Black Panther (2018) Review
Director: Ryan Cooler
Producer: Kevin Feige,
Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown
Running Time 135 minutes
By JJ Bona
I am not a fan of superhero movies particularly, even Marvel films, but Black Panther doesn’t feel like either one. It is a daring undertaking that provides a fresh take on the superhero origin story, a narrative that has been done to death.
King T’Challa of Wakanda is played by Chadwick Boseman. His country is a fictional nation in Africa which is housing untold amounts of sci-fi tech, and the King needs to step up and take on the weighty responsibility demanded by his birthright after his father is assassinated.
Rather than constructing a new identity and experimenting with his newfound power, T’Challa’s task is becoming a better ruler than his father was, and changing the direction of Wakanda. This country takes isolationism to an entirely new level, keeping its magical technology and precious metals closely guarded as its borders keep all foreigners out.
The residents of Wakanda would no doubt not even be able to enjoy the kind of fun and relaxation online betting NZ allows, as it is linked to the world outside its borders!
Michael B. Jordan shines particularly in Black Panther’s villain role, and Killmonger, his character must be the greatest bad guy Marvel ever thought up. He is criminally underused, however. Jordan’s magnetism is evident from the moment he first appears, and we understand his anger. He is such a good villain that he steals all the scenes he’s in, and calls attention to how basically boring King T’Challa actually is.
Black Panther is akin to Captain America in that he is as straight as an arrow, and almost unbelievably righteous. He does, however, get humanised by the relationship he shares with his younger sister, Shuri, played wonderfully by Letitia Wright. Their sibling squabbles make the pair very relatable, and this brings the mighty king a little closer to earth. Shuri’s character is very strong and spirited, too, and she is as unforgettable as Killmonger.
Killmonger has the perfect name, and is very, very good at killing. Wakanda unfortunately picks their leaders based on combative talent, and, interestingly, this is why Killmonger makes for such a fascinating character. His challenge to T’Challa isn’t just a physical one, but extends into the realm of philosophy.
Killmonger’s attack on Wakanda highlights that country’s biggest flaws, and strips the illusion of a shiny tech Utopia away at once. The fact that Wakanda is so weak in so many ways is what makes it so real, as well -the striking costume design and breathtaking world-building do the rest. I particularly enjoyed the rituals outlined in the film, along with the very real sense of history related to the Black Panther role. This is a primeval, vital tradition, not a decision that the world needs protecting made on a whim, as is generally the case in superhero stories.
The themes of military intervention, isolationism, and the perils of advanced tech are rather sophisticated for a superhero film, and very appropriate in the here and now we are facing, but never get too heavy. Black Panther is a finely balanced blend of enjoyable adventure and insightful political commentary.
Warrior (2011) Review
Director: Gavin O’Connor
Producers: Gavin and Greg O’Connor
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison, Frank Grillo, Kevin Dunn, Maximiliano Hernandez, Vanessa Martinez, Kurt Angle
Running Time: 140 minutes
By JJ Bona
Warrior is a fight movie that arrives with flawless logic at a climax which involves not one but three main bouts, and the coincidence that provides not one protagonist but two is forgiven. The screenplay makes use of these devices to merge the structure of a rags-to-riches sparring story similar to Rocky with the intense, sometimes sordid drama of a problematic family.
For the first hour there are scenes which establish two brothers separately, Brendan and Tommy Conlon, played by Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy respectively. Brendan teaches science at a high school, and is married with children. Tommy is a Marine back from serving in the Middle East. They were boxers or wrestlers at high school, trained by their dad, Paddy, Nick Nolte. Now, various circumstances have brought them both independently to the same conclusion. They need to fight to make money.
Once this premise has been established, it is 100% sure that Brendan is going to meet Tommy in the ring for the championship fight. This accounts for the three final rounds, because each will have to advance through a semifinal.
What I found intriguing about this movie was that there isn’t a favourite. The audience understands and enjoys both of the characters, and so does the film itself. Gavin O’Connor, director and co-writer for the movie, arrives at the stand-off foreshadowed at the film’s start fair and square. Both of the fighters have motives, they have been estranged for a long time after an unhappy childhood incident, and, in many ways, the brothers loathe each other.
When their mom left their alcoholic dad, Tommy went with her to California, where she finally died. Brendan stayed with his father. When we meet Paddy, he is coming up to 1000 days of sobriety and embodies, in only the way Nolte can, the shaggy heroism of a man who is giving getting himself together one more shot.
Tommy has always blamed his dad for abandoning his mom, but things are more complicated than that. Now Tommy returns from the war, with a secret, and asks his dad to train him for the upcoming MMA championship, and neither father nor son knows Brendan is signing up as well. Brendan is facing foreclosure on his house, and winning the purse at a low-level amateur fight has worsened things by getting him fired from his job.
