Taslim plays Ito, a former triad enforcer must protect a young girl while trying to escape his former gang, setting off a violent battle on the streets of Jakarta.
The Iko Uwais Team (Headshot), headed by Uwais (The Raid) and Very Tri Yulisman (The Raid 2), is delivering the film’s fight and action choreography.
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray for David Leitch and Chad Stahelski’s John Wick (read our review), starring Keanu Reeves.
Reeves plays John Wick, a retired assassin who now leads a peaceful lifestyle. But when a series of unfortunate events distort his daily routine, Wick has no choice but to revisit his sinister past and go on one hell of a kill crazy rampage.
John Wick also stars Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Willem Dafoe, Dean Winters, Omer Barnea, Adrianne Palicki, Toby Leonard Moore, Daniel Bernhardt and John Leguizamo.
While we’re all anxiously waiting for a possible The Raid 3, Gareth Evans (Merantau), the creator of The Raidfranchise is currently putting final touches on his latest film, Apostle(read our review), which will premiere on Netflix on October 12th.
Apostle follows a man who travels to a remote island and attempts to rescue his sister after she’s kidnapped by a religious cult. The group demands a ransom for the sister’s return, undermining the man’s resolve to rescue her (via Deadline).
In a recent interview with Impact’s Mike Leeder, here’s what Evans had to say about the project: “Apostle is a period mystery thriller set in 1905, Edwardian England… It was a conscious decision to do something outside of the action genre, sure. For me I’ve always been a fan of all cinema and so, regardless of the fact that action has given me the good grace and fortune to carve out a career for myself, I’ve always said I wanted to explore other genres,” Evans added.
Apostle stars Dan Stevens (The Guest), Michael Sheen (Underworld), Lucy Boynton (Sing Street), Bill Millner (Son or Rambow) and Kristine Froseth (Rebel in the Rye).
The other Evans project in the air is Blister, a “contemporary American gangster story with echoes of The Wild Bunch,” according to Evans. The film was intended to begin production this year, but has been pushed back and currently remains in limbo. Evans is also in-talks to write and direct a live-action adaptation of DC Comics’ Deathstroke, as well the crime drama series Gangs of London for HBO’s Cinemax and Sky Atlantic.
Visionary director Park Chan-wook (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, The Handmaiden) is getting ready to unleash a six-episode AMC/BBC mini-series based on John le Carre’s spy novel The Little Drummer Girl.
The series follows Charlie (Florence Pugh), an actress whose vacation misadventures walk her right into a global intelligence role that forces her to take on a literal deadly role. Alexander Skarsgård co-stars as Becker, an Israeli agent tasked with bringing her into the international plot, and Michael Shannon as Becker’s dangerous boss Kurtz (via IW).
The series is slated to debut in the U.S on AMC as a three-night television event with a two-hour episode on November 19th at 9:00 P.M. ET/PT. Additional two-hour episodes will air on consecutive nights at 9:00 P.M. ET/PT on November 20th and November 21st (via Collider).
The Little Drummer Girl was previously made into a feature film by George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) in 1984, which starred Diane Keaton (The Godfather) as Charlie.
Director: Jeremy Saulnier Cast: Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgård, James Badge Dale, Riley Keough, Julian Black Antelope Running Time: 125 min.
By Kyle Warner
In days like these, when seemingly every other person in Alaska has their own reality TV show and the powers that be plan to put oil pipelines all across the land, the state of Alaska is losing some of its rugged, dangerous appeal. But in the deep dark woods of the state, you can still find some of America as it once was, wild and natural and unknown. That’s where Hold the Dark takes place, in the pitiless wilds of Alaska where predators rule and industry has left the land largely untouched. Jeffrey Wright’s hunter is called in to explore the deep dark of the woods, looking for something menacing that lurks there. However, as Hold the Dark progresses, our understanding of the ‘dark’ changes, and the movie becomes less about exploring the deep dark of nature and more about the deep dark of the human heart.
The Sloane child is taken. The boy’s mother, Medora (Riley Keough), believes he is the latest in her small Alaskan village to be taken by wolves. When the search yields no results, Medora Sloane wants revenge, and calls upon nature writer Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright) to come in and kill the wolf that took her son so that she will have at least something to show her husband when he returns from war. “I know you have sympathy for this animal. Please don’t,” she writes to Core. And indeed, Core is more of a man of nature than he is a hunter of it, but he agrees to help if he can. “Help explain what happened here.” From early on, Core has reason to believe that Medora isn’t all right, but he chalks this up to her dealing with grief in one of the loneliest places in the world. As Medora stares out the chilled glass of her little cabin, she asks Core, “Do you have any idea what’s outside those windows? How black it gets? How it gets in you?”
