Pedring Lopez, the Filipino director currently making waves on the festival circuit with the action horror hybrid Nilalang, starring Cesar Montano and former Japanese AV actress Maria Ozawa, is already lining up his next production – an action movie titled Breach, starring Mark Dacascos (Drive).
Dacascos has been very active as of late, with his own directorial debut which was also shot in the Philippines, Showdown in Manila, and a role in the Mike Leeder produced Ultimate Justice. Lopez is aiming high with Breach, and has already shown a knack for action after bringing in Sonny Sison (one of the assassins in the Koichi Sakamoto directed Broken Path) to action direct for Nilalang.
“It’s not going to be kung fu in the traditional sense of the word, but it’s definitely not going to be just your average fighting,” Lopez said. “Dacascos’ character in Breach is an anti-hero, as his brother gets killed by PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency), and he has to go home to take care of the family business and bury his brother. So the PDEA are actually going to be the villains of the piece, which is fitting considering the current climate in the Philippines,” he added.
Together with Sonny Sison, who choreographed action for Nilalang, the director wants to add Filipino martial arts in Breach: “Sonny is especially pushing for this [Filipino martial arts]. So we’ll have the Filipino stick fighting, and also the blades. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a Filipino martial arts movie, there’s been nothing, so now is the time.
Lopez also revealed (read the full City on Fire interview) that he’s in talks with another one of the assassins from Broken Path, Dan Southworth (Mortal Kombat: Legacy), to join the cast, along with bringing in various stuntmen who have worked on many Hollywood and international blockbusters. Lopez also confirmed Yoshi Sudarso’s (Power Rangers Dino Charge) involvement.
With Erik Matti (On the Job) also working on his own Eskrima movie, Buy Bust, the Filipino action flick looks to be making a much welcomed resurgence. Set to start shooting in March – April 2017, you can be sure we’ll keep you posted as we hear more about Breach.
For now, enjoy the classic Dacascos trailer for Drive:
AKA: Rain of Sword Director: Su Chao-Bin Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Jeong Wu Seong, Wang Xue Qi, Barbie Hsu, Kelly Lin, Shawn Yue, Nina Pau, Guo Xiao Dong, Matt Wu, Leon Dai, Jiang Yiyan, Hu Xiao Guang Running Time: 117 min.
By Kelly Warner
As a fan of John Woo and star Michelle Yeoh, Reign of Assassins was once a film I couldn’t wait to see. Then, like the rest of America, I was forced to wait. And wait… It’s been six long years since the film was originally released in China but Reign of Assassins has finally received a DVD release in the States. In the time since its original release, John Woo’s been making more period epics in China (that much of his Western fans have yet to see), whereas Yeoh is doing more and more Hollywood productions. It really feels like more than six years have passed. But it’s finally here and we all get to see it.
Reign of Assassins starts with an animated segment that tells the story of a monk named Bodhi. Before his death, Bodhi became a master martial artist. And after his death, his remains have been rumored to grant extraordinary power to any martial artist who possesses them. We enter the story as the Dark Stone, a league of assassins led by the Wheel King (a very raspy Wang Xueqi), attempts to steal Bodhi’s remains from a prominent family. The family is killed, the remains are stolen, and the young female assassin (Kelly Lin) betrays her comrades and runs off with Bodhi’s corpse.
Instead of attempting to achieve ultimate power, Kelly Lin’s assassin ultimately decides to give up the life of martial arts and settle down in a more normal lifestyle. But first, she goes to a doctor and asks for a new face so as to avoid her enemies (the doctor alters her face by sticking insects beneath her skin to gnaw away at her bone structure. We don’t see the torture of the surgery but just the idea is terrifying). After a passage of time, off come the bandages and Kelly Lin becomes Michelle Yeoh (but the voice remains the same. I’m not certain, but I don’t think we actually hear Yeoh utter a word in the movie). Years pass and the woman, now going by the name Zeng Jing, blends into society as a merchant. However, the martial arts world’s search for Bodhi’s remains continues, and she cannot outrun her past forever.
As far as MacGuffins go, the crispy corpse of a badass monk ranks up there as one of the stranger ones I’ve heard of. And I enjoy odd ideas that you don’t see all the time. But the rest of the plot is a little beyond belief, relying on coincidences, body switches, and more than one supposedly dead person coming back to life. It’s like a soap opera with kung fu.
It should be noted that I watched the international version of the film, which is more than 10 minutes shorter than the cut released in China. What was edited and where, I have no idea. It’s my suspicion that many of the cuts came in the first act of the film, which is edited with such frenetic pacing that it’s occasionally difficult to follow.
Though written and directed by Su Chao-Bin (Silk), the film’s promotional material mainly focuses on producer and co-director John Woo (Red Cliff). It’s unclear how much credit Woo deserves as a co-director, though it’s said that he was on set almost daily, spent time in the editing room in post, and was the main director for a sequence featuring his daughter, Angeles Woo (The Crossing). Watching the movie, it’s easy to make comparisons to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as both films feature Michelle Yeoh, wire-fu, and a couple similar plot developments. But it’s clear from the start that Su and Woo have a totally different kind of film in mind, and they never go for the same sort of visual poetry that Ang Lee achieved. Reign of Assassins is a wuxia action movie with a healthy dose of romance thrown in, but it is no art film.
Michelle Yeoh is pretty solid in her first major martial arts-heavy role since Crouching Tiger nearly ten years prior. It’s a bit odd to watch her performance done in a different voice but that’s part of the film’s bizarre charm. Korean actor Jung Woo-sung (The Good, the Bad, the Weird) plays Yeoh’s lover in the more laidback second-act of the assassin’s life. I’ve always liked Jung and thought he did well in a role that was likely a challenge for him, as it required him to speak Mandarin. As the Wheel King, Wang Xueqi (Bodyguards and Assassins) is a bit over-the-top, with a whispery villain’s voice and a hood that obscures much of his face. The Wheel King’s motivations for obtaining the dead monk’s remains are certainly eye-opening, and it makes for one of the film’s more, umm, amusing developments. The rest of the Wheel King’s Dark Stone assassins are likable in their own ways, but they lack much in the way of character development beyond their main fighting style attributes. Still, actors Barbie Hsu (Croczilla), Shawn Yue (Wild City), and Leon Dai (Yi Yi) make good work of their limited screen time.
There are a few cool especially cool moments in the film, like the bank robbery performed via martial arts, and the film’s final fight sequence that successfully mixes drama and action to make for a satisfying finale. However, I still feel the story disappoints.
Reign of Assassins is an entertaining, if unremarkable wuxia action movie that ranks a few notches below some of the genre’s finer efforts from recent years. Whether it was worth the wait is up for you to decide. I certainly would not deter curious viewers from watching the film. Just keep your expectations in check.
It was a particularly humid day in October when I found myself strolling through the streets of Makati in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, to meet with up and coming director Pedring Lopez at his post-production house located in Legaspi Village.
It was a public holiday, so the normally bustling streets, filled with honking jeepneys and exhaust fumes, were eerily quiet for a Monday. It struck me that it was the perfect setting for a tropical climate zombie movie, and the thought crossed my mind that what better person to direct such a concept than Lopez himself. Having cut his teeth on the haunted house tale Binhi, Lopez soon found himself on the international radar thanks to his follow-up, the action/horror hybrid Nilalang.
Paul Bramhall with “Nilalang” director Pedring Lopez.
The combination of having a shape shifting demon, a Japanese adult movie actress as one of the main stars, and production values on a level that are rarely seen in Filipino genre movies, proved to be a winning one, with screenings at multiple film festivals all over the world. I was curious as to how Nilalang had come into being, and what Lopez himself thought of the future for genre filmmaking in the Philippines.
The director already has his next movie lined up, which promises to be an action extravaganza with Mark Dacascos in the lead role, entitled Breach. The thought of a Filipino action movie making it big may seem like a far-fetched one for some, but then just a couple of years ago the thought of a Filipino horror movie would have been treated the same way. Through a healthy working partnership with action director Sonny Sison, Breach could well be the movie that puts Filipino action cinema back on the map (yes, it was there once), and I for one am hoping for exactly that.
Pedring’s meeting room.
Lopez meets me as I exit the elevator on the 6th floor where his company is located, and the first sight to greet me is a bar area with a fridge full of San Miguel beer. He’s clearly a guy who knows how to motivate his staff. After a brief tour of the premises, which includes a meeting room completely covered in pieces of paper storyboarding his next micro-budget slasher movie, an in-house cinema, and a 35mm reel studio, we settle down into his office. It’s covered with shelves filled with both action figurines and (mostly) action DVD’s, in short, a pleasant environment to spend the working day.
After exchanging small talk about a recent night we spent with copious amounts of beer and boxing midgets (welcome to Manila), we got down to business:
“Dirty Harry” Japanese Theatrical Poster
PAUL BRAMHALL: First of all, thanks again for taking the time out for the interview, especially when you’re leaving for the States tomorrow!
PEDRING LOPEZ: You’re welcome bro, you know I haven’t even started packing yet, so it’s going to be a busy day!
PB:(laughter) Agreed! Now I wanted to start off by asking you, what are some of your influences as a filmmaker, and how did you get into making films?
PL: Well I grew up during the 80’s, so was really into the new wave punk scene, and also of course the 80’s action movies. I think I’m one of the few people to own all of (Steven) Seagal’s movies, and of course earlier influences like Dirty Harry. I also love kung fu movies, and have always been a fan of Hong Kong action, so most of my influences have come from these main sources.
Then, growing up, my dad is a photographer, so I have memories of him in his dark room, doing stuff in there even if at the time I didn’t know what it was, but I was always curious about it. After that, I dropped out of college in what I think was my first year and went into editing, really teaching myself the trade. I worked for 2 networks initially, before opening up my own post-production house. It was after opening my own company that I started directing various music videos and commercials.
