South Korean filmmaker Kim Yong-Wan is taking a cue from Sylvester Stalllone’s 1987 film, Over the Top, for his debut feature, Champion(read our review).
The super charismatic Ma Dong-seok (The Outlaws, Along with the Gods), who practically stole the show in Train to Busan, headlines this inspirational story about an average guy who dreams of becoming an arm wrestling champion.
Batman may just be the most timeless superhero, and the latest edition in the canon, Batman Ninja (2018) further reinforces this. Batman literally becomes displaced through time and sent back to Feudal Japan after a Quake Engine accident while battling Gorilla Grodd at Arkham Asylum. While there, he learns that all of the major villains have set up as feudal lords in Japan in the 1600s and are attempting to change history. Batman, with his newly acquired ninja-esque skills, must stop them.
The movie was designed by Afro Samurai creator Takashi Okazaki and directed by Junpei Mizusaki. The American release – written by Leo Chu and Eric Garcia – is admittedly a complete rewrite of the story from Kazuki Nakashima’s version, essentially creating two different movies that share the same visuals. The Japanese elements of the movie and the setting itself provide a fresh battleground for the Dark Knight and act in tandem with the latest Batman movies to show a different side of the caped crusader.
In all forms and media, Batman still has a considerable amount of fan engagement. From the DC-based movies that capitalize on the hero – fresh off November 2017’s Justice League, and gearing up for the Matt Reeves-directed The Batman, which will take a noir look at Affleck’s portrayal of the superhero – to the armada of games available, such as DC Universe Online, an MMO set in the DC Universe and utilizing Batman as well as almost every single other major character in the DC canon, the William Hill Batman Begins slot game, that features motifs and iconography from the Christian Bale era Batman series, and the Telltale Games episodic point and click mobile adventure Batman: The Enemy Within.
Regardless of where Batman does battle with his villainous cohorts, audiences know what to expect from the narrative. The fact that the time period and setting are different to Gotham City makes no difference to the enjoyment – and taking Batman out of his comfort zone even helps up the stakes against him. His ‘powers’ are weaker in Feudal Japan, especially while pitted against a host of criminals who have made the Edo period their home. The movie will give audiences – especially Western audiences who may be completely unfamiliar with Japan’s history – a chance to learn and connect with the past. By pulling on a time in history when Japanese culture was stronger, modern audiences can appreciate what has gone before and how it affects their everyday lives – all while watching Batman. Plus, the samurai and ninja connections are enough to give any action fan a reason to watch the movie.
The movie’s success already pre-June 2018’s Japanese release – a strong 88% on Rotten Tomatoes and a favorable review on pop-culture-centric IGN – shows that the Batman character can be applied to almost any setting and is still a formidable draw as a protagonist and hero. The movie also poses an interesting crossover between the more traditional Japanese manga and anime and the original comic book source material – both mediums share similarities, but by combining the pulling power of each one, producers can reap the benefits.
One of my favorite film heroes is the investigative journalist. Seekers of truth armed only with pen and notepad, overturning stones to reveal the misdeeds of powerful men who thought justice couldn’t touch them. Films about the journalist righting wrongs like Spotlight or All the President’s Men are worthwhile reminders of the importance of a free press in a functioning society. But films about journalists behaving badly are often just as entertaining and important. Ace in the Hole is a classic, Shattered Glass showed the world that Hayden Christensen could act, and Network, Nightcrawler, and South Korea’s underrated thriller The Exclusive: Beat the Devil’s Tattoo are all solid examples of the journalist or media company that is so desperate for a story that they either conjure one up out of the blue or twist the facts in order to reach a larger audience. Seijun Suzuki’s Smashing the 0-Line is another such film, focusing on two reporters, one who goes by the book and one who makes the news happen for him.
