Strange Circus - An Incredible Nightmare

Strange Circus is a mind blower. Directed by Sion Sono, the man who is known for his US distributed film Suicide Circle, he has put forth another solid effort that will disturb and shock. It is a film filled with dreamlike imagery, dual roles, sex, violence, and decadent posturing, all centering around a Japanese family that has gone way beyond nuclear. Misumi Miyazaki puts in a stellar performance as the wife of a wealthy man who is, to put it mildly, oversexed. She shares his passions, but their exuberant lovemaking stirs Matsuko, their young daughter, to peek into the bedroom to see what is going on. She slips away, but the father sensed someone watching them, and figured it was her. He molests her after she brings a bad report card, thus beginning a downward spiral into abuse and madness for the child. He forces her into a cello, where she sees her parents making violent love through a hole in the case. He has sex with her in secret. Eventually the mother finds out, but instead of leaving her husband, becomes sexual rivals with her daughter as they both service his insatiable needs. Both mother and daughter lose their grip on reality; Matsuko can not distinguish herself from her mother, and sees them as one and the same, especially in bed; the mother begins to abuse the child as an outlet for her anger and helplessness. In a quarrel involving a lost pearl earring, Matsuko pushes her mother down the stairs and kills her. The movie then changes to Taeko, also played by Miyazaki, a novellist bound to a wheelchair, and having a taste for decadence, as shown by her workplace and the men that are around her. A newcomer to the circle arrives, a young effeminate man named Yuji, hired by Taeko to be her assistant. He takes her to various places for writing inspiration and just for company. Yuji finds out that Taeko is not who she seems to be -- she has no need for the wheelchair, that she can walk, and that the novel that she is writing -- which is the mother/daughter story shown earlier. Is Taeko actually Matsuko? Yuji is asked by Taeko's associates to investigate further for their own tabloid papers, and he agrees, but for a different reason. Yuji becomes part of a group of people who have done self mutilation, and the reason for his inclusion becomes known later. Taeko is clearly an unbalanced woman, finishing Matsuko's tale -- Matsuko tries to kill herself but fails, and ends up in a wheelchair. No longer a viable sexual outlet, her father takes up with a group of younger women, screwing them around the house, ignoring her daughter. Taeko has nightmares that refers to a more personal experience relating to her novel, dreaming of herself in the wheelchair, of having sex with her father, etc. And she has a cello case with her in a locked room that she talks to. Yuji puts the pieces together, and calls Taeko to inform her that he has the thing inside the cello and has brought it to the old house, which is the house referred to in the book. Taeko arrives, and Yuji confronts her, saying that he knows all, and asks if she is so demented that she can't recognize who he really is. Taeko is confused, until Yuji reveals his chest, which shows scars where there were once breasts. Yuji is Matsuko! And Taeko is the mom, surviving only by putting herself in a state of denial, and thinking that she was her daughter, killing herself in her mind. Matsuko was the one who was pushed down the stairs, and almost died. But she was brought to the hospital, and there officials detected child molestation, and had her removed from the parents and placed into a foster home. But Matsuko was never well mentally, and removed whatever obvious signs of femininity to remove herself from her past. Matsuko brings her mother up to the bedroom, where her husband, still alive, limbless, is twitching on the bed, a big bloody stump. Matsuko goes insane, and chains her mom to the bed, as her daughter brings out a chainsaw, ready to remove her own limbs, to bring about the conclusion of Taeko's novel, father and mother in bed limbless.

