Author Topic: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts  (Read 561920 times)

Wilson

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #340 on: February 09, 2009, 06:17:05 PM »
Iron Monkey


Iron Monkey is a movie about the eponymous modern day Robin Hood in a small chinese village.  Iron Monkey regularly steals from the corrupt officials in this village, giving food and money to the poor and hungry of the village.  Eventually the officials hire/force travelling physician to bring Iron Monkey to justice.

That's about it as far as story goes and in a movie like this, that's about as much story as one can reasonably hope for.  This is, in essence, a series of fight scenes stapled together with the aforementioned 'story'.  The Kung-Fu action in all of the fights are pretty good and remarkably for so much fighting there's not a whole lot of repition in the choreography which deserves praise.  Though in order to avoid the repition, they do go up in levels of ridiculousness to pretty laughable levels.  It has a very comic book/cartoony feel to it overall, with nothing to grab you on any more than a superficial level unless you absolutely love kung-fu.


Tokyo Fist


This movie has a lot going for it, and quite a bit going against it.  It's a story of an overworked salesmen, Tsuda who's in a sexless marriage and has a chance meeting with one of his old high school friends.  Following this meeting, we then delve into the relationships of these three people.

There's a slightly Lynchian style to the way the interactions between the three characters are handled, and there's one scene in particular that is absolutely standout head and shoulders above anything else in this film, which involved Tsuda and his wife in what appears to be an alley or a parking lot.  I don't want to say much else about that incase I spoil it.

This movie quite brilliant techinically with nice fast editing, pretty good sound (though it can be overbearing once or twice) and really lovely use of blue lighting almost entirely throughout.  The gives it a great style and makes me want to see more films from Tsukamoto.

The drawbacks are that there is a lot of boxing and training scenes which tend to slow the whole thing right dow, with the exception of one or two short fighting scenes, and took me almost right out of it.  So much so that I had to pause the film for like 30-40 minutes and watch something else before I ready to get back into it.  Also, a rather smaller fault was the subtitling on the version I got which was really bad at times.  Not a fault of the film of course, but a slight warning to anybody else who will be viewing this.

That said though, I did quite enjoy this film and felt it was lot more interesting than the straightforward mindless kung-fu of Iron Monkey.

Verdict

As indicated above while I feel that Iron Monkey is a good viewing for kung-fu fans it doesn't really offer anything else than a bunch of creative, if slightly cartoonish, wire work while Tokyo Fist is a lot more interesting with a great style to it.

So with that said, Tokyo Fist moves on.



Sorry for the not great write up.  I couldn't really think of much to say about Iron Monkey.  Hopefully it'll be better next time around.

worm@work

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #341 on: February 09, 2009, 06:27:25 PM »

Sorry for the not great write up.  I couldn't really think of much to say about Iron Monkey.  Hopefully it'll be better next time around.

Huh? I loved the write-ups! Iron Monkey doesn't sound like it had too much for anyone to take away and write about! Tokyo Fist sounds pretty awesome though. The subtitles have been pretty crappy on quite a few of the bracket films I've watched so far but I guess that's inevitable given that a lot of these are not even proper US releases.

Melvil

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #342 on: February 09, 2009, 06:36:03 PM »
Hey, look, a movie in a matchup I've previously seen! And it lost! :D

Actually your writeup is very accurate of what I remember, lots of pretty cool but over the top fighting, but not much else. I remember thinking there might be some lore behind the character of the Iron Monkey I was missing out on, but I can't be certain of that.

edgar00

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #343 on: February 09, 2009, 07:19:41 PM »
I know I've watched Iron Monkey before and yet for the life of me I don't remember a thing about it. Ah well.