The two competing leads are played by Yuji Kodaka (Tattooed Life) and Hiroyuki Nagato (Shinjuku Incident). They’re friendly rival reporters from two different Tokyo papers. An early scene has them talking about going to a baseball game together and that’s pretty much the last time we ever get to see them enjoying each other’s company. Yuji Kodaka’s Nishina begins to worry about the unseemly practices of Nagato’s roguish Katori. Though Katori’s paper is proud of all the breaking news crime beat reporting that Katori digs up for them, they’re apparently unaware of how he helps to engineer the busts which he covers. In one of Katori’s first scenes, we see him leaving a woman in bed after some afternoon sex, only to open the door for the police so that they may arrest her for drug trafficking. Not long after that, Katori leads the cops to a raid on a boat which appears to be an Opium den. It doesn’t seem to matter to Katori that the woman might’ve loved him or that the boat was operated by a former classmate, things that Nishina tries to point out to him. Katori replies, “You’d protect a drug dealer just because he was a classmate of ours?” And though that morally gray question leaves Nishina momentarily stumped for a reply, Katori’s increasingly risky attempts to get the big story soon lead them further and further apart.
Katori bites off more than he can chew when he tries to use his tactics to flush out the leader of a drug running business. The drug business, which is linked to Hong Kong, starts going after Katori in response. They abduct his sister (The Wind-of-Youth Group’s Mayumi Shimizu) and threaten to rape her if he doesn’t comply. And then… he doesn’t. They’re just about ready to do their worst to the girl when Nishina and the police arrive at the last moment. Katori, now driven by rage (but no less an asshole), makes it his mission to expose the drug traffickers, even as his own paper begins to second guess keeping him under their employ.
It’s at this point that the film loses its momentum. When it’s a drama about Nishina vs. Katori, I was there for it. But then Katori goes missing in his pursuit of the truth and Nishina has to go undercover in the shipping lanes in order to find his ‘friend’ and I gradually started to lose interest. I’m not 100% sure why that is, other than I think it’s clear that the film works best when Katori is on screen, and when he goes missing the film loses something.
Hiroyuki Nagato, who plays the fundamentally flawed Katori, played a reporter much like Nishina in Seijun Suzuki’s The Sleeping Beast Within. Released just a few months apart, The Sleeping Beast Within and Smashing the 0-Line are strikingly similar films, both focusing on journalist heroes who take on the illegal drug trade. The Sleeping Beast Within was more interesting to me, as it took dark crime elements and dropped them on normal, unsuspecting people. Smashing the 0-Line’s protagonists are journalists, most of them working the crime beat, and as such it lacks the same punch when the villains focus their ire on the innocent. And where Sleeping Beast Within kept ratcheting up the tension until the final moment, Smashing the 0-Line doesn’t manage to do much with its final act. It’s like they ran out of twists or surprising character growth.
Filmed with the look of a docudrama, Smashing the 0-Line isn’t among the most stylish of Suzuki’s films. It’s reminiscent at times of a Kinji Fukasaku crime picture, complete with freeze frames and onscreen text reading criminal indictments. It’s interesting to watch the director play with such similar material as his previous film and make such a radically different movie. What’s most impressive is to see how good Nagato is here compared to the decent but kinda dull work he delivered in The Sleeping Beast Within. It’s a great performance. Yuji Kodaka is fine; he has more screen time than Nagato but the script and the audience understands it’s not his movie.
Smashing the 0-Line feels a bit like a stepping off point as Nikkatsu and director Suzuki transitioned away from mainstream genre fare of the 50s and moved towards the ‘borderless action’ style of the 60s. Though the film is not much of an action movie, it does have the grimy, liquored up, and unsparing qualities that the ‘borderless action’ movies were known for. Also worth noting how the film makes use of immigrants and westerners in its plot. The Chinese are Katori’s favorite criminal informants, Hong Kong is the source of many of the drugs, and American military deserters are some of the drug trade’s most loyal customers. At this point, Japan was beginning to turn the corner from the post-war cleanup but Smashing the 0-Line’s vision of the country seems more pessimistic and grim. It is full of background characters struggling with addiction and/or poverty. The moments I will likely remember most from Smashing the 0-Line are the slums and Katori’s eagerness to exploit their suffering for a cover story. It’s just a shame that, like the main character, the second half of the film loses its way.