“Binhi” Theatrical Poster
It wasn’t until 2 years ago, a friend of mine asked me if I’d like to direct a French movie, called 408, which was my first movie as a director. It was an interesting setup, with a completely Filipino crew, but an all-French cast. The script was actually in English, but we ended up filming it in French, and to this day it remains in post, as the producers aren’t able to agree on a final edit. (laughter)
After that I had the opportunity to direct Binhi, which was my first real genre horror movie, and then most recently I was able to make my biggest production to date with Nilalang.
PB: That’s definitely an interesting movie to helm as a first time director, one which was neither shot in your own language or with actors who are native English speakers!
PL: Yeah! It was difficult, because the main reason I said yes was that the producer is a good friend of mine. Originally I was only going to be doing 2nd unit, so thought it would be a good experience for me to work on a feature length production, but I ended up doing the whole thing, as the actual director had to be fired. (laughter)
So imagine, I was directing a French movie with an English script, and only half the cast could really speak English, but not fluently. My assistant director doesn’t know any French at all, but thankfully the producer was half French, so he would constantly be having to translate what was being said and what was needed. Even with that though, there were plenty of lost in translation moments, when I wanted the cast to do one thing, but when it came to the shot they’d do something different. It was very difficult, but a good learning experience.
“The Killer” Japanese Theatrical Poster
PB: You mentioned one of your influences as Hong Kong action cinema, what are some of your favourite Hong Kong action movies?
PL: I love all of the gangster movies, you know the ones with Chow Yun Fat. So movies like Hard Boiled and The Killer, I love those movies.
PB: There’s definitely an element of the Hong Kong influence in Nilalang, despite it using a Japanese premise, can you tell us how the concept for the movie came into being?
PL: Well, the story for Nilalang has been in my head for the longest time. When I was growing up, I forgot to mention it before, but I was really into Manga, especially anything connected to horror. So I pitched my script to my writing partner Dennis (Empalmado), and I said to him we need to make this movie. Dennis grew up also really being into the punk scene, so was in a punk band but was also into Japanese culture, you know like samurai and ninjas. I’ve also really been interested in Japanese culture for a long time, especially the fetish culture that they have, which is why there are those bondage scenes in the movie. So we just gelled together, and we wanted to see if the story could be a good fit for a Filipino production. But of course a lot of the producers we pitched the project to didn’t like it at all, because it really wasn’t Filipino in style or what local audiences watch.
We did manage to get a really big local actor on-board, Robin Padilla, but then during the pre-production stages he backed out. This in turn led to the producers that we had managed to get a commitment from also backing out, but thankfully we were able to bring in Cesar (Montano), who was really excited to be working on a movie with such a different type of script. He was really into both the script and the action element of it, so while he’s not a film producer, he comes with the money (laughter) and his presence allowed us to raise the funding.
“Erotibot” Japanese DVD Cover
PB: So it seems that the Japanese connection was always a part of the story, and not something which was brought in due to the presence of (Maria) Ozawa?
PL: Right, it was always a part of it. Actually Ozawa’s role was originally for a guy, so the character of Miyuki was never going to be female, and was supposed to be the arch-nemesis for Cesar. But we had to change it, the way it happened was one time we were having a drink with some friends, and Maria Ozawa came on the radio. She was a guest on a talk show while here in Manila, and during the interview she said how much she really wanted to do a movie. At that time we were already in pre-production, and putting the final touches on the script, so Dennis and I said, “F*ck, let’s just ask her if she wants to join the movie, and we’ll just have to re-write the role into a woman and make her the co-star.”
It just so happened that we called up Wesley (Villarica), who had also put money into the production, and is Ozawa’s manager locally here in Manila. He’s a good friend of mine, but before I contacted him about bringing Ozawa on-board, I had no idea that he was managing her here locally. So when I told him that we were going to look up Ozawa’s manager, he said, “That’s me!” It was a big coincidence, and of course he was happy to go ahead with the decision to bring her in.
Maria Ozawa is a “Killer” in Nilalang
So when Robin pulled out, we managed to find one person that was able to put in 70% of the budget, and then Wesley came in and put up the remaining 30%, on top of what he’d already been involved in. It was a big relief, because we were pretty bummed out about the whole thing. Robin pulling out meant that the money also pulled out, but at the time he took the decision to leave, we had already brought Ozawa in 100%. Japanese culture being what it is, of course I felt like I didn’t have a face to show if it turned out the movie wouldn’t pull through, so it felt like we were really grappling with how we were going to find the money. In the end my company put in some additional money, we has a silent partner who put in additional funding as well, and of course Wesley. So we had 3 production companies all in all – including Black Ops and Parallax, which is Wesley’s photography studio. So in the end, it worked out well.
PB: Wow, so what was the biggest change that the script underwent once Ozawa was officially on-board?
PL: Well, first of all we had to make it more sexy. (laughter) Actually I had wanted the movie to be sexier anyway, but the censors in Manila wouldn’t allow it, and also some of the producers got a little scared at the direction we wanted to take things. The trade-off however is that, with the budget we saved on not being able to do the sexier scenes, I got to use a lot of blood instead. (laughter)
“If it’s a Hollywood film, they don’t have a problem with it being sexy or bloody, but if it’s a local film, we have to put up with all these restrictions.”
The version that you saw of Nilalang is the uncut one, so that’s as close as we got to our vision. The one that was shown theatrically in Manila, there was probably 10 minutes less footage than in the uncut version. We had to cut so much blood, we had to cut the severed head at the beginning, and almost all of Ozawa’s sexy scenes had to go, even though they’re not even ‘sexy sexy’! So, it’s weird for me, in Manila, with the MTRCB (Movie and Television Review and Classification Board) particularly, they have these double standards. If it’s a Hollywood film, they don’t have a problem with it being sexy or bloody, but if it’s a local film, we have to put up with all these restrictions. What they told me was, and this is when we went there to defend it, is that it’s not a Filipino movie, and we’re not supposed to be that violent. So I told them it’s a film, it’s a movie, you know!? It’s supposed to be violent because it’s the Yakuza, it’s supernatural, it needs to be bloody and violent! The scene which has the face being sliced off, we had to cut it by half, so you just see it from the back and not the whole thing, but in my cut, you see everything.
Even in the final scenes, when Cholo (Barretto) is on the platform and he’s slicing his skin with the blade, we had to cut that scene for the local market to the extent that it was basically removed. So it’s weird, you know, in Manila you can screen a movie that shows two guys kissing, and they love it. There’s an independent film scene in Manila, but we were branded not independent enough, just because the movie we were making is different. We wanted to make a movie that we’d love, which is a genre movie, and the problem with the censors is that they care too much. I submitted a trailer for the movie twice, and both trailers were rejected to be shown, so it’s very difficult here in Manila to do horror.
Maria Ozawa, Cesar Montano, Meg Imperial and Yam Concepcion doing some “Nilalang” promotion.
Of course the movie should be R-18, but Viva (cinema chain)asked us if we can make it R-13. I had to tell them that we can’t make it R-13, or else you’re not going to see anything. So we kept it as R-18, but also provided an R-16, cut, so there’s 2 ratings. The R-16 cut was for SM (cinema chain), as they don’t show R-18 movies at their cinemas. The R-18 cut ended up being for all the other cinemas, but still, the differences between the 2 versions are only small.
PB: So the inclusion of the anime style sequences that are used to portray some moments of extreme violence, did you decide to use this technique as a way of getting around the censors, or was it a stylistic choice to have animation in the movie?
PL: The anime sequences were always a part of it, as I really wanted to make a nod to the old anime style from the 80’s. But the thing is, we hadn’t completed these sequences in time for the Metro Manila Film Festival at the end of 2015, so the version that was screened there actually didn’t have them included. The main reason was that we simply didn’t have time, we finished the film in August, and we only had a couple of months until the festival. The animation parts alone took me 8 – 9 months to complete, so I was able to include them in the version that was screened at the festivals playing abroad.
Horror Manga such as “Scumbag Loser” influenced Pedring Lopez.
But yes, the idea was always there to marry the animation into the story. You can probably tell from my office with the hundreds of toys everywhere, but I have a big love for anime and Manga, and that’s why the style of the animation was very old school. You don’t really see the characters moving, but the camera is moving, so it’s the normal type of anime that would be seen in the 80’s. My guys were the ones who did the animation, I got someone to hand draw it, then gave it to the animators in layers so that we could do get it completed.
PB: Have you ever considered making a feature length anime?
PL: There were actually a couple of people who were pushing me to do an animated spin-off of Nilalang, one of them was an agent in the U.S., who felt really strongly about it. The other one was a friend in the U.S. who thought it should be the backstory of the demon, and wanted it to either be an animation or a graphic novel. Of course, it’s something that I want to do, but the problem is you still need money to do it. (laughter) So they told me, because they have experience in that field, that if I was to go that route then it’d be important to tour it in Comic Con and events like this, so it’s very much considered a different type of audience than those that perhaps watched the film first.
PB: What was the biggest challenge during filming?
“Nilalang” made an impression at various film festival circuits.
PL: Dude, the budget. You know we only had budget for 20 days, and I wanted to shoot in double that amount of time, so 40 days. The action sequences we could have done better, I really believe we could have done them better, and both Sonny (Sison) and I feel the same way about that. But we were number one, just so pressed for time, and number two, dealing with the budget that we’d been given. We had a shooting budget of under US$1m, but I’m proud that you won’t see that, you can look at Nilalang and think that it has a much higher budget.
But yes, after seeing it I’m my own biggest critic, and I see a lot which we could have done better. The thing is we only had Ozawa for 12 days, and we’d originally wanted her to attend a kind of 1 week acting and action training workshop, but because of the limited time she could only spend 2 days on that instead. This was the first time for her to try anything like stunts or this kind of action, and you can see it in the movie, sometimes she looks a bit awkward. But on the plus side we found a great double for her, who was a local girl that Sonny was able to really spend time with training.
