By Joe Bendel. Gangsters have a strong sense of history, probably because the past is constantly coming to bite them. Lee Joon-seok is a case in point. He will have all sorts of unfinished business on his hands after serving his seventeen year prison sentence in Kwak Kyung-taek’s Friend 2: the Legacy, which opens today in New York.
Lee is doing time for ordering the hit on a rival gang leader, who was once his childhood best friend. The turncoat was sort of asking for it, but it still bothers Lee from time to time. Shortly before his release, Lee is visited by a casual social acquaintance from his youth. Her son Choi Seong-hoon is a fellow prisoner, who has been marked for death after crossing Lee’s outfit. Much to his surprise, Lee extends his protection to the young thug, eventually taking him on as a protégé when they are both released.
They will be busy. Lee finds the syndicate his father first organized has been largely hijacked by Eun-gi, a cold-blooded boardroom gangster who exploited the vacuum left by Lee’s incarceration and the failing health of their Chairman. Obviously, Lee is not about to let this stand, even when a fairly obvious revelation threatens to undermine his relationship with the volatile Choi.
Friend 2 probably has four or five flashbacks too many, periodically revisiting not just Lee and Choi’s tumultuous backstories, but also giving viewers the highlights of the gang’s formative days under Lee’s enterprising father. The latter are almost superfluously tangential, but they are executed with a good deal of style and provide a lot of gangster genre goodies, so its worth going along with them, even if they confuse the narrative thread.
Regardless, Yoo Oh-seong is unquestionably Friend 2’s steely MVP. He is all hardnosed business as Lee, yet he still suggests hints of that troubled conscience buried somewhere deep within him. Kim Woo-bin is certainly convincingly erratic as Choi. Frankly, Friend 2 is not a great showcase for women’s roles, but the always reliable Jang Yeong-nam works wonders as Choi’s still attractive and resilient mother.
The gangster themes of family, loyalty, and betrayal are pretty standard stuff by now, but Friend 2 executes them with energy and conviction. The hits and brawls are always quite cinematic and the period scenes are nicely crafted. Propelled by Yoo’s serious-as-a-heart attack performance, Friend 2 is a solidly entertaining (if not exactly game-changing) crime epic, recommended for those who appreciate that specific genre and Korean cinema in general. It opens today (12/13) in New York at the AMC Empire.
By Joe Bendel. The story of the Yang Family Generals and their noble sacrifices has been told on film before, including twice by the Shaw Brothers. Still, Ronny Yu and his co-screenwriters, Edmund Wong and Scarlett Liu, give it a fresh twist – and an English title obviously intended to evoke Spielberg’s post-D-Day blockbuster. They certainly have plenty of tragedy and bloody warfighting to work with. Death comes swiftly but the stain of dishonor is eternal in Yu’s Saving General Yang, which releases this week on DVD and Blu-ray from Well Go USA.
Nobody is more celebrated throughout the Song Dynasty for keeping the Khitan at bay than General Yang Ye. That also means he has made plenty of enemies, the fiercest being Yelü Yuan, the Khitan commander, who blames Yang for his father’s death in battle. However, Yang’s more politically astute rival Lord Pan poses a greater snake-in-the-grass danger. Despite Yang’s proven military leadership, the emperor appoints Pan as supreme commander of the Imperial Army, essentially demoting Yang to frontline general. He will regret that decision.
Of course, the first chance Pan gets, he retreats, leaving General Yang in the lurch. Rather than moving in for the kill, Yelü allows the wounded Yang to regroup on Wolf Mountain, fully expecting the Yang Brothers will try to rescue their besieged father. It is not just war for him, it is personal.
From "Saving General Yang."
Obviously, the Yang clan is in for a lot of mourning, but at least the brothers die spectacular deaths. Yu and action Stephen Tung Wai know how to stage a battle scene, emphasizing brutal realism instead of super human heroics. These might be some of the roughest, least exaggerated action sequences you will see in a year of wuxia films. On the other hand, when it comes to romance, Saving largely punts. At the least we briefly meet Ady Ang as Princess Chai, who definitely seems like the sort of Imperial royalty you would consider taking home to meet your parents. (Unfortunately, both Yang and Pan have a son who had that same idea, which is how most of this trouble starts in the first place.)
As the titular general, veteran HK actor Adam Cheng is aces at projecting a commanding presence. Likewise, Young & Dangerous franchise alumnus Ekin Cheng is appropriately steely as the first Yang son, Yang Yanping. However, numbers two through seven are largely indistinguishable from each other. All we really know about Vic Chou’s Yang Sanlang (#3) is his prowess with bow-and-arrow, but frankly that’s good enough, considering his role in a massive third act archery duel with Yelü’s chief lieutenant.
