited-businessman, and a gruesomely compelling odour: the film has stench. The film-makers continually emphasise smell: Chul-joong sweats a great deal, there's a gag when a murder weapon is tainted with excrement, the rotting bodies; all thrown into the cauldron that is Seoul in summer. This is a policier with foul BO - an original idea. There's also a tough view on the Korean economy, and thought-provoking contemplations on the role of police, and the nature of the thin blue line: when can you cross it ensure that justice is meted out? Throw in some knock-about comedy, a great rogue's gallery of cops and robbers, some frenetic, brutal fights and much head-banging, and you'd reckon you've got a great, noirish entertainment. Sadly, not quite so.

Director Woo-sook Kang's film all suffer from excessive length and at 140 minutes, Public Enemy just outstays its welcome; there's too much yelling and debate that cuts up the main story arch. Thus the climactic duel, when it comes, is overdue and even though brutal and stupidly bloody, not enough to compensate for the previous tracts of boredom. Equally disappointing is the lack of visual flair. The film has some great, textured 'scope photography, and a compelling use of ordinary locations that root the story in some kind of reality, but one the whole its too restricted to rather boringly lit offices and homes.

That said, the lead performances have a manic integrity. Kyung-gu Sol is the lead and stand-out: piling on the pounds, moustached and sweating like a pig, he's virtually unrecognisable. It's his performance and the antagonism with his rich rival that is the real motor of the movie - it's just a shame there's so much material to distract and detract from that.

It's still a sometimes amazing, brutish ride, and far more aggressive and dynamic than your regular Hollywood crime films. It's also worth seeing for the line: "No one should kill somebody for no reason." You said it!

Peter and The Wolf (2006)

Magical

[8/10 · 14 October 2006]

I saw Peter & the Wolf at its world premier in the Royal Albert Hall, accompanied by the Philharmonia orchestra. That's an electric experience that will be hard to duplicate… But it certainly won't detract from watching the film in future. Is it a re-imagining of P&TW, a reinterpretation, or a modernisation? Actually, it's all three. Peter's stamping ground is visualised in a depressed, cold and windswept forest somewhere in Eastern Europe; it's hard to tell if it's pre or post Soviet economic bloc. It could be any time, and that is the first great achievement of the film. Peter is a wan, pale and sullen young boy, garbed in hoody and dirty trousers, a stroppy kid, the type who lives down the road – yet his surroundings are timeless. It raises the themes of conflict between rural and urban, youth and age and cruelty and compassion with great dexterity. It's an adaptation that speaks both to the past and the present, which is no mean feat.

The plot is well-known and well-worn: the down-trodden Peter escapes the confines of grim homestead and taciturn, unsentimental grand-pappy with his pet duck and a bird with a broken wing (supported by a balloon, in a very nice touch) to go playing in the unbounded, frosty woods. Until the wolf creeps in. After suffering a great loss at the wolf's paws, Peter must rise to the occasion and capture the beast, who is much stronger and more ferocious than Peter is, but less clever… A rites of passage tale and an introduction to the orchestra for children, this version is actually quite gruelling in some respects. Impoverished and inhospitable, Peter's home life is plausibly miserable, and also easy to relate to: his run-ins with better clothed-and-fed peers and ugly hunters convey beautifully the threat of bullies and ignorant adults. Sharp and clever, but morose, Peter is a compelling hero, and the coda with him standing triumphant and grown, will provoke cheering and a quickened heartbeat.

The stop-motion animation is far less slick than that seen in Wallace and Gromit, but extends a naturalistic, un-burnished and at times almost ghoulish appeal. The slightly jerky movements, warped faces and grimy sets combine to create a world at once familiar yet also deformed, blighted by neglect and insensitivity. The animation also works amazingly well with the music, the movements of people and animals alike assuming the beats, leaps and whirls of the instruments. I guess you could call this a true musical, because while the characters may not leap into spontaneous song and dance, the music actually speaks for them. I'm not much of a music critic, nor do I know Sergei Prokofiev's piece (or any of his music, for that matter) at all well, but I still loved the soundtrack. It did sound modern, and had obviously adapted and moulded to fit the film with small nuances and flourishes, but I'm sure Prokofiev would have approved.

Considering the applause the film got, I'm certain no one else minded either.