That was the most difficult part, combined with the fact that we were shooting in July and August, which is right in the middle of the tropical storm season. Because of the storms, we ended up having to back up 2 days, because our set was completely rained out. About 80% of the movie is shot here in Manila, and one time it was just completely flooding on the set, it was while Ozawa was there. Of course, she’d never seen anything like it, so she was enjoying being up to her ankles in water. But because of that, our 20 days ended up becoming 21.
Pedring Lopez talking to the press about “Nilalang” (Photo credit: Alexa Villano)
So the time constraints were really a challenge, especially when you consider that the fight scene with the Ronin, the one that opens the movie, alone took 36 hours to shoot. I’m proud of the opening though – the shots of the slain bodies in the fields are all CG, which we shot in Rizal. The rice paddies are real, but the smoke, and the mountain in the background, are all CG as well, those we added in later.
PB: Now I know many people reading this will be familiar with Sonny Sison as one of the assassins from the Alpha Stunts movie Broken Path, was Nilalang your first time to work with him?
PL: Yes, it was. So I was looking for a stunt guy, and I knew he’d previously worked on Bonifacio: Ang unang pangulo a couple of years prior with Robin Padilla, then Pao (Orendain), my Director of Photography, also said he knew of a guy from L.A., referring to Sonny, so we should check him out. I’d been hearing from people about the way he works, and I think a big part of the reason why the whole Nilalang team clicked together so well, is that we all come from very different backgrounds. Sonny came from L.A., I came from advertising, Pao had mostly worked on romantic comedies prior to working with us, so this was his first time to work on a genre picture.
The thing with Pao though is we’d worked together many times before on commercials and music videos, so when I told him that we wanted to do a film, he was so excited that he dropped out of a lot of rom-com films that he’d been scheduled to shoot. (laughter) I’ll say it was the right decision, as he ultimately won the award for cinematography at the film festival. Ava (Yap), the line producer, had also done a few movies with Robin (Padilla) before, so when I met with Sonny, we already shared that working history.
The reason why I like Sonny’s style so much, is that I think he’s currently the only person doing what he does in Manila that goes to the effort of creating a previz (pre-visualistaiton), so it’s really easy to storyboard everything with him. Then of course you have all of the stunt guys, well, when I say that (laughter), they’re pretty much non-existent currently. There are stunt people, but they’re really old school, so bringing in Sonny and all of his experience allowed him to pass on his knowledge on set, and I hope that his work will be an inspiration and allow us to see other stunt guys following. During the 80’s the Philippines had so many action movies, yes they were campy, but it was still action, and then that died, you know it just died, for some reason it just went away, and there’s no new action stars or action movies being made in Manila. But there’s a lot of stories to be made here, and I hope that some of them will lead to a resurgence in the action movie.
PB: I hope so too. So out of all the action in Nilalang, what was the most difficult to shoot?
Maria Ozawa confronts Jason Scott Lee’s worst nightmare.
PL: Oh, it was the one with Sonny and Maria. It’s the scene in the temple with the samurai that Maria has to fight, and actually the reason why it was so difficult was really my fault. (laughter) My principal director wanted to create a samurai, and I wanted it to be really authentic, so what I did was tell my production crew that we need to order in the samurai armour. But man, it was so heavy, so the first samurai stuntman, before Sonny had to take over, he was good but he was getting tired because of the heaviness, which led to Sonny stepping in. So half of the action scene is one stuntman, and the rest of it is Sonny.
The armour is actually now displayed in Wesley’s Japanese restaurant, as none of us knew what to do with it once we wrapped filming, complete with a note saying that it was used in Nilalang. (laughter)
I don’t know if you noticed, but the Yakuza Temple itself were the fight takes place is all CG as well, from the rooftop upwards. So we found a nice Japanese looking townhouse which was being used as a country club up in Cavite, which has a golf course. What’s funny is that we also had to make a CG front door, because there was no door on the country club, it was just open, so we had to put a green screen there because the door had to open, which we then added in post.
Cesar Montano and Meg Imperial step up their game.
PB: So how did you come up with the idea for the demon that is Zahagur?
PL: I kind of like the idea of a demon that cuts off the faces of his enemies, especially the girls, to keep as souvenirs. I really wanted to go into his backstory, like a prequel set in ancient Japan, so hope I get to do it one day. Some people have mentioned to me about a sequel, but I think the film itself works as a stand-alone story, so my focus would really be on the prequel, which would lead up to Zahagur facing off against the two brothers who we meet in the opening of Nilalang. So I envision the beginning of Nilalang would be the ending of the prequel. I think it’s a really cool idea, but it would be an expensive one, as I’d want to shoot it in Japan, in the snow, and that’s something you definitely never get here. (laughter)
PB: Well if you’re in Japan, it’ll give you a good reason to cast Ozawa again. (laughter) What was she like to work with as an actress?
PL: Well this was really her first main role, she did one role before I think in a Malaysian horror, but that was really just more of a cameo. This is her first starring role which is, well, not porn. Surprisingly she was really easy to work with, always on time, very professional, and, unlike if you work with a big name local actor here in Manila, who’ll have many demands, with Maria she just wanted Adobo available for her in her tent and a bottle of tequila, which was cool. I guess the tequila helps her, but she was fine to work with. She really wanted to do most of her own stunts, and as a result she got a sprained wrist during filming while they were practicing the fight with the samurai.
“With Maria she just wanted Adobo available for her in her tent and a bottle of tequila, which was cool. “
I think while she was here she also fell in love with Manila, especially with the weather and the nightlife, as since then she’s now opened a bar in the Remington Hotel close to Resorts World. It’s a gentleman’s bar, and because she owns a management agency in Japan, sometimes she brings the AV (adult video) girls signed to her agency to Manila for a show, which is great. (laughter)
Nilalang ended up being perfect timing for both of us, as one time I was talking with her onset, and she said it’s really like a dream come true, because she’d been on the radio talking about how she wants to do a movie, and the next day we called and invited her to star in ours. (laughter) Her Japanese managers are very excited about her work in Manila, and have even said that if we were to shoot another movie with her in Japan, they’d be willing to help us. I think for some reason the Japanese film industry is really looking to branch out more, looking into co-productions and filming overseas. It’s funny because when I first went to L.A. and New York with Nilalang, everyone I spoke to had assumed it was a Filipino/Japanese co-production, believing that the reason why it looks so glossy must be because the post was taken care of in Japan. But dude, the post was done 100% in my post-production house. I had 18 people working on the post for a period of 6 months, so it can be done.
“everyone I spoke to had assumed it was a Filipino/Japanese co-production.”
The thing that’s happening right now in Manila with genre films, is that we have a lot of directors who are scared of doing them, simply because no producer here in their right mind would put the amount of money required behind a local genre film. The only reason I got the money was because one of our main producers is a really big fan of action, and Wesley is both the manager of Ozawa and also a big fan of action, and when I pitched them the idea I told them it’s not supposed to be a Manila based story. That’s why many of the critics in Manila really disliked it, but many of the critics overseas were much more favourable. There’s a lot of critics here locally that love action movies, but they just didn’t like Nilalang, for example guys like Philbert Dy, who hated it. I hate him! I’m just kidding, everyone is entitled to their opinion. (laughter)
But the point is there’s a real split, it’s not a rom-com, it’s not your typical Filipino movie, and I hope for one that it’ll push Manila based filmmakers into creating movies that have more global content. Right now we’re stuck to the stories you always see in Manila, and if it continues that way they’re never going to reach another audience other than the local one here.
“we weren’t expecting to get dropped from over 30 cinemas on just the second day!”
PB: Of course what’s interesting is that it’s now been shown at various different film festivals around the world, but here on your home ground, it was actually pulled from the Metro Manila Film Festival after one day!
PL: Yeah, we got pulled out on only the second day! We started in 50 cinemas, on the second day that number was down to just 13. Then we got pulled completely by the third day, and then they put us back on in January. So I said we were never expecting to make money from the film festival, but at the same time we weren’t expecting to get dropped from over 30 cinemas on just the second day! (laughter) But dude, if you know the ins and outs of the festival, especially the Metro Manila Film Festival, it’s really a cartel. It’s mostly for the big producers, so we were taken out because they needed to open up more screens to show Beauty and the Bestie and My Bebe Love. That’s why me and (Erik) Matti’s movie were pulled. It’s weird, because I won 5 awards, most of them for technical factors, while Matti won most of the acting awards, so we had 5 each, but both of our movies were pulled out.
“Nilalang” will be showing at the U.A.S.E.
After that, Nilalang got accepted to 8 different film festivals abroad, so there was the UK, Buenos Aries in Argentina, and 3 of them in the U.S. – L.A., New York, and Kentucky. The Kentucky one is one of the oldest horror film festivals, so we’re pretty excited about that one, and we’ll be showing at the Urban Action Showcase in New York. So the bureaucracy of the independent film community here is difficult, and we were basically shunned as an independent company. The Film Development Council recently introduced a new policy, were they said if your film makes it to a festival outside of the Philippines, they’ll pay the cost of the airfare. The guidance was if you’re screening they’ll pay for one airfare, and if you’re actually competing they’ll pay for one plus one. We ended up having to pay for our own tickets, simply because they said the festivals we’re going to be competing in aren’t on their list of festivals that were eligible for the airfare. So I asked them to give me the list of their festivals, and there were no genre film festivals listed on it, only the really big ones like Busan Film Festival, so we had to fight with them constantly, and in the end we just said forget it, we’ll pay for ourselves.
Pedring’s Angels.
There’s just no support at all for genre filmmaking. It’s funny because if you look at the type of films that they do support, and I don’t have anything against any of the filmmakers who have made them, but they’re all movies that revolve around poverty, drugs, and the downtrodden lives in Manila. But there’s a thriving genre community here in Manila that can’t get any funding or support, despite many directors having an interest in branching out into different genres. But without support they can’t get anywhere, the good thing with us is that we own our own post-production house, so we can do everything ourselves, but other directors don’t have that access. So for a start, my group is funding a few short films that are in development next year which are all genre driven – slasher, action etc., as a way of helping out the community. Because there’s a lot of market outside the Philippines, and I’d rather encourage this type of filmmaking than resort to having to make ‘poverty porn’. (laughter)
PB: Well your next movie definitely isn’t going to fall under that label, with the Mark Dacascos starring Breach. Is the plan for this one to put Philippines action cinema back on the map?
