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LFM Reviews Shanghai Calling @ The 2012 Asian American International Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Go-getting corporate attorney Sam Chao is used to doing things his way. So is China. China’s bigger. Temporarily posted to the go-go city on the East China Sea, Chao is in for a steady diet of culture clashes in director-screenwriter Daniel Hsia’s Shanghai Calling, the 2012 Asian American International Film Festival’s opening night film, produced by this year’s Asian American Media Award recipient, Janet Yang.

Chao is not thrilled with his new assignment, but it is clear the partnership he covets depends on his performance opening the Shanghai office. His firm has come to China because that is where their most important client, eccentric industrialist Marcus Groff, has relocated. Never really in touch with his Chinese heritage, Chao does his level best to offend all his new colleagues as quickly as possible, particularly his assistant Fang Fang and his expat relocation specialist, Amanda Wilson. Unfortunately, Chao is going to need their help when makes a hash of Groff’s latest deal.

For reasons that remain elusive, Fang Fang has eyes for the boss, whereas Chao finds himself attracted to Wilson. That would also seem to be an odd choice on his part, but it fits with Chao’s cultural identity. He is the whitest guy in the room, especially compared to Wilson and expat business community leader Donald Cafferty, the “Mayor of Americatown.”

Hsia’s screenplay is quite astute observing the dynamics of the American business community in Shanghai, contrasting the old school old guard, represented by Cafferty, with the yuppie upstarts. It definitely feels like Calling reflects an insider’s perspective. However, the vibe of the romantic subplots are a bit too Gary Marshall (even the poster looks a bit reminiscent of New Year’s Eve). At least Hsia keeps the cast of characters manageable.

Daniel Henney (geek-famous as Agent Zero in X-Men Origins: Wolverine) maintains an easy likability, even when he is cruising for his ego bruising. Likewise, Eliza Coupe is like a cross between vintage Meg Ryan and Bonnie Hunt as Wilson, the harried single mother. However, some of the brightest lights are found in the supporting cast. In what could have easily been a shticky caricature, Bill Paxton brings out the wit and humanity of “Mayor” Cafferty. Not just window dressing, Zhu Zhu (of the Chinese remake of What Women Want) plays Fang Fang with real spirit and sensitivity, while Geng Le has a nice understated nerd charisma as Awesome Wang, a journalist-fixer often hired by the expats.

Clearly, Calling is not interested in muckraking. When Chao crashes the factory bootlegging Groff’s revolutionary cell-phone, it looks nothing like the Foxconn NPR describes. Nor does the film have anything to say about China’s internet freedoms, or lack thereof. That might limit its documentary value, but it is rather pleasant as an East-meets-West courtship (of both the personal and professional varieties). Though becoming more common, such American-Chinese co-productions still must present challenges (indeed, such is the basic premise of the film), so 2012 honoree Yang’s contributions as producer are surely considerable. Recommended for those who enjoy light cross-cultural rom-coms, Shanghai Calling screened last night as part of the 2012 AAIFF’s opening gala and also on Saturday (7/28), but both showings are sold out, so good luck queuing stand-by.

Posted on July 26th, 2012 at 9:49am.

The Ambassador on VOD August 4th, on iTunes August 24th, and in Theaters on August 29th

By Govindini Murty. As regular Libertas readers know, one of our favorite films from Sundance 2012 was Mads Brügger’s scandalous and politically incorrect documentary The Ambassador. In it, Brügger impersonates a diplomat and travels to the Central African Republic to uncover rampant corruption. Now you can finally see the film yourself, because The Ambassador was recently picked up for distribution by Drafthouse Films.