Medora’s husband, Vernon Sloane (Alexander Skarsgård), is introduced to us during his service in the Middle East. He is a cold, efficient soldier, who barely says a word. When he walks in on a fellow American soldier raping a local woman, Vernon calmly takes out his knife and stabs the man, then hands the knife to the woman for her to finish the job. A bullet wound knocks him out of the war and sends him home early, where upon he must face the news that his son is dead and his wife has suddenly gone missing.
Core is very much the audience’s surrogate, putting together the pieces, asking the right questions, and nervously continuing towards the darkness. And because of this, it is surprising how much of the film is yielded to Vernon Sloane and the local lawman played by James Badge Dale (who has never been better). It’s a quiet film full of implied meanings and dark questions (12 hours later I just thought up a holy shit possibility that changes everything, the details of which I cannot share for fear of ruining too much).
Hold the Dark keeps you at arm’s length for a very long time as you try to figure out just what it is. As a fan of director Jeremy Saulnier and a fan of man vs nature movies in general (go nature!), Hold the Dark has been on my radar for a long time. Watching the first trailer, I thought it was going to be a mix of The Grey and The Wicker Man. Well, it’s not that at all. It has so much genre DNA in the mix – adventure, thriller, action, horror, thriller, existential cosmic dread – that it’s a difficult movie to pin down as you’re watching it. On the surface, Hold the Dark is simpler than it seems at first. But once you dive below, you find that deep dark heart full of complexities and unanswered questions. There is a lot of subtext here, some of it horrifying. And because so much of the film lets its meaning be implied rather than stated, it is likely to lose some viewers along the way. It does end in a sort of ‘wait what?’ fashion but as I let the movie digest I came to appreciate this finale more.
The performances are largely very good. Jeffrey Wright (Casino Royale) has long been one of Hollywood’s most underappreciated actors and he sells Core’s everyman vulnerability well here as he is thrust into a mystery he’d really rather bow out of. James Badge Dale (Iron Man 3) has a cool, blue collar working man quality to him that reminds of Roy Scheider. He enters the film later than the rest of the main cast but takes over almost every scene he’s in without a need for chewing scenery. It’s a seemingly effortless performance. One scene in which Dale tries to talk down a suspect played by actor Julian Black Antelope (Blackstone) is one of the best acted scenes in 2018 cinema. Riley Keough (Mad Max: Fury Road) continues a string of interesting supporting roles as the grieving and strange mother Sloane. I was less impressed by Alexander Skarsgård (Big Little Lies), who whispers his way through the movie. Skarsgård is better when he says nothing (which, to be fair, is pretty often), as he has a quiet stillness to him that makes his character’s cruelty seem all the more chilling.
Over his first three features, director Jeremy Saulnier was noticeably improving as a filmmaker with each new film. Blue Ruin was a big step up from Murder Party and Green Room was a big step up from Blue Ruin (I still consider Green Room the best film of 2016). It would be a bit unfair to call Hold the Dark a step back, but it is the first time where Saulnier’s newest film is not his new best film. That said, it is his most ambitious. Whereas his other films addressed the bloody darkness head-on, Hold the Dark is more ambiguous and (depending on the viewer) has the potential to say more, especially on repeat viewings. The screenplay is written by supporting actor and frequent Saulnier collaborator Macon Blair (I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore.) based on a novel by William Giraldi. Blair continues to be one of the most interesting artists working in film as well, here crafting a great script while also providing one of the movie’s few laughs in his supporting role.
At the center of Hold the Dark is one of the bloodiest, ugliest shootouts in modern film memory. It is ultra-violent and horrific, joining a small but growing number of films that make gun violence into the stuff of horror movies. It’s incredible filmmaking, tense as hell. It’s also a peculiar moment that, if viewed in terms of plot, seems to take up a lot of time from the central story. But I feel that Hold the Dark is more about mood and theme than it is story, and as such the pitiless massacre of the shootout fits right in with the rest. A cold, merciless movie which ends with more than a few unanswered questions, Hold the Dark is bound to divide audiences. But if you’re in the right mood for this particular breed of darkness, there’s an interesting movie to explore.