PL: Yes, very much so, we’re all looking forward to this one. Actually we pitched the concept to Tiger Beer, and I’ll also be pitching it to their regional offices when I get back to the Manila after the AFM (American Film Market) and Urban Action Showcase, so hopefully we can get them on-board. But the thing is, they’ve already told me they want Ozawa back, so I said that’s no problem at all, if you’re paying for it of course we can bring her back. So we might end up changing, or adding more, to the story that we have now.
“Breach” Teaser Poster
We already have Yoshi Sudarso confirmed, he’s excited and I think is currently wrapping up with the Power Rangers. This will be his first time in the Philippines, and he’s actually working out really hard for the role, if you see his Instagram posts, he’s looking pretty buff. We’re also writing a character for Dan Southworth, who’ll be the nemesis for Dacascos, so it’s an exciting prospect.
For Dacascos as well, I’m hoping to meet with him while I’m in the U.S. over the next few weeks. We also met up last August, and he’s really excited as it’s been a while for him to have a lead role in a pure action movie. He’s had a few villain roles lately on TV, and also tried his hand at directing, so he’s looking forward to being back front and centre. Actually in Breach you could say his character is an anti-hero, as his brother gets killed by PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency), and he has to go home to take care of the family business and bury his brother. So the PDEA are actually going to be the villains of the piece, which is fitting considering the current climate in the Philippines.
PB: How did Dacascos get involved?
PL: I was looking for an American actor that could do action, but also someone who will appeal in Asia, and Dacascos has that Asian look. The reason I say that is I’d originally wanted a Hong Kong actor for the lead role, but Sonny and me were talking and agreed that it’ll be easier to sell if it’s an American actor. Talking to a lot of my contacts in the U.S., they all agreed that Mark would be the best choice, as he’s really big in Russia and Europe, so there should be no issues getting distribution deals there. Of course on top of those business aspects we have to think about, I’m personally a big fan of Mark as well, and believe Brotherhood of the Wolf is one of his best performances. That’s how we decided to cast Mark, and my approach is to bring in some Hong Kong guys that can star alongside him.
“Brotherhood of the Wolf” Japanese Theatrical Poster
I even told Sonny, because he’s come on board as a co-producer, that we should bring in his boys from L.A. for the stunts, who are currently working on Marvel’s Iron Fist series. So they did most of the stunts on that series, and Sonny is going to try and get them over for Breach, which we’re both really excited for. We really want to make Breach a Manila set action movie that will stand out, not just here in Manila, but on a global scale, so I want to make it look as real as possible, especially the fights. It’s not going to be kung fu in the traditional sense of the word, but it’s definitely not going to be just your average fighting, I’d say there’ll be some of The Raid influence in there, but more Hong Kong style.
When I saw how they did the fights in The Bourne Supremacy, particularly the one that takes place in the really confined room, I want that kind of action for Breach, because it was filmed in a way that made you feel you were right there in the thick of it. For a Hollywood film, the action in that movie was really good, especially with there being so much hand-to-hand. So that’s one of the fight styles that I want to bring to Breach, but I also wanted to add in some Filipino Martial Arts, and Sonny is especially pushing for this. So we’ll have the Filipino stick fighting, and also the blades. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a Filipino martial arts movie, there’s been nothing, so now is the time.
“Sticks of Death” Theatrical Poster
If I remember correctly, the last Filipino martial arts movie that I really enjoyed was from the 80’s, the name was Sticks of Death, all of the fighting in that one was based on the Filipino martial arts Arnis, I think it was with Roland Dantes. That one was a really good one. So I’m very thankful to Nilalang, because it’s opened a lot of doors not only for me, but also for my production house, and allows us now to have the opportunity to make these kinds of movies again now. After production wrapped, we’ve been able to set up offices in Vietnam, and also in Hong Kong. We’re also in talks to open up an office in L.A. It’s funny, but for some reason, there are so many rich people in Vietnam! They really want to produce films, and seem to like the idea of having Vietnamese names attached as executive producers, which I don’t mind, so now we’re thinking of working with two people in Vietnam.
For Breach we’re trying to raise between 5 and 6 million dollars, and I’ve already raised about 1.5 of that locally in Escrow, and we’re meeting with producers in L.A. that will help to finance the film through our Hong Kong office, which will be cool. In that way Nilalang was kind of like a trial, or an experiment, but it was one that really paid off. What we did there cinematography wise, production design wise, action wise, now if we double our budget, we can really make a film which looks like a Hollywood movie. Of course the thing I’m most excited about it what we’ll be able to do with the action scenes with a much higher budget.
PB: It’s interesting that Vietnam want to get involved with the Filipino action movie industry, how did that come about?
PL: Well there are currently a lot of Vietnamese working in Vietnam who didn’t grow up there, so they were raised places like the States and Australia, and now they’re in Vietnam looking for ways to invest the money that they made overseas. So there’s a lot of interest in these action movies that could appeal to overseas markets, and what’s most interesting, is that once the industry people there realised I was the director of Nilalang, all they could talk about was if I could bring Maria Ozawa to Vietnam. (laughter) It’s a communist country, but actually Vietnam is the number one Asian country for Google searching her name, which is so interesting. She has a huge following there, despite the internet being regulated. So while she’s not that well known in the U.S., she’s certainly very big in Asia.
“Nilalang” Theatrical Poster
So at some point I’d like to do a film in Vietnam, there’s a lot of talented fight guys based there, and I’ve always thought it would be an awesome place to do a car chase scene, with all of those scooters that they have all over the roads there. So hopefully after Breach, we can continue making regional films, ones which have both American, local, and casts from other countries involved so that Filipino cinema can get back on the map again. After Nilalang and Breach, I’ll be signed with Viva, so I can do the films with them, and our production company Black Ops can also co-produce.
PB: Great, and I heard before Breach starts filming, you have one more movie you plan to film?
PL: Yes! It’s a very local micro-budget found footage horror film, in the style of a slasher which I love, and we’re going to film it almost completely with smart phones, so we’ll be starting to film that from next month.
PB: Well, good luck for the movie, and even more so for your time at the AMF next week and the Urban Action Showcase!
PL: Thanks Paul, let’s catch up when I’m back!
• Nilalang will be screening as part of the Urban Action Showcase in New York on the 12th November, under its English title of The Entity.
The Return of Godzilla | aka Godzilla 1984 | Blu-ray (Kraken)
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray for Koji Hashimoto’s The Return of Godzilla (aka Godzilla 1984). The film was also released in the U.S. as Godzilla 1985, which was heavily edited and spliced with different footage for the American market. Please note that this release will be the original, uncut version of The Return of Godzilla.
Director: Lee Chul-Ha Cast: Gang Ye-Won, Lee Sang-Yoon, Choi Jin-Ho, Ji Dae-Han, Chun Min-Hee, Lee Hak-Joo, Choi Yoon-So, Jo Jae-Yun, Kim Jong-Soo, Jang Tae-Seong Running Time: 91 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Mainstream Korean horror has always been a tricky beast, dating back to when the new wave really put Korean cinema on the map in the early 2000’s, the one constant seemed to be over promise and under deliver. Posters set expectations for buckets of blood (Cello), or grizzly decapitations (The Cut), however the product that ended up onscreen rarely matched the expectations that the artwork provided. In 2016, nothing seems to have changed much since those days. Yes, admittedly the poster for Insane gives very little away, instead leaning on the appeal of popular TV drama actor Lee Sang-yoon, and patchy actress Kang Ye-won. However the spirit of over-selling is still there, as the production was promised to be an intense psychological journey into the horrors of a woman convinced she’s going insane.
For a while, director Lee Cheol-ha looks like he’s going to follow through on the promise. Insane opens with a terrific shot, very similar to an equally fantastic shot that opens The Shameless, which sees the camera slicing diagonally down through the skyscrapers of Seoul, before settling on Ye-won just as she’s grabbed and bundled into a van by what appear to be police officers. Soon she’s been forcibly restrained, has a preventative gag stuck in her mouth, and is forced to strip and shower. It turns out she’s been admitted as a patient in a mental hospital, although where and why she’s there are a mystery. It’s nasty stuff, and proceedings look set to follow a grimy and unpleasant path.
Then, just like that, the tone completely changes. We’re asked to forget about the rather traumatising opening, and are abruptly introduced to Sang-yoon’s character, the producer of an investigative crime show, who’s in the middle of being interviewed on a talk show. The segment is interrupted though when news of a scandal involving Sang-yoon’s show is delivered to the host, and as a result he’s left out in the wind. Skip forward a year later, and he’s given a chance at redemption by hosting a show about unexplained phenomena – ghosts, things that go bump in the night etc. Sang-yoon is understandably displeased at the proposition, however a partially burnt diary grabs his attention, which looks to have been written by a mental patient proclaiming to be locked up against her will.
It is of course Ye-won’s diary, and we learn that not only did the mental hospital burn down in a fire, but she’s also currently locked up and awaiting trial for the murder of her step-father. Naturally Sang-yoon makes it his mission to find out the truth, determined that breaking the story will make him a hot producer once more, and he won’t need to bother with the goofy supernatural show. Right here is the first major problem that Insane has, as it quickly changes its footing to become an investigative thriller about Sang-yoon uncovering the truth. We already know Ye-won is out of the hospital, so there’s not even an element of knowing she’s in danger, instead, it simply becomes a by-the-numbers thriller of a disgraced TV producer trying to get his ticket back to prime time. Who cares?