As Libertas readers know, we did an in-depth Sundance interview with Mads Brügger earlier this year at The Huffington Post, in which we declared Mads “the most provocative filmmaker in the world.” We chose our words about Mads carefully, because we do think he may just be “the most provocative filmmaker in the world.” It would be hard to find another filmmaker like Mads who is willing to risk his life to expose tyranny – and yet who also has the intelligence and ironic sense of humor to know how to satirize that tyranny on-camera. As Drafthouse Films’ recent press release says:

Drafthouse Films, the film distribution arm of the world-famous Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, announced their acquisition of The Ambassador, a darkly comic, genre-bending documentary that exposes the corrupt business of selling diplomatic titles to exploit the lucrative and limited resources of war torn, third world nations. Filmmaker/journalist/provocateur Mads Brügger (Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner for Red Chapel) uses humor in his jaw-dropping descent into one of the most dangerous places on the planet: Central African Republic. From each absurdly terrifying and hilarious situation to the next, The Ambassador is a one-of-a-kind excursion from the man whom The Huffington Post has called “the most provocative filmmaker in the world.”

The Ambassador is scheduled to launch on VOD and digital platforms August 4th and theatrically in New York City (IFC Center) on August 29th, Los Angeles (The Cinefamily) and Austin (Alamo Drafthouse locations) on August 31st. The film will also be available through iTunes on August 24th.

Brugger’s prior film, The Red Chapel, was a striking expose of communist North Korea for which Brugger won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2010. In that film, Brügger infiltrated North Korea by pretending to be part of a Danish communist theater troupe – when in reality he was only there to ‘punk’ the North Korean regime.

Again, here’s our Huffington Post interview with Brügger in which we discuss all this and more. We wish Mads and Drafthouse Films the best with their release.

Posted on July 23rd, 2012 at 10:02pm.

The First London Games in 1948: LFM Reviews The BBC’s Going for Gold

By Joe Bendel. Seventy-three year-old British artist John Copley became the oldest Olympic medalist at the 1948 London Games, taking silver for his etchings. It would be the penultimate artistic competition of the modern-era games, all of which have since been segregated from the official medal counts. He might have made history (for a while, at least), but fortunately this will not be his story. Instead, BBC America takes viewers to the Thames, where a hastily assembled British sculling duo carries the hopes of their nation in Going for Gold: The ’48 Games, a one-shot airing this Wednesday as part of the current season of Dramaville.

Bert Bushnell and Dickie Burnell both competed for a spot on the 1948 Olympic team, but fell short. Pairing-up was not their fallback plan, but the brainchild of five-time British medalist and Olympic committeeman Jack Beresford. The double sculls is an event close to his heart, since he and his partner upset the favored Germans in front of Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Games.

The stakes are not quite so high for Bushnell and Burnell, but the malaise-ridden United Kingdom could use a lift. London could also use the tourist dollars generated by a successful Olympiad. However, with mere weeks to go, they’re still woefully behind on construction. Evidently its déjà vu all over again.

Likewise, Bushnell and Burnell have just started training together – and it shows. Socially and temperamentally quite different, the pair clash rather badly. In fact, the respectably middle class Bushnell’s class resentment of Burnell’s privileged background becomes tiresomely repetitive, perhaps saying more about screenwriter William Ivory (whose credits include the labor drama Made In Dagenham) than two athletes who fundamentally share so much in common. They both have a passion for their sport, similar last names, and persistent issues with their fathers.

For many viewers (as well as for BBC America) the most important thing to know about Gold is the presence of Doctor Who’s Matt Smith as Bushnell. He is credible enough as the tightly wound rower, but Sam Hoare certainly looks more athletic as Burnell. He also has some of the better turned straight dramatic scenes. However, for longtime TV anglophiles, it will be Geoffrey “As Time Goes By” Palmer who stands out as Burnell’s severely reserved father.

If rowing races is your thing, Going for the Gold (a.k.a. Bert & Dickie) is your tele-drama. Smoothly helmed by TV veteran David Blair, it still is hardly Chariots of Fire-on-the-Thames (notwithstanding one eyebrow raising quote), but it is about on par with most subsequent Summer Olympic movies. An appealing period production with a decent payoff, Going for the Gold is a pleasant enough warm-up for the London Games, recommended for sculling and Olympic enthusiasts when it airs this Wednesday night (7/25) on BBC America’s Dramaville showcase.