On June 12, 2018, Well Go USA will be releasing the Blu-ray for The Mimic, a South Korean thriller directed by Huh Jung (Hide and Seek).
In The Mimic, a family gets involved with a mysterious creature known as “Jangsanbum.” The animal can imitate a human’s voice and entices children to eat them. For more information about the plot, be sure to read our review.
The Mimic stars Yum Jung-Ah (Tell Me Something), Park Hyuk-Kwon (A Taxi Driver), Shin Rin-Ah (Ode To My Father), Heo Jin (The Wailing), Kil Hae-Yeon (Missing) and Lee Yool (Hello Murderer).
Looks like Scott Adkins isn’t the only one going to space. On June 5, 2018, Sony Pictures will be releasing the DVD to Astro, a sci-fi actioner starring martial arts star Gary Daniels (Cold Harvest, The Expendables, City Hunter).
Directed by Asif Akbar (Smoke Filled Lungs), Astro is the story of a billionaire’s private space exploration program (Elon Musk anyone?) returning to Earth with an abducted extraterrestrial from a newly discovered alien planet.
The film also stars Marshal Hilton (The Perfect Weapon), Courtney Akbar (Assassin X), Max Wasa (House of Manson), Louis Mandylor (The Debt Collector), Michael Paré (Streets of Fire) and Dominique Swain (Face/Off).
Acclaimed Cambodian martial arts actioner Jailbreak, (read our review) is finally breaking into America on May 2nd, courtesy of Netflix.
Jailbreak is directed by Jimmy Henderson (Hanuman) and features up-and-coming martial arts stars Jean-Paul Ly, Tharoth Sam, Dara Our and Céline Tran.
What started as a simple escort mission will soon turn to chaos as the prisoners of Koh Kla take over the prison grounds. A special task force (Jean-Paul Ly, Dara Our and Tharoth Sam) gets trapped in the prison will have to fight their way out for survival, to protect a key witness (Savin Phillip).
If you haven’t already, don’t miss our coverage and interview with Jailbreak’s director and cast. It’s the perfect way to get prepared for its Netflix debut!
After years making Hollywood films and big budget Chinese epics like Red Cliff and the recent The Crossing, John Woo, the man behind action classics such as A Better Tomorrow, The Killerand Hard Boiled, has finally made a return to the genre that made him an internationally acclaimed director with Manhunt(read our review).
And now, Manhunt will finally make its U.S. debut on Netflix’s streaming service on May 4th – it’s also currently available on Blu-ray & DVD from our trusted online retailer, DDDHouse.
The film is a remake of the 1976 Japanese classic action thriller (starring the late Ken Takakura), which tells story of a man who is accused of multiple crimes and trying desperately to clear his name.
The remake, which obviously follows the same theme, is about a prosecutor, played by award-winning Chinese actor Zhang Hanyu (The Taking of Tiger Mountain), who is framed for robbery, rape and multiple murders and sets out on a difficult solo mission to clear his name. Japanese heartthrob actor and singer Masaharu Fukuyama (Suspect X) plays the detective chasing Zhang’s character (via Variety). Ha Ji-Won (Sector 7) and newcomer Qi Wei also star.
Updates: Watch the New Netflix-branded Trailer below:
Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! | Blu-ray (Arrow Video)
RELEASE DATE: July 10, 2018
On July 10, 2018, Arrow Video will be releasing the Blu-ray for Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!, a 1963 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki (Tokyo Drifter). Check out the official details below:
Starring original Diamond Guy, Jo Shishido (Massacre Gun), Seijun Suzuki’s Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! is a hard hitting, rapid-fire yakuza film that redefined the Japanese crime drama.
Detective Tajima (Shishido) is tasked with tracking down a consignment of stolen firearms, as the investigation progresses things take an anarchic, blood-drenched grudge match.
Rapidly paced, darkly funny, and extremely stylish, Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! is unlike anything seen before and rightly deserves its cult status. Suzuki’s send up of post-war greed would go on to cement his domestic and international status as one of the leading directors to come out of Japan.