There are subplots to the movie, all enjoyable, and these include Paddy’s, Brendan’s wife’s, played by Jennifer Morrison, and his trainer’s, in a role played by Frank Grillo, and these are intercut with the action scenes. O’Connor may not be shy about exploiting the action, but he makes full use of the force of the characters of the film in order to render that action meaningful.
I liked the movie for a number of reasons, the main one being that, by the end of it, I didn’t want to see either fighter lose. This reaction brings an incredible complexity to the last showdown and I thought nothing could top it -but I was wrong. Highly recommended watching and a film that should get a good review from everyone.
Raging Bull (1980) Review
Director: Martin Scorsese
Producers: Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler
Cast: Robert de Niro, Martin Scorsese, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, Frank Vincent, Theresa Saldana, Nicholas Colasanto, Charles Scorsese, Frank Adonis
Running Time: 129 minutes
By JJ Bona
There can be no questions or even any real discussion regarding how good a movie Raging Bull is -and it is everything you have heard it to be, and more. The contrast of documentary-drab with dreamy black and white shots framed to perfection make for classic Scorsese. The genius dimensions of character, grim and bleak to the bitter end, reducing us to a wreckage, shocked by the sheer depravity that the human spirit is capable of, is all the De Niro we know. And the chocolate velvet of Jake LaMotta’s blood, draining away like so much rainwater, is the story of a boxer we have been waiting for.
Raging Bull is about so much more than boxing! For all the words that have been written on the extraordinary recreation of LaMotta’s most famous fights, which give the movie its rhythm and beat, it is plain to see that Scorsese has no interest in prowess or strategy. In the same way that the horse racing tips NZ has to offer cannot begin to give you the thrills and spills the sport itself does, Raging Bull has a lot more to offer than just an evocation of a great boxer. Pugilism was rendered merely contextual. What brought Scorsese to this movie was the heart of darkness it explores.
The much-lauded Method acting De Niro is so famous for is very much in evidence in Raging Bull. The actor actually entered real fights in order to brush up on his boxing skills, and it took two months for him to swell up, with the Italian actor managing to do so thanks to piles of pasta and mountains of ice-cream. It is in the character’s quietest moments that De Niro’s performance reveals its mastery, allowing us to watch as the threads of self-control loosen to allow for the unavoidable rupture we dread as much as LaMotta actively seeks it.
Raging Bull was a film made during a time when the undiluted block of commercialism was thrusting aside the wide-eyed opportunism of American 1970s cinema. Scorsese witnessed the strain mounting up around him, and this goes a long way towards explaining the unusual tension between spectacle and authenticity, and art and pleasure evident in Raging Bull. As LaMotta pitifully intones in to the sordid reflection of his own face as the film limps to its inevitable ending, So gimme a stage where this bull here can rage. And though I can fight, I’d much rather recite – that’s entertainment.
Raging Bull is entertainment, to be sure, but it is also an exploration of the human condition, and, in my opinion, remains one of the finest films to ever be made. No serious movie fan can rightfully call themselves one without having given this movie at least one screening -preferably more.
Hailed as a cross between Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Tarantino’s Kill Bill, scheming royals and other officials attempt to consolidate power in a empire in chaos.
When kickboxing legend Don “The Dragon” Wilson hinted a Bloodfist reboot last month, we didn’t realize we’d get one this quick! Okay, we’re kidding, but like the 1989 Wilson flick, there is some ‘kickboxing’ in this film.
This Blood Fist (note: Two words, not one) is directed by Johnson Lu Zhe-Hao (Let Go of the Girl) and stars Kenny Kwan Chi-Bun (As the Lights Goes Out), Li Mao (The Fatal Mission), Pavarit Mongkolpisit (Operation Mekong), Rachel Liu (Tomb Guardians) and Jason Chung Yat-Hin (Gods Must Be Juicy).
We’re not sure what to make of the film’s plot, but judging from the Trailer below, it takes place in Thailand, involves a martial arts tournament and people are doing bad things. Enjoy!
You gotta love Netflix. The streaming company made a surprise announcement during Super Bowl LII on February 4th, 2018 that The Cloverfield Paradox (aka Cloverfield 3) would be available on Netflix, immediately after the game.
Official Plot: In the near future, a group of international astronauts on a space station are working to solve a massive energy crisis on Earth. The experimental technology aboard the station has an unexpected result, leaving the team isolated and fighting for their survival.
The Cloverfield Paradox stars David Oyelowo (A Most Violent Year), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Beyond the Lights), Zhang Ziyi (The Grandmaster, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Elizabeth Debicki (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), Daniel Brühl (Rush), and Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids).