Director Lee Cheol-ha obviously wants us to, but one look at his filmography reveals he’s never spent long enough working within one genre to figure out how. After working as an assistant director on the 2000 classic Il Mare, he’s frequently skipped from melodrama (2006’s Love Me Not), found-footage horror (2010’s Deserted House), and documentary (2013’s Hello Orchestra), to now what he’d no doubt like us to believe is a psychological horror. In fairness, he occasionally throws in a scene to remind (probably himself as much as) the audience, that Insane is a horror flick. There’s a severed head in a box, a patients organs are attempted to be removed while they’re still alive, and there’s a hallucinatory dream sequence. However, it all feel like it’s there because it’s obligated to be, too obviously providing exclamation marks in an otherwise dull story.
So with expectations dashed that Insane is going to be any kind of descent into one woman’s madness, the success of the movie lies in its big reveal. Whose behind Ye-won’s forced stay in the mental hospital? What were their reasons for putting her there? Will Sang-yoon be able to return to hosting a prime time TV show? Sadly, the more details that are hinted at as to why Ye-won was incarcerated the way she was, the more ridiculous the movie becomes, begging the question of if it’s even worth reaching the end of. Revelations that are completely uninteresting, and devoid of any horror element whatsoever, are fed to the audience as if they’re signs of a fantastically smart script.
To be honest, if Insane was a 60 minute TV drama special, it would probably get a serviceable pass. However a movie should look and feel like a movie, and Cheol-ha’s style of direction simply doesn’t. The script certainly does its part to work against him as well, as while it focuses on some aspects very closely, others it simple drops and never returns to. In one of the most misconstrued scenes I’ve seen in a long time, Sang-yoon and his ghost show crew (partially dressed as ghosts and witches) visit the mental hospital site to gather some footage. While there, a survivor from the fire is found, badly burnt and running around them like some kind of ghostly apparition, even though the scene is clearly well lit. It’s like Cheol-ha had completely missed the point of the scene in the script, which is much more likely that it should have been shot dark, and then they sense that they’re not alone.
The victim turns out to be one of the nurses who used to work in the hospital, the one of course who took pity on Ye-won and wanted to help her escape. During the course of the movie though, when Sang-yoon comes to visit him in the current hospital, the nurses advises he just disappeared. What happened to him? Actually you’ll never get to know, as it seems this plot point was forgotten about in the final version, and where exactly he disappeared to (and again, why?), is never touched upon. Factors like this are simply down to poor filmmaking, nothing more.
It’s a shame, as the more we learn about the nurse through flashbacks, the more he becomes one of the very few characters that it’s possible to care about even just a little. The lack of likeable characters is another one of Insane’s biggest issues – Sang-yoon just wants to get back on prime time TV, and his character isn’t developed any further than that, nor do his motivations change at any point. While it’s not entirely his fault, he clocks in a performance that’s as befittingly one note as the script he’s memorized. Likewise for Ye-won, she simply doesn’t register as a victim that we want to root for, despite the nastiness of the initial scenes, which is perhaps the biggest indicator of Cheol-ha’s lack of understanding of cinematic language. I mean after everything we saw Ye-won go through, we should care, but for whatever reason it is, we don’t.
The worst example of bad filmmaking comes in the final scene. Well, the scene that takes place after what we’re led to believe is the final scene. Cheol-ha delivers a last minute twist, which I’m sure was supposed to make viewers realise they need to see the movie again to fully understand what’s been going on. However the twist is so incredulously stupid, that I couldn’t even bring myself to laugh at it, instead letting out a completely involuntary groan of discontent. If you’re going to end your movie with a twist, you at least owe it to the audience, as an absolute bare minimum, to ensure that it makes sense. As it is, not only does the twist have more holes than an old pair of socks, but it also removes it even further away from horror territory than it already was. In this regard, Insane is exactly what it says on the box, and as such, it would be best if it’s locked up far out of sight from public viewing.
Director: John Stockwell Cast: Alain Moussi, Georges St-Pierre, T.J. Storm, Matthew Ziff, Sam Medina, Dave Bautista, Sue-Lynn Ansari, Darren Shahlavi, Gina Carano, Hawn Tran, Sara Malakul Lane, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Tanzpol Chuksrida Running Time: 90 min.
By Zach Nix
Kickboxer: Vengeance is a remake/reboot of the original and classic Jean-Claude Van Damme martial arts film, Kickboxer, which was released in 1989. While there were a string of Van Damme-less Kickboxer sequels released in the 90s starring Sasha Mitchell and Marc Dacascos, Kickboxer: Vengeance is the latest entry within the franchise after a solid twenty-year dry spell. Director John Stockwell (In the Blood) and screenwriters Dimitri Logothetis and Jim McGrath aim to not only pay tribute to the original, but also to start up a new series of sequels, to which there is already one, entitled Kickboxer: Retaliation, in production as I write this review. In a world filled with big budget remakes of hugely iconic intellectual properties, it’s nice to have a reboot of a smaller action and martial arts film, as cult classics tend to get swept under the rug in favor of larger reboots.
While some may argue as to whether Kickboxer: Vengeance is a remake, reboot, or reimagining of the original film, I would argue that it is a reboot-quel, as it feels like a sequel in nature due to Van Damme’s inclusion but also as a reboot to a long defunct franchise by passing the torch from one generation of stars and fans to the next. Similar reboot-quels as of recent include Terminator: Genisys, Mad Max: Fury Road, Creed, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, all films that aimed to revitalize franchises who had not seen an installment in several years through the incorporation of previous cast, crew, and canon. As for Kickboxer: Vengeance, I am glad to report that the reboot-quel not only successfully pays tribute to the original, but also one-ups it as a much superior film whilst paving the road for more sequels to come.
The plot, as fans of the classic will immediately recognize, is as follows. Kurt Sloane (Alain Moussi) is the manager of his karate champion brother, Eric Sloane (Darren Shahlavi). When Eric is offered a large amount of money by a fight organizer, Marcia (Gina Carano), to take part in an underground fight in Thailand against Muay Thai champion Tong Po (David Bautista), he accepts, although his brother stresses him not too. Unfortunately, Eric dies in the fight, leaving Kurt enraged against Tong Po and in mourning. After a failed attempt to murder Tong Po, Kurt seeks out Eric’s trainer, Master Durand (Jean-Claude Van Damme), to teach him Muay Thai in order to defeat Tong Po in a one-on-one fight.
Fans can relax knowing that Kickboxer: Vengeance doesn’t shamelessly rehash the original film’s plot points beat for beat, as it mostly uses the frame work of the original to tell the same story, whilst also throwing in new sub-plots, situations, and action scenes that never occurred within the original. The film shakes things up by dropping you into the middle of the conflict, as it than flashes back three months earlier to set up the exposition that fans will recognize, although this time Kurt’s brother is murdered, not simply paralyzed. Thankfully, the film shakes up the monotony of the training sequences by throwing in new action scenes and situations in the middle of the picture that never occurred in the original and providing a sub-plot concerning corrupt cops and their involvement with the illegal underground fights that was nowhere within the original as well. Overall, Kickboxer: Vengeance outdoes the original by packing slightly more meat into its narrative and for shaking up the formula a bit, whilst also providing far superior fights and numerous action stars and sports fighters to boot.
Kickboxer: Vengeance features a very impressive cast of recognizable and experienced sports fighters that turns the film into a celebration of all things mixed martial arts, sort of the same way that Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables paid tribute to the by gone era of the eighties action picture with its cast. Alain Moussi fills in Van Damme’s shoes as the franchise’s newest Kurt Sloane. While he is hardly a dramatically compelling actor, Moussi proves himself a solid physical performer, taking part within many fights that demonstrate his physical commitment to the production. Bautista also does solid work as the franchise’s newest Tong Po, using his imposing physical stature to great affect. Other small supporting roles within the film include Gina Carano as a villainous fight organizer, George St. Pierre as a desperate fighter whose allegiances seem shaky, and Darren Shahlavi as Kurt’s brother in his final screen performance. It’s extremely sad to watch Tong Po kill Shahlavi’s character early on in the film, as the scene carries more emotional weight to it considering that Shahlavi died in 2015 and that his death in the film is so particularly brutal. Shahlavi’s part may be small, but it is also quite affective, and a nice send off to one of martial arts’ late greats, may he rest in peace.
While martial arts fans would have turned out for Kickboxer: Vengeance regardless of who was in it, Van Damme’s inclusion is a huge coup. Kickboxer: Vengeance could be considered Van Damme’s Creed, as he, much like Stallone, goes full circle from the apprentice of the original film to the master in the reboot, more than twenty years later. He’s not going to be snagging an Oscar nomination like Stallone did, but Van Damme truly does give one of his career best performances here. He blends both sternness and maturity with his trademark goofiness, offering up a wink and a smile here and there, almost as a nod to his fans for always sticking by him all of these years. This is the perfect kind of role for Van Damme to play in his latter years, as it acknowledges his youthful past, gives him a few chances to show off his still impressive moves, and allows him to demonstrate his maturity in a role as wise master. The other great thing about Van Damme in this film is that he is in the entire movie, not simply a scene or two like some of the other stars in the film. He has a ton of screen time, participates in several fights, and is always involved with the story at hand. Unlike John Hyams’ Dragon Eyes, which featured Van Damme in a limited but affective mentor role, Kickboxer: Vengeance places Van Damme front and center to Moussi’s lead.
Unfortunately, there is one notable flaw about Van Damme’s part in the film. While he appears to be a good sport throughout, performing what appears to be all of his own moves on screen, there are a few very notable instances within the film where his voice is dubbed by someone other than himself. I immediately picked up on it early on, and had flashbacks to some of Steven Seagal’s worst post-dubbing moments in many of his own direct to video films. While it only appears here and there, and is honestly quite hard to pick up on unless you have an ear for this kind of stuff, it is extremely noticeable during the final fight when nearly every word that comes out of Van Damme’s mouth, especially ones depicted on screen, are not his own. It’s a shame that this otherwise technically proficient film features such obvious post-dubbing that plagues the worst of direct to video cinema. It’s a minor flaw in the grand scheme of things, and the only element of the film that outright hurts its theatrical quality, but it’s a shame that it appears within one of Van Damme’s best performances.