Director Sion Sono (Why Don’t You Play in Hell?), “the most subversive filmmaker working in Japanese cinema today,” has signed on to direct a Netflix series titled Ai-naki Mori de Sakebe, which translates to “Shout in the Loveless Forest.”
The upcoming series – which revolves around a gruesome triple murder – stars Kippei Shiina (Outrage), Shinnosuke Mitsushima (The Third Murder) and Denden (Cold Fish).
According to THR, Netflix has been investing heavily in original Japanese content. Its local platform boasts the most titles of any of the streaming giants, surpassing even the U.S. with more than 6,000 programs and films.
We’ll keep you updated on Ai-naki Mori de Sakebe as we learn more.
We usually don’t report on comic book movies (there’s better websites for ’em), but here’s a story we couldn’t resist: Gareth Evans (Merantau), the mastermind behind The Raidfranchise, is in-talks to write and direct a live-action adaptation of DC Comics’ Deathstroke, a character created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez.
According to TW, Deathstroke was ranked as IGN’s 32nd greatest comic book villain of all time. Deathstroke possesses enhanced strength, speed, agility, and durability granted by an experimental serum. These include having the strength of ten men, and possessing heightened speed, stamina, endurance and reflexes (via WP).
Updates: “Nothing really went beyond those conversations [in October 2017]. I haven’t heard anything for a really long time,” Evans noted. “To be honest, every time I see an article written I keep wanting to ask, ‘Okay, what is it you guys know that I don’t know?’ Because I haven’t heard anything for a good while yet. So I don’t know if that will ever come back full circle at some point. But I know I haven’t had any conversation about that project for a long time now” (via CB). For now, Evans is prepping Apostle, which will premiere on Netflix in October!
Ready for another dose of organized brutality? On November 20, 2018, Film Movement is releasing the Blu-ray for Outrage Coda (aka Outrage: Final Chapter), a Yakuza thriller directed by, written by, and starring Takeshi Kitano (Mozu: The Movie).
If 2009’s Merantau hinted that director Gareth Evans was on to something special, then 2011’s The Raidproved our point. With 2014’s The Raid 2: Berandal, expectations were not only met, they were drastically surpassed.
Fact is, in such a short amount of time, Evans is an ingenious filmmaker who is on one hell of a creative peak; funny thing is, something tells us the guy hasn’t even reached his peak yet. Using The Beatles as analogy: If Merantau is “Meet the Beatles,” then The Raid is “Rubber Soul;” If The Raid 2 is “Revolver,” then perhaps The Raid 3 will be “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”?
Evans has made his mark as one of the hottest action directors working in film today. And he does it with a limited budget, a foreign language and no big names or stars (which has obviously changed for Iko Uwais).
In celebration of Evans’ cinematic victory, we decided to jump the gun on The Raid 3 (regardless if a Raid 3 ever happens), using a roller coaster of updates from the director himself:
So far, here’s what we know/knew about The Raid 3:
“I don’t have any plans to do The Raid 3 within the next two or three years so I’m going to take a break from that franchise for a bit… I want to do some some things outside of Indonesia for like two films, then come back to Indonesia and shoot The Raid 3. I have another one I want to shoot with him first. Still in the action genre and it’s something that [Uwais] needs to train for for a fair amount of time. You have to make good with some weaponry, my friend,” says Evans (via CO.com, March 2014).
“If The Raid 2 starts two hours after the first film, The Raid 3 will start three hours before The Raid 2 finishes. We’ll go back in time a little, and then we’ll branch off. So for me – without giving too much away – I want to try a different landscape. I want to try to shoot something that’s very, very different from the first and the second one. So visually it’ll look completely different, tone-wise it’ll be very different. So there’s a lot going on there, a lot of ideas going around in my head, it’s just a case of putting them down on paper. We’re in the process of developing it for maybe two years down the line,” says Evans (via DOG, April 2014).
Evans has brought up Scott Adkins on numerous occasions, so you can’t deny that Adkins has a chance of appearing in The Raid 3. Even Adkins himself has tweeted: “I’m officially stating it NOW!! @ghuwevans better me put in The Raid 3!! Here’s what Evans had to say about him: “Scott Adkins I’ve had the pleasure of meeting on a few occasions. He’s ridiculously talented with an all round skillset that combines fight techniques with athleticism and acrobatics. I’m looking for the right project, once I do I would love to work with him on something” (via COF).