The Cloverfield Paradox is produced by J. J. Abrams (Cloverfield, 10 Cloverfield Lane) and directed by acclaimed independent/festival filmmaker Julius Onah. Watch the film’s Trailer below:
Director: Kwak Kyung-Taek Cast: Kim Rae-Won, Kim Hae-Sook, Sung Dong-Il, Jeon Hye-Jin, Jang Young-Nam, Baek Bong-Ki, Oh Dae-Hwan, Kim Min-Jun, Lee Joon-Hyuk, Lee Ji-Won, Ha-Min Running Time: 91 min.
By Paul Bramhall
It’s rare that a movie throws me off-guard before the opening credits have even started, but RV: Resurrected Victims did exactly that. The source of my raised eyebrows came in the form of the production company backing it. Having seen hundreds of Korean movies, there’s a kind of unconscious familiarity with the various logos that pop up onscreen before the opening credits, so when the logo for Story is God graced the screen, something about it stuck out. A few taps later confirmed my instincts – RV: Resurrected Victims was made by a Christian production outfit.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course, if we live in a world were Nicolas Cage can star in a Vic Armstrong directed Christian flick (Left Behind), then I guess Kim Rae-won can star in director Kwak Gyeong-taek’s latest as well. My apprehension really came from the perspective of, there’s usually a significant difference between a movie which features Christianity as a theme (Jang Jae-hyon’s The Priests), to a movie which is made by Christians (Yoo Young-jin’s Boss). With that being said though, I’m a guy with an open mind, so I cast my apprehension aside and looked forward to checking out Gyeong-taek’s latest.
As a director Gyeong-taek’s filmography makes for interesting viewing. When your debut becomes one of the classics of the Korean new-wave, with his 2001 semi-autobiographical tale Friend, it understandably makes for a hard act to follow. Indeed in the preceding years his output has failed to recapture the magic that seemed so effortless in Friend, with action misfires like Typhoon, unremarkable thrillers like An Eye for an Eye, and pedestrian procedurals like The Classified File. His frequent attempts to fall back on the success of Friend, first with the TV spin-off series Friend, Our Story in 2009, and then with a direct sequel in 2013 with Friend 2, were also largely considered to miss the mark.
Despite his patchy track record, he remains a busy director, and for RV: Resurrected Victims has Kim Rae-won to headline proceedings, last seen on the big screen in The Prison. Rae-won plays a prosecutor whose mother (played by Park Chan-wook regular Kim Hae-sook) was murdered 7 years ago. Even though the murderer was convicted, Rae-won has always felt it was the wrong guy, and his suspicions are confirmed when, well, when his mother turns up in his living room watching TV. As you’ve likely guessed, she returns as a Resurrected Victim, a global phenomena that doesn’t seem to be generating as much surprise as it should. It’s explained that these RV’s (as they’re referred to) are always murder victims in which the murderer, for whatever reason, managed to escape punishment. So they return, kill (re: murder) the murderer, and then go up in smoke like a vampire.
It’s fair to say that RV: Resurrected Victims comes with an alarming amount of plot holes, and the RV’s themselves are never competently explained. When the intelligence agency is giving a debrief of the phenomena, they show a video of 5 female victims that returned in Macau, all murdered by the same serial killer. The footage shows them tearing apart the killer by apparently eating him alive like an outtake from Dawn of the Dead, however no other RV ever acts like this. In another clip, a young American girl amusingly announces “I came back to make justice. There’ll be more people like me, coming back for the same reason.” However much like the time travel plot device in The Phone, here the concept of murder victims returning to life is basically just a novelty, one used to frame a fairly standard tale of an unpunished death.
To go into every major plot hole would unfortunately involve also giving away several spoilers, not to mention take up the remainder of the review, however the crux of the plot comes down to when Hae-sook sees Rae-won for the first time after her return, she apparently tries to kill him. With the RV behaviour established that they only return to exact divine retribution (re: brutally murder) the one responsible for their own death, suspicions are raised as to why she targets her own son. When it’s revealed he’s the sole inheritor of her life insurance policy, soon an investigator played by Jeon Hye-jin gets on his case, to find out exactly what happened 7 years ago.
For a Korean movie, RV: Resurrected Victims comes with a remarkably short runtime of 85 minutes. However despite this, it feels considerably longer, as Gyeong-taek’s direction is so terminally dull and lifeless that minutes feel like they’re stretched into hours. It was only 30 minutes in when I began to impatiently look at my watch, and the realization that there was still almost an hour to go didn’t exactly fill me with happiness. Not helping matters is that almost everyone involved looks chronically bored. Hae-sook in particular looks embarrassed to be there, and rightly so, while Rae-won looks like he’s slumming it, likely wondering how he could go from starring in a production like Gangnam Blues to something like this.