Saving’s big battle set pieces are quite impressive, with set designer Kenneth Mak and cinematographer Chan Chi-ying crafting a first class period production with epic sweep and down-and-dirty grit. If you like hot-blooded war films circa 986 AD, this one delivers. Just don’t ask for any extraneous characterization or whatnot. Recommended as red meat for genre fans, especially those who appreciate the enduring story of the honorable Yangs, Saving General Yang is now available for home viewing from Well Go USA.
By Joe Bendel. Perhaps the only job Arif would allow his fiancée Rafina to take might be Prime Minister. He is an ardent supporter of the exiled Benazir Bhutto, because her party pays him to be. With little education or prospects, he clings to his chauvinism when Rafina finds unlikely success in the Pakistani fashion industry. Despite Bhutto’s example, Rafina will have to overcome constant opposition to pursue her modeling career in Sabiha Sumar’s Good Morning Karachi, the centerpiece selection of this year’s South Asian International Film Festival in New York.
The very notion of a Pakistani Models Inc. sounds like a healthy step in the right direction, but Sumar and her co-writers, Malia Scotch Marmo and Samhita Arni, are not exactly overflowing with optimism. Set in the days leading up to Bhutto’s assassination, Karachi will obviously intersect with tragedy sometime in the third act. However, it resists the temptation to completely intertwine the fate of its characters with that of real world figures. Arguably, Bhutto’s shadow is more of a reality check than a dramatic device.
Yearning for relative independence, Rafina convinces Rosie, a close friend of the family, to find her a spot with her employer: Radiance, an exclusive beauty salon operated by a modeling agency. Of course, Rafina will not have to labor long before her unspoiled beauty lands her in front of a camera. As it happens, she has the perfect look for a difficult client. Naturally, Arif feels betrayed by her success and Rafina’s mother worries about the sort of attention she might attract. She is not being unduly concerned, given the film starts in media res, as masses of Islamist protestors set fire to fashion billboards.
From "Good Morning Karachi."
As fashion model melodramas go, Karachi is a pretty good one, especially considering the general state of Pakistani society. Shrewdly, Sumar does not over-venerate Rafina’s virtues. She makes mistakes and sometimes passively accepts the easier but not necessarily best course of action. She is human and therefore has a right to live her life as she sees fit, which she rather steadfastly does her best to do. However, the film’s attitude towards Bhutto is much more ambivalent, clearly questioning why her administration did so little to improve the outlook for forward thinking women like Rafina.
As Rafina, Amna Ilyes commands the screen, conveying the runway ingénue’s naiveté, without coming across nauseatingly immature. Beo Raana Zafar also adds mountains of dignity as her beloved auntie Rosie. The rest of the cast is a bit spotty, with Yasir Aqueel perhaps being the spottiest as the flyweight Arif. Still, everybody earns some props for appearing in a film that seriously addresses gender issues in Pakistan.
Sumar’s aesthetic restraint and artistic honesty keeps Karachi on course and even keeled the whole way through, while cinematographer Claire Pijman works wonders wonders with Rafina’s lower middle class neighborhood, making it glow suggestively. Sure, to some extent you grade on a curve to encourage a film like this, but Karachi will keep just about any viewer focused on and invested in its business on-screen. Recommended for those interested in women’s issues and/or Middle Eastern-South Asian cinema, Good Morning Karachi screens this Friday (12/6) as the centerpiece of the 2013 SAIFF.
By Joe Bendel. They were gypped out of those long promised canals, but there might just be some form of bacterial life on the Angry Red Planet. Of course, that turns out to be a very bad thing in Ruairí Robinson’s The Last Days on Mars, which opens this Friday in New York.
The first manned mission to Mars is about to head home, destined more for footnote status rather than lasting fame. However, at the eleventh hour, the ambitious Marco Petrovich thinks he may have unearthed the brass ring—bacterial life. Unfortunately, a freak accident causes his death and leads to the apparent disappearance of another crew member. Yet much to everyone’s surprise, Petrovich and his colleague return to base a short time later. Of course, they are not really alive—they are undead and spreading their infection the way zombies do.
Hoping to hold out until the scheduled arrival of their transport ship, the crew of the Tantalus Base applies their scientific expertise to the contagion, but it turns out to be a distinctly slippery biological agent. Human nature also takes an ugly turn as the situation deteriorates.