Features:
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Newly translated optional English subtitles
Interview with historian and Japanese cinema expert Tony Rayns
Gallery of original production stills
Theatrical trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin
For the first time ever, Martheus and Janet Wade’s Shinobi: Ninja Princess is being collected in a hardcover edition. This beautiful book is 326 pages of epic ninja action, collecting both volumes of Shinobi: Ninja Princess. It’s an action-adventure story in the vein of Japanese anime, the series is a cross between Naruto and Riverdale.
The first chapter introduces Shainndrea, a 14-year-old ninja who is also royalty! She’s on the run from a rival ninja clan while trying to discover the powers within her. In the second chapter, The Lightning Oni, Shainndrea takes on the Red Dragon’s most powerful Oni yet, Yawata: the embodiment of war with the powers of lightning!
There’s an option to donate books to libraries and schools. Writer/artist Martheus Wade comments, “For Shinobi: Ninja Princess to be in schools and libraries is a dream come true for us. The fond feelings we had of our childhood super heroes are the gifts that we want to give this new generation of readers. The minds of kids everywhere are where we want our stories to live and thrive.” Artist Janet Wade adds, “I’m very honored to have been a part of Shinobi: Ninja Princess‘ creative team. I’m excited to get our stories into schools and libraries, and I’m very happy to share our hard work with readers, young and old.
According to Variety, Sheng’s film traces the journey of a former smuggler who attempts to start his life anew after his release from prison and repair his relationship with his estranged brother. But that is not counting on gangland betrayal, a botched drug deal and a devastating family tragedy.
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura Cast: Kelly Connaire, Stephanie Pearson, Rod Hernandez, Anthony Kirlew, Alexa Yeames, Jason Tobias, Aion Boyd, Eric Matuschek, Ikumi Yoshimatsu Running Time: 90 min.
By Kelly Warner
Ryuhei Kitamura is a director I keep tabs on because he interests me. He has this weird balancing act where he teeters back and forth between almost greatness and absolute garbage – sometimes, in his most well-known films, you get a bit of both. 2000’s Versus was this renegade breath of fresh air in Asian cinema, a gonzo mix of martial arts and Sam Raimi, and I feel like we’ve been waiting for the renegade spirit to return in full ever since. Alive was too scattershot, Azumi’s enjoyable but too mainstream to show off Kitamura’s wild side, I personally have no love for Sky High, and Aragami… actually, Aragami is pretty badass, I highly recommend that one. After the failure of Godzilla: Final Wars — the big budget 50th anniversary project in which Toho planned to send Godzilla off to (temporary) retirement on a high note — Kitamura went to Hollywood. His first English-language film, The Midnight Meat Train, is considered a cult classic today, but the studio that released it was apparently ashamed of it and dumped the movie straight to cheap theatres instead of putting it in regular movie theatres. So, while we mostly think highly of the director’s American debut today (I quite like it), the fumbled release didn’t do much for his career. Kitamura has been bouncing back and forth between America and Japan since then (most recently, Lupin the 3rd in Japan and the Luke Evans horror movie No One Lives in America). He is a famous director still best known for his early success and his kaiju-sized stumble that has fans (of which I guess I consider myself to be) still hoping to see something cool and special from him again. Well, sad to say, we gotta keep waiting, because Downrange ain’t it.
Co-written by Kitamura and Joey O’Bryan (Fulltime Killer), Downrange is a lean, mean, single location horror movie about a group of young people who are pinned down by a sniper in the middle of nowhere. The kids are on their way back home when their rear tire blows, sending them to the side of the road. It’s strange how many horror movies popped into my head watching these college kids get out of their SUV to check on the flat tire. If horror movies about adults tend to feature homebuying as extra anxiety, then horror movies about young adults sure do like to terrorize vacations. The young people are casually chatting about plans and places they need to be while the girls struggle to find a decent phone signal so they can call for a tow and the boys and doing their damnedest to act useful by changing the tire. It’s actually a long time of not much happening. One of the girls discovers a cross on the side of the road, likely the sign of fatal crash from the past, but this is never addressed again. During this time we learn a bit about the character backstories and, much to this horror fan’s surprise, none of the kids are assholes, not even the jock. So, that’s something.