Then of course, let’s get it out of the way, there’s the Christian element. From the moment Hae-sook’s church group visit her once she returns, excitedly asking if she met Jesus or what heaven was like, you know subtlety is not going to be an option. As the plot progresses crucifixes start frequently appearing in shots, with just enough regularity to make even the most tolerable viewer audibly groan “We get it.” It should be no spoiler to say that, considering how much time the script spends hitting us over the head with the fact RV’s come back to exact their vengeance, the closing scenes of RV: Resurrected Victims present us with an entirely predictable message about forgiveness.
The story itself is based on a novel by Park Ha-ik called It is Over. While I’m not familiar with the source material, one would hope it more clearly defines the logic and narrative around the RV’s better than Geyong-taek adapts for the screen. Perhaps it was due to budgetary constraints that so many important details are glazed over (ultimately the question of why Hae-sook has returned in the first place is never clearly addressed), however RV: Resurrected Victims builds up so many unresolved plot threads it ends up hanging itself with them. This is Gyeong-taek’s first (and hopefully last) foray into the supernatural genre, and it at times feels like we’re watching an extended version of The X-Files, complete with special effects that hark back to late 90’s fare like Blade and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
By the time RV: Resurrected Victims decides to puts its cards on the table, viewers will likely be so numb it’ll be easy to miss that Gyeong-taek has lifted wholesale from Bong Joon-ho’s vastly superior Mother, delivering a twist telegraphed far too early to remain interesting. This is perhaps the biggest issue with Gyeong-taek’s latest, in that it seems to have a belief that it’s interesting, but once you figure out the angle the story is coming from, its direction (including the turns along the way) becomes painfully obvious.
There’s an inescapable feeling throughout RV: Resurrected Victims that everyone involved should be in a far better movie than what it actually is. Constantly dull, endlessly predictable, and frequently nonsensical, the finished product is a mercifully short but uninspired and monotonous mess. In the closing line, we’re told how important it is to realize our own sins and ask to pay the price for them. For Gyeong-taek, hopefully that realization starts with just how much of a misguided effort RV: Resurrected Victims is, and hope he doesn’t repeat it.
For the first time, the film will be released in widescreen High Definition and produced from a new 2K scan from the 35mm original negative.
In this 1976 classic, a kung fu master (Heung Kim Lung) returns to Hong Kong on a single minded quest to discover the truth of his late mentor (Bruce Lee), who passed away under super-extraordinary conditions.
Considered one of the greatest kung fu films of all time, 36th Chamber of Shaolin (read our review) is about a young man (Liu) who learns Shaolin kung fu so he can avenge his family and friends, who were killed by Manchu henchmen.
On March 13, 2018, Synapse Films is releasing the Blu-ray to Path of Blood, an Animated Love Letter to the Gory Japanese Samurai Films.
Japan, 1614. War is over. Samurai displaced through defeat or reform wander the countryside as Ronin, seeking work where they can find it. At the edge of a forgotten village lies a path leading deep into the mountains. It is rumored the brave few who make it down the path will be rewarded with a life of freedom and purpose. However, none who have entered the path have returned. When a lone samurai sets his course towards the Path of Blood, unknown danger and terror awaits. Will his great swordsmanship be enough to survive?
Path of Blood is the first animated film by Eric Power, featuring the voices of Kenji Kiuchi, Yoshi Okai and Shinya Wakao. Shot frame-by-frame in traditional paper stop motion (like the pilot episode of South Park), the film boasts a unique visual style paired with a visceral tale of samurai, bandits, and deadly ninja. Many years in the making, this film is a love letter to the Japanese samurai genre, as well as a tribute to the ultra-violence of the Lone Wolf and Cub series.
AKA: The Last Race Director: Stephen Shin, Michael Parker Cast: Joseph Fiennes, Shawn Dou, Bruce Locke, Augusta Xu-Holland, Richard Sanderson, Jesse Kove, Elizabeth Arends, Simon Twu, Darren Grosvenor, Shigeo Kobayashi Running Time: 104 min.
By Martin Sandison
The story of Eric Liddell is one as a Scotsman I have a lot of interest in. Liddell won the 400 metres race at the 1924 Olympics – the story of which is told in the classic movie Chariots of Fire – and was one of Scotland’s greatest athletes. What happened after this feat in the life of Liddell, Wings of Eagles concerns itself with, and very interestingly it takes place in China. A Chinese/Hong Kong co-production shot in English with a little Mandarin, starring Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love) as Liddell, this movie manages to tell a dramatic true story without falling in to the traps of many recent Chinese productions.
In the film’s prologue, we discover that Liddell was born in China to Christian missionary parents, and returned there after he had become a successful athlete with his wife and daughters to be a missionary. When the Japanese occupation of China during the Second World War occurs, his family escape back to Scotland and he stays to help the downtrodden. He is forced to go to a Japanese internment camp along with his mostly Western friends, and the movie plays out in this scenario.
