Category: Narrative

By Joe Bendel. We might be in for a dystopian future, but there are those among us who won’t go down without a fight, perhaps including Terrance the hacker. He will demonstrate his talents to a mysterious woman and potential audiences for further and longer exploits when Cole Drumb’s animated short film PostHuman screens at the 2013 Comic Con International Independent Film Festival.

Evidently, the beautiful but deadly Kali was once an involuntary test subject in a secret government ESP lab. She intends to rescue her last surviving fellow guinea pig, with Terrance’s help at the keyboard, while his faithful dog Nine looks on. There’s your backstory, now it’s go time.

PostHuman is the perfect short for fans of the original Heavy Metal movie and magazine, both in terms of the hardboiled action and Kali’s wardrobe. It is short, but it is violent, in a good anti-authoritarian sort of way. Co-produced and co-edited by Jennifer Wai-Yin Luk, PostHuman is a muscular film with a striking anime-ish look that could easily serve as the prelude for a longer film or an ongoing series, like the 21st century indie version of a backdoor pilot.

There are three reasons Comic-Con attendees should queue up for PostHuman. It is short, so it will not take too much time away from standing in other lines. It is action-driven, so it is easily processed. Perhaps most notably, it also stars the voice of geek pin-up Tricia Helfer from Battlestar Galactica.

PostHuman is a cool short film that hopefully leads to future follow-ups. It is exactly the sort of screening that press attending Comic-Con should be covering.

Fans on-the-ball enough to have gotten their tickets in the ten minutes they were on-sale, and then organized enough to arrange lodging, should check out whatever they wish and get plenty of guilt-free swag. However, they should also bear in mind that fanboy favorites like Christopher Nolan were once indies (those who were in front of the curve on Following probably feel pretty smart now), and that the CCI-IFF has a lot of talented filmmakers who have the potential to become big names – definitely including the team behind PostHuman. Highly recommended, it screens this Thursday (7/18) in San Diego, along with Dawn Brown’s charmingly nostalgic House of Monsters and Lee Dae-hee’s surprisingly bittersweet and mature Padak, as part of Comic Con’s 2013 Independent Film Festival.

Posted on July 16th, 2013 at 10:57pm.

By Joe Bendel. That’s right, “Wax” is the word. Named for his hair styler, Wax is a singing kung fu motorcycle gang member, who is out to win the heart of the innocent ingénue. There will be dancing, fighting, and swooning in Jay Chou’s The Rooftop, the closing night film of the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival (and also part of the Well Go USA spotlight), which opens theatrically in New York this Friday.

Wax and his bowling biker buds live in the Rooftop section of Galilee, under the shadow of the huge outdoor billboards. They do not mind the scenery, though. In fact, they are rather fond of the one featuring Starling, a budding starlet and supermodel. Wax’s three stooges, Tempura, Egg, and Broccoli refer to her as “Sister-in-Law” to needle the big smitten lug. Everyone assumes nothing will ever come of his impossible crush until the day Wax picks up some part-time stuntman work getting the snot beat out of him on the set of her next picture.

Of course, she notices him. As their chaste courtship heats up, William (the one-named), Starling’s mobbed-up movie star patron, contrives to sabotage their romance. We know he is bad news because he is an associate of Red, one of Tempura’s unfriendly rent-collecting rivals working for the corrupt housing authority. That’s right, some of the villains are Taiwanese HUD bureaucrats, albeit decidedly more flamboyant than our homegrown variety.

For his second outing in the director’s chair, pop idol and action super-star Chou channels his inner Baz Lurhmann, unleashing a kaleidoscope of colors and staging big, flashy, razzle-dazzling musical numbers. Clearly not afraid of a little sentiment, Chou indulges one big melodramatic set piece after another. One minute Wax and Starling are strolling through a carnival, next they are dancing in the rain, and shortly thereafter they stare into each other eyes in his quaint rooftop neighborhood as fireworks explode in the background. It’s all good.