Not your average film. While the over-the-top conclusion is messy, and the incestuous storyline hard to watch, it is compensated by an excellent directorial effort by Sion Sono, who is also a poet and is well known in Japan for his performance pieces. He reminds me of Jodorowsky and his circle from the late 60's to early 70's -- the films like El Topo, Alucarda, Mansion of Madness, and the later film Santa Sangre all are excellent works that exemplify the "art" film, where reality gives way to the surreal, and the poetry of images takes precedence rather than logic or meaning. But even art films have their own story, their own logic, just as abstractions and conceptual pieces in the art world, and it is the viewer's job, should he or she take it, to experience the piece and come to a conclusion. Does this film succeed? Absolutely yes! The visuals, and the story are well done, intelligent and creative. I think the film does lose marks for the ending, where it seems Sono is trying to outdo Takashi Miike, with it's hysterics. Part of it may have to do with the uneven acting of Issei Ishida, who plays Yuji, where for most of the film he is quiet and laid back. At the end he is laughing maniacally and screaming, but overdoing it. And the story is tied up a bit too neatly by the violent ending, a purge for the daughter as well as the mother, which, compared to the rest of the film, seems conventional. This will be a hot film to watch for those who love the outre or psychotronic movies; all others should find something more pleasant to watch. I think this is an extremely well made and disturbing film, despite the subject matter.

To Sir With Love - Unusual Revenge Tale

To Sir With Love is a recent horror film from Korea, a summer hit that is either good or bad, depending on how you accept the "twist" at the end, which changes your concept of the entire movie. I see it as an uneven film that has many strong elements in it, but are not taken advantage of, and instead settles for what they think is a clever take on the slasher film. The "Sir" in the movie actually refers to a female teacher, the reasons for which I do not know. Perhaps it is because of the high esteem and value that teachers have in Korean society, as a leader, mentor, guide and instructor to the youth. I have seen in many films, comedy, drama, or otherwise where teachers regularly discipline their students -- by discipline I mean something a lot stronger than a nun whacking a child's hands for being naughty. Abuse is putting it mildly, but that is my own colored viewpoint. Or maybe not, as this film seems to assert. To Sir with Love is about a group of people who have a reunion with their old teacher, now an invalid and is being taken care of by an old classmate of theirs. In fact, she invited them out to the seashore where they are staying. There is a jock who is now pudgy, a glamorous woman who used to be fat in school, a silent young man (silent in school as well), an engaged couple who used to be class president and vice-president, and a handsome but dangerous James Dean type young man. All are there to see their old teacher, and all harbor a grudge against her. All except the woman who is caring for her. The teacher, as shown in quick cutting flashbacks, seems to have had a rough life -- she gave birth to a child (out of wedlock? from another man?) who was not loved by the father. In fact, he made every attempt to trash the poor boy, beating him until he became deformed, and his mother had to care for him in the basement, never to let him wander out. Her husband later kills himself. One can only assume that this behavior influenced the woman as a teacher, in administering punishment or her lack of care towards her students. Though never explicitly shown, one infers that the jock had his knee busted by her, for failing to run hard enough, the James Dean guy was sexually molested, the silent man made fun of constantly in class, the glamorous woman made fun of her weight, and mistreating the class president. They have a cookout and seem to have a pleasant time, until the class president, not containing his anger, bursts out that they are hypocrites to make bygones be bygones. He runs away, and later on is attacked by a man wearing a bunny mask, imprisoned in the basement, and killed. Hie fiancee meets the same fate, as the jock. The glamorous woman tries to kill the teacher, but is foiled by the care taker. The James Dean guy is attacked by the masked man, who turns out to be the silent man, and both kill each other. The glamorous woman is killed by the care taker as she tries to kill the teacher (again) by pushing her wheelchair off a cliff, but is instead killed herself in the struggle. The caretaker and the teacher survive, and the care taker tells the entire story to the police. Upon further investigation, the detective finds out that the killer was the care taker herself, and that her story was entirely made up -- she poisoned the whole group during the dinner -- there was no slasher! The teacher and the caretaker are on the pier, where she lashes out at the teacher. Her indifference towards her hand made gift to her caused the care taker's mom to go out and seek her, but is struck by a car (again with the hit and run!) and is made an invalid. This is the caretaker's revenge, to continue to make the teacher's life a living hell up till the end. She then kills herself, and the teacher, grief stricken, throws herself into the water as well.