Credited directors are Stephen Shin (The Source of Love) and Michael Parker (Hong Kong Express), a very intriguing collaboration. Shin has been directing films in Hong Kong since the 80’s, but is known more as a producer with credits including Yuen Woo Ping’s Tiger Cage 2. The last film he directed was made in 2003. Parker, a Canadian native, is also more recognisable in a producer’s role, and has the distinction of being a Westerner in Hong Kong. It’s a bit of a gamble for the two to make a film with a reasonably big star and a pretty lavish production. Undoubtedly, it pays off, although the film is decidedly above average in many departments.
Structurally, Wings of Eagles is very well-delivered with a necessary prologue short in length, and on to the story of Liddell, as narrated by his Chinese best friend Xiu Niu (Shawn Dou, Flowers of War). There is a depth to the proceedings, with screen time dedicated to not just Liddell but also bit part players in the story. Unfortunately, the Western actors are nowhere near a match for Fiennes magnificent performance as Liddell. I would go so far as to say Fiennes gives the best performance of his career, depicting Liddell with tremendous courage and spirit. There are many standout scenes conveying this, especially towards the end of the film, such as when Liddell races the commanding officer of the camp in an ultimate show of altruism to his friends. Also, a bit unfortunately, and one aspect that only niggles, because I am a Scotsman: Fiennes affects a posh English accent. Ok, I know the Scottish accent can be hard to understand, but come on!
Not just a platform to tell the story of Liddell, the Wings of Eagles is a superb account of WW2 and the affect the Japanese occupation had on China and its residents, Chinese or non-Chinese. Yes, the stereotypes of the Japanese soldiers are in full effect, but some of them try to assist Liddell in his efforts to help his friends in the camp.
Actually, the film plays out with a definite Christian slant, with Liddell depicted as the epitome of the “good Christian”, always willing to put the lives of this friends and loved ones over his own. My experience and knowledge that Christianity is on the rise in China may partly account for the producers decision to make the film, despite a more recent Government crackdown on the religion in the Mainland. The mawkish sentimentality, melodrama, and flag waving so prevalent in Chinese productions these days are thankfully kept to a minimum, with a mature approach to the subject matter. Even the musical score anchors the images well without descending in to over emphatic territory.
As noted previously, some of the Western actors are below par in their acting, with some badly delivered lines that tend to take the viewer out of the film. Dou, with not a lot to do, aquits himself well. The kids, mostly in the internment camp and one outside, are convincing and add to the story. At times, the film comes across as a little preachy and hammy, with a slight dose of cheddar, but fortunately these elements are not to the fore very much, and the film comes across as genuinely conceived.
A sumptuously shot film that is a fitting tribute to the legendary Eric Liddell, Wings of Eagles succeeds for the most part and had me entertained and interested throughout. The film will be released by Signature entertainment on Digital HD on 12th March and DVD on the 19th of March. In currently available in the U.S. from Sony Pictures. Seek it out.
” Detective K: Secret of the Living Dead” Teaser Poster
Well Go USA has announced the release of Detective K: Secret of the Living Dead, an action/comedy period film by Kim Suk Yoon (Old Miss Diary) – and the third part of a trilogy that began with 2011’s Detective K: Secret of the Virtuous Widow and 2015’s Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island.
When a series of unusual murders occurs, Detective K (Kim Myung-min of Proof of Innocence) and his partner (Oh Dal-soo of Tunnel) are once again called upon to solve the case. Along the way, he teams up with a beautiful woman (Kim Ji-won of Horror Stories) with amnesia and together they discover Vampire bite marks on all of the bodies.
The film releases on February 16th, so check your local listings. Until then, don’t miss its Trailer below:
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Elizabeth McGovern, Sam Neill, Killian Scott, Shazad Latif, Andy Nyman, Clara Lago, Roland Møller, Dean-Charles Chapman, Florence Pugh, Ella-Rae Smith Running Time: 105 min.
By Paul Bramhall
If there was ever an award for the best accidental action hero in Hollywood, it would have to go to Liam Neeson. After starring in Taken back in 2008 at the age of 56, a time when the no-nonsense action movie was almost a fossil of a bygone era, Taken became an unexpected runaway success, thanks largely to his performance. Suddenly the respectable dramatic actor found his career gain a second wind as a later in life bad ass, and Jason Statham no longer found himself as the lone flag bearer of straight forward unpretentious action flicks.
Whether it be trying to take back his identity (Unknown), being pursued by ravenous wolves (The Grey), fighting terrorists on a plane (Non-Stop), playing a grizzled private investigator (A Walk Among the Tombstones), or trying to protect his estranged son (Run All Night), Neeson embraced his new calling with a welcome vigour. Nobody needs to talk about the Taken sequels. What’s interesting to note is that 3 of the movies mentioned, Unknown, Non-Stop, and Run All Night, have all been helmed by the same director – Spaniard Jaume Collet-Serra. After getting his start with horror flicks like House of Wax and Orphan, Collet-Serra has worked exclusively with Neeson since partnering for the first time on 2011’s Unknown, and 2018 delivers their fourth collaboration with The Commuter.