There were some imdb.com rumors that suggested martial arts super star Tony Jaa (Ong Bak) may be joining the cast of The Raid 3. Although imdb’s information may or may not be accurate, it’s definitely a 50/50 scenario. Here’s what Evans had to say about Jaa: Tony Jaa is a phenomenal talent. Ong Bak was a major announcement to the industry and to audiences that the martial arts genre was back. Of course there’s been a fair amount of mud thrown around regarding the situation between artist and production company but that’s not for us to know nor is it in any way something that takes anything away from his all round talents. With the right script, the right role and please God no elephants.” But in a later reply with Evans, he said this about the rumor: “That’s just someone posting it up on imdb.com. I have a huge amount of respect for Tony, but I haven’t even put pen to paper on The Raid 3 yet, and it won’t happen for a couple of years” (via COF).
In early 2015, Evans took to Twitter to give us an update (or lack thereof) for the 3rd chapter of The Raid series: “The Raid 3 isn’t going to be happening anytime soon. Ideas in my head. Nothing written. No set date. 2018/19 possibly.”
In a November 2016 interview with Impact’s Mike Leeder, Evans had this to say about The Raid 3: “To be honest I don’t really know. I have an idea and it’s the same idea I’ve had since we were making part 2. Nothing has changed on that front, I just can’t say for sure when I’ll be in the right headspace to do something with it. Whether it was a conscious decision or not, moving back to UK felt like a closing chapter on that franchise – we ended the story pretty neatly (I feel) in part 2. I’m aware there’s an interest for it, and genuinely it is incredibly touching to see people still dropping messages my way asking for it. So never say never, but it’s unlikely to happen anytime soon.”
On September 23, 2018, came some disappointing news for those of us wanting a Raid 3: Here’s what Evans told CB: The Raid 3 was… at one point it was on my radar. I had a full idea. I know what the storyline would have been. But I think enough time has passed now that I think I’m not likely to go back and revisit it. We had a lot of fun making those films, and I think we came to a nice, sort of natural conclusion with [The Raid 2]. And I think sometimes you can have a little bit too much of a good thing.
Updates: Speaking to JoBlo, Evans revealed that The Raid 3 would have been more about the gangs rather than Iko Uwais’ character, Rama:
“I knew what I wanted to do with The Raid 3, I knew what that story was going to be. If I was ever going to make it, it really had to have happened after we made The Raid 2. The storyline was going to pick up – I’ll give you a little bit of it – if you were watching The Raid 2 and rewound from the ending about 15-20 minutes back to when Goto gives instructions to his right-hand man to go kill the police, kill the politicians, ‘kill everyone that we work with, we’re going to start fresh,’ that was going to be the first scene of The Raid 3. It was going to be more about the yakuza than it was going to be about Rama; Rama was not really going to feature in that storyline much at all, it was going to be about the bosses in Japan realizing that someone in Jakarta that represented them started to fuck with the politicians and the police in a country they don’t belong in. It was going to be the fallout from that.”
“It was going to be a 95 minutes, 100 minutes, sort of… escape into the jungles of Indonesia type of thing. But it really needed to be made at that period of time. Four years, five years later to go back and try to recreate that, it felt a bit disingenuous. I made three martial arts films in a row, I wanted to explore other things first. It was always a cool idea, but it stopped being really special for me. The Raid, it gave me an awful lot that I’m very appreciative about, but that adventure is kind of over now.”
Again, never say never, but for now, Evans is prepping Apostle, which hits Netflix in October!
TKO Collection – 3 Films by Takeshi Kitano | Blu-ray (Film Movement)
RELEASE DATE: November 20, 2018
On November 20, 2018, Film Movement Classics will be releasing the TKO Collection – 3 Films by Takeshi Kitano on Blu-ray. This box set includes Violent Cop, Boiling Point and Hana-bi (aka Fireworks).