I think this would have been a really powerful movie if it was about the reunion and the grudges for past grievances, instead of a slasher film. Sure, it was a red herring, but the final result is no more satisfying or clear. If it was about the teacher, how she conducted the class, her abusive relationship to the students, and make it about her comeuppance, bloody or not, it would have been a more interesting film to watch. But like in so many other recent films, too much effort is made in trying to do something different to a genre, and as a result becomes too clever for its own good, or ends up becoming the very thing it is trying to transcend. The quick cutting, which keeps things moving and the viewer interested, is subverted by the plot. While it is certainly different than the typical Asian horror, like the Ring or Ju-On, it doesn't do enough. In terms of revenge, the director of Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and Oldboy owns that genre. Perhaps they should have looked more closely at his works, as they provide a rich and detailed background for the characters which brings motive and drive to do the awful things they do. Here it is all a product of a deranged woman's mind, and one can't help but feel cheated out of a decent story.

Another Long Haired Ghost - Arang

First time director Ahn Sang-hoon helms this uneven thriller, Arang, which, despite some interesting takes on a done-to-death horror theme, fails to hold an interest. Veteran cop So-young (Song Yoon-ah), and her rookie partner transfer from the Forensic division, Hyun-gi (Lee Dong-wook) investigate a murder where a man is literally burned to death. But the autopsy reveals the man died an unnatural death; the burns were generated from inside, not outside. There is a connection to a tape that was found, where a girl is gang raped by several schoolmates -- the man was one of the boys in the group. One by one, the men involved start to die, and it becomes a race against time to find the killer. However, there are complications. Hyun-gi keeps messing up the investigation by distracting So-young, who has a checkered past of her own. She was raped by a man with a scar on his wrist, and part of the reason why she became a cop is to find and kill him. She also has disciplinary problems -- suspension for abusing a man held in custody. The killer is never caught, because it is the spirit of the dead girl, seeking vengeance against those who abused her. She was thought to have committed suicide after the rape, but it turns out that she was killed by another man who stumbled upon the scene. The detectives, though, find one of the remaining men at his home, half insane, his wife dead on the living room floor. The spirit had tried to kill him before the police came. She succeeds in the interrogation room at police headquarters, as he chokes himself to death. So-young is still troubled by the events of the case, and while reviewing the tape again, she discovers that there was another person at the scene of the crime. It turns out to be her partner, Hyun-gi! He had been in love with the girl when they were students, but she had fallen in love with someone else. As a budding photographer, he had taken many shots of her, so this qualified him to be the camera man for the rape scene, though he didn't know they were going to do that to her -- his friends had mentioned something else. Stunned, he tapes the whole thing, until the stranger arrives on the scene and he slips away. She confronts her partner, who has managed to find the stranger, and takes him to an abandoned salt mine, where the girl was buried. At gunpoint, the stranger digs out the girl. So-young then holds her partner at gunpoint, at which point he kills himself, satisfied that he at least made an attempt to atone for his part in the crime.

This is a confusing and extremely bleak and dreary film. Song Yoon-ah and Lee Dong-wook infuse it with a lot of life with their portrayals, but it doesn't compensate for the cheap effects and lame shock scenes with the dead girl. In fact, the main problem with the film is that a lot of elements have been so over done that it suffers in comparison. From quality horror like the Ringu trilogy to Ju-On, to inept works like APT and the amazingly bad Locker/Locker 2 films, Arang's only contribution is to work the detective investigation angle, which works up to a point. The plot suffers by moving from one death scene to another, with no real attempt at suspense. The intro to the film, involving two school girls who stumble upon the spirit at the old building, has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, and is handled very poorly. It would have been much better if the police procedural was the main focus, and the supernatural deaths only alluded to, until the very end. Recommended for K-horror die hards and masochists only.