Renaissance (2006)

Superficial but superb nonetheless

[7/10 · 18 September 2006]

One reason Pixar has endured so well, and been so successful, is that while their films remain technical marvels and visual mosaics, they have a story to match their style. And often very moving style at that: affecting, charming and cross-generational. That a lot Anime (speaking in broad terms) and a great many other animations fail to match their technical virtuosity with real substance is, I think (and I might be wrong) partly because either the makers aren't bothered with character and plot and focus far too much on sound and image, or the sheer effort that goes into making some animations is so enormous, so enervating that they don't have the energy to create a really engaging story.

That same cannot be said of Renaissance. There are flaws in its plot, but I'll get to that later. Those same flaws, however, are not reflected in the visuals - Renaissance is nowt short of stunning. The ultra-high contrast images (sometimes so high-contrast that is nothing but one face or one beam of light visible) and incredible detail are always impressive, always a joy to behold. The futuristic Paris on display is the grim offspring of Blade Runner and Brave New World; dark, murky, quite affluent and even clean, but shrouded in intrigue, corporate malfeasance, obsessed with beauty (capital of the catwalk, after all) and disguising the squalor and neglect of its labyrinthine passages with a veneer of monumental, sophisticated architecture.

It's a compelling environment, not entirely original, but great all the same. The film's much-touted 'motion-capture' technology and incredible attention to human and design minutiae result in images a black-and-white photographer would die for. Not that the detail prevents entertainment, because Christian Volckman crafts some superb action sequences: a hell-for-leather care chase, a couple of gruesome(ly imaginative) murders, several tussles in the dark and a nasty dust-up in a gloomy apartment. The locations are great, too (I want to visit the nightclub). While the central character of Karas is your regular off-the-shelf maverick cop, the other two female characters (who are sisters) are the real motors of the movie. Coming from war-torn Eastern Europe, products of a war, diaspora and a family spat, they're a compelling metaphor for Europe as a whole.

The film is tremendously atmospheric, its dizzying, swooping faux-camera moves and adult tone making for a very engaging experience. However, the plot... It never becomes more interesting than the initial hook, in which indefatigable plod Karas must find Ilona Tasuiev, a drop-dead gorgeous and pioneering scientist, after she's snatched from the street. The sinister corporation Avalon (is ANY corporation ever not sinister?), which she was working for on 'classified', projects are hell-bent on her retrieval, and soon Karas is up to his neck in official reprimands, dead bodies, cigarette-smoke and narrowly-missed bullets, and falling in love with Ilona's sister Bislane (very sympathetically voiced by Catherine McCormack), as he plumbs the depths of the city's sordid underbelly (and his own past).

Text-book noir, in other words, but while I enjoyed the film a lot more than Sin City (to which it bears a passing visual resemblance), the plot and resolution are dull, the theme of immortality being raised but never examined, and the shenanigans of high-rolling Avalon CEO Paul Dellenbach are also dull , undercutting a lot of the dramatic tension. The basic ideas are familiar sci-fi genre materials, and there's a nagging sense that the visuals and atmosphere are disguising the mundane material.

However, the film as a whole is lucid and perfectly coherent, even if some of the scenarios the characters get into occasionally feel like excuses for displays of technical wizardry. But it's the projection of life in Paris circa 2054, the vision of community and creation of another city from the ground up that makes this film something to behold. I may be taking it too seriously, and if that's the case I can at least say that it's superbly made, extremely entertaining (and pretty mature, too), and with an ambiance like no other.

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (2004)

Simple but impressive

[7/10 · 31 May 2006]

There were a great many mixed reviews for Kang Je-guy's film. Several in England lambasted the film as being incredibly melodramatic, overacted, insistent in use of music and visual style, clichéd and manipulative. Less vitriolic ones praised the production values and physical qualities, but again said that this extremely populist film was sentimental and also all-too-obviously riffing on Western war films (in its nervy action scenes and framing narrative), such as Black Hawk Down and, in particular, Saving private Ryan.

I think this is a much better and more interesting film than a lot of people have allowed. There are detracting factors. It's long, self-consciously 'epic', features an OTT, bug-eyed performance from Jang Dong-kun, has a few ropey CGI effects and also has a rather simplistic metaphor for the Korean peninsular (the brothers being divided, natch).