Posted on July 23rd, 2012 at 8:41pm.

LFM Reviews Mr. Cao Goes to Washington @ The 2012 Asian American International Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. Anh “Joseph” Cao was elected to Congress in 2008, a generally bad year for Republicans. He was defeated in his re-election bid two years later—a decidedly good year for Republican candidates. In a mere two years, the idealistic former Jesuit seminarian received an eye-opening education in all manner of group-think politics. Cao’s short tenure in office is documented in S. Leo Chiang’s Mr. Cao Goes to Washington, which screens during the upcoming Asian American International Film Festival in New York.

Immigrating to America while his father was still a captive of a Communist Vietnamese re-education camp, young Cao led an eventful life before he even considered a political career. Choosing law school over a life of the cloth, Cao became an activist leader in Versailles, New Orleans’ small but enterprising Vietnamese community (profiled in Chiang’s previous documentary, A Village Called Versailles). Louisiana’s second congressional district was deliberately drawn to elect an African American Democrat, everything that Cao is not. However, the ethical issues dogging William “Cold Cash” Jefferson gave Cao a once in a lifetime opportunity to flip the seat—and he was precisely the transcendent candidate to do it.

The question throughout MCGTW is whether or not Cao can hold his seat against a relatively untarnished Democrat (if one can be found in the Crescent City). Unfortunately, most viewers already know the answer, undercutting the suspense, but also preparing them for the inevitable crushing disappointment.

Chiang and film editor Matthew Martin arduously walk a political tight-rope, trying to frame Cao to be as appetizing as possible to left-of-center film critics. Much is made of Cao’s relative liberalism within the Republican caucus, including many laments that he might be better suited to the other party. Yet Cao remains staunchly pro-life throughout his term of office, so so much for that idea. Frankly, Cao had no complaints with his Republican colleagues, getting more than his share of their earmarks for his ungrateful district. Conversely, the figure who emerges in Chiang’s doc as the poster boy for political hypocrisy and opportunism is none other than the current (but perhaps not long term) occupant of the Oval Office.

MrCaoGoestoWashington1 — From "Mr. Cao Goes to Washington."

Initially wooed by Obama, Cao genuinely believed the President’s pretenses of friendship. Indeed, Cao took a lot of heat voting for the House’s first Obamacare bill. However, when Obama inevitably cuts a commercial for his Democrat opponent (a less than inspiring figure with a history of disbarments and barroom brawling), it is profoundly disillusioning for Cao. Indeed, for all the film’s attempts to distinguish Cao from the national GOP, time and again it is the Democrats (both nationally and in New Orleans) who refuse to look past party labels and racial identity. To their credit, Chiang and his team show this quite clearly.

Nonetheless, MCGTW is so intent on presenting Cao in non-partisan terms, it declines to correct a few inaccuracies. While Cao was the only Asian American Republican in Congress at the time of his election, he was eventually joined by Charles Djou, the first Thai American congressman, who won a special election in Hawaii (but was subsequently defeated in 2010, like Cao). Perhaps more problematically, MCGTW lets a local provocateur’s incendiary racial attacks on the GOP stand unchallenged. Still, it illustrates the sort of rhetoric Cao faced from some extremists.

Perhaps most importantly, MCGTW always treats Cao fairly, recognizing his earnestness and integrity. He is clearly the real Horatio Alger deal, with the attractive wife and cute kids perfectly suited for campaign brochures. Watching his re-election campaign unfold will be a frustrating experience for viewers of most political stripes. If anything, it suggests the greatest problem with the current political system is not money or PACs, but the voters themselves.

That is a real downer of a Pogo-like message, isn’t it? Still, Cao’s frank, vigorous spirit is quite refreshing. After viewing MCGTW, one hopes for a sequel with a more satisfying ending. Clearly, Cao is talented man and Chiang has a keen understanding of the community he represents. Considering the mildness of its biases, the mostly fair and responsible Mr. Cao Goes to Washington is recommended for political junkies on both sides of the aisle, particularly those who following events in New Orleans from a distance, when it screens this Thursday (7/26) at the Chelsea Clearview as an official selection of the 2012 AAIFF.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on July 23rd, 2012 at 8:39pm.