This could well be the pairs swansong together though, as it was widely reported during the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival that Neeson declared he’s done with action movies, stating in his own inimitable way “Guys, I’m sixty-fucking-five.” If only Jackie Chan had a similar attitude. He does have one more action movie, which at the time of writing is still in post-production, called Hard Powder (a remake of the 2014 Norwegian movie In Order of Disappearance), which effectively makes The Commuter his penultimate action outing.
Unlike their previous efforts though, Neeson is not such an obvious bad ass here. Playing a former cop (naturally) who is now an insurance salesman, he commutes every day to the city from the suburbs, where he lives with his wife and son, which we see in an opening montage that effectively portrays the normality of his day-to-day life. After having an exceptionally bad day in the office, his commute home is interrupted by a mysterious lady (played by Vera Farmiga – Norma Bates from the TV series Bates Motel), who decides to sit next to him. Striking up small talk, things get more sinister when she offers him a ‘hypothetical’ scenario. If he’s able to find a passenger on the train, with only the knowledge of their name, the stop they’re getting off at, and that they’re carrying a bag that doesn’t belong to them, he’ll be rewarded with $100,000.
Before getting off at the next stop, she tells him $20,000 of it is hidden in the train toilet, and with that she’s gone. His curiosity piqued, and further motivated by the financial burden of sending their son to college, he decides to see if the money is actually there, and is set on a path that sees the emergence of the post-2008 Neeson we know and love. In short, he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Cue plenty of laugh inducing stilted dialogue that Farmiga provides over the phone at regular intervals, which pull double duty as a kind of narration to what’s going on in the world beyond the train carriages, and the lanky Irishman soon finds himself in familiar territory.
Of course setting any movie within a confined space presents a particular challenge to even the most creative directors out there. We don’t need to go too far back in time to see more recent examples of the train set thriller, with both the likes of Snowpiercer and Train to Busan also playing out almost entirely within the carriages that their titles allude to. Like its Korean counterparts, The Commuter uses the device of surrounding Neeson with an interesting cast of supporting characters, as he frequently finds himself pacing between cars looking for unfamiliar faces amongst the regulars. They may be stereotypes – the weary worker ready for retirement, the pretentious broker who’s never off his phone, the exhausted Latino nurse, and the rebellious student to name just a few – but they work to keep Neeson interacting so he doesn’t become isolated.
Of course any movie such as The Commuter earns its worth by how skilfully it ratchets up the tension as it progresses, and Collet-Serra does an amicable job. The plot devices used may be as old as time itself, such as the revelation that Neeson’s family will be in danger if he doesn’t find the person he’s looking for, and indeed the main driver itself that he only has until a certain stop to find the person, but they do what they’re there to do. Like previously mentioned, Neeson has become synonymous with no-nonsense action thrillers, and The Commuter aims to deliver exactly that, nothing more and nothing less.
With that being said, as the train hurtles towards its destination, several cracks do start to show. The script in particular seems to lose its way towards the end. The main issue is that Neeson goes from being a stressed out passenger willing to do anything to protect his family, to a kind of surrogate father to the passengers on the train, with sudden declarations of how he’ll keep everyone safe and won’t let the bad guys win. Sure, the dialogue has been stilted throughout, but for the most part it applied to everyone else’s lines except his. Budgetary constraints also rear their head when it comes to the train derailing, I mean yes it looks passable, but it’s one of those scenes were there’s never any doubt that what we’re watching is a CGI train wreck (literally), masked over by making it as appropriately noisy as possible.
However for those clocking in to see some Bryan Mills-esque violence, The Commuter signals as indicative a sign as any that Neeson is ready to hand up his action boots. We do get a nicely chaotic fight, pitting an electric guitar wielding Neeson (yes you read that right) against an axe wielding assassin, that manages to feels suitably brutal (there’s something unexpectedly enjoyable about watching someone have an electric guitar smashed over their head). However outside of this scene we’re limited to a brief couple of scuffles. The Commuter eventually turns into the type of movie were scenes reach a climatic crescendo with lines like “You have a monthly ticket, you’re a regular commuter!” Gripping stuff.
I would have preferred to have Collet-Serra explore ways in which Neeson could have really let loose within the intimate confines of the carriages, and go on the offensive with the bad guys, but instead he attempts to go the bombastic route with the derailing scenario. Apart from suddenly feeling like a needless re-tread of Unstoppable, it also segues into a completely unremarkable standoff with the police, which end things with a whimper rather than the punch in the nose I would have preferred. For me part of Taken’s success, and indeed Neeson’s other efforts since then, have been the way they rely on his physical performance, rather than the scenes of mass CGI destruction we now take for granted in Hollywood blockbusters. The Commuter isn’t a blockbuster, but at some point it feels like it’s trying to imitate one, which was the point when I lost interest.