But for all that, this is still a really impressive film. Amazingly shot at times and wearing its heart on its sleeve, it interesting to see commercial cinema be so committed to elucidating a trauma such as the Korean ware.

I think it is manipulative and a touch hypocritical in the way rejoices in its ability to blow stuff up, entertain but and then throw in some anguished scenes of family strife and depict atrocities against soldiers and civilians alike. However, the way it views South Korea as HOME, under attack from forces way beyond the sight of ordinary people is really persuasive; they may be off-the-shelf characters, yet they deserve out sympathy. Also, the way it depicts the Korea being thrust into a cruel modernity and onto the international stage, when all people want to do is prosper and be happy, is intriguing. Yes, its to progress, but did we really have to drub the hell out of other to do it?

The film's attitude to consumerism, capitalism and Westwern powers is mostly positive, but a touch ambiguous. The early scenes that depict a poor but healthy, industrious and extremely optimistic South Korea are a bit boring because they signal the carnage to come, but the film mourns this lost world, before politics and death intruded upon them.

This really is a film about ordinary people, and I like that. It may not be original, but the way it insists upon their situation at the mercy of ideologies, politicians we never see and almighty battles gives some idea of why it was so phenomenally successful in Korea: there's no grandstanding, just trying to survive. This is not historical film-making and history buffs won't benefit because there's no real analysis of the conflict's origins or development.

Taegukgi is extremely commercial, and hence bland at times, shallow even - because while it may show acts of murder and torture from both sides, it only shows those crimes and does not interrogate them.

But it's worth seeing for the scale of its vision, production values and for such a layman's view of fighting. At the very least it's an instructive lesson in bayonet-fencing: the scenes of trench-fighting are brutal as hell.

The Devil's Rejects (2005)

What a ride.

[7/10 · 15 November 2005]

I enjoyed this follow up to House of 1000 Corpses in a way that's hard to express without sounding like a total headcase.

I've read numerous reviews which complement Rob Zombie for the technical virtuosity he displays here, and that this is a big improvement on 1000 Corpses (which I also liked), but that The Devils Reject's is for people who think Charles Manson were paragons of virtue; messianic seers who symbolise a rich an valuable vein of counter-culture. Hmmmm… Straight up, straight down, The Devil's Rejects is extremely violent, gory, sadistic, worrying, profane and seedy. And I loved it. It's hard fast, tough and dealt out with a brio that is hard to find in any cinema, anywhere in the world. Great praise must be directed towards Phil Parmet's tremendous Super 16mm photography, which is grainy and visceral, colourful and gruesome; he transforms the parched landscape into almost surrealist terrain. Anthony Tremblay's production design is also absolutely superb, creating the world of 1970s Texas with great detail: it's really convincing and thus when the characters run around like headless chickens, the art direction makes it look all the more convincing.

The film also takes no time to get going: the narrative starts immediately. Five minutes in, we're in the middle of a brutal gun battle, with the beleaguered Firefly family trying to ward off the emissaries of the Texas Rangers in Ned Kelly style armour. Suffice to say, it all goes to hell. Several of the Rejects are killed, and Momma Firefly is captured. Two, however (Otis, and Baby Firefly), make a break and go on the lam, meeting up with the iconic Clown Captain Spalding. Thus the stage is set for the ultimate, hellish road trip, with the three surviving members of the brood trying outwit just about everything the States of Texas has to throw at 'em and the increasingly demented Sheriff Wydell, who is being haunted by his brother, a previous victim of the Rejects.

The Firefly Family kill whomever they want to and whenever they please. Meet them, and they'll scrag you before you blink an eye, or after they've tormented with vituperations about haw much of a loser you are, or just torture you. The family has, apparently, amassed a record of MORE THAN A THOUSAND MURDERS. Move over… Well, just about ANY serial killer. This family is the ultimate in unmitigated monstrosity and unprovoked murder. They really kill just 'cause they hate everyone – and I mean everyone.

Rob Zombie has certainly improved as film-maker since 1000 Corpses: this is a more accomplished, homogeneous, aggressive and accomplished work. It's the work of a real film-maker and it's had to fault his basic nuts-and-bolts assemblage of cinematography, editing, design and music. His frame of reference has also expanded because he riffs on Leone, Peckinpah (specifically The Wild Bunch), Bonnie and Clyde, (maybe) Badlands, as well as the old faves (such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Deranged). His narrative also seems to be structured around homage, following famous conflagrations or serial killers: The Alamo, Gacy, Ed Gein, or Anthony Perkins from Psycho.

