LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

By Joe Bendel. Zhong Kui was celebrated for his ugliness. It was all part of his demon-hunting mystique. Perhaps that explains why there have been relatively few media appearances for the proto-exorcist, despite his huge importance in Chinese folklore. Finally, a big name star places a choice role above the concerns of vanity. However, a few liberties were taken with the legend in Peter Pau & co-director Zhao Tianyu’s big-screen CGI epic, Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal, which releases today on DVD and Blu-ray, from Well Go USA.

Xueqing (a.k.a. Snow Girl, a.k.a. Little Snow) literally lives in the corner of Hell that is frozen over. “Lives” isn’t the right word, but so be it. Years ago, she bewitched the earnest young scholar Zhong Kui, only to mysteriously vanish. The Demon King has held her in reserve for precisely this rainy day, so to speak.

Under the tutelage of the demigod Zhang Daoxian, Zhong has become a scourge of the supernatural capable of harnessing his inner demon. Against all odds, Zhong has pulled off a daring raid into Hell to steal the Dark Crystal. Every millennium, the anti-Henson Crystal allows the demons of Hell to crossover in the world of men en mass. Of course, Zhong’s provincial Hu City stands right at the cusp of that doorway. With the millennial date fast approaching, Zhong can establish Hu City’s lasting security if he can maintain control of the Crystal for seven days. Of course, Hell will not go quietly. In fact, they send their A-team: a dozen lady-demons disguised as exotic dancers, led by Xueqing herself. The former lovers will soon pick up where they left off, but Zhong will have bigger problems to face than the equally love-struck Xueqing.

Billed as one of the most expensive Chinese films ever, Crystal is heavy on the CGI. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. However, Zhao’s screenplay, co-written with the battery of Shen Shiqi, Li Jie, Raymond Lei Jin, and Eric Zhang is the real spectacle to behold. In a strange twist, the more familiar viewers are with the Zhong Kui legend, the more they will anticipate the third act revelations. Yet, the weirdest aspect is just how Milton-esque the film gets, as in the tradition of Paradise Lost.

As Zhong, Chen Kun glowers and grimaces with appropriate ferocity, while Li Bingbing is so willowy looking, you would think she came from the Faerie Kingdom rather than H, E, double hockey sticks. However, (Summer) Jike Junyi looks plenty ready for sin, which suits Xueqing’s sidekick Yi Wei just fine. Still, Winston Chao’s Lord Zhang is second to none when it comes to feasting on the scenery.

Crystal has some wildly cinematic action scenes that essentially combine the martial arts and kaiju genres. Even with all the large scale transformations and mythic beasts, Pau and Zhao maintain a connection to the underlying human element. The real problem is that some of the spectacle is not as spectacular as it should be. Nevertheless, nobody can accuse the film of timidity with respect to its ancient archetypes. Recommended for fans of Li and wuxia monsters, Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal is now available on DVD and Blu-ray, from Well Go USA.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on August 4th, 2015 at 4:43pm.

By Joe Bendel. Harbour City looks Taiwan’s Kaohsiung City, but its governance probably more closely resembles Singapore. Maverickery is not encouraged, especially amongst the police, so it is not surprising “Hero” Wu has been suspended. Of course, that means he is about to stumble across a massive terrorist plot with only a miserable gangster for back-up in Black & White: Dawn of Assault, Tsai Yueh-hsun’s big screen prequel to the eponymous 2009 Taiwanese TV series, which releases today on DVD and Blu-ray from Shout Factory.

Wu might be suspended, but he still can sense when things are not on the up and up. In contrast, lower mid-level Triad Xu Ta-fu has the intuition of burnt toast. When his boss entrusts him for a week with a suitcase full of cash, Xu tries to make a quick score flipping some smuggled diamonds. Unfortunately, his deal goes up in smoke when heavily armed paramilitaries crash the exchange. He survives only due to Wu’s chance intervention. However, the lone wolf cop soon realizes the national SIS (SWAT) team are part of the conspiracy.

It turns out Xu was not merely trafficking in diamonds. The now missing briefcase also contains information necessary for constructing an anti-matter bomb (seriously). Fortunately, computer genius Fan Ning can explain to them the dangerous implications of the weapon devised by her father’s recently deceased protégé.

It is a minor miracle if the paragraph above makes any sense at all. Narrative logic is not B&W’s strength but thanks to Tsai’s breakneck pacing, one hardly notices how preposterous it all is while you are on the ride. Shrewdly, he does not allow his cast a lot of time to chill out and talk. This also limits the opportunities for schtick from Huang Bo, the Mainland star of the Lost in franchise. In fact, he gets downright medieval facing off against Tung, the Triad’s designated psycho killer.

Mark Chao has done some nicely understated work in the past, particularly in Chen Kaige’s Caught in the Web, but he only uses his action chops in B&W, which are pretty convincing. Unfortunately, Angelababy, who was so awesome in Tai Chi Zero, is ridiculously under-employed as Fan Ning, who is too often stuck saying things like “let me email my friends at MIT for help with the decryption.” Terri Kwan has even less to do as the hostess Xu is besotted with, but the NYU grad and model-turned thesp still looks fantastically elegant. However, actor-director Leon Dai steps up and decisively chews the scenery as the shadowy underworld figure, Jabar.

There is one reason to watch B&W—for the action, but at one hundred forty-two minutes (the cut released in Mainland theaters), there is certainly plenty of it. Some of the third act revelations will even baffle fans of the original series (just who are the Pandawa nationalists again?), but there is plenty of hard-charging meathead fun to be had. Recommended for fans of the big name cast and Asian action movies in general, Black & White: the Dawn of Assault is now available on Blu-ray and DVD, from Shout Factory.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on August 4th, 2015 at 4:43pm.