Despite not being the pairs strongest collaboration together, Neeson can at least say he’s done it all – Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. From the gut punch that was Taken 10 years ago, there’s little doubt that The Commuter feels more like an average thriller than a kick ass and take names action flick, one that a certain demographic would likely have been hoping for. It may be serviceable, but just like the insurance firm Neeson works for explain his redundancy is due to his position no longer being required, so it is in the cinematic world his “very particular set of skills” are no longer needed either. The good news is, Neeson isn’t waiting for redundancy to make the decision for him, and while The Commuter certainly isn’t a highpoint of the past decade, it at least gets you from A to B.
AKA: Meza Director: James Mark Cast: Chris Mark, Daniel Park, Denis Akiyama, Melee Hutton, Jonny Caines, Jennifer Li, Jessica Clement, Jason Gosbee, Reuben Langdon, Alain Moussi Running Time: 77 min.
By Paul Bramhall
I’ll be the first to confess that, being a reviewer for an action movie website, after a while you become desensitised to the amount of indie action movie screening requests that land in your inbox. Everyone has an epic movie, a jaw dropping spectacle, an intense thrill ride. However usually what these ‘movies’ (I can’t use the term seriously) translate to is – me and my friends practice martial arts, so over a few weekends we got together, turned on our smart phone cameras, and filmed each other. In an age with increased accessibility to recording equipment, combined with a reasonable cost, essentially anyone can pick up a camera and claim to have made the next Police Story. So most of the time they end up in Deleted Items quicker than you can swipe right, but once in a blue moon, an indie feature comes through that captures my attention.
Sure, no indie feature is going to have the greatest acting, nor is it likely to have an Oscar winning script to back it up, but that’s not to say it’s completely impossible to make an entertaining movie. So it was that the trailer for Kill Order caught my attention. Boasting a plot synopsis that explains how David, a quiet high school kid that suffers from intense hallucinations of a demon like figure, taps into a previously unknown strength, and sets off on a journey to uncover the truth of how he got it. Of course, no journey of this variety would be very entertaining, unless he was being pursued by unknown assailants from a shadowy organization, attempting to kill him at every turn. So thankfully Kill Order provides those as well.
Kil Order is basically a passion project for a group of Canadian based stuntmen (most belonging to the Team 2X stunt crew), who decided to get together and show off their stuff within the framework of an action movie. I can respect that. After all, the likes of Broken Pathdid the same thing for the Alpha Stunts crew, and is one of the most balls to the wall fight flicks of the past 15 years, so as long as the viewer knows what they’re getting themselves into, why not? The man in the director’s chair is James Mark, who also appears as a cane wielding scientist, a stuntman who most recently acted as the assistant stunt coordinator for a number of episodes in the Marco Polo series, having started out as a stunt performer in 2006.
Stunts clearly run in the family for the Mark clan, as the lead role is taken by the director’s brother, in the form of Chris Mark (who also serves as the principal fight choreographer). A look at their respective filmographies shows they’ve already worked together plenty of times, from the likes of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, to Pacific Rim. It’s clear that neither of them are going to win any awards for their acting, with C Mark’s attempts at convincing he’s an awkward high school student consisting of constantly darting his eyes from left to right, mouth slightly agape. Thankfully though these scenes don’t last long, and before 10 minutes in a SWAT team (amusingly led by Kickboxer star Alain Moussi, his face permanently hidden behind a helmet and visor) barge into his classroom, announcing that they need to take him away.
Of course, as is par for the course in this type of story, the roughing up of our docile looking hero awakens something within, something that makes his eyes go all Bill Bixby just before he turns into Lou Ferrigno (but with CGI). Soon SWAT team members are being stabbed in the neck with a pen, and the star of the Kickboxer reboots gets a kick in the face and exits never to be seen again, a relatively light punishment comparative to the crimes of said Kickboxer flicks. For the remaining hour of Kill Order’s remarkably concise 70 minutes, our leading man Mark disposes of the school uniform much to everyone’s relief, and goes on the run from a number of assassins tasked with only one purpose – to wipe him out.
As expected, Kill Order is really all about the action, and to that end, it delivers. As with any fan of martial arts cinema, I’ve come to appreciate the number of shorts out there, performed by various dedicated groups, that usually utilise YouTube as a platform for their talents. A recurring trail of thought, at least for myself, has been how much better it would be, if those involved were to combine however many of their brief clips together, and make them into a full length feature. To a large extent, that’s what Kill Order feels like. In the 70 minutes we get 4 significant action sequences, and while I’ve no doubt each one of them could have stood up admirably as an action short, there’s something about them being incorporated into a bigger picture that really works.