Violent Cop (read our review): In his explosive directorial debut Japanese renaissance man-cum-comedian-extraordinaire Takeshi Beat Kitano plays vicious rogue homicide Detective Azuma who takes on a sadistic crime syndicate only to discover widespread internal corruption in the police force. Facing criminal charges for his unorthodox Dirty Harry-type methods, Azuma finds himself caught in a web of betrayal and intrigue that sends him on a bloody trail of vengeance. But when his sister is kidnapped by a sadistic drug lord, Azuma’s tactics escalate towards an apocalyptic climax.
Boiling Point (read our review): Ono Masahiko is an unlucky gas station attendant who belongs to a losing junior baseball team. When the local yakuza threaten and capture his coach, he and a friend get more than they bargained for when they travel to Okinawa seeking revenge. This is the second feature film from renowned action auteur Takeshi Beat Kitano.
Hana-Bi/Fireworks (read our review): Former police officer Nishi feels responsible for the shattered lives of his loved ones. His partner Horibe has been crippled in a disastrous stakeout, a colleague is shot dead by the same villain, and his own wife has a terminal illness. In debt to a yakuza loanshark, Nishi conceives a bank robbery to provide for his partner, help the dead cop’s widow, and take one last holiday throughout Japan with his wife and share a final taste of happiness. A highly original crime drama written, directed and starring Takeshi Kitano.
Features:
Violent Cop 20-minute featurette
That Man Is Dangerous: The Birth of Takeshi Kitano
Original Violent Cop trailer
New Violent Cop HD re-release trailer
Boiling Point 20-minute featurette
Okinawa Days: Takeshi’s Second Debut
Original Boiling Point trailer
Hana-Bi Commentary by film writer for Rolling Stone magazine, David Fear
Hana-Bi Making-of featurette
Exclusive Violent Cop and Boiling Point artwork by influential comic creator Benjamin Marra
Violent Cop and Boiling Point Collector’s Booklet, featuring film essay by Tom Vick, the Asian film Curator for the Freer and Sackler Galleries (The Smithsonian’s Museums of Asian Art); cast and crew credits
Hana-Bi Collector’s Booklet, featuring essay by film writer, Jasper Sharp; chapter breaks; stills
The House That Never Dies: Reawakening | DVD (Well Go USA
RELEASE DATE: December 4, 2018
On December 4, 2018, Well Go USA is releasing the DVD for 2017’s The House That Never Dies: Reawakening, a Chinese thriller directed by Joe Chien (Zombie 108)
This sequel to 2014’s The House That Never Dies stars Joan Chen (Lust, Caution), Gillian Chung (Ip Man: The Final Fight), Julian Cheung (The Grandmaster), Vivian Wu (The Last Emperor) and Ting Mei (Unbeatable).
A hundred years after the mysterious murders of the entire Zhisheng household, a cultural relic restorer Song Teng experiences strange events at the ancient mansion. After discovering baby skeletons and weird spells, the intricate weaving of the past and present begin to emerge and reveals a haunting tale of the wrongly deceased still seeking justice from the living world.
While it was Jet Li’s breakthrough role in Shaolin Temple that provided me with my first real taste of Asian cinema, my curiosity was piqued enough that I soon found myself exploring the realms beyond the kung fu genre. As a result, after binge watching the Hong Kong cinema classics for over a year, I gradually began consuming cinema from countries like Japan and Korea. My exposure to Japanese cinema in-particular had mainly been through the written word, with books I owned on Asian cinema inevitably raising names like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu somewhere along the way. While such instances of name dropping provided me with a peripheral awareness of the Land of the Rising Suns cinematic output, my first Japanese movie was about as far away from the works of Kurosawa and Ozu as humanly possible.
“Yojimbo” Japanese Theatrical Poster
Being somewhat of a horror fan, it was while browsing the local newspaper in March of 2001 that I came across the cinema listings for the area, always wedged with a familiar regularity between the puzzle and sports pages. Each cinema usually had its own little box on the page, with the movies and times that were being shown listed within the frame. However, occasionally some movies were given their own little box, usually taking the form of a poster, and some small quote from a magazine such as Empire or Total Film. With my newfound curiosity for Asian cinema, I immediately noticed that one of the small pictures on this particular day was that of an Asian woman, and at the top of the picture were 5 stars – a small text underneath indicating that they were a rating from Empire magazine.