Right, so first contact is kind of rough. Zombies on Mars might sound distinctly pulpy, but Robinson’s distinguished cast sells it with conviction. Liev Schreiber brings instant credibility as the grizzled but psychologically damaged chief engineer Vincent Campbell. Likewise, Romola Garai classes up the proceedings as his medic lover, Rebecca Lane. Johnny Harris (from BBC America’s The Fades) has a natural talent for getting all panicky and twitchy on-screen. Still, Olivia Williams overwhelms them all as the unrepentantly undiplomatic senior science officer, Kim Aldrich.
In a sense, Last Days is the more stylish and competent version of Roger Christian’s klutzy B-movie, Stranded. Both achieve an effectively claustrophobic vibe, but the former is a vastly more polished package overall. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan (probably best known for his work with Andrea Arnold) gives everything an appropriately dark, crimson-hued look, while production designer Jon Henson’s team creates a convincing near future, other worldly environment.
Last Day’s thematic predecessors are many in number and vary considerably in quality. Nevertheless, the combination of Mars, zombies, and some first class British character actors guarantees a certain level of genre entertainment. What screenwriter Clive Dawson’s adaptation of Sydney J. Bounds’ short story lacks in originality is largely made up for through Robinson’s slick execution. Recommended for its horror flavored science fiction (and vice versa), Last Days on Mars opens this Friday (12/6) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.
By Joe Bendel. Don’t call the Ellington Orchestra a ghost band. At least it wasn’t in the early 1980’s. The maestro would still recognize most of the members, especially the leader, his son Mercer. Though the Ellington patriarch had gone off to the great bandstand in the sky, the family business was still going strong, thanks to a Broadway show featuring Ellington’s most popular songs and the band, under Mercer’s direction. More of a revue than a musical per se, Sophisticated Ladies ran for 767 performances at the Lunt-Fontanne. Captured live, in performance in 1982, Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies makes its big screen debut in all its restored and re-mastered glory, courtesy of SpectiCast, beginning today at participating theaters.
If there is one theater Sophisticated Ladies tries to evoke, it is the Cotton Club. Our first clue is probably the big neon sign hanging from the back of the stage that says, “Cotton Club.” However, the production conceived by choreographer Donald McKayle and directed for the stage by Michael Smuin is not pedantically faithful to the era or venue. Ellington’s final theme song, “Satin Girl,” duly finds its way into the program. Also conspicuously anachronistic is the multiracial company of hoofers who dance to Ellington’s classics together, which would have been a major no-no during the Cotton Club’s heyday—so some things really aren’t how they used to be.
On the other hand, the immortal appeal of Ellington’s swinging standards comes through loud and clear. Ladies actually starts with the “Sophisticated Gentlemen” performing a relatively minor piece of Ellingtonia, “I’ve Got to be a Rug Cutter,” but it sure is a handy vehicle for some tap pyrotechnics. Likewise, “Music is a Woman” has never been excessively covered, but it is a nice up-tempo introduction for Paula Kelly, who looks terrific in flapper fashions (some might also recognize her, or perhaps not, from her trailblazing appearance in Playboy).
In a related development, one of the Ladies’ few missteps is a Josephine Baker-esque “jungle” style rendition of “The Mooche” that is probably quite true to the show’s Cotton Club roots, but has not aged well. The band still sounds great on it, though. Terri Klausner then commences torching up the old chestnut “Hit Me with a Hot Note and Watch Me Bounce” something impressively fierce. Kelly, two gentleman admirers, and a red piano keep the sassiness cranked up to the max with a “Love You Madly/Perdido” medley. It is elegant, but also pretty darn hot.
Phyllis Hyman starts “It Don’t Mean a Thing” in an unusally diva-ish bag, but it segues into show-stopping tap showcase for the gents. The video crew really shines during these big dance numbers. Clearly, multiple cameras were involved, mostly captured the company in full Astaires, with a few close-ups of their flying feet thrown in for good measure. The jitterbuggers take over during “Cotton Tail” and they don’t skimp on the air-steps. The rendition of “Solitude” is a bit miasmic for jazz tastes, but Kelly cranks the energy level back up with a duet-medley of “Don’t Get Around Much/I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart.” Unfortunately, a killer “Drop Me Off in Harlem” is slightly marred by a dated Chinese caricature.
From "Sophisticated Ladies."
