Playing Survivor in Bangkok: LFM Reviews Kill ‘Em All on Blu-ray

By Joe Bendel. Hired killers are not inclined to make alliances. Nonetheless, to survive the “Killing Chamber,” eight captured assassins will have to work together. Needless to say, not all of them are going to make it in Raimund Huber’s Kill’Em All (trailer here), which releases this week on DVD and Blu-ray from Well Go USA, just in time for Christmas.

The premise is elegantly straight forward. A shadowy criminal mastermind has abducted the top freelancers working in Bangkok, forcing them to face off in death matches, until there is only one. Defiance of his instructions will lead to another dose of gas flooding the chamber. On the other hand, each victor earns a trip to the weapons room. Basically, it is a martial arts Survivor with décor left over from the Saw franchise. Frankly, it is strange nobody made this film sooner, but here it is now.

Let’s have no illusions: this is an old school exploitation movie, through and through. What it might lack in subtlety, it makes up for with in-your-face violence, choreographed with authority by fight director Tim Man. Those nostalgic for Enter the Dragon rip-offs like Kill and Kill Again will get plenty of red meat here. The dialogue can be rather clunky, though, but that’s okay – the delivery often is, as well. Yet, despite ‘Em All’s profound B-movieness, the characters are better delineated than one might expect.

Gabriel is an explosives expert who wants everyone to join hands and work together to survive. He is also suicidal, so this might be his lucky day, regardless. Som is a Black Widow type assassin, who stuns opponents with her fearsome midriff of death. She also seems to know more about their predicament than she lets on. Carpenter is the crusty old Gary Busey-esque American expat of the hitman world, who hasn’t survived this long for no reason. “The Kid” is the quiet, wiry type, but you do not want to face him in a death match. Throw in a sadistic man child and a German anarchist and you have yourself a colorful crew.

Ammara Siripong in "Kill 'Em All."

No, this is not Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. ‘Em All was obviously shot on a shoestring, but Huber still recruited a cast that will interest genre fans. None other than Shaw Brothers veteran Gordon Liu appears as their evil tormentor, “Snakehead.” Perhaps even more significant to martial arts connoisseurs will be the final film appearance of Joe Lewis, the international kickboxing champion and one time student of Bruce Lee, as Carpenter. Ammara Siripong (co-star of the Thai martial arts film Chocolate) is also an impressive screen presence as Som. Arguably, she has the best fight sequence, involving the lethal use of bricks (once again, ‘Em All is more about brute force than finesse).

You should know by now if Kill ‘Em All is your idea of a guilty pleasure. For action fanatics, it has some cool moments, especially those featuring the undeniably attractive Siripong and the late great Lewis. You could say it’s a bit grungy and unsophisticated, but Kill ‘Em All is still the perfect film to put on after a big family Christmas dinner. Recommended accordingly, it is now available for home viewing from Well Go USA.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on December 12th, 2012 at 8:25am.

LFM Reviews Center Stage

By Joe Bendel. She was one the biggest stars of her generation but the press was out to get her. Eerily, Ruan Lingyu’s short life paralleled the trajectories of her most tragic roles. Her career was marked by scandal, making her story a natural for big screen adaptation. Mixing narrative with documentary snippets, Stanley Kwan sympathetically profiles Ruan in Center Stage, which fittingly concludes the Asia Society’s Goddess film series tomorrow.

There are two divas in Stage, Ruan and Lily Li, played by two divas of a later generation: Maggie Cheung and Carina Lau, respectively. A gifted actress, Ruan is often called the Greta Garbo of Republican China. She gained fame as a romantic heroine, but is now best remembered for her more politically charged films. Unfortunately, she fell for the wrong man at an early age. Arguably, it was a mistake Ruan significantly repeated once, perhaps twice. Ultimately, her ne’er do well ex would serve as the media’s willing tool.

Stage can be quite maddening, because it recreates scenes from many of Ruan’s films that are now considered lost. Many of them look like they were really darn good, but we can only hope they eventually turn up in a mysterious film vault someplace. Naturally, Kwan also gives the audience a behind-the-scenes look at the surviving classics, Goddess and New Women, which kicked off the Asia Society’s retrospective last month.

Cheung is not a bad likeness for Ruan, perfectly expressing her brittle vulnerability. Her Ruan struggles to maintain a placid façade, but she obviously feels the sleights of others on a very deep level. Indeed, screenwriter Peggy Chiao clearly ascribes a great deal of her success as an actress to her remarkable empathy. It is a star turn from Cheung, justly awarded best actress at the 42nd Berlinale.