The picture was for a movie called Audition, and best of all, was at the time I had a subscription to Empire magazine, so it turned out I actually had the issue from which the review was taken. As I flicked through its pages, it turned out the writeup was of the kind that today would be referred to as a capsule review. Stuck in a small column on the side of one of its pages, the lack of dedicated space explained why I’d missed it upon my first browse of its pages, when it’d been delivered the week prior. The review didn’t give much away, other than it was an unsettling horror from a director called Takashi Miike, and that if it was showing on a cinema close to you, it would be a crime not to check it out.
“Audition” Japanese Theatrical Poster
Well, that was me sold. I immediately cross referenced the listings on the cinema closest to where I lived, and sure enough, it had a couple of screenings on the upcoming Saturday. One phone call later, any myself and my friend had our plans for the weekend sorted. It’s interesting to me now that, almost 20 years on if I know a Takashi Miike movie is being shown on a nearby cinema, you’ll most likely find me overbrimming with anticipation in the days prior. Back then though, with no prior knowledge of what we’d be seeing, in the intermediate days we gave Audition no further thought. It was simply that movie we were going to go and check out over the weekend.
I still clearly remember the day itself though. The screening was at 6:15pm, and I met my friend outside of the local Odeon multiplex (the same one we’d watched The Matrix a couple of years earlier) shortly before to shoot the breeze for a few minutes before going in. The plan was to watch the movie, then have a few beers in the pub next door. Skip forward a couple of hours later, and while we usually left the cinema declaring that whatever movie we’d watched was a masterpiece, or a steaming pile of crap, after Audition we both strolled out in a kind of speechless silence.
Whatever it was we’d just watched had been a cinematic experience, the kind of which neither of us had ever experienced before. We both had no real prior knowledge of what to expect, other than it was about a widowed man who, on the advice of his film producer friend, agrees to hold an audition for an upcoming movie, which in reality is in fact a ruse for him to find a new wife. On paper the plot already seemed somewhat outlandish, and the setup if anything resembled more of a comedy than anything indicating a horror.
A night to remember…
Even onscreen, the opening third of Audition could well be argued to take on more of a comedic tone than anything close to resembling horror. But then, without the audience even noticing, the tone begins to shift gradually into a territory that, for someone who’d only been exposed to western style horror, feels increasingly uncomfortable and uneasy. The loud shock scares and build-up of music, so much a part of Hollywood horror, were completely missing from Audition, with scenes unapologetically playing out with no soundtrack accompaniment whatsoever. However rather than detracting from the experience, the silence in itself brought about a sense of creeping dread, the type of which it was impossible to put your finger on exactly what it was. As an entry point to Asian horror, I was hooked, even if at the time I didn’t yet know it.
Takashi Miike
It’s difficult to resist the urge to describe such scenes, even the smallest ones, that created that sense of foreboding, however I hold out the hope that there are still viewers out there that haven’t seen Audition, and for that reason I’d hate to reveal anything. In any case, regardless of my readings on the likes of Kurosawa and Ozu, Takashi Miike immediately became my favorite Japanese director (ok, so disregard the fact that I hadn’t seen the work of any others at this point), and Japanese horror became a genre I needed to see more of.
Tartan Video’s grimy “Ring” DVD.
Watching the finale of Audition in the cinema is still as fresh in my mind today as it was back then. Despite it being a subtitled Japanese movie with minimum marketing, the cinema was about half full, which even today would be considered a good turn-out for such a production. Out of all the movies I’ve watched on the big screen both before and after Audition, it remains the only screening that I’ve witnessed people stand up and walk out of. For whatever reason, watching shocked audience members make their exit, somehow only added to the horror and excitement of watching the final scenes play out. The memory of gripping the armrest of the cinema seat, to the sound of “Kiri kiri kiri kiri kiri!”, is not one that can easily be forgotten, and I doubt it ever will.
As it happened, the UK distributor Tartan Video would release another Japanese horror movie on DVD, a little known title by the name of Ring, the same month, and its sequel a few months later. Naturally they were purchased almost as soon as they landed on high-street shelves. Looking back now, I was lucky enough to watch the likes of Audition and the original Ring trilogy with little to no knowledge or spoilers of what terror they contained, and for that I’m forever grateful. Would they be any less impactful if I’d known, or even had a hint, of how these movies ended? I’d argue most likely yes, however in the culture of social media and micro information sharing that we live in today, I’d say it may be almost impossible to not have some idea, which is a shame.