Samurai Wolf

This is one of the classics of 60's samurai cinema. Clocking in at a sparse 85 minutes, this work by acclaimed director Gosha Hideo takes all the established conventions of the genre and distills it to its bare essentials, producing an intense and exciting action film. A ronin (masterless samurai) named Kiba Okaminosuke (played by Natsuyagi Isao), arrives at a resort town at the foot of the mountains, with no money but a lot of gumption, as he manages to secure a meal and the company of a prostitute. A horse carrying two bodies enters the town, and the villagers identify them as fellow men who had been on assignment as messengers. The town lies at a key transportation point to deliver messages or products to the capitol. A blind woman heads the town and the delivery operation, and there is a rival faction from outside who seeks to control the entire shipping business, eliminating the competition by disrupting transport or killing the messengers. A few members of that group are in town and confront them, but Kiba interferes. A royal official interrupts a potential confrontation, and after the outside gang leaves, offers the blind woman a job she can't refuse: a delivery of 30,000 ryo is coming, and that they would like her to provide transport. She accepts. She explains to Kiba their situation, and that they need his help to make the mission a success, and he accepts. Meanwhile, the rival gang hires their own samurai (played by Uchida Ryohei), to kill Kiba. We discover that everyone has a checkered past, or are related to each other in some way. Only Kiba is the true outsider, and he steadily eliminates the gang members one by one as they try to kill him. The shipment arrives, and the delivery commences, with plans to deceive the enemy, but they are attacked. In the battle the cargo is exposed and it is discovered that they were transporting rocks. It was all a diversion. Many on both sides are killed, and the rival gang destroyed. Kiba confronts Uchida, who makes a claim on the village head - she was Uchida's wife. They fight each other and Uchida is killed. The blind woman returns to town, and Kiba wanders off into the country.

What makes this stand out so much are the stylized action and the attitude, which was similar to Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, which were made at the same time as this (1966). It's hard to say who influenced whom, but regardless, it reflected a new attitude towards standard genre films that were growing stale. Gosha Hideo, in his fourth film, had by this point made the successful transition from television to film, and had begun to produce works that redefined the genre, culminating in masterworks like Tenchu, Goyokin, Bandits vs Samurai Squad, and Hunter in the Dark. The camerawork is imaginative here. When at the beginning of the film, the two bodies are brought in by horse, they are brought in the village to be examined. The scene is shot with a body lying on the table, and the main focus is on his dirty feet, while in the background the men are discussing who did it. The blind woman talking to Kiba, and her reflection is seen from his blade is also memorable. The fight scenes are like Sam Peckinpah's -- slow motion, almost silent, and bloody, increasing in violence up to the final fight between the two samurai, where Uchida is bathed in his own blood as he dies. The black and white cinematography is excellent. Highly recommended! A classic.