I was expecting Kitamura to break the monotony of hanging out on the side of the road at any moment with a bullet interrupting someone mid-sentence. But it takes a very long time for someone’s brains to hit the pavement and by then, oh God, it felt like sweet relief. The kids quickly realize there’s a hidden gunman (shooting with a silencer at first) and they take cover behind the truck, but not before two of their party take mortal gunshot wounds. Most the rest of the movie plays out with the kids in cover, ducking bullets and trying to come up with a plan for survival. They use a cell phone’s camera to pinpoint the sniper’s position in a tree across the road. One girl, a self-described ‘Army brat,’ takes it upon herself to lead the others with her knowledge of weaponry, but they have no real means for striking back. Downrange is a survival thriller with a horror movie’s sensibilities and all of our protagonists are little more than victims waiting to happen
It’s rather bold to make a horror movie about gun violence in this day and age. Guns in movies are more often made to appear as problem solvers and props for our heroes to look cool holding in slow-motion. Guns in real life are responsible for horrors that the movies rarely touch on. So, I’m not opposed to Kitamura’s film being a horror movie about a gunman. Yes, it plays exploitational and showing brains fly seems to be the director’s primary motivator in making the film, but still: there is room for horror movies about guns instead of knives. I also thought it interesting how the one African American youth is cut off from the rest of the group while they plot their escape. He tries shouting for updates on what they’re going to do and begs them to come to his aid, while they largely ignore him and whisper amongst themselves.
The unfortunate thing is that Downrange doesn’t have many tricks in its bag. It’s extreme gore and mean-spirited ruthlessness and little more. The setup seems ripe for suspense but I found it sorely lacking. Perhaps sensing that his script isn’t doing enough for the movie’s forward momentum, Kitamura throws every bizarre camera move he’s learned into the movie, making for something unique to look at anyway.
The acting is subpar. Each actor will have a good moment and then their next line reading will sound grating and strange. It doesn’t help much that the script asks the actors to do some ridiculous things. At one point, realizing that she is missing her sister’s birthday party, a girl begins singing Happy Birthday to the absent relative. Then the others join in. I think they were going for the idea that they’re all exhausted and just talking nonsense, but it plays very silly. I did like the way they depicted the killer, however. He never speaks a word and we never get a clear look at his face. My favorite moment in the film features the shooter eating beef jerky while watching the kids through his rifle scope; it’s a subtle visual detail of a man at rest while he sheds blood and it’s the creepiest thing in the film.
In the later moments of the film, things get outrageous with extreme car crashes and a steadily rising body count. Downrange’s cold-bloodedness is occasionally clever, though not enough for me to recommend it to others. I much preferred the very similar Doug Liman film, The Wall, which saw two soldiers huddled behind cover while an enemy sniper taunts them over the radio. That film lacks the horror elements but it has the tension that Downrange is missing. On paper, Downrange reads like a timely, particularly American nightmare of a horror film, but it’s so one-note it’s boring.
Choosing the greatest fight scene ever depicted in film is a seriously tricky bit of business. After all, there have been countless showdowns on the silver screen over the years that have filled audiences with sheer adrenaline while watching. Some are so memorable, though, that viewers think about them again years later. Here are a few scenes that have had that effect.
Mickey v Gorgeous George – Snatch
Many people will remember the way Guy Ritchie introduced viewers to the bare-knuckle boxing champion Mickey O’Neil in the 2000 classic Snatch. The character, who was brilliantly played by Brad Pitt, first comes onto the scene when Stephen Graham’s Tommy goes in search of a caravan. Mickey ends up in a boxing match against Tommy’s muscle, Gorgeous George.
At first, it seems like the big man played by Adam Fogerty is going to wipe the floor with Mickey. But the viewer quickly learns that Pitt’s character is merely warming up to lay down the one punch he requires to take out George. He kisses his necklace and plants the perfect blow on his opponent, knocking him out cold. This was not only a great fight scene, but it also set up the premise of the whole film really well.