It's quite a ride then – and the soundtrack is a killer: Allmanns, Lynrd Skynrd, Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, Buck Owens to name but a few.

However, I can well understand the arguments against the film. Some have argued that Zombie celebrates the Firefly family, seeing them as rebellious, non-conformist and individualistic, who reject any form of suppression. They might be a bit excessive and bonkers, but they're to be supported and followed in their total rejection of any form of authority. I can appreciate how people might see it that way. For one, I didn't always like the actors: I thought the like of Geoffrey Lewis and Ken Forsythe (why isn't this dude more famous – he's almost as cool as Clint!) eclipsed the Firefly Sheri Moon Zombie and the others. They were just more layered and convincing as performers. Also the film is certainly over-balanced in favour of the Fireflies: we never really learn much about their apocalyptic antics prior to what we see in the film, and the forces they're fighting against, such as Sheriff Wydell are straight-lipped Dirty Harry types who basically want to stop the Fireflies mucking about. I certainly didn't think Zombie made the Firefly repellent enough (they are truly evil people) and I think it would have made the film more powerful if the Fireflies were villains rather than ambiguous heroes, since there would have been no-one to root for.

But still, I really enjoyed this. It was a real adrenaline rush, always inventive and full of incident. True: it kind of rejoices in a form of evil, but lacks the sophistication to really ram a message like: "violence and death are cool – go hurt someone!" Perhaps I should be grateful that Zombie never succeeds in saying something like that, because then I'd need to certified and I'd also probably have been watching a snuff film. Whatever you do, don't take it seriously. Hopefully, R.Z. doesn't want us to take it seriously – just enjoy it like horror aficionados.

But this is still and ride to remember.

The Clap (2005)

A great looking, great sounding short

[8/10 · 17 October 2005]

I really enjoyed this short, which I saw at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

It follows a classical music fan who becomes devoted to a preening concert pianist, Krzysztof Veneer, but this relationship is different from every other fan infatuation, given the fan's particularly irksome way of showing his jubilation.

At the end of every performance he attends, the Clapper does what his name suggests: he claps, obtrusively. His encyclopaedic knowledge of all things musical means he can second-guess the performer and other spectators, and clap precisely at the moment the performance ends. This means his (very loud) pair of hands are the first to be heard on any recordings of the music.

However, Veneer grows incensed with the Clapper's excoriating intrusions at the end of his playing, and following a brusque altercation, resolves to fight back and turns the tables of the Clapper, by using music….

'The Clap' looks and sounds great. It's very elegantly shot in 'scope, and has a great sense of atmosphere and place, with the shots of London at night and the concert hall interiors being particularly evocative. The performances are great too, with both Steve Furst and David Bamber giving their all in roles that are eccentric, to say the least. The classical music is also superb; that which is chosen is superbly integrated and the original score (by James Francis Brown) is buoyant and very easy on the ear.

It also succeeds in being quite touching, since any fan who idolises any musician (or writer, or director, or singer etc. etc.) will be able to relate (to a certain extent) to the Clapper's obsession, and his fastidious cataloguing of his musical collection and maintenance of equipment.

It's a slight fable, maybe, but a wholly likable one, and it will have you in stitches for most of it – and smiling for the rest. You have to hand it to the film-makers and producers for achieving such a polished short on such limited resources.

Seek it out! (The production company is BreakThru Films)

Silmido (2003)

Melodramatic almost to a fault - but intense to the end

[7/10 · 6 May 2005]

This one shouldn't be seen while feeling vulnerable.

In 1968, a group of 31 death-row prisoners were selected by the South Korean military with the intention of crafting them into a super-tough unit to slash the throat of the North's President, in retaliation for a similar attempt by the Communist government.

The endured an unspeakably gruelling training, but became the ultimate fighting unit: no past and no worries about the fate (just as long as they don't get captured). However, at the 11th Hour, the South Korean government altered policy and retracted the standing orders: no go on the mission. So the condemned men, 'Unit 684', who lived, trained and survived together were left with no purpose, and were a potential powder keg on the diplomatic level… I expect you can guess what happened next.