Kwan’s talking head segments, both archival and original black-and-white interviews with cast and crew, give the film a stop-and-start rhythm that can be distracting. Still, much of this commentary is rather interesting stuff, including the final sit-down granted by Li Lily, Ruan’s friend and fellow diva (represented in the Goddess series with Daybreak). Cheung’s sympathetic take on Ruan adds an intriguing meta-dimension to the film. Her candid segments also serve as a reminder how striking she is, considering how pale and drawn she often looks when appearing in character as Ruan.

At well over two and a half hours, Stage truly brims with ambition. Sort of the HK equivalent of Jessica Lange’s Frances Farmer bio-pic, it is a finely crafted period production that should satisfy Ruan’s fans with its earnest ardor for their star. Viewers will come to feel like they understand the exquisitely morose idol, yet suspect there is something about her that will always remain unknowable. Anchored by a great lead performance, Center Stage is highly recommended for fans of Ruan, Cheung, and Hong Kong cinema in general when it screens tomorrow (12/8), wrapping up the Goddess film series at the Asia Society.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on December 7th, 2012 at 11:09am.

Long Island Cheer: LFM Reviews The Fitzgerald Family Christmas

By Joe Bendel. Where are the Griswolds when you need them? It is the season for sentimentality and Edward Burns intends to indulge. He returns to Long Island for a big Irish family get together in The Fitzgerald Family Christmas, which opens today in New York.

Their mother’s birthday is two days before Christmas, but aside from Gerry, her favorite, none of the grown Fitzgerald children want to come home to celebrate. Grown might be too strong a word. Let’s say they are over twenty-one. Gerry is the professional martyr who still lives at home. He has four sisters whose names are impossible to keep straight. It is easier to just number them in accordance with how annoying they are, number four being the most insufferable. He also has two brothers, one of whom would have been forgotten were it not for a handy set of press notes.

There is still a Fitzgerald father out there, but he is dead to Rosie Fitzgerald after he walked out on her when the brood was still quite young. Unfortunately, Jim Fitzgerald will be dead to everyone soon. His final wish is to spend his last Christmas with the family. Gerry tries pleading his case, but his mother and assorted siblings remain steadfastly opposed.

Various other family dramas crop up, including Sister #1’s pregnancy with her abusive husband. Brother Quinn and Sister #4 are pursuing significantly younger and older romantic partners, respectively, while Sister #3 sent her husband packing in favor of their landscaper. Sister #2 actually has a presentable husband and young baby, but she is still absolutely miserable to be around. Meanwhile, completely forgettable Brother Cyril just got out of rehab. Right, good luck with that.

From "The Fitzgerald Family Christmas."

Christmas with the Fitzgeralds will make viewers convert to Buddhism. The only appealing scenes involve Brother Gerry’s awkward courtship of Nora Daugherty, the nurse of a longtime family friend. It is nice to see realistically flawed, everyday looking (slightly worn even) people develop a down-to-earth relationship. Reuniting from The Brothers McMullen, Burns and Connie Britton display real romantic chemistry together. He helms these sequences with a sensitive touch the rest of the middling family chaos lacks.

Granted, it should also be noted Ed Lauter might just give a career performance as the remorseful absentee father. In fact, there are several very nice supporting turns peppered throughout this overstuffed holiday feast of subplots, each of which is neatly resolved, lest they spoil the turkey. While not an outright affront to cinema, The Fitzgerald Family Christmas is unlikely to become anyone’s holiday tradition. More liable to test viewers’ patience, it opens today (12/7) in New York at the Village East.

LFM GRADE: C-

Posted on December 7th, 2012 at 11:08am.

Awkward Moments: LFM Reviews Wagner & Me

By Joe Bendel. Can you separate an artist’s work from their offensive ideology? Hollywood asks Middle America to do exactly that nearly every weekend. Granted, the case of Richard Wagner is of a much higher magnitude. After all, we know whose favorite composer he was. Stephen Fry is also an ardent admirer, who tries to reconcile his beloved music with the man’s problematic legacy in Patrick McGrady’s Wagner & Me, which opens this Friday in New York.

Fry is clearly a civilized man of the arts, who actually lost family members in the Holocaust. He also loves Wagner’s music. Love might be an understatement. Touring the celebrated Bayreuth concert hall built to the composer’s specifications as it prepares for its annual Wagner festival, Fry is absolutely giddy. All his sophistication deserts him. It is a total fanboy geek out.