Chou and the radiant Li Xinai look like an attractive couple and develop some half decent romantic chemistry together. She even does some legit acting in her own scenes. However, the crafty old HK vet Eric Tsang often steals the show as Dr. Bo, the lads’ martial arts mentor and local snake oil salesman. Alan Ko also has his moments as Tempura, the enforcer trying to go straight. Unfortunately, the shticky comic relief delivered by Egg and Broccoli becomes embarrassing over time.

Still, Rooftop has a few gags that will have viewers laughing in spite of themselves. Truly, this is kitchen sink filmmaking. Chou throws it all in, including a way over the top framing device. Yet, Mark Lee Ping Bin, considered one of the world’s finest cinematographers for his work on films like Norwegian Wood, makes it all look bright and sparkly. If you want spectacle, Chou has your spectacle right here. Recommended for those who thought The Great Gatsby was too staid and did not have enough martial arts, The Rooftop officially closed this year’s NYAFF last night, but will open this Friday (7/19) in New York at the AMC Empire.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on July 16th, 2013 at 10:57pm.

By Joe Bendel. When in Rome, do as the Japanese do. Time-travelling Roman architect Lucius Quintus Modestus unwittingly adopts this strategy. Sure, you might think he looks more Japanese than Roman, but there is no need for pedantry when Hideki Takeuchi’s Thermae Romae screened this weekend as a co-presentation of this year’s Japan Cuts and the New York Asian Film Festival.

Nursing his wounded pride at a Roman civic bath, the recently fired Modestus is inexplicably pulled through the drainage system into modern day Japan. Initially contemptuous of the old-timers soaking in the neighborhood bath, the man has to admit their facilities beat anything Rome has to offer. It all rather overwhelms his Roman pride, while his chiseled looks overwhelm aspiring manga artist Mami Yamakoshi. After causing a great deal of naked commotion, Modestus quickly returns to his era, just as mysteriously as he left it. Soon he is the toast of Rome, applying the innovations he observed in Japan.

His new found fame earns Modestus the ear of the stern but wise Emperor Hadrian and his thoughtful counselor, Antoninus. Of course, the Emperor’s hedonistic adopted son Ceionius is a different story. Each time Modestus needs inspiration for a major commission, he somehow finds his way back to Japan and Yamakoshi, whether it be at the upscale bathroom showroom where she works part-time or at her mother’s rustic mountain spa. Eventually she will be pulled back to classical Rome with him, just in time for a major imperial power struggle.

Based on a popular manga series that also spawned a short-lived anime incarnation, Thermae Romae has plenty of pratfalls and fish-out-of-water humor, but the cast plays it surprisingly straight. In fact, Masachika Ichimura and Kai Shishido play Hadrian and Antoninus as if they thought Sir Derek Jacobi might be popping round the set in his I, Claudius costume.

Hilariously stone-faced Kore-eda regular Hiroshi Abe does not really have that option, given how much time Modestus must run about in his altogether. Still, he conveys a sense of the architect’s principled rectitude, even when embroiled in truly outrageous situations. In a role original to the film, Aya Ueto is likable enough as Yamakoshi, but she is saddled with a problematically passive character. There are plenty of Euro-looking Romans as well, dubbed into perfect Japanese to keep the madness chugging along at full steam.

Partly filmed in Italy’s celebrated Cinecitta studio, Thermae’s period production scenes frankly look better than they needed to. It also observes the conventions of time travel movies, without getting bogged down in them. Lightweight but entertaining, it is a goofy romp that avoids all the cheap excesses of recent “Blank Movie” spoofs. Recommended for fans of time travel and manga-inspired films, Therma Romae will screen during this year’s Fantasia Film Festival, but Japan Cuts and the New York Asian Film Festival had it first.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on July 16th, 2013 at 10:56pm.