This movie went stellar in Korea, and given the success of films like Shiri, JSA, Taegukgi and Champion I can appreciate why. This is concerned heavily with national identity, loyalty, responsibility, duty, faith and friendship. It's also gutsy, violent and tough – so much so you might end up feeling you've trained with the men themselves. One of the strengths of Woo-Suk Kang's film is that it's engaging: you feel like you evolve with the men, that you live with them. Is this isn't brought about by any particularly subtle techniques, but by cinematic brute force. The film pummels you over the head with images of torment, crushing, bombastic Hans Zimmer-esquire music, gunfire, widescreen effects, explosions, and close-ups of bodies smashing rocks.

It's melodramatic to the bone. OTT, posturing and hard to take seriously.

But for some reason, I was moved, and impressed. Despite it's excesses and bombast, the film gets under your skin. The issues surrounding the country's responsibility to the men it sentences, then entrusts with its dirty work are raised, but not properly examined, ditched in favour of loud speeches and actors being manly. But the film's resolve to take itself absolutely seriously pays off. Despite the length and tracks of boredom that set in, director Kang's decision to milk scenes for all their worth makes you care. And you will be moved for the men.

There is also some genuine food for thought. The film lacks the scale to examine some of its more controversial issues properly, and the villains it creates are your basic dispassionate men-in-high-places-in-suits, but the betrayal wrought on the prisoners is made more complex by the changes in some superiors' characters, and by the ideas of bravery and cowardice that are briefly raised.

I find it slightly dispiriting that a Hollywood-like lack if complexity has seeped into some of South Korea's film (e.g. Shiri, Tube, Taegukgi), this is an angry dog of a film, committed to the men it depicts. I'm sure major historical liberties were taken, and for Korean cinema, sample Save The Green Planet above this, but this still an accomplishment, and a tough experience.

Oldboy (2003)

One for the kiddies and your intellect

[8/10 · 5 December 2004]

Once you've seen this, you're going to be thinking about it for a while.

No, you won't simply be unable to forget it because it's unpleasant and blowtorches itself onto your memory; it's the thematic and character implications that remain memorable.

The film's premise is well known: Dae-su Oh is a philandering businessman and irresponsible father. Basically an a**hole, he has the rug pulled out from underneath him when, one rainy night, he's abducted and imprisoned in a private jail: no cause or authority given. Finding himself alone in a dingy room, and enjoying no human contact save dodgy food, kicks and gassing from his anonymous captors, Dae-su Oh starts to grow (unsurprisingly) unhinged.

Who did this to me? AND WHY? WHY? WHY? And Dae-su Oh gets plenty of time to ponder that question, because he is caged for some 15 years. During the interim, he has nothing save for the TV and some pads of paper for company. From the telly, he sees he is the prime suspect in wife and child's murders, and is now a wanted man. A seething bundle of psychosis by this stage, he begins to practice boxing, using the wall (yes, the wall) as a punch-bag, tutored by a TV sports programme. It Bart and Lisa from The Simpsons watched what he watches, one dreads to think…

But then, Dae-su Oh is suddenly released, no reason given for this sudden ejection. Then, his nemesis gives him a wodge of cash, a mobile phone, a suit and a three days to find out WHY he was kept locked up. And Dae-su Oh is going to find out.

Chan Wook-Park's film has courted plenty of controversy on account of its graphic, almost comic-book style brutality, as Dae-su Oh beats his way through a long list of suspects. One seen in particular, when the exhausted Dae-su Oh scoffs a live squid in a sushi bar, has generated condemnation (personally, it's his table manners that offended me).

To get the most out Oldboy, you have shed any preconceptions and fears: take the plunge into one of the most twisted situations imaginable. Park quite literally turns the world upside down for Dae-su Oh, and I think his greatest achievement here is that the audience is likely to feel just as stricken and abused. Constantly the boundaries of your taste and integrity are confronted. Aside from the violence that Dae-su Oh wrecks, hungering for retribution, Park throws in a number of gut-wrenching situations that are intensely personal for the characters and for us as well. Oldboy is a film that has its head in the clouds and feet of the ground. Put simply: Park keeps this horribly, oddly easily to believe, because character generates incident.