You had two fight movies in that matchup. After 8 verdicts, I think I've only watched 1 fight movie. I should pick some more before the 1st round is over.
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edgar00

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #344 on: February 09, 2009, 07:22:08 PM »
worm- Rainclouds Over Wushan sounds great. Having recently see both Still Life and Up the Yangtze, this should make for compelling viewing. If I'm quick enough, that will be the first 2nd round movie I choose.
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Melvil

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #345 on: February 11, 2009, 01:13:03 AM »

The Birdcage Inn (1998, Ki-duk Kim)

Let's cut right to the chase; this movie is terrible. Usually I would let that little factoid reveal itself throughout the course of the review, but the only approach I can take in reviewing this film is flat-out mockery, so best to get it out in the open now.

It is about the residents of an inn somewhere near a beach. This is made obvious because pretty much every scene that doesn't take place in the inn takes place on the beach, even when it makes no sense to. The inn is a family business run by a middle-aged couple and their two children, a high-school boy and a girl in college. The fifth resident is the central character, Jin-a, their hired prostitute.

The daughter, Hye-mi, despises Jin-a, and is deeply ashamed that their family employs her. This is the main conflict of the movie. Matters worsen when Jin-a has sex with basically everyone Hye-mi has ever met, including her father, brother, and boyfriend. A creepiness factor comes into play several times in the sex scenes. The brother, Hyun-woo, puts a hidden microphone in Jin-a's room so he can masturbate while listening to her service clients. Later, the sister discovers the microphone and uses it for the same purpose. Hyun-woo convinces Jin-a to let him take nude pictures of her (on the beach), which he accidentally publishes in a porn magazine. Then there's the scene where the father and brother run into each other at the doctors where they're receiving treatment for the STD's they got from Jin-a (seriously, I'd love to be wrong on this, it's not explicitly stated, but I can find no other interpretation).

There's also a subplot involving some guy who gives boat rides or something, and becomes obsessed with Jin-a.



They have sex on that. Which is in plain view of the beach, but that works out great because Hye-mi is there to watch. The absurdity goes on and on, but it reaches its apex at the end of the movie. Somewhere along the way, Hye-mi's fiery hatred for Jin-a inexplicably burns out and she decides they should be BFFs. The happy ending of the movie takes place when Hye-mi whores herself out in place of Jin-a for no particular reason. This is even more ridiculous because through the rest of the movie she has been adamantly insisting she remain a virgin until married. The next morning, everybody is all smiles over how great things turned out.



The only good thing I can say about The Birdcage Inn is that it was bad enough that I couldn't hate it, I just laughed at how ridiculous it is.




The Geisha House (1999, Kinji Fukasaku)

I really don't have any interest in the whole geisha culture thing, but I was willing to give The Geisha House a shot to see more of Kinji Fukasaku's work.

It's a geisha, and a house. Aren't I clever?

The movie follows Tokiko, a young girl who is in training to become a geisha, and the other members of the geisha house that she is employed with. I found the movie at it's strongest when it wasn't dealing directly with the geisha lifestyle. A lot of it explores the political and practical issues surrounding the house, and Tokiko as a person; her reasons for becoming a geisha and the family life she left behind. That stuff I was able to get into, unfortunately there are other parts that I couldn't. Most notably, the last 15 or so minutes felt really overdone.

The whole film is really well made, I think it was just the subject that distanced me from it at times. The cast is pretty good, Maki Miyamoto as Tokiko is a great character that I could really feel for, and the senior geisha (probably not the right term) she works for is also an interesting character. I think if I knew more about the traditions and whatnot I may have had less complaints with the parts I mentioned, but as it stands I still enjoyed it.



Verdict

Do I really need to say it? The Inn is out.

roujin

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #346 on: February 11, 2009, 01:15:15 AM »
man, The Birdcage Inn sounds great!

roujin

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #347 on: February 11, 2009, 01:17:38 AM »
Or, at least, more interesting than the other film...

Melvil

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #348 on: February 11, 2009, 01:21:43 AM »
Actually I probably sold The Geisha House a little short, it's actually more interesting than I make it sound.

Birdcage Inn is interesting on a whole different level. :)

roujin

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #349 on: February 11, 2009, 01:23:17 AM »
I'm very much a man of Birdcage Inn's level.