Staircase Fight – Casino Royale
Casino Royale marked the beginning of Daniel Craig’s successful tenure as James Bond, and the 2006 offering directed by Martin Campbell is considered to be one of the best outings of the MI6 spy. The reason it is so loved could be because the casino industry is booming, with a multitude of casinos and sites offering the full casino experience. Another reason why it was so popular was the fact that it had some incredibly memorable scenes, such as the epic staircase fight between Bond and Steven Obanno. This battle incorporated hand-to-hand martial arts, along with Bond’s traditionally clever use of his surroundings. It has to go down as one of Bond’s best ever scraps ever.
Neo v Agent Smith – The Matrix
Forget the fact that the overall trilogy slipped massively in terms of quality, the original Matrix from the Wachowski brothers in 1999 is a classic. As Neo began to get to grips with the Matrix and the powers that he could wield there, the audience sees Keanu Reeves’ character become the Jesus-like figure that Morpheus believed he would be. This all culminates in an epic battle between Neo and Agent Smith in the subway towards the end of the film. There was awesome fight choreography thanks to the instruction of Master Yuen Woo Ping, along with highly original camera effects. The final result was a fight scene for the ages.
While it would be possible to go on all day about amazing fight scenes in films, these three have to be up there with some of the all-time greats. If you don’t agree, you could always watch Jet Li’s showdown with Billy Chow in Fist of Legend, or what about when Jackie Chan fought Ken Lo in Drunken Master II? The list goes on.
Special Mission tells the story of the daring rescue of a princess in the Middle East by the King of Scorpions. The film also stars Yang Ming, Xu Jiawen, Guo Zhen and Si Li.
Special Mission is getting a domestic release on April 27, 2018, but here’s hoping for a U.S. release. On a related note, Fan Siu Wong will also be seen in Steven Seagal’s anticipated martial arts film, Attrition.
Without further ado, here’s the Trailer for Special Mission:
Director: Byun Sung-Hyun Writer: Byun Sung-Hyun Cast: Sol Kyung-Gu, Siwan, Kim Hee-Won, Jeon Hye-Jin, Lee Kyoung-Young, Jang In-Sub, Kim Sung-Oh, Choi Byung-Mo, Heo Jun-Ho, Kim Ji-Hoon Running Time: 120 min.
By Martin Sandison
Since its inception in the mid-90’s, the Korean noir genre just keeps producing gems. Movies such as Lee Chang-dong’s Green Fish, Kim Jee-woon’s A Bittersweet Life and Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy are a few of the all-time classics; twisting and subverting noir tropes such as the femme fatale, unique visual style and brutal violence. Director Byun Sung-hyun’s first foray into the genre, The Merciless, almost deserves to be in the same breath as the aforementioned films, with a breakneck, gripping narrative, innovative action, superb characterisation and a visual style that is both obtrusive and atmospheric in its aesthetic brilliance.
Jo Hyun-soo (Im Si-wan, The Attorney) is an undercover cop in a prison in Busan, investigating various gangsters. He becomes close to a fellow inmate, Han Jae-ho (Sol Kyung-gu, Public Enemy) and a dangerous game begins between the two as they emerge from prison to rule the underworld. Twisted loyalties, gang wars and brawls ensue, with chaotic results. Who will survive this insane narrative? Watch on to find out…
Byun’s earlier films have encompassed Hip Hop culture centered comedy (The Beat Goes On) and romantic comedy (Whatcha Wearin’?), so it’s surprising that he directs The Merciless with such a deft hand. Expertly balancing the action with character development, he makes a supremely intricate narrative understandable. The first half of the film shifts time frames constantly – if you don’t pay attention, you’re lost. I find this annoying in films, but the construction is so lovingly put together that I made an effort to follow everything and most of the time, I did.
Byun directs in such a way that the roving camera and editing style create a technique that draws attention to itself, but in a gloriously entertaining and powerful way. One long take during one of the expertly choreographed Korean-style brawls has the camera turn almost upside down, before turning all the way back round. I adore this kind of visual ingenuity, and the Koreans are the masters of it. The important fight in a prison cell between the two leads is a superb example of this; the action is impactful and gritty, but also lends itself to representation of character. We discover Han is the better fighter, and has the cooler head than his younger, hot-headed friend.