However, I read in an interview that Park apparently comes up with his film plots in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette. It shows. Though hard to explain, Oldboy is not a homogeneous work. The narrative is sprawling and visual style, while frequently amazing, messy. Oldboy tends to ramble.

Worse, this is never as devastating as Park's second film Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance. It's as though Park took the flabby, humanist message from JSA and injected it into the disturbing premise of SFMV. Park tries to do too much in Oldboy, trying to marry thriller and complicated story and even moments of laugh-out-loud comedy, and it doesn't hang together.

Thus we are left with a bunch of moments, which are by turns repellent, monstrous, devastating, funny, upsetting and touching. Oldboy has one cohesive element, though: improvised weapons and torture methods. Toothbrushes, knives (classic), scissors, claw-hammer etc.

But I recommend you watch Oldboy. In the third act Park conjures up several amazing scenes that reveal the origins the animosity has led someone to exact a monstrous revenge against Dae-su Oh. If light is shed on the story, then the mental turmoil and confusion remain, best conveyed in a brilliant, Escher-like sequence.

Oldboy will stick with you. I won't and can't try to explain what's it really about and what it means, but any and all who see it will experience something different.

And to end this review, I'll say the climax presents a moment that is the epitome of human degradation and pain.

Saw (2004)

Bark, no bite

[6/10 · 27 November 2004]

You can believe a certain amount of the hype surrounding James Wan's shocker. It's gory, gruesome, garish and does succeed in plummeting the audience into some butt-clenching scenarios. There is also a semi-interesting narrative, as various character arcs dovetail. But Saw doesn't have the courage of its convictions. Finally, it's a damp squib of horror flick with a promising start.

The Jigsaw killer has evidently taken inspiration from Seven's John Doe. He's never directly 'murdered' anyone – depending on how you define murder. Instead, he places people into a revolting situation: if you don't undertake the unthinkable you die. To escape a gory, grotesque fate, you must do something horrible. I could give you a detailed example of Jigsaw's plans, but I'll just throw these words at you: razor wire, slow-acting poisons, important items that have been force-fed and (my personal favourite in the best bit) jaw-breakers…

Some may be enticed with the film's ballsy stance. I was, certainly. It's been a long while since cinema, whether it be mainstream or independent, has truly gone for abject horror that is not simply gore, but thematic. I'm talking about something revolting, something prepared to send the audience reeling. Something that rejects taste and intends to appal. I wanted to see a film like that. He he he he he… There haven't been many really go-for-the-gut-and take-the-head-for-afters horror flicks since the '70s. Well, that's what I think, and I thought Saw could fill the void. I was wrong.

The first third of Saw is promising, to say the least. Jigsaws actions are introduced in a neat flashback technique, and the opening moments are the equivalent of kick to the head. The film forces you against the wall with a battery of editing, flash images, monstrous carnage and some terrifying moral implications. AND THEN IT BACKS OFF!!!

Saw becomes tiresome. The twists and turns aren't particularly surprising, not do they add to the film's impact, and slowly but surely, Wan trivialises the monstrosity of his set up, resorting to classic race-against-time plotting and an unimaginative ending. The film's cinematography and production design are fine at the start, but they fail to build on the urban Gothic themes, so what you see in the first act is about all the film has to offer stylistically. The characters are your stock types, and all credit to the actors for having real gumption: they look the part and manage to portray unthinkable suffering very well.

But ultimately Saw is not a film that'll haunt you, because it loses sight of its terrifying premise, failing to make it really possible to the audience. You won't come away thinking: 'that could happen to me'.

The films feels sealed inside a bubble, unable to escape into the auditorium, which is what films like The Living Dead Trilogy and Rabid (to name but a few) did. In short: maybe enough for a night out, but nothing to take home.

Universal Soldier (1992)

Admit it – you enjoyed it.

[6/10 · 18 October 2004]

Okay, okay: it's as macho as hell, questionably acted, pretty brutal and not particularly imaginative. But it has faith in itself. Please don't think I mean to give this B-movie any real grandeur, but it does know how to get the blood pumping. If the action sequences are nothing new (cribbed from Arnie and Mad Max flicks), it pushes them home with a relentless logic, and the production values are fine.

There is an element of self-parody, thanks largely to Lundgren's engagingly OTT psychotic turn (he's the best of the bunch) and the film-makers have enough nouse to make JVCD rely on his ability to kick the life out of everyone.