Pretty but Stupid - Martial Angels

Really, what was I expecting? I must have been suckered in by the fact that two award winning actresses (Shu Qi and Sandra Ng) are featured, never mind the fact that the title itself is an indication that it is a rip off of Charlie's Angels. The only thing in common are the pretty faces and some decent over the top action. But the plot is mean and stupid all the way. Shu Qi plays Cat, a burglar who along with 6 female teammates devise a plan to rob a safe in a millionaire's home. What they don't know is that Zi-Yang (Julien Cheung) has come to do some thieving as well. A commotion is caused as distraction while the two fight, then work together to find the safe, which turns out to be in the swimming pool. Underwater, they open the safe, and Julien makes a move on Cat, who instantly falls for him, and they have a relationship that is thankfully off camera. Several years later, Cat is alone and working for a corporate company, having split from him and her past -- she has now gone straight. But a group of Russians have captured Julien, and discovering their relationship, force Cat to do their bidding or Julien will be eliminated. Cat calls back the old gang -- led by Monkey (Sandra Ng), and Octopus (Kelly Lin). Their mission is to infiltrate a client of Cat's company where there are valuable documents stored on disc in a highly secure room. Two of the gang, Goldfish and Spider, go to a prison where Bone (Terence Yin), a highly disturbed and oversexed criminal, is an expert on explosives, and the ladies seek his advice. Bone is turned on by Spider, and masturbates while they are interviewing him. Disgusted, they leave. Meanwhile, Fred (Wong Jing), who holds the key to opening the room, becomes their other target, and their attempts to get his fingerprints fail. They resort to very sleazy tactics -- having him rub oil on Peacock (Rosemary Vandebrouck), which he refuses, and finally Monkey resorts to drastic action. She dresses provocatively and meets him at a bar, where she tries to seduce him. He resists all attempts, and finally Monkey grabs his hand and rubs it all over her to get the marks. Cat and the others bust Bone out of jail, and take him with them to open the safe. They succeed, but a key feature is that one of them has to keep their hands on the light pole that serves as the door opener, or it will shut and they will be trapped. Cat and Peacock go inside, leaving Spider with Bone, who proceeds to rape her as Spider is keeping the door open. They get the goods, and leave. Bone is abused but somehow gets away with his deed, but Spider tries to kill him and herself by attempting to drive off a cliff. She is stopped by her friends, who were tailing her. Cat brings the goods to the Russians, and gets Julien back in exchange, but it turns out that Octopus and Julien have a relationship going on, and double cross Cat. Lots of explostions, the Russians die, Bone dies, and Julien is shot in the back by Octopus, as he declares his love to Cat again.

This atrocity is a waste of everyone's time, and really, the one to blame is Wong Jing for producing this. The man is responsible for producing some of the better known Hong Kong films from the 80's on up; he knows the business and how to keep the cash flow going. Unfortunately, it means he will also produce softcore erotica and mainstream dreck like this. Shu Qi and Sandra Ng have done much better performances elsewhere, and at least they try to stay away from the fracas that is going on around them. Theresa Mak, another noted star from the Infernal Affairs series, has been in and out of mainstream, having done a few of Wong Jing produced softcore as punishment for something. The others are not recognizable from other films, and that is a good thing. The story is stupid and the scene with Spider getting raped is irresponsible. There is no point to it. Avoid this at all costs, even if you are a Shu Qi junkie.

Sure Death!

Sure Death! is a gem of a film. Released in 1984, this was a refreshingly funny and entertaining take on the Jidi Geki genre, especially those that flourished in the 60's and 70's. It is about a group of assassins who uses unusual techniques to eliminate their targets. The members include: a married couple who does roofing by day and uses ultra sharp shingles as killing tools by night; an elder woman who uses her kyoto to disguise the death sounds of a victim, while her son uses the strings as a killing device; a man who uses ultra sharp tools; a woman who finds the clients; and their leader, a man who is an officer who bumbles his official assignments, but is actually a lethal assassin. It is mid 19th century Japan, in Edo, where a young woman is searching for the assassins in order to avenge the death of her cat. She is a prostitute at a local brothel, and while she is able to make contact with our heroes, once they find out about why they are doing this assignment, they return the money. Meanwhile, bodies are mysteriously piling up throughout the city, and the leader discerns that they must also be assassins, as their families are not claiming injustice. The victims all have 6 ryu coins in their mouths, which leads him to belive that this is the work by one man or a group. And he's right -- there is a rival assassin group in town, aiming to eliminate the competition. The prostitute is killed. A woman in a colorful spinning parasol confronts the leader and tells him that he and his group are marked for death as well. The others spend a lot of time in hiding, until an annual festival occurs, and the husband of the roofing couple goes outside to participate in the festivities. He is almost killed, and the recruiting woman is killed. The parasol woman pits both sides against each other until they do fight, in a stylized and intense fight scene near the docks. The rival group is eliminated, and the others resume their "secret identity" duties.