That’s not to say that the plotline is completely disposable. I’ll be the first to concede that if someone was to argue that it is, I wouldn’t have much of a comeback. But the fact that it’s pulled off so poker faced, with committed performances all round, make it at least worth paying some attention to. To summarise, a shadowy organization has discovered how to draw energy from another world, and to fully understand how this energy works on humans, they’re experimenting on a (what else?) group of orphans. Never mind that the details of the other world are non-existent. All we need to know is that our hero Mark recognizes his humanity, leading to a narrative with heavy overtones of Universal Soldier: Regeneration. The only difference is that instead of a miserable Jean Claude Van Damme, we get a baby faced Chris Mark.
It pays not to focus too much on the talk of brain augmentation, and rather concentrate on the action, which usually involves Mark being subject to, and also dishing out, some grievous bodily harm of the highest order. The first real action sequence takes place in the apartment he resides in, with a double katana wielding Jonny Caines looking to off him as early as possible. Caines, a Capoeira practitioner, may not get to show off many off his trademark moves, but his appearance does mark the first lengthy one-on-one at 20 minutes in, with the whole apartment being completely trashed. So the walls are made out of MDF, who cares. The impacts that each opponent has on the other are satisfyingly conveyed, with hits sending the recipient flying several meters through the air, effectively emphasising the superhero like powers the subjects have.
The highlight goes to a sequence that takes place in a park, which has Mark initially taking on stuntman Eric Daniel, in an empty handed duel that delivers plenty of impact and power. The fight then segues into a two-on-one, with Mark facing off against both Jennifer Li (the stunt double of Kelly Marie Tran in Star Wars: The Last Jedi), who unleashes a barrage of kicks reminiscent of Ken Lo in Drunken Master 2, and Adrian Persad, armed with a pair of steel baseball bats. The flow and speed of this fight is perfect, even if a little undercranked, but it matches the abilities the participants are supposed to be equipped with. Similarly, the powers they have allow them to take a ridiculous amount of punishment, which allows the fights to take on a larger than life aesthetic, helping to disguise the lack of budget.
The only downside is that the sequence in the park is so good, the finale, which sees Mark take on a number of faceless attackers, before squaring off against an upgraded model (to use Driveterminology) played by Eli Martyr, doesn’t quite live up to it. Sure, Mark gets to go aerial with a series of spinning trick kicks in slow motion, but call it personal preference, I like to see actual exchanges rather than money shots (plus Scott Adkins has the slow motion spinning trick kick market cornered). Despite the absence of any intricate choreography, it still provides a worthy finish, and at only 70 minutes Kill Order can never be accused of outstaying its welcome. It knows what it’s there to do, and does so effectively. With an ending that leaves things open for a sequel, if we do happen to get a Kill Order 2, then I’ll certainly be checking it out.
Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years. Vol. 2 | Blu-ray & DVD (Arrow Video)
RELEASE DATE: April 17, 2018
While we’re still waiting for Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years Vol. 1 box set (due February 13th in the US), Arrow Video has gone ahead and announced Vol. 2! This next set will include Eight Hours of Terror, The Sleeping Beast Within, Smashing the 0-Line, Tokyo Knights, and The Man with a Shotgun.
From Arrow’s announcement: Available for home-viewing for the very first time ever outside of Japan, this collection of bleak crime thrillers, brash mob dramas and exuberant action movies, made across the first five years of Seijun Suzuki’s career within Nikkatsu’s Borderless Action (mukokuseki akushon) line, presents a heady mix that laid the ground for what was to come.
The Sleeping Beast Within (1960) is a gripping crime thriller that sees a newspaper reporter’s search for his girlfriend’s missing father lead him into the heart of the criminal underworld of Yokohama’s Chinatown. Its companion piece, Smashing the 0-Line (1960), follows two reporters’ descent into a scabrous demimonde of drug and human trafficking. In Eight Hours of Terror (1957), a bus making its precarious way across a winding mountain road picks up some unwelcome passengers. In Tokyo Knights (1961), a college student takes over the family business in the field of organised crime, while The Man with A Shotgun (1961) marks Suzuki’s first entry into the territory of the “borderless” Japanese Western.
LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS:
Limited Edition Dual Format Collection [1500 copies]
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
Newly translated optional English Subtitles
Audio commentary by critic and author Jasper Sharp on Smashing the 0-Line
Tony Rayns on the Crime and Action Movies – the critic and historian discusses the background to the films, their place within Suzuki’s career and the talent involved with them
Trailers
Stills Gallery
Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys
60-page illustrated collector’s book featuring new writing by Jasper Sharp
The box set releases on April 16th in the UK and April 17th in the USA.
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