Plot means nothing, the film is nasty, the semi-moral/sentimental tone that descends towards the end is pretty offensive and it's derivative.

But admit it - you enjoyed it. Hell, I thought it was a laugh.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Yee-Haa!!!

[7/10 · 29 September 2004]

Okay, first: this isn't as good as the Romero original. It does away with the vast majority of the thematic impact, symbolism and subtext. It's less distressing and less troubling.

But it's absolutely fantastic entertainment. Zack Snyder gets much of the exposition out of the way a.s.a.p. and includes some impressive photography to demonstrate how the characters cloistered lives are about to explode with unfathomable events. Then he holds the survivors up in a deserted mall, surrounds them with the undead and lets the flesh fly. It takes a different enough approach to stand independently from the original.

Sure, DotD doesn't show any great narrative flair. Of course its pacy and exciting, but is powered by incident: action sequences and dilemmas keep the action bowling along, not thematic issues. Furthermore, James Gunn's screenplay is fairly conventional and there are perhaps too many characters here. But I say again: it's fantastic fun.

Crash, bang and wallop. People die in large numbers. Guns go blam. People do stupid stuff in Armageddon. And there is a bucket load of sick humour. Plus stupid gags about obesity and the cult of celebrity (DIE!!!).

Those of sensitive disposition/easily offended would do well to avoid this because Snyder takes no prisoners and makes no concessions. This is tailor made for the anti-establishment or (more likely) the GoreHound Gang. Either way, you're in for a ball. The film has great energy in pushing things forward to an unpleasant conclusion, never relenting and constantly pounding you with sound and fury. Matthew F. Leonetti contributes great cinematography, shooting everything in an appropriately rotten colour pallet, Tyler Bates scores excoriating music and Ving Rhames (great) and Sarah Polley (just as good) go through hell with heads held high. And numerous obnoxious characters get scragged.

I could give you a better idea of the scenario and story, but I won't. Just get the DVD, a load of friends, plenty of beer and Chinese take-away, sit back and relax – and be battered. Some may take that as a warning, so beware that this isn't a particularly pleasant experience. But what did you expect?

Note to film-makers: I loved the use of Johnny Cash in the opening credits.

The Punisher (2004)

Aberration of the comics, but an entertainment

[6/10 · 28 September 2004]

The chief virtue of this otherwise flaccid and frankly lame film are two pretty great fight scenes that involve Castle mutilating two of the myriad assassins sent to annihilate him. Obviously, said hit men aren't avid Marvel readers.

Okay, okay, I know I shouldn't be so scornful, I just feel a bit hard-done by. I've been an avid reader of this psycho vigilante for a while, and quite frankly this film doesn't come close to capturing the central darkness. The rebuke to my disappointment will be that I can't expect to have a character worked on by so many writers to be placed cogently on the screen in all his disturbed glory. But I think I can. Otherwise why bother to make another film about revenge?

A number of problems surface early. A (relatively) low budget, relocation to Tampa (thus losing the engrossing urban alienation/Gothic themes), some hoary contrivances (Castle's Dad having an arsenal at hand), Castle's background being very sketchy, off the shelf dialogue, leaden editing and a lack of brutality. Regardless of the much-touted opening massacre and R/18 rating, the film's tame and not particularly graphic. No comic-book nastiness here.

Worse, the actors have nothing to work with, and the cast IS pretty decent. It is to the credit of Jane and Travolta that they lend their characters an intensity and confusion not mirrored in the script. Will Patton, as henchman Quentin Glass, makes the greatest impression with a more layered persona. This version also lacks the fetishtic element of the Dolph Lundgren version, though it manages to bypass the camp, and it goes without saying the inherently evil, narcissistic and psychotic nature of The Punisher's actions goes unexplored.

But if you're looking for a beer and pizza movie, then this is an okay night out, that almost gets the seductive edge of a tawdry B-movie working for it. Despite dull patches the fights do have a faintly sadistic edge, Conrad W. Hall's cinematography is colourful and understands the need for a comic-book pallet, and there is humour to be found in the albeit condescending presentation of The Punisher's loser neighbors. Plus, the filmmakers leave enough questions hanging to provide material for a sequel, which isn't an unwelcome prospect.

Hell, I'll admit it, I enjoyed it. And there's that bit with piercings… ow