Ironically it was Ring more than Audition which went on to set the trend for Asian horror for most of the 00’s, with long haired pale skinned white ghosts appearing left right and centre. However as much of an influence as Hideo Nakata’s take on Sadako would have on the horror genre, it will always be Takashi Miike’s Asami that will linger in my memory as my entry point to Japanese cinema. It’s a film industry in recent times that frequently disappoints more than it entertains, but regardless of its current state, nothing can take away those glorious few years of the late 90’s and early 00’s, when for a brief shining moment, Japanese horror reigned supreme once more.
The visionary Tsui Hark (Double Team) is back in the director’s chair – this time around, Dee (Mark Chao) is forced to defend himself against the accusations of Empress Wu while investigating a crime spree.
Director: Bong Man-Dae Writer: Lee Chang-Yeol, Bong Man-Dae Cast: Yu Ha-Jun, Jung Min-Gyul, Na Sang-Gyu, Kang Yong-Gyu, Jo Soo-Jung, Lee Sang-Hwa Running Time: 107 min.
By Paul Bramhall
In Korea director Bong Man-dae is something of an anomaly. Even today he remains the only director to successfully transition from the world of erotic B-movies to mainstream cinema. After cranking out 12 titles in the 3 years spanning 1999 – 2002, a snail like pace considering the rapid-fire nature of such productions, in 2003 he helmed his breakthrough The Sweet Sex and Love, which put him on the map as a director to look out for (it was even reviewed by Variety!). Since then he’s gone on to direct the horror Cinderella, and perhaps what could be considered his crowning achievement, with the 2013 gonzo docu-drama Playboy Bong (so called after his nickname in the industry), in which he plays himself attempting to direct a new erotic movie.
A couple of years after the self-reflective Playboy Bong, Man-dae finds himself back in familiar territory with his latest, Trap: Lethal Temptation. Not to be confused with similarly named titles – namely Yoon Yeo-chang’s The Trap, another erotic drama from the same year, the Ma Dong-seok psycho thriller Deep Trap, also from the same year, and of course Kim Sung-hong’s classic Trap from 1997. The plot for Trap: Lethal Temptation shares a striking similarity with Noh Young-seok’s sophomore feature The Intruders from 2013, in that it focuses on a writer who decides to escape to a remote guesthouse in the depths of winter, so that they can concentrate on their writing.
The writer in question here is a script writer played by Yoo Ha-joon (The Prison), who after having had his latest script re-written against his will, decides to get away from it all by heading into the snow covered wilderness for some quiet time. Of course, his lack of creative control isn’t his only source of self-esteem issues, as he’s also just been dumped by his girlfriend of 4 years (whom, in the opening scene, his head is rather enthusiastically between the legs of). It’s in the midst of this tantalizing foreplay that she announces she’s through with him, a clear indicator of his lack of skills in the bedroom if ever there was one.
Ha-joon eventually comes across a guest house in the mountains, albeit one which is so shabby and rundown, he quickly reaches the decision to keep driving and settle for one in the nearby town. However, when who appears to be the grumpy owner’s attractive teenage daughter emerges, offering to throw in meals as well, suddenly the prospect of spending a few days there doesn’t seem so bad. What follows is a strange mix of sexual pot boiler meets psychological thriller. The teenager is played by Jung Min-gyul (who was born in 1990, so is definitely not a teenager), who has to be the only actress with 2 credits to her name listed as High school girl 2 – the first in Confession of Murder in 2012, and again in Tattoo, also from 2015. Koreans simply don’t age.
Ha-joon finds himself becoming increasingly curious about Min-gyul , who comes across as mysteriously alluring, while also playing hot and cold in her brief exchanges with Ha-joon. After glimpsing her heading to the bathhouse one evening, he’s soon crawling along the rusty tin roof to ogle her bathing through a crack in the tiles. While all of this sounds very graphic, it’s worth noting that Man-dae shows very little skin for the vast majority of Trap: Lethal Temptation. As someone who’s been associated with the erotic genre for over 15 years, Man-dae has become something of a master in the art of teasing rather than showing.
Indeed more mainstream blockbusters like A Frozen Flower and The Treacherous show much more than anything bared here. The talent that Man-dae has is to maintain a constant undercurrent of sexual tension, one that’s kept simmering away for a whole hour before anything significant actually happens in terms of physical interactions. Instead of exposed flesh, the narrative takes the direction of making us question exactly what’s happening between Ha-joon and Min-gyul. She begins to frequently visit his room in the evening, initially bringing food and drink, before waking him up to entice him with her body. However whenever they see each other the next day, his questions about their interactions together are met with bewilderment.