Stylish in sight and in sound, Sure Death! makes for enjoyable viewing. It was originally a television series that lasted for 30 years and several movies, and this along with one the immediately followed were picked by the US company Animeigo for distribution, with hopes for releasing the entire series. That did not happen, with the change from vhs to dvd, requiring new licensing agreements. However, if you can find this at your local video store, or on ebay, it is well worth viewing.

Not as It Seems - The Illusionist

Taking a break from foreign films for a moment, I saw The Illusionist this past weekend. It boasts a stellar cast - Ed Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, and Rufus Sewell. Based on the short story by Steven Millhauser, it is a story of Eisenheim (Ed Norton) and Sophie (Jessica Biel), once childhood sweethearts, who were separated by the late 19th/early 20th century class differences -- he was the son of a furniture maker, and she of aristocracy. Fifteen years later, they meet by chance, as he becomes a magician, and she ends up being a volunteer for one of his stage tricks. Sophie is currently engaged to the Crown Prince Leopold (rufus Sewell), who is plotting to ascend to Emperor of Austria. Leopold is not a good man, as he is known for his short temper and his backhand swing. Paul Giamatti plays Chief Inspector Uhl, who is at first intrigued by Eisenheim's trickery, then later has to investigate him for suspician of having an affair with the Duchess Sophie. And he is. There is a tense scene as the Prince invites Eisenheim for a private show with members of the aristocracy, and then tries to undermine him by pointing out his tricks, which he fails. Uhl, under Prince Leopold's command, shuts down the magic show. Sophie, no longer wanting to marry the Prince, tells him that she is leaving, and is apparently killed while trying to leave the palace. Her body is found floating in the river by Eisenheim. Uhl leads an investigation where he is forced by the Prince to come up with a suspect, and a random man is found, tried and convicted. Uhl had growing inease about his position in relation to the Prince, as he suspects him of murder. Eisenheim buys an abandoned building and starts another show, a seance where he conjures images of ghosts and dead people, leaving the audience to fill in the details. This brings about a wave of religious fervor in the country, a confirmation of the afterlife. The Prince sees this as a political threat, and Uhl is ordered to shut him down once and for all. But Uhl is outwitted at every turn. Even when Eisenheim is arrested for his actions, he goes to the screaming mob outside the police station and explains that it was all a hoax, and that he was just an entertainer, not a conjurer. He is released. But when he conjured Sophie from the dead, the Prince takes action, and has Uhl and everyone in the theater arrested. But upon apprehension, Eisenheim proves to be a ghost as well, and vanished. Uhl on the side has been investigating Sophie's murder further, and finds more evidence that points to the Prince. He confronts him, and has told him that he has sent his findings to the Emperor, and that his bid for rule is over. As the Emperor's troops descend on the palace, Leopold kills himself. Uhl puts all the pieces together as he finds Eisenheim in disguise leaving by train. Sophie is alive and waiting for him in the country, and then they live happily ever after. Until WOrld War One begins......

This was a decent movie until the end. The visuals referred to the old European camerawork of the German Expressionist filmmakers of the 1920's; there were a lot of old style sweeps and fade outs throughout. The colors were deliberately washed out -- a Photoshop effect? -- giving a real Old World feel. The acting by everyone was good, however, the Viennese accents by Norton and Giamatti seemed forced. Doesn't really matter. Biel is lovely to look at, and has several fine moments, especially when confronting the Crown Prince, but literally disappears and is not seen till the final moments of the film. The effects for the magic tricks - none of which are explained -- are eerie and well done. You do get a feeling that Eisenheim at some point in his life made a pact with someone who gave him supernatural powers. His role as the outsider in relationship to the Austrian aristocracy provide much of the tension of the film. But Eisenheim's plot for revenge against the Crown Prince is too obvious, and spoils the movie. Giamatti's realization of what went on at the end of the film is contrived and convenient, especially since he spends most of the movie in the dark or trying to do his job. And it undermines the film by revealing the one magic trick of what Eisenheim did to fool everyone. Silly.