For hardcore Duke fans, “Diminuedo in Blue” leads into the intermission, but without the “Crescendo,” probably because nobody would want to try to replicate Paul Gonsalves’ epic solo. Oddly, there is nothing representing the Sacred Concerts, which seems like a lost opportunity, but so be it. Considered the star, Hyman specializes in ballads like “In a Sentimental Mood” that are all very nice, but Kelly steals the show out from under her with saucy twists on favorites like “I’m Beginning to See the Light.” There is also good reason why she is the featured dancer for the pseudo title song, “Sophisticated Lady.”
The choreography of McKayle and Smuin (with a tap assist from Henry LeTang) translates well to the screen. In fact, the dance sequences are distinguished by an exuberance that remains fresh and appealing thirty-some years later. The cats in the band sound great too, but they are mostly stuck behind a gauzy curtain for most of the show (at one point future Lincoln Center mainstay Joe Temperley can be positively id’ed, but few others get even fleeting face time). The current Broadway production After Midnight does a better job in this respect, featuring the Jazz @ Lincoln Center affiliated band clearly on-stage, even giving them their own front-and-center number. It is a great show, but if you cannot make it to New York, there is considerable crossover between the two productions’ choice of tunes, so keep an eye out for Ladies.
Indeed, there is both timelessness and nostalgia to be found in Sophisticated Ladies. Most of Ellington’s songs sound as vital today as they did in the 1930’s and a few outliers are nicely rehabilitated by the Sophisticated Ladies and Gentlemen. Yet, when the camera pans the audience, we see folks dressed to the nines for Broadway. The men are wearing suits at the least, with a fair smattering of tuxedoes out there. Those days are gone, but the music swings like it always did. Highly recommended for fans of Ellington and Broadway, Sophisticated Ladies will have limited screenings in select theaters nationwide, beginning December 4th until the 18th, depending on the schedules of participating locations—including today (12/4) at the Chelsea Cinemas in New York.
By Joe Bendel. Life is cheap in Pakistan. Toting a gun will not raise any eyebrows, but a camera will quickly attract suspicion. This grimly ironic reality provided the initial germ of inspiration for Hammad Khan’s defiantly outraged Anima State, which will have its world premiere at the 2013 South Asian International Film Festival.
His face is bandaged like the Invisible Man. Do not bother asking the Stranger’s name or backstory. What matters is that he is angry and armed. He is about to embark on a killing spree, but it will not raise much of a fuss. Unsatisfied with his mounting body count, he resolves to commit suicide if he can find a large enough audience. An anchor for a nakedly propagandistic news network is happy to oblige. However, the ostensive journalist’s leading questions about America, Britain, and India are not taking the opening interview where the Stranger wants it to go.
Perhaps none of that really happened. Maybe the Stranger was really the product of an unnamed filmmaker’s subconscious. While the cops were content to let his armed-and-dangerous alter ego walk about freely, they instinctively clamp down on someone apparently engaged in either art or journalism.
From "Anima State."
If you see an angrier film than Anima State this year, it certainly was not because Khan lacked conviction. Time and again, he calls out contemporary Pakistani culture for normalizing violence and misogyny. Frankly, the film inspires real world concerns, particularly for Malika Zafar, the bold actress playing the “Archetypes of Woman,” including a battered wife and a prostitute, whose sexual confidence causes the Stranger no end of angst.
There is no getting around Anima’s ragged edges, but there is power in its grunginess. Produced with the revenue generated by Khan’s relatively apolitical Slackistan (which was banned in Pakistan nonetheless), Anima represents independent filmmaking at its most independent. Khan has a lot to say about the nexus between the government and the media and how they scapegoat YouTube videos and the like. He clearly admonishes Pakistan to look inside rather than outside for the source of its woes, which is never a well received message.
The mere fact that Khan successfully followed through on the concept of Anima is a tribute to him and his cast and crew. If at times it is a bit confusing or overindulges in the surrealist vibe, then so be it. A bracing indictment of institutionalized intolerance, Anima State is a must-see for anyone concerned about the future of cinema in Pakistan and the wider Islamic world. Recommended for those who can handle its rough aesthetic and truth-telling essence, it premieres this Wednesday (12/4) at the SVA Theatre as part of this year’s SAIFF.
They will be busy. Lee finds the syndicate his father first organized has been largely hijacked by Eun-gi, a cold-blooded boardroom gangster who exploited the vacuum left by Lee’s incarceration and the failing health of their Chairman. Obviously, Lee is not about to let this stand, even when a fairly obvious revelation threatens to undermine his relationship with the volatile Choi.