LFM Reviews Chen Kaige’s Sacrifice

By Joe Bendel. Generally ascribed to Yuan Dynasty playwright Ji Junxiang, The Orphan of Zhao was the first Chinese play to be translated in Europe. It was even adapted (quite liberally) for the French stage by Voltaire. Profoundly tragic and also rather violent in places, it has timeless elements that continue to appeal to audiences. Celebrated auteur Chen Kaige vividly captures both qualities in his grand big screen version, Sacrifice, which opens this Friday in New York.

General Tu Angu is not a man to take the slights of the Zhao clan lightly. Framing the patriarch and his son, General Zhao Shuo, for the murder of the ruling Duke, Tu uses the outrage as pretext for wiping out the Zhao clan. A swifter, more awe-inspiring massacre you are not likely to see on film anytime soon. However, he misses two of the Zhaos, the young General’s wife, Princess Zhuang, and her newborn baby. Sacrificing herself for her child, Zhuang entrusts the infant heir to her doctor, respected commoner Cheng Ying.

As fate would dictate, Cheng’s wife has also recently delivered. Suddenly having a newborn is dangerous business and Cheng has two. In a truly Biblical turn of events, Tu orders all the town’s babies to be collected at his palace to be duly vetted. Through a catastrophically Shakespearean turn of events, the Zhao and Cheng babies essentially trade places.

Growing up as Cheng Wu, the presumed son of Dr. Cheng, the Zhao orphan knows nothing of his birthright. However, unbeknownst to the boy, the doctor is grooming him to take wreak his vengeance at the appropriate time. To do this he plays a dangerous game, entering the service of the Tu retinue, manipulating his nemesis into serving as Cheng Wu’s godfather. Needless to say, some rather messy issues of filial loyalty arise.

Some have often knocked Chen’s films as pretty but rather bloodless historical dramas, but this is absolutely not the case with Sacrifice. While the period trappings are as richly detailed as ever, there is also plenty of blood. In fact, the first act is quite a spectacle of mayhem, segueing into a tense cat-and-mouse game, in which the fate of the city’s infants hangs in the balance. The film ultimately settles into a stone cold revenge drama.

Featuring several of Chen’s semi-regulars, Sacrifice’s talented ensemble is equally adept at the stately tragedy and the gutty action sequences. As Tu Angu, Wang Xueqi is in his element. Ruthless yet charismatic, he is the sort of villain viewers find themselves identifying with, in spite of themselves. While Ge You might be better known to American audiences for his shticky work in Let the Bullets Fly, he wrings real pathos from his performance as Dr. Cheng. While her character is not long for the world, Fan Bingbing is a typically ethereal presence as Princess Zhuang. Yet it is Mainland TV star Hai Qing who really lowers the emotional boom as Cheng’s equally ill-fated wife.

Admirers of Chen’s Chinese Opera sagas Farewell My Concubine and Forever Enthralled should still appreciate the classical elegance of Sacrifice. It is based on a play, after all. Likewise, fans of more action-driven Asian cinema should never get bored with the relentless scheming and vigorous swordplay. Indeed, Chen integrates the intimate and the epic halves quite masterfully. Highly recommended for fans of literate historicals and the wuxia genre, Sacrifice opens this Friday (7/27) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on July 23rd, 2012 at 8:37pm.

LFM’s Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post and AOL-Moviefone: Basketball Diplomacy: An American Point Guard Becomes a Symbol of Freedom in The Iran Job

[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today at The Huffington Post and at AOL-Moviefone.]

By Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty. NBA fans know that two-time MVP point guard Steve Nash recently joined the Los Angeles Lakers. Fans are buzzing, because the addition of Nash could soon result in a return to championship glory for the league’s most glamorous franchise. As big as Nash’s impact on the Lakers might be, however, it can’t possibly match the impact that flashy point guard Kevin Sheppard — the former Jacksonville University star and Virgin Islands native — had in 2008 on A.S. Shiraz, a professional basketball team in Iran’s Super League.

The reasons for this go beyond sports, however, because over the course of one gripping and emotional season — a season documented by director Till Schauder and producer Sara Nodjoumi in their extraordinary new documentary, The Iran Job — Sheppard becomes one of Iran’s most popular athletes, and brings a ray of hope into an increasingly repressive and isolated society.

The Iran Job screened last week in Washington, D.C., and had its world premiere recently at the Los Angeles Film Festival, where we had the chance to talk to the film’s creators.

As depicted in the film, Kevin Sheppard’s Iranian odyssey begins in the fall of 2008, when he’s offered a spot on A.S. Shiraz’s roster. Having already played professional basketball in South America, Europe, China and Israel, the voluble Sheppard is unfazed by the prospect of playing overseas — but is understandably nervous as an American traveling to Iran. Coming in the midst of a 2008 election in which Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain all had sharp words for Iran and its nuclear program, Sheppard nonetheless decides to take the plunge out of a spirit of professionalism.

It was a decision that would change his life, as well as the lives of everyday Iranians — and in particular, those of three young Iranian women.

One of the most compelling aspects of The Iran Job is the way it captures the casual details of life in today’s Iran — a closed society that clearly harbors some unusual stereotypes about the outside world. So for example, the moment Sheppard arrives in Iran and meets up with his Serbian roommate (the team’s 7-foot center, and the only other non-Iranian allowed on the squad), Sheppard learns that his cable TV has been custom-provided with hundreds of pornographic channels — the assumption being that because he is an American, he must be sex-obsessed. The irony that such programming is even available in a “strict” Islamic society, of course, is not lost on Sheppard — who can’t help but laugh at Iranian officialdom’s awkward notions of diplomatic courtesy.

Such ticklish moments aside, however, Sheppard immediately begins bonding with average Iranians. A natural show-off with a wicked sense of humor, Sheppard dazzles everyone around him — even when they barely speak English, and are only able to respond to his warm smile and playfulness. The camera follows him early on as he goes out to grab dinner, and we see regular Iranians high-fiving him and snapping pictures with him before he’s even picked up a basketball. His enthusiasm and dynamic personality ignite smiles everywhere.

We asked Sheppard about the rock-star treatment he received from average Iranians:

“The funny thing about it is, once I got over there — people really love America. The government would say, ‘Down with America.’ They have all kinds of signs — ‘America is the Devil,’ ‘Down with the U.S.A.’ — but once you get to the people, they love American culture, they know everything about America, they love all the American sports. So it was a little bit ironic and crazy for me at first. I was like, how can you have all these signs around? But yet, when you speak to the people it’s totally different. So I know it [hostility toward America] was not coming from the mass of the people in general. This was all pushed upon them by the government.”

As The Iran Job proceeds, however, Sheppard’s innate enthusiasm is challenged by his lackluster basketball team, A.S. Shiraz a new and untested squad in Iran’s Super League, and a team sorely lacking in the kind of talent or winning attitude to which Sheppard is accustomed. Viewers basically get the sense that Sheppard has just joined The Bad News Bears of Iranian basketball, and his first task will be to shake up the underwhelming squad.

It’s worth noting here that The Iran Job follows the usual parameters of sports documentaries in depicting how one inspirational player can turn the fortunes of a franchise around by getting his teammates to believe they can win. That’s precisely what Sheppard does, due in part to his on-court heroics (we watch him win several games with buzzer-beating shots), but mostly due to his cocky swagger and high standards. The intense, demanding point guard simply hates to lose — and refuses to let his teammates ever be comfortable accepting defeat. Continue reading LFM’s Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post and AOL-Moviefone: Basketball Diplomacy: An American Point Guard Becomes a Symbol of Freedom in The Iran Job