Frankly, Fry might cringe at some of this footage in years to come, but on the other hand, cynicism is overrated. Fry conveys his passion for the music and God bless him for it. To his credit, though, he does not ignore the dark side of Wagner. While he does not delve too deeply into the composer’s documented anti-Semitic sentiments, he fully explores the way Hitler and the National Socialists used the long deceased Wagner to legitimize their reign of insanity. W&M is particularly eye-opening when addressing the support Wagner’s heirs lent to Hitler at a very early stage in his career. Fry also visits a violinist who survived the concentration camps to get her considered judgment on Wagner, which is indeed quite reasonable and reflective.

From "Wagner and Me."

Wagner will always be a tricky figure to come to terms with. On a basic level, an artist like Wagner or a veteran of film and television like Fry cannot help it if some unsavory characters become fans of their work. Yet, many will fairly argue there were chauvinistically nationalistic themes in Wagner’s operas that were all too compatible with National Socialism. Fry somewhat tries to rehabilitate his idol (while wisely refraining from the “he was a big fan of Mendelssohn and some of his best friends were Jewish” defense the Wagner establishment has floated), but he never closes the deal.

In fact, viewers might walk away from W&M more critical of Wagner the man than when they walked in. That is a testament to Fry’s honesty if not necessarily his persuasiveness. Sometimes interesting but hardly essential, Wagner & Me opens this Friday (12/7) in New York at the Quad Cinema.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on December 6th, 2012 at 11:02am.

New Clip from Zero Dark Thirty; Film Opens Jan. 11th

A new clip has been released from Kathryn Bigelow’s forthcoming SEAL Team 6/Osama bin Laden raid movie, Zero Dark Thirty, which is already receiving awards-season accolades. The film stars Jessica Chastain and Joel Edgerton. Special engagements for Zero Dark Thirty start December 19th, and the film opens wide on January 11th.

Posted on December 6th, 2012 at 11:01am.

LFM Reviews Ashes of Time Redux

By Joe Bendel. Ouyang Feng is an agent for freelance swordsmen looking for some dirty work. You could call him a cutthroat’s cutthroat. Likewise, when it comes to love, he is a cynic’s cynic. If you suppose a woman was the cause of his hardened heart, you would be correct. It is a logical guess, considering Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time Redux screens this Friday as part of the Asia Society’s film series Goddess: Chinese Women on Screen.

Instead of adapting Louis Cha’s epic novel The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, Wong conceived of an original pseudo-prequel that can be fully appreciated without prior familiarity with its inspiration. Every year, the swashbuckler Huang Yaoshi pays a visit to his friend Ouyang’s desert home. Both are men with complicated pasts. For his latest visit, Huang brings a bottle of supposedly enchanted wine that is said to induce forgetfulness. Huang imbibes. Ouyang does not.

After Huang disappears, apparently under the effects of the potent drink, Ouyang carries on with business. However, his next clients are somehow involved with his soul-sick friend. Clan leader Murong Yang recruits Ouyang to murder Huang in retribution for spurning his sister, Murong Yin. Soon thereafter, the sister tries to hire Ouyang to murder her compulsively controlling brother. In a hallucinatory evening (which is par for the course in Ashes), Ouyang realizes Yin and Yang are the same divided person.

The seasons pass, but it is hard judge time in the desert. Ouyang recruits a wandering swordsman to defend the village from a band of outlaws. His skills are formidable, but he is rapidly losing his sight. The man’s one desire is to see his native land once again before going completely blind. Eventually, Ouyang also yearns for home, where the woman he once loved lives as his brother’s wife.

Redux is the restored and reworked de facto director’s cut of Ashes Wong oversaw when he realized how many dubious copies of the film were in circulation. Featuring fight choreography by Sammo Hung, it is quite stylistically daring by martial art film standards, bordering on the outright experimental. There is indeed a fair amount of combat, but the action is rendered impressionistically and blurred, almost like a series of freeze frames.

As promised, there are also several divas, including Brigitte Lin in sort of a dual role as the Murongs. Although she is always recognizable, Lin brings a conviction to both personas that keeps the audience off-balance. Yet it is Maggie Cheung who really lowers the diva boom as the woman from Ouyang’s past. Emotionally devastating but never indulgent or showy, it might represent the best second-for-second cameo ever. As a bonus, Charlie Young is a genuinely haunting presence as the peasant girl out to avenge her brother.

While the film’s color palette reportedly varies depending on its various editions, any retrospective of cinematographer Christopher Doyle’s work ought to start or finish with Ashes. The golds and burnt-umbers of Redux are absolutely striking. Frankly, Ashes Redux is a daring classic of the genre that might be new to a lot of people who might think they have seen it already (like a wuxia Blade Runner). Highly recommended, Ashes of Time Redux screens this Friday (12/7) at the Asia Society.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on December 6th, 2012 at 11:00am.