The performances from the two leads are truly mesmerising. Sol as Han demonstrates the complete control he has over his parts, and is no stranger to the genre, having appeared in movies such as Public Enemy and Public Enemy 3. Im is a relative newcomer to the genre, and is a very young man. His boyish good looks and easy charisma reminded me of a young Leslie Cheung, and the relationship of the two harks back to John Woo classics such as A Better Tomorrow. Their respect and loyalty to each other, as the narrative builds and builds, is tested to breaking point. This being Korean noir, the outlook on male relationships is much more ambiguous than Woo’s, with true friendship and loyalty replaced by layers of deception.
The Merciless score points for twisting the trope of the femme fatale. Usually a gangsters moll who leads the protagonist into the tangled web of the narrative, here Jeon Hye-jin’s policewoman is the most in control character, despite her having limited screen time. Peripheral characters are also memorable, not least a henchman who aswell as providing laughs is responsible for a pivotal plot point.
Han’s repeated phrase ‘Don’t trust people. Trust the circumstances.’, while being a little spoon fed as the movie progresses, is the movies mantra, and is borne out with the outrageous twists and turns of the plot. The movie moves at such a breakneck place that it is difficult to follow at times. Also a slightly predictable ending aside, The Merciless is unmissable.
While Japanese cinema in the 1990’s was already a far cry from its golden age, one of the best genres to come out of this era was that which would become known as V-Cinema. Kicked off by Toei’s 1989 feature Crime Hunter, this DTV brand of filmmaking catered to the fact that the vast majority of VHS rental store memberships were male. Even then Japan’s mainstream cinema was becoming more housewife orientated (still the largest demographic of Japanese cinema goers today), so the studios saw the DTV arena as the perfect platform to give guys what they wanted. This was of course – action movies, gangster flicks, and raunchy erotica. Made on small budgets and with lesser known stars than their big screen counterparts, you could say in some ways that V-Cinema was the Japanese equivalent of Cannon Films when they were in their prime.
Before long the other studios got in on the act with their own labels – Nikkatsu came up with the V-Feature line, while Japan Home Video branded their output the V-Movie range – but none stuck quite the way V-Cinema did, and over time Toei’s label came to encompass the entire DTV genre. Much like Philip Ko spent most of the 90’s directing action cheapies in the Philippines, so did many of the V-Cinema directors. No doubt discovering how much stuff could be blown up, cars crashed, and stuntmen thrown through windows for a fraction of the price in Japan, Manila soon found itself standing in (usually unconvincingly) for a number of locales.
Score is one such production, a 1995 entry into the V-Cinema cannon that hilariously wants us to believe that the streets of Manila are Las Vegas. It would be more convincing to pass off New York as the surface of the moon, but attention to detail is not what V-Cinema was about – as long as there’s gun fights, explosions, and manly posturing, those are the elements that count. Directed by V-Cinema specialist Atsushi Muroga, this is the guy that directed such entertaining slices of no frills action as the Okinawa set zombie flick Junk, and the Gun Crazy series cranked out in the early 00’s.
Let’s be clear, Score is completely derivative of almost every gangster and action movie which was popular at the time, but it barrels along with such a devil may care sense of energy, that it’s impossible not to enjoy. Framing itself as a kind of Reservoir Dogs if John Woo was at the helm, the plot focuses on a career thief serving a prison term in Nevada, who’s bailed out by his former employees in order to pull off one final heist. Backed into a corner, he agrees to do it along with three cohorts (all decked out in black suits and white shirts, naturally), after which they head to an abandoned factory to wait for the pickup and their payout. Matters get complicated though when a pair of loved up hitchhikers, who’ve been funding their adventures by murdering whoever gives them a ride (Natural Born Killers reference – check), show up to steal the loot for themselves.