By Joe Bendel. How did we get so pathetically starved for entertainment as a society that we made reality TV stars out of pawn shop dudes? At least this slightly macabre anthology film puts hock shops back in their properly sleazy place. Everyone doing business at the General Lee Pawn Shop will be getting the shaft, but it will be fate and human nature doing the dirty work in Wayne Kramer’s Pawn Shop Chronicles, which opened Friday in New York.

Alton and his crony Johnson sit about the store grunting and guffawing, pausing to deal with the occasional pawn. Each transaction will cause big time trouble and regret for the General Lee’s walk-ins, like Vernon the meth head, who hocks his shotgun right before meeting up with his white supremacist buddies, Raw Dog and Randy, to hold-up their dealer. Of course, they are rather disappointed in his short-sightedness.

On paper, “The Shotgun” sounds like a cheap bit of hicksploitation, but it features some of the wickedest dialogue in the film, which Paul Walker and Kevin Rankin chew on with proper relish. Gleefully embracing cartoonish violence and a bizarre redneck brand of tolerance, PSC arguably puts its strongest foot forward first.

“The Ring” also has its exploitation merits, but viewers should be warned that it is the most explicit and disturbing installment of the film. Making amends for Crash, PSC’s pretentious evil twin, Matt Dillon plays a newlywed who chances into the General Lee, only to discover his presumably late first wife’s custom ring in the display case. Following the chain of wrongful ownership takes him into the lair of Johnny Shaw, the latest serial killer to be played by Elijah Wood.

Despite a sly riff on the crossroads legend, “The Medallion” is PSC’s weakest link. Seriously, a little bit of Brendan Fraser shticking up the joint as Ricky Baldoski, the low rent Elvis impersonator, goes a long, long way. Eventually, strands of the previous stories will transect this Faustian tale, but first viewers must sit through an extended gag involving the town’s rival barbershops that feels like it runs longer than The Winds of War.

Many have long awaited the film that features Wood, Lukas Haas, and DJ Qualls, but since they never appear here in the same scene together, we still cannot definitely say they are not one and the same person. Vincent D’Onofrio and Chi McBride are mildly amusing in the General Lee framing segments, but it is Walker, Rankin, and Dillon who are the film’s overachievers.

Much like a chaotic pawn shop, the inspired and the stupid comfortably sit side-by-side in PSC. To his credit, Kramer (in a radical departure from his excellent more-or-less feature debut, The Cooler) helms the madness with considerable energy and absolutely no shame. On balance, b-movie connoisseurs will enjoy checking it has appeared on VOD. It has also opened theatrically in New York at the AMC Empire and in Colorado at the AMC Westminster Promenade.

Posted on July 15th, 2013 at 9:32am.

By Joe Bendel. Maybe those fuddy-duddies at the Comics Code Authority were not completely off-base regarding the corrupting influence of comic books. Take for instance Kang Ji-yoon’s webcomics. Her lurid depictions of supernatural vengeance are certainly popular, but they also seem to be coming true in real life. How exactly does she get her ideas? That will be the question in Kim Young-gyun’s Killer Toon, which opened Friday in Los Angeles at the CGV Cinemas.

Kang is not great when it comes to deadlines, so her editor Seo Mi-sook is initially quite relieved to finally receive her latest comic via e-mail. Then she starts reading it. Oddly, the first panels self-referentially depict her working late on the very same webcomic, but then flash back to her deepest, darkest secret. A malevolent presence starts terrorizing the understandably freaked out Seo, eventually forcing her to commit suicide, both in the comic and real life.

Responding to the call, Detective Lee Ki-cheol finds Seo’s body and the suspicious comic open on her computer. Having evidently never seen a horror movie before, he decides this could be a career making case. Logically, Kang becomes their prime suspect after she mysteriously arrives on the scene of another ostensive suicide foretold in her comics, at least until yet another interested party kidnaps her.

Like the E.C. Comics that obviously inspired it, everyone is guilty of something in Toon and therefore has it coming to some extent. Combining live action with liberal samples of Kang’s work presented in a motion comic style, Kim’s film clearly evokes Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt, but it takes the concept even further.