Besides its stellar cast, Kickboxer: Vengeance boasts an abundance of martial arts fights within its swift ninety minute run time. Moussi participates in almost every fight of the film, and has a one on one match with just about every one in the cast. Even Van Damme participates in several of the film’s fights, including a surprise throw down between him and St. Pierre. While not a direct tournament fighter film, although it does share similarities with the sub-genre, Kickboxer: Vengeance avoids the trapping of redundant one on one matches by throwing in several action scenes where Moussi specifically has to go up against multiple opponents amidst different settings, whether it be on the streets of Thailand or in the halls of a prison. While most martial arts fans would have been fine with numerous one on one matches, I for one appreciated Stockwell’s decision to craft several different kind of action scenes throughout, thereby making each one unique and different from the last.
Although some martial fans will always see the original Kickboxer as an undisputed classic that cannot be topped, I for one am here to argue and proclaim that Kickboxer: Vengeance is not only a great update and reboot of the original, but a far superior film. Before all of you Van Damme and martial arts fans come after me, let me explain my case. In all honesty, I always felt that the original Kickboxer was a flawed and slightly boring martial arts picture that only got by based upon the nostalgia its fans had attached to it, no offense to fans of said picture. That being said, Kickboxer: Vengeance not only gives you the familiar story of the original, but also offers up a greater variety of action scenes, a far more involving training process, an immensely stellar cast, as well as sub-plots that add more meat to the narrative. What I am getting at here, is that Kickboxer: Vengeance has the advantage over the original simply because it offers up more entertainment bang for your buck. There are also some very fun nods to the original that fans will get a real kick out of. I dare not spoil them for those who have not seen the film yet, but they elevate the picture that much higher for its respect of the original.
All insults of the original aside, the reboot is not entirely perfect either. As I stated before, the most glaring error of the picture is Van Damme’s obvious voice dubbing, which pulls the viewer directly out of the picture. It’s a shame that the worst error of Seagal’s direct to video cinema not only found its way into a Van Damme picture, whom is typically never dubbed over by someone else, but also within one of the better American martial arts pictures of recent years. Another error of the picture is that it moves at too swift a pace at times, gliding quickly over rather important scenes that need more time in order to drive their effect home, most notably Eric Sloane’s death. It also doesn’t help that the classic Kickboxer story is not the world’s most dramatically compelling tale, as it is mostly an excuse to craft a vehicle for martial artists to show off their moves. However, the pros of this reboot outweigh its cons by a long shot. It’s not often that martial arts fans get a reboot, let alone a film, of this stature with such a notable budget and ensemble cast. The fights are uniformly excellent too, from both their hard-hitting choreography to their smooth cinematography. And Van Damme’s involvement in the film makes it a must see event, brining his career full circle from the young ambitious wannabe star to full-fledged action veteran. There’s no doubt about it, Kickboxer: Vengeance is not only a solid martial arts picture, but also superior to the original Kickboxer in every way.
The world of mixed martial arts has undergone somewhat of a boom period over the last two decades as the rise in popularity of organisations such as UFC have moved the sport into the mainstream. The debate about who is the greatest MMA fighter of all-time continues to rage on so here is our look at the most legendary ones to have graced the sport over the years.
Anderson “The Spider” Silva is widely regarded as the greatest MMA fighter of all-time
Anderson “The Spider” Silva
We start this list with undoubtedly the greatest MMA fighter of all time in Anderson Silva. The Brazilian fighter went on an incredible winning streak during his prime of 19-0 in which time he defeated some of the sport’s biggest names including Chael Sonnen, Vitor Belfort, and Dan Henderson. The fact this era of dominance came when there were no other competitions outside of the UFC that were taking competitors away meant Silva was the best at a time when UFC was at its most competitive. He holds the record for the longest title streak in UFC history at 2,457 days. Many wonder how good Silva could have continued to be if he had not horrifically broken his leg against Chris Weidman.
Matt Hughes
It has been a glittering career for US fighter Hughes who is a two-time UFC Welterweight Champion, UFC Hall of Famer, and NJCAA Hall of Famer. During his title streak, Hughes was considered to be the best pound-for-pound mixed martial artist in the world. He has defeated a number of legendary fighters such as Georges St Pierre, Royce Gracie, and BJ Penn. Such is the reputation of Hughes within the sport that St Pierre even admitted after his defeat that he was awestruck by Hughes before, during, and after their bout.
Fedor “The Last Emperor” Emelianenko
If you want to consider some of the best MMA fighters in their prime then you need to look no further than Russian Fedor Emelianenko who went undefeated between 6th April, 2001 and 7th November, 2009. He beat some of the best fighters to have graced the sport such as Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (twice) and Mirko Filipovic. He has won multiple titles with different organisations including PRIDE Fighting Championships, FIAS World Combat Sambo Championship, and Russian Judo Federation National Championship.
Georges “Rush” St. Pierre
The Canadian mixed martial artist became one of the first big marketable names in UFC and can take a lot of credit for helping the organisation’s popularity sky rocket during the 2000s. George St. Pierres’ only two defeats during his first 11 years of fighting came against two big-name fighters in the shape of Matt Hughes and Matt Serra. He is a three-time former welterweight champion in the UFC and he holds the record for the second longest combined title streak in UFC history that lasted 2,204 days. The many victories of Georges “Rush” St. Pierre helped the sport to become a popular market across sports betting which was always seen as an unrealistic prospect for MMA. Mobile sports betting has been on the rise ever since then along with mobile casino games in general and MMA is becoming increasingly popular for sports bettors.
Randy “The Natural” Couture
Do not let Randy Couture’s less-brutal-than-normal nickname of “The Natural” fool you. This man was one of the most feared fighters in MMA during his peak. The US fighter is a former heavyweight champion in a career that spanned from 1997 to 2011. He was a late starter in MMA terms, he only turned professional at 33 years of age, and many feel he could have gone on to become one of the greatest if he had started his career earlier.
Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva
Wanderlei Silva is credited with having one of the most prolific prime streaks during the history of MMA. Between 12th August, 2000 and 1st July, 2006, Silva won 18 fights without defeat to put his name amongst the greats of the sport. He has defeated great fighters including Dan Henderson and Quinton Jackson. The Brazilian-American fighter has shown his talents in UFC and PRIDE winning plaudits in both organisations. He also boasts the longest winning streak in PRIDE history.
Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira
Brazilian fighter Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira became renowned for his expertise of the Brazilian Ju-Jitsu discipline during his career. He experienced an 8-year prime streak between 2000 and 2008 when he posted wins against fighters such as Mark Coleman, Fabricio Werdum, and Josh Barnett. Despite only being touted as one of the best fighters in the UFC for a short time he is still regarded as one of the best technical fighters to appear in the organisation.
Jon “Bones” Jones is an icon for the new era of UFC
Jon “Bones” Jones
Not many fighters make this list when they are still active but 29-year-old Jon Jones is one of the few. The current interim light heavyweight champion in UFC has carved quite a reputation for himself already. In an age when the charisma of the likes of McGregor and Brock Lesnar have dominated the media the more low-key approach of Jones continues to impress the purists. He has repeatedly been listed as the best pound-for-pound fighter around right now and notching up 21 victories between 12th April, 2008 and 6th January, 2015 shows how successful he has been. He has a VIP list of defeated opponents including Alexander Gustafsson, Daniel Cormier, and Lyoto Machida and he is only just getting started.
Bas “El Guapo” Rutten
We need to rewind the clock back a bit further to see the prime of Dutch fighter Bas Rutten. The man from Tilburg ended his prestigious career on a high with an undefeated streak of 22 fights consisting of 21 wins and 1 draw. Rutten was like a fine wine and only seemed to get better with age. The UFC Hall of Fame inductee popularised the use of the liver shot in MMA and he has gone on to become one of the most highly-regarded coaches in MMA.
Chuck “The Ice Man” Liddell
In the days before Conor McGregor, the one man who was the most commercially viable fighter for MMA was US-based Chuck Liddell. The fact he has appeared in a number of movies and television shows over the years such as Entourage, Drillbit Taylor, and Kick-Ass 2 emphasize this. However, he was also a brilliant fighter in his own right. He was involved in some epic fights with opponents such as Wanderlei Silva, Randy Couture, and Tito Ortiz. He will forever be remembered as one of the hardest-hitting fighters of all-time.
An adaptation of Richard H. Dillon’s 2012 novel, Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars, is in the works. Will Yun Lee (Four Assassins, Wolverine) will headline the film, which will be based on screenplay by Michael Thomas (Backbeat) and Morgan Duncan (Parfum Fatale).
According to Deadline, Hatchet Men will follow the conflicts between rival gangs in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1890s. The story will center on Little Pete (Lee), the prominent leader of the Som Yop Tong gang, who built a criminal empire.
In addition to hatchet-wielding gangsters, we can also expect some martial arts action: “Finding a world where you can bring the kinetic energy of The Raid and the texture of Boardwalk Empire is an exciting project to be a part of,” Lee told Deadline.
Lee is also working on Ron Yuan’s Unspoken: Diary of an Assassin, an action/thriller that also stars Zoë Bell (Death Proof) and Brian Tee (No Tears for the Dead).
We’ll keep you updated on this project as we learn more. Until then, here’s a look at what Lee is capable of in 2012’s Four Assassins:
John McTiernan – the legendary filmmaker behind Die Hard, Predator, The Hunt for Red October and Die Hard with A Vengeance – is ready for action. WWII action, that is.
According to CFI, McTiernan has signed to direct an untitled WWII film about the aftermath of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in 1942, which was the first air strike to hit the Japanese Home Islands. Its name was derived from Lieutenant Colonel James “Jimmy” Doolittle of the United States Army Air Forces, who led the raid.