The plot is pretty much rendered superfluous though, when it becomes clear the real goal here is an exercise in how many blood squibs can be used in 85 minutes. Muroga would use an identical setup for Junk (the only other of his movies I’ve seen) 5 years later, when after the initial heist of a jewellery store is completed, the rest plays out in the abandoned factory, which here serves as the backdrop for various double crosses and bloody shootouts. I mean our thieves white shirts remain that way for just a few minutes, quickly becoming soaked in blood that’s either their own, or someone they’ve pumped full of lead. The blood squibs in use here seem to impressively pack a few gallons of the stuff in, with guns shots sending buckets of the red stuff trailing through the air in slow motion. Muroga certainly likes his heroic bloodshed.
The John Woo influence isn’t only present in the gratuitous bullet riddled bodily harm though. Proceedings open with the protagonist of the piece, played by a stone faced Hitoshi Ozawa (Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive and Agitator), being chased through the streets by a crossbow wielding assassin. Cue Hard Target inspired side-on shots of steel arrow heads gliding through the air, oh, and his character’s name is Chance, an obvious nod to Jean Claude Van Damme’s Chance Boudreaux (he even sports a matching mullet). Throw in one of Ozawa’s cohorts being called Tequila and the frequent freeze frames of characters in action, you’re left with a better homage to the John Woo aesthetic than many directors were attempting around the same time (Antoine Fuqua I’m looking at you).
Interestingly, the initial scenes with the serial killer hitchhikers, played by Kazuyoshi Ozawa (another Takashi Miike regular, with small roles in both Gozu and the more recent Shield of Straw) and Miyuki Takano (whose only film credit is Score), were actually filmed on location in Nevada. Outside of shooting a few shots on the road though, it appears that everything else (any by that I mean, anything resembling an action scene) was filmed in the Philippines. Ozawa’s character is an entertaining one, as he has an obsession with old westerns, referring to himself as Doc Holliday and Takano as his Clementine. He goes so far to even amusingly refer to the stolen jewellery as the Clantons.
While limiting so much of the runtime to the abandoned factory may sound dull, Muroga paces the tension with a skilled hand, with the ticking clock of (Hitoshi) Ozawa’s employer’s imminent arrival serving as a countdown to eliminate the threat of the loved up outlaws. As the lead, Ozawa feels like an equally important factor in Score’s success as Muroga. Not only is he the producer, but also the fight choreographer, and would himself step into the director’s chair for Score 2: The Big Fight, which would come 4 years later with many returning cast members (albeit in different roles). He may not be Japan’s answer to Chow Yun Fat, but the guy has a strong screen presence, and energetically throws himself around when it comes to the action. The final freeze frame, of Ozawa leaping into action with a handgun, pretty much feels like it sums up Score in a single frame.
Special mention also has to go to the bad guys of the piece, played by Takashi Ukaji (Zatoichi: The Last) and Hiroshi Miyasaka (Shall We Dance? – the original, not the Hollywood remake). Ukaji looks like an Anthony Wong clone of the same era (particularly the Full Contact look), and spends most of the time either laughing manically, or swatting away blonde floozies as if they’re an irritating fly. Miyasaka’s character is called Cobra, and when you see him you’ll immediately know why – he’s decked out like a Japanese version of Sylvester Stallone’s character in the 1986 movie of the same name (ok, minus the green nail varnish part). They make a formidable pair, and when Miyasaka turns up in the finale with a grenade launcher, you know good times are going to be had.
While V-Cinema would increasingly become a shadow of its former self as the years progressed towards the new millennium, with the tantalizing sleeves promising sex and violence rarely being a reflection of the movies contained within, when it was good, it was really good. These movies were never intended to be masterpieces, and while they were also arguably never intended to be as derivative as Score is, it can’t be denied that it’s a movie which ticks all the boxes of what V-Cinema was supposed to be. Bullets, explosions, and lines like “A bitch like you looks better with bullets in”, all combine to make a slice of entertaining B-movie goodness, that which only has the aspiration to keep you entertained for its duration. To that end, Score may not be your date night movie, but if you’re looking for a slice of Japanese machismo from a bygone era, you’re in the right place.
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