As a result, Toon looks very cool, but it has an unfortunate habit of contradicting itself. In fact, it seems compulsively driven to pull late inning switcheroos with the true nature of a primary character that simply become exhausting. Still, Kim consistently maintains the heavy atmosphere of portent, slickly transitioning between Kang’s comics and the film’s objective reality. The past clearly haunts the present, regardless of the exact nature of the machinations at work.

In probably his darkest role to date, musical theater veteran Um Ki-joon is surprisingly good as Det. Lee, an arrogant and ambitious man, but not a dumb flatfoot by any stretch. Likewise, popular rom-com movie star Lee Si-young is quite the convincing basket case as the gruesome graphic novelist. Kim Do-young’s ill-fated editor makes a memorable opening scene victim and Hyun Woo is also appropriately cold and clammy as Det. Lee’s twitchy junior.

Indeed, Toon boasts a strong ensemble and a darkly stylish look. Unfortunately, screenwriter Lee Sang-hak’s adaptation of Lee Hoo-kyung’s novel just doesn’t always add up. There are far too many “wait, why did …” moments. Still, for fans of horror movies and comics, there is some fun stuff to be found here, as well as some hardcore retribution to keep them on the straight-and-narrow. Recommended for genre enthusiasts who value visual flair over narrative logic, Killer Toon opened Friday in LA, at the CGV Cinemas.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on July 15th, 2013 at 9:31am.

By Joe Bendel. So far, American teens have largely been spared the joys of cram school. In Taiwan, they are a fact of life for those facing the highly competitive university entrance tests. It does not leave students much time for romance, but there just might be something cooking between two young back office workers. Modern love is decidedly confused in Hou Chi-jan’s When a Wolf Falls in Love with a Sheep, which screens Tuesday during the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival.

After leaving a “back soon” sticky note on his sleeping forehead, Tung’s girlfriend walked out of his life and has yet to return. Maybe it was because he dressed too much like “Where’s Waldo.” Emerging from a heartsick tailspin, the dopey kid takes a job at a copy shop in the Nanyang cram school district, because he can do the work on autopilot and live in the loft above the store. Making deliveries to the Bisheng School, Tung meets the cute but artistically frustrated Yang, who draws little sheep cartoons on the bottom of the school’s test papers. One day, he responds with his own big bad wolf character and a doodle flirtation starts to blossom, much to the amusement of the student body.

Wolf is compulsively sweet, but it has tons more style than your average rom-com. Hou integrates little animated vignettes of the sheep and wolf, as well as some completely fresh and original sight gags. It sometimes feels a bit prone to ADD, but Hou eventually loops every rangy subplot back into his main narrative quite cleverly. Despite its frothy tone, Wolf has some rather smart stuff to it, particularly in the manner it presents the pseudo-courtship between Tung and Yang. It is a two-tiered relationship, playful on paper but much more reserved in person, which really rings true.

As Tung, Kai Ko is appropriately sad-eyed and sensitive, while Chien Man-shu gives refreshing depth to the more philosophical Yang. Wolf is also loaded with colorful supporting players, most notably including Lin Ching-tai (the star of Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale), playing off his real life persona as a former Presbyterian minister with his turn as a priest moonlighting as a noodle-cart vendor, wisdom dispenser, and general jack-of-all-trades.

Energetic and winning, Wolf is the sort of rom-com where fate is not content to merely take a hand, but will go so far as to smack characters alongside the head and yell “go after her, you schmuck.” If that is manipulative at times, Hou nicely compensates with the originality of his execution. Highly recommended for anyone who appreciates a good date movie, When a Wolf Loves a Sheep screens Tuesday afternoon (7/9) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival. Those who go should stay through the final credits for several reasons, including the attendance of director and festival special guest Hou Chi-jan.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on July 8th, 2013 at 1:08pm.