He soon begins to question if any of their more intimate encounters are in fact just in his head, a bi-product of his stress at attempting to write a new script, and his obvious horniness. All of this is combined with the fact that she’s only 19 (the age of consent in Korea is 20), and it increasingly becomes questionable if the apparently mute owner is in fact her father at all. In some ways the narrative structure of Trap: Lethal Attraction reminded me of the types of movie that can be found within Japan’s Pink Eiga genre. Movies like Prison Girl also have the audience (and the characters) questioning the reality of what’s happening, and while the promise of some sexy scenes is what these movies are sold on, the filmmakers behind them often use the genre for more ambitious storytelling.
Trap: Lethal Temptation is never going to be mistaken for an unknown masterpiece, however the plot offers up something much more than just city guy and countryside girl getting it on in the woods. Man-dae incorporates some nice touches of black humor along the way, such as when Ha-joon cuts his foot on a severed chicken head, that the owner had previously thrown away when he was cooking it for dinner the previous day. By the time the truth is revealed behind Min-gyul’s interactions with Ha-joon, it becomes clear that he’s gotten in way over his head, and that neither the owner or Min-gyul are to be trusted.
With that being said, there’s no denying that Man-dae’s latest is a low budget affair, and sometimes it suffers for it. At one point Min-gyul disappears from proceedings all together, only for her to show up and have Ha-joon tell her how much he’s missed her. Quite where she’s gone and how long for is never clearly explained, making it difficult to ascertain how much time has passed, especially considering the short period that Ha-joon is staying at the inn. Such instances are indicative of a likely rushed production schedule, and while they don’t damage the narrative overall, they do result in some mild head scratching.
Her return significantly sees her long hair chopped off to a bob, no longer looking like the innocent 19 year old school girl of the earlier scenes, it’s a change in appearance which seems to indicate the end of the mind games which have been being played. The price for Ha-joon to give in to his temptation is an unexpected one (and one that notably, is detailed in the official synopsis despite not appearing until 90 minutes in. So if you don’t want an important plot point spoiled beforehand, stay away from the plot descriptions!), revealing the true nature of the title, which leads to a satisfying conclusion.
While Man-dae has arguably come a long way from those early days of directing erotic B-movies, in many ways he remains a director who’s a contradiction for the industry he’s working in. He openly states he’s still interested in eroticism and how it can be portrayed, and to a large degree his reputation as Playboy Bong precedes him, no doubt making it difficult to ever fully get away from the image of a director that makes sexy movies. Trap: Lethal Temptation serves as the perfect example of showing off Man-dae’s strengths at being able to tastefully tease the audience, but also shows the budget constraints he’s likely to be restricted to working with. For what it is though, anchored by strong performances from Ha-joon and Min-gyul, his latest does its job of being both tantalizing and thrilling, which is arguably exactly what it set out to do.
On December 4, 2018, Shout! Factory is releasing the Blu-ray & DVD for In Harm’s Way (aka The Chinese Widow), a war/drama directed by Bille August (1998’s Les Misérables). The film stars Emile Hirsch (Speed Racer) and Liu Yifei (Outcast), the star of the upcoming live-action adaptation of Mulan.
In 1940s, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor destroyed Americans’ morale. President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to risk it all to bomb Tokyo, raising the public’s hopes. Bombardment air crafts led by U.S lieutenant colonel Jimmy Doolittle took off from a massive aircraft carrier. However, after completing their missions, the bombardment air craft pilots had to bail out at the coastal areas near Zhejiang due to shortage of fuel. A young pilot, Jack Turner (Hirsch), was saved by a young local widow named Ying (Liu), who risked her life as she hid the injured American pilot in her house.
Disclaimer: cityonfire.com does not own any of the photos contained in the blog. cityonfire.com was made merely to pay homage to these films, directors, talent, etc. and not for any profit or commercial reasons. No copyright infringement intended. The photos are copyrighted and courtesy by their respective owners.
cityonfire.com is a non-profit website for the private use and entertainment and/or parody purposes.
"Copyright Disclaimer, Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statue that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, education or personal use tops the balance in favor of fair use."
8 Comments