Hollywood and Hong Kong’s André Morgan (Tower of Death) – who is mostly known for his association with Golden Harvest studios – is on board as producer. There are currently no other details regarding additional cast or crew.
Ever since McTiernan’s 2014 prison release, he’s been connected to some “come back” projects that ultimately fell through. The first was a mercenary thriller called Red Squad. The second was Warbirds, a Top Gun-like action flick that would have starred John Travolta.
Here’s hoping this upcoming WWII film will see the light of day and serve as a proper comeback for one of Hollywood’s best filmmakers. Shooting is expected to start next year in China. Stay tuned.
“The Lost Bladesman” and “Reign of Assassins” Contest
Cityonfire.com and Anchor Bay Entertainment are giving away 3 sets of DVDs containing both Donnie Yen’s The Lost Bladesman and Michelle Yeoh’s Reign of Assassins to three lucky Cityonfire visitors. To enter, simply add a comment to this post and describe, in your own words, the video below.
We will be selecting a winner at random. Be sure to include your email address in the appropriate field so we can contact you for your home address. Also, please ‘Like Us‘ on Cityonfire.com’s Facebook by clicking here.
CONTEST DISCLAIMER: You must enter by November 9, 2016 to qualify. U.S. residents only please. We sincerely apologize to our non-U.S. visitors. Winners must respond with their mailing address within 48 hours, otherwise you will automatically be disqualified. No exceptions. Contest is subject to change without notice.
WINNNERS: Ben, Apple Pai Mei and Paul D. You will be notified shortly.
AKA: Creature
Director: Pedring Lopez
Cast: Cesar Montano, Maria Ozawa, Meg Imperial, Yam Concepcion, Cholo Barretto, Dido de la Paz, Kiko Matos, Aubrey Miles, Alexandre Charlet, Sonny Sison
Running Time: 90 min.
By Paul Bramhall
After a long absence out of the spotlight, Filipino cinema has been making a quiet but assured comeback in recent years. Movies like Erik Matti’s On the Job, Sean Ellis’s Metro Manila, and Khavn de la Cruz’s Ruined Heart have all travelled beyond local shores and garnered international acclaim on the festival circuit. While all of these productions have used the backdrop of Manila’s underworld to create depressingly dark and gritty portrayals of the less fortunate in Philippines society, upcoming director Pedring Lopez took a decidedly different approach for his sophomore feature, Nilalang.
Eschewing the realistic settings of his counterparts, Lopez draws his influences more from the many action/horror hybrids that were coming out of Hong Kong in the 1980’s. The plot is simple – in ancient Japan there is a book, called the Book of Ishi (think of it as this movies version of the Book of the Dead from The Evil Dead movies), which contains the names and spirits of all known demons. One particular demon, Zahagur, has a penchant for cutting off the faces of any females that share the bloodline of those who oppose it. Skip forward to 2015 Manila, Zahagur is back to his old tricks, and it’s up to cops Cesar Montano and Meg Imperial, to put an end to the demons reign of terror.
While both Montano and Imperial are well known as local Filipino actors, the surprise casting in Nilalang comes in the shape of former Japanese AV actress Maria Ozawa, here headlining her first full length feature. Ozawa, who has a Japanese mother and French Canadian father, is one of the most recognizable AV actresses in Asia thanks to her exotic looks, and has recently been looking to branch out into movie roles. While she’s featured in a couple of Indonesian movies previously (one of which notably drew the ire of the Islamic Defenders Front, a radicalised group notorious for violence), Nilalang can be considered her first mainstream production in which she has a substantial role.
Nilalang opens strongly, featuring an animated introduction, before segueing into a scene set in ancient Japan, as two Ronin walk through a field of bloody massacred bodies. They confront the demon in human form, who calmly sits next to a freshly sliced off face hanging neatly next to him, before squaring off in a duel of swords. It’s a nicely choreographed exchange to kick off the movie, which is given an extra layer of tension, as the other Ronin attempts to recite a page from the Book of Ishi to subdue the demon. The whole scene plays out like a mesh up between the Shaw Brothers movie Human Lanterns, meets Ryuhei Kitamura’s Aragami, and succeeds at grabbing the audience’s attention from the word go.
Once the opening credits come to a close the narrative skips to a second flashback scene, but this time only 2 years prior to present day, as we witness Montano and his team track down and kill a Japanese serial killer to an abandoned warehouse. The killer has a taste for murdering his victims using elements of bondage and S&M, so when a spate of similar killings start occurring in present day Manila, both Montano’s team and the local media begin to question if something supernatural is behind them. There’s some strange choices of logic used in Nilalang, as when the killer is tracked down, his eyes are completely white, and he has that deep growling voice that only possessed people in movies have. However as the plot moves along, it becomes apparent that Montano and his team apparently didn’t consider either of these traits as unusual, which is the equivalent of Father Merrin walking in on Regan and concluding that she’s a perfectly normal teenager.
Montano himself plays the ultimate cop, the kind that sleeps with a bottle of whisky and a gun next to his bed. Montano’s ex wants to get back with him, Ozawa asks him to sleep over in the first scene they meet, and his partner fantasizes about him while taking a nap (even just after his ex, who she recommended he should get back with, is horribly murdered!). Frankly, everyone in the movie seems to want to sleep with him, with his colleagues openly declaring that they wish they could be as good with the ladies as he is. In short, Montano may be the main character of the movie, but you’ll spend a large part of it hoping for the demon to cut his face off.
Thankfully his poker faced machoism is off-played by Ozawa’s weird and wonderful performance. While she doesn’t get the same amount of screen-time as Montano, whenever she is onscreen there’s something about her acting which pulls you in. She’s not a good actress as such, and her quirky delivery is paired with some entertainingly over the top scenes. One such example has her indulge in some Chow Yun Fat style double handgun action, as she shoots a bar to pieces, before cutely declaring that she’s ready to go and face the demon. The intense unloading of bullets has no context to it whatsoever, and adds a kind of pulpy charm to proceedings. Another scene has her armed with a samurai sword, in which she has to enter the Yakuza Temple (who said Yakuza’s need to be subtle?), to face off against a fully armoured samurai (played by the movies action choreographer, Sonny Sison), in order to gain access to the Book of Ishi. Not many movies can claim to have a Japanese AV star facing off against a samurai, but Nilalang delivers the goods with aplomb.
Indeed the whole look of Nilalang comes across as very stylised and glossy, rarely showing any signs of its limited budget. As director Lopez is also a keen fan of Anime, there are a few instances which have an animated scene inserted, usually to show a moment of extreme violence. While we’ve seen this type of animated technique used before, most recently in the likes of Prachya Pinkaew’s Tom Yum Goong and Chocolate, here the use of Japanese style animation fits in perfectly with the tone of the production itself.
The English title for Nilalang is The Entity, and it effectively captures the essence of the demon. Much like 1998’s Denzel Washington starring Fallen (or perhaps more appropriately, 1993’s Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday), the demon can move from one host to the next, ensuring no one is safe from its grasp. Throughout the runtime our trio of main characters end up being confronted by possessed versions of an overweight housemaid, a grave digger, a team of cops, and ultimately each other. While most of the action is given to Ozawa (who doesn’t want to see a katana wielding femme fatale facing off against a flesh hungry demon?), it’s apparent that screen fighting is a talent that she’s still very much developing, and as such there are moments of clunkiness whenever she’s called to action.
However arguably Sison does a commendable job with the resources that he had available, and it’s been a long time since we’ve had a movie that gives us MMA demons (the last I can think of would be 2009’s Hellbinders). With the flair for visuals that Lopez clearly has an eye for, and the action choreography of Sison, Nilalang shows plenty of potential for the future of Filipino action cinema. The pair are already reuniting for another collaboration, the Mark Dacascos starring Breach, so it’s safe to say things are only likely to get bigger and better. For now though, while Nilalang is certainly far from perfect, it does feature just enough face slicing to be considered a worthwhile way to spend an evening with the lights off.
Note: The version I saw is the international Director’s Cut, and can be considered the complete version of the movie. The version that screened locally in the Philippines has close to 10 minutes’ worth of cuts for violence, and the version that screened at the Metro Manila Film Festival in 2015 was missing the animated sequences, as they hadn’t been completed yet.
Rurouni Kenshin Part III: The Legend Ends | Blu-ray & DVD (Funimation)
RELEASE DATE: January 3, 2017
Funimation presents the Blu-ray & DVD for Rurouni Kenshin Part III: The Legend Ends (aka Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends), a 2014 live-action film directed by Keishi Otomo and based on the manga series Rurouni Kenshin.
The story follows two prior films, Rurouni Kenshin (2012) and Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (2014). To stop Makoto Shishio who aims to conquer Japan, Kenshin arrives in Kyoto and tries to face off against Shishio’s troops. However, his enemy has begun its course to start invading Tokyo with the steel-reinforced battleship. | Part I and Part II are also available.
“Halloween III: Season of the Witch” Japanese Theatrical Poster
Director: Tommy Lee Wallace Cast: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O’Herlihy, Michael Currie, Ralph Strait, Jadeen Barbor, Brad Schacter Running Time: 98 min.
By Kelly Warner
“Happy, Happy Halloween! Silver Shamrock!”
The original vision of the Halloween series was not always going to be about Michael Myers, his issues with his sister, and his need to kill babysitters every October. But when 1978’s Halloween was a smash success, director John Carpenter was tasked with writing the script for the tie-in sequel. The sequel needed a twist and so Carpenter decided to make Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) Michael’s sister. Though Carpenter thought it was bullshit, it nonetheless stuck, and helped cement the backbone of the Halloween series for fans. Instead of Michael vs. Laurie, Carpenter’s original vision for the Halloween brand would be to tell a different, unrelated scary story every Halloween. When Halloween III: Season of the Witch finally acted on that premise, those involved with the production were divided. Carpenter, producer Debra Hill, and writer-director Tommy Lee Wallace were all-in. Executive producer Irwin Yablans and people at Universal had some doubts. Yablans says the decision not to use Michael Myers for the film was “stupid.” And financially speaking, he was right. The film was not the success that the previous movies had been at the box office, and fans generally despised the movie as the black sheep of the series. But now, thirty years later, people are giving the movie another shot. For though it looks odd on the shelf in between Halloween II and Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, the third film in the Halloween franchise is nonetheless a great horror film with a few interesting tricks ‘n treats for fans of the genre.