By Joe Bendel. They still wear turtlenecks in the future. In fact, the retro-1960s fashion and décor are rather reassuring. The passengers on this exploratory vessel will take their comforts where they may. They do not know where they have come from or where they are going, but at least the canteen is fully stocked in Philippe Fernandez’s boldly philosophical Cosmodrama, which screens today during the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal.

The travelers aboard this generational spaceship have just been awakened from their cryogenic slumber to find they are all suffering from amnesia. They have no idea what they are supposed to be doing, but more or less find their assigned roles through instinct. By far, the Astronomer is the most productive among them. He quickly traces their trajectory and analyzes their apparent destination. To find out where exactly they are headed, he will determine where they have come from, but in this case, he means the point at which life in our universe originated eons ago.

As the Astronomer announces his findings, the Reporter sends them back through space in his dispatches. Everyone seems to acknowledge his research into the very nature of existence should be the focus of their mission, even though the Psysiologist and the Semiologist have had great success teaching a primate to communicate with flashcards. Except for the increasingly erratic Psychologist, everyone settles into their routines fairly smoothly, even when forced to cohabitate with doppelgangers created by time-shifts.

It might take years for Cosmodrama to reach the audience it deserves, but eventually it should be hailed as a classic. Fernandez takes all the familiar science fiction tropes and turns them into a unabashedly cerebral philosophical inquiry. Think of it as the Star Trek episode Umberto Eco and Carl Sagan never collaborated on. It looks just as trippy-groovy as the mildly disappointing Space Station ’76, but it pitches its material at an infinitely higher level. You really need to see it a few times to absorb all the conjecture, but even if it is all gobbledygook, it sounds absolutely convincing.

Yet, there are also very strange psychological dramas percolating below the surface. Despite the lack of conventional genre conflicts, there are real stakes involved, as well as some seriously chewy dialogue. Jackie Berroyer is terrific as the Astronomer (and his double), completely selling some heady speculation. Bernard Blancan also makes a compelling everyman as the Reporter, while Sascha Ley further piles on the braininess as the Biologist. If anyone overplays their hand, it is Emmanuel Moynot doing the Full Monty as the Psychologist.

This is genuinely virtuoso filmmaking in the fullest sense. Eventually, Cosmodrama will be a Criterion Collection title and a mainstay on critics’ lists. It is like all the really inspired scientific bits from the last twenty years of SF film and television seamlessly assembled into a mastercut. Very highly recommended, Cosmodrama is a must-see film when it screens tonight (8/3) and tomorrow (8/4), as part of this year’s Fantasia.

LFM GRADE: A+

Posted on August 3rd, 2015 at 5:42pm.

By Joe Bendel. Provincial West Yorkshire is a tough area to find work, but it ought to be the perfect spot to lay low. Unfortunately, it is not far enough off the grid for one Pakistani woman and her Scots boyfriend. When discovered by her family and its hired thugs, they have no other options except desperate flight in Daniel & Matthew Wolfe’s Catch Me Daddy, which opens this Friday in metro Los Angeles.

Maybe Aaron is not the world’s greatest catch, but you cannot question his willingness to commit. By continuing his relationship with Laila, he is knowingly risking his life. As the film opens, he is far stricter when it comes to security than the somewhat in-denial Laila. Of course, his concerns will be vindicated when her brother Zaheer catches her flat-footed in their trailer. She barely escapes in the subsequent struggle, rendezvousing with Aaron in town. Her father’s associates and a pair of Anglo strong arm men follow hot on their heels, looking for any weakness they might exploit.

Rational parents simply endure it as best they can when their daughters get involved with disappointing boyfriends, whereas Muslim fundamentalists, like Laila’s restauranteur father, plot to murder their daughters and their forbidden significant others. These are called “honor crimes,” but there is nothing honorable about them. Although systemically under-reported, the number of recently recorded honor crimes committed in the UK is significant enough for even the BBC to take notice. Not surprisingly, Catch touched a bit of a nerve with British audiences, even though the Wolfe Brothers scrub the film of any references to Islam, leaving viewers with the impression this must be some sort of dark manifestation of Punjabi culture.

On the other hand, the warts-and-all depictions of Laila and Aaron are shrewdly effective. Hardly idealized martyrs for pluralistic tolerance, they are realistically messy and flawed, which is precisely why they do not deserve what lies in store for them. Sameena Jabeen Ahmed’s lead performance is quite remarkable. At times she is almost childlike, yet she must deal with some absolutely horrific realities. As her less showy partner, Connor McCarron does yeoman work, keeping their relationship and the film completely grounded. Gary Lewis also adds some potent vinegar to the film, keeping the audience off balance with his portrayal of Tony the cocaine addicted ruffian, who passes for the voice of reason amongst Laila’s pursuers.

Catch is a strange film, in that it wants to spotlight the prevalence of honor crimes, but it does not want to address why they happen. Yet, it is hard to completely sweep the 800 pound gorilla under the rug. Indeed, the implications of Laila’s situation speak for themselves, thanks to some extraordinary performances.

It is all wrapped up in a grittily striking package, thanks in large measure to Robbie Ryan, who has already amassed a filmography that suggests he will be one of the few cinematographers whose work will become the stuff of future retrospectives. Catch just might be his best film to date (or at least the equal of Wuthering Heights). He vividly captures the desolation of the Yorkshire moors evoking a sense of moodier, revisionist westerns. It is an aesthetically severe film, but it has considerable merit and great urgency. Highly recommended overall, Catch Me Daddy opens this Friday (8/7) in LA (Beverly Hills) at the Laemmle Music Box and it screens this Saturday (8/8) in Williamsburg at Videology. Also note, a VOD release is scheduled for 9/1 from Oscilloscope Laboratories.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on August 3rd, 2015 at 5:42pm.