In addition to not featuring Michael Myers, series star Jamie Lee Curtis only plays a disembodied voice this time around and Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Loomis couldn’t be bothered to show up to rant about evil. Instead, Tom Atkins (The Fog) plays Dan Challis, a doctor who finds himself in the middle of a strange conspiracy when a crazy man shows up in his hospital clutching a Halloween mask and screaming about people out to kill him. After they get the man to settle down, a straight-faced goon appears in the man’s room, crushes his skull with his bare hands, and then burns himself alive in the parking lot. The incident leads Dr. Challis to ask questions that land him in a heap of trouble, as he traces the Halloween mask to Silver Shamrock, a toy company that’s spending a bundle this Halloween season on advertising for their must-have Halloween masks.
When Dr. Challis makes his way to Silver Shamrock, he finds a company town where everyone raves about the brilliant Mr. Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy, Robocop), the mysterious man who runs the toy company. There are surveillance cameras all over town, and a computer voice constantly reminds all that they must obey the curfews or face punishment. Challis digs deeper, uncovering corporate evils and supernatural evils alike.
The film owes more to Invasion of the Body Snatchers than slasher movies. You can easily imagine Tom Atkins’ Dr. Challis and Donald Sutherland’s Matthew Bennell going through the same internal conflicts as they detect bizarre changes in the world around them. There’s even a ‘pod people’ element to the film. The film also bears similarities to The Stuff and Soylent Green, sci-fi/horror films about corporate evils that willingly corrupt society for financial gain.
But it’s not at all like Carpenter’s Halloween, so fans weren’t happy. If Halloween III went by a different name and had no connection to the series, I imagine it would’ve been better received at the time. And I personally think that if Halloween III: Season of the Witch had been the first sequel, not only would Season of the Witch have been a success, it would’ve helped launch the anthology horror series as Carpenter and co. originally intended (but Halloween II with Michael stalking Laurie in a hospital is the best Myers-related sequel in the series, so…).
Written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace (who, along with Nick Castle, had some part in playing Myers in the ’78 original), Halloween III is dark, high-concept horror at its finest. With threats both personal and apocalyptic in nature, the film feels ahead of its time. It even finds a way to play with the ancient purpose of Halloween in Celtic mythology. There’s a surprising amount of depth here for a movie about suspicious Halloween masks. And regular Carpenter cinematographer Dean Cundey gives it a creepy, cool visual quality.
Tom Atkins does a good job as the unlikely hero. Stacey Nelkin (Bullets Over Broadway) plays his gorgeous, and considerably younger, love interest. Her character reads a little flat to me, shifting from grief to flirtation in no time, but the actress performs admirably. Dan O’Herlihy is fantastic as Mr. Cochran, a man who’s all smiles and charm. O’Herlihy manages to display something sinister behind the smile with just the slightest twitch at the corners of his mouth. It’s one of the great underrated performances in horror cinema.
I can understand why fans were not kind to the film at the time. Most young viewers who discover the series on DVD are well aware of the film’s status as the standalone entry in the series when they go into it and, as a result, have a much better reaction to the film. Some movies are like that; it takes time or a new video format to reintroduce the movie to new fans who may appreciate it more. I’m one of those fans. When I was first introduced to the series, Halloween III was one of the last Halloween films I bothered to watch, because I knew about its negative reputation. Now, as a new owner of the Scream! Factory Blu-ray set of the series, Halloween III is the first disc I popped into my Blu-ray player.
If you dismissed the film before, I suggest you give it another look. It’s time to give the film its due. Because while it doesn’t exactly fit in with the rest of the bunch, Halloween III is without a doubt one of the best films in the nearly four decade old series.
After decades of muscle-bound mayhem, Arnold Schwarzenegger (Maggie) still continues to pump out the goods in a consistent manner. In addition to a couple of upcoming films – Aftermath, an airline disaster flick based on a true story, as well as Why We’re Killing Gunther, an action-comedy where Arnie plays the title character – the legendary star just wrapped up scenes with Jackie Chan for Viy 2: A Journey to China, a Sino-Russian co-production that he (and Jackie) are making a cameo appearance in. But wait, there’s more…
According to CFI, the ex-governor of California recently announced that he will star in The Guest of Sanxingdui, a USD 200 million period project that’s being described as a “Chinese historical epic.” The title refers to the ancient ruins in China’s southwest Sichuan province where the film will be partially shot.
Production for Guest of Sanxingdui is set to begin in March 2017 for an expected 2019 release. Further details on The Guest of Sanxingdui are scarce (there are rumors suggesting that Jackie Chan may star as well), but as soon we learn more, we’ll fill you in.
Hopefully The Guest of Sanxingdui will put Schwarzenegger in the mood to finally proceed with the long-awaited, 3rd Conan movie, which is currently stuck in development. Stay tuned!
It’s long been my opinion that every great filmmaker should try their hand at horror at least once over the course of their career. Horror directors sometimes repeat some of the same themes, the same scares, the same monsters, and it takes an outsider to bring something fresh to the genre every once in a while. Examples: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark, Richard Donner’s The Omen, Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, and so on and so forth. Taking a break from his politically charged sagas that addressed some of Japan’s sins, director Masaki Kobayashi decided to adapt a collection of ghost stories for the anthology film Kwaidan, and in the process ended up making one of the most artistic and beautiful films of all time.
Adapted from stories written by Greek expat Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan is four different, totally unconnected ghost stories set in Japan’s past. Though none of them are scary in the typical sense, they’re all spooky stories about the spirit world coming into contact with the world of man. “Kwaidan” means “ghost story,” and not necessarily “horror story.” I think this might make it a difficult film to pin down for some Western viewers who may feel that it is not frightening or violent enough for the horror shelf.
The first story, The Black Hair, stars Rentaro Mikuni (The Burmese Harp) as a samurai who can no longer stand his fall into poverty, and abandons his loving wife (Michiyo Aratama) in favor of a life of status and wealth. Once he secures a life of nobility, the samurai finds himself thinking constantly of the wife he left behind. He is haunted by her. And when he finally works up the nerve to visit her, he finds things forever changed. The Black Hair has various similarities to a subplot in Kenji Mizoguchi’s masterpiece Ugetsu, which was also a supernatural tale about the penalties for the ambitions of heartless men. The Black Hair is not my favorite of the Kwaidan anthology – the best are the two stories in the middle – but it does a good job of setting the tone about what to expect for the rest of the film.
The second story, and the most visually vibrant, is The Woman of the Snow. Tatsuya Nakadai (Ran) is a woodcutter caught in a blizzard. He and his master hole up in a hut for the night, where they are visited by a snow spirit played by Keiko Kishi (The Yakuza). The woman kills the woodcutter’s master with her cold breath, and is about to freeze the young man, too, when she begins to pity him. She makes him a deal: she will let him live as long as he never speaks a word of their encounter. The Woman of the Snow is the emotional heart of the movie (and interestingly the one section totally cut from the film for its showing at Cannes). Though the visuals are bitter cold, the story is sad and human.
The third and longest story, Hoichi the Earless, could’ve easily been a standalone release. Katsuo Nakamura (20th Century Boys) is the blind monk Hoichi, who lives at a temple that was built to appease the long-dead samurai who perished in a naval battle offshore. Being blind, Hoichi is unaware that the man who comes to visit him in the night is a samurai ghost, and that he’s been playing his biwa to an audience of the dead. When the temple’s priest (Takashi Shimura) learns of this, he does what he can to save Hoichi. This is my favorite of the four shorts in the anthology and is (coincidentally?) the most traditional in a cinematic sense. It’s a ghost story through-and-through, but one that’s told in a way completely unlike those you’ll see on American screens.
The final and shortest story is also the lightest. In a Cup of Tea is the story of a samurai who sees a ghost’s reflection in his cup of tea. The more he tries to understand, the more madness beckons to him. It’s a fine coda to the anthology, and also pays tribute to the storytellers who kept ghost stories alive all these years.
Kwaidan makes no attempt at realism. It’s ultra-cinematic, super artsy, with set walls painted as the sky within reach, and sets that never try to hide their artificiality. I thought it an interesting approach to making the film. The sets are beautiful, sometimes frightening, and go a long way to describe why I appreciate the movie so. Colors are vibrant, even in the chilly white Woman of the Snow section of the film, and the movie looks wonderful on the 2016 Criterion Blu-ray.
In addition to the amazing visual aspects of the film, Kwaidan features unorthodox sound design and an experimental score by Toru Takemitsu. Many scenes are almost muted, with no sound to the win, or bustle in the streets, or clash of swords. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, there will be cracks of wood or ice. The effect is eerie and wholly original.
Kwaidan may not appeal to horror hounds who demand a fast-pace, gore, or bunches of scares, but as an arthouse anthology it’s tough to beat. Beautiful to look at and with lots to think about, I consider Kwaidan one of the best examples of classic Japanese cinema, and highly recommend it to those in the mood for something stylish and creepy. Though not belonging to Masaki Kobayashi’s typical genre, Kwaidan deserves to be mentioned in conversation with the director’s best, right alongside The Human Condition, Harakiri, and Samurai Rebellion.
(The new Criterion DVD & Blu-ray includes the director’s 183 minute director’s cut for the first time in the US. The previous Criterion DVD featured a cut of the film that ran 20 minutes shorter. Most of the changes are small and are unlikely to be noticed by those who’ve only seen the film once or twice, but considering the improved picture quality and the nice assortment of extras (Stephen Prince commentary is the highlight of the special features) it’s easy for me to recommend the upgrade for fans of the film.)
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."
2 Comments