VS. Martial arts acting star Sonny Chiba's directorial debut follows the real-life story about a bear who terrorized a small Japanese village in 1915. Going into this I had unfairly high hopes. The real life story was very interesting and seemed like it could be cinematically compelling. It was the first directorial effort by an acclaimed martial arts film star, so I thought at the very least there should be some good action set pieces. And, from what very little I had seen from the movie, all signs pointed to this being a small, campy action-horror movie that would be a fun ride. It was not this.
It starts off great. A bear breaks down the door to a small hut and gruesomely mauls the couple within. Fantastic, it's going just like I hoped it would. It's here were we are introduced to the 'bear hunters'. A samurai-esque band of men who are on a mission to hunt down this bear. Awesome, I'm completely in. They arrive just as the local villagers were about to chase after the bear. The group proudly steps in front and inform the irate group of villagers to go back home and leave it to them, the professionals, who have been hunting this bear for a year. I had to pause here and think on this for a moment. So a trained group of 'bear hunters' armed to the teeth with guns and spears have been chasing the same bear for a year and haven't been able to kill it yet? And they call themselves professionals? Perhaps this should have been my first clue this experience wasn't going to go the way I had hoped.
From this point on the movie falls apart, largely at the fault of incredibly bad filmmaking by Sonny Chiba and very poor writing. For a reason which I can not even begin to comprehend, Chiba tells the story in a series of flashbacks. He will suddenly jump timelines, then jump again, only return to the first one, and well I really don't know what he was doing. It was very hard to follow. In any case, in one of these jumps in time, we get the origin story of the bear and the hunting group, where it mauls a young girl's entire family. She pleads with the hunting group to allow her to go with her to avenge her family, but the group denies her, and tells her to stay put. Being a strong willed young lady, she cuts her hair and sets off with her Siberian Husky to hunt the bear herself.
What follows is a mess. It's mix between Jaws, Mulan and White Fang. Actually that sounds kind of amazing. It's like that, only a complete mess. There is very little action for most of the movie. What little action there is is scarred by a horrible use of slow motion and an awful late 80's electronic score. Think very bad 80's cop show action sequences. Chiba seemed to have no idea what he was doing. It was clear he wanted to make a serious movie. He would throw ridiculous camera shots in with all sorts of movement and angles, but they didn't work at all and came off very amateurish. There were some interesting things he was trying to explore with old versus new Japan culture and gender roles, but this was not the proper vehicle for them. He took a simple premise of a bear attack and some how turned it into some grand epic with a melodramatic love story crammed in. It was all very odd.
I didn't hate the film. I had a decent enough time with it. There were a few interesting scenes to keep me into the movie. The thing that makes me annoyed is the final scene. It was great. It was cheesy, for sure, but it was what I wished the entire movie was. A bear attack and the two leads kicking-butt. Thats what this story should have been! Why couldn't we just have more of that? It's nothing highbrow, but its fun. Chiba took the fun out of this movie for a majority of its running time and that is really unfortunate.
There is an awful lot to discuss after watching 'Hakuchi', a surrealistic wartime dystopia by director Macoto Tezuka. Unfortunately I'm not sure that I understood half of the themes which I think Tezuka was trying to convey. The film stars Tadanobu Asano as Isawa, a depressed assistant director who lives in a slum area of a town in the outskirts of the big city. The setting takes place at some unknown date during some unknown war. The war, while it plays a big part in the setting and mood is not discussed much in the film. No details are ever given, but the towns are frequently fire bombed and there is a great deal of suffering and death. Tezuka paints a bleak picture of this society whose lives are dominated by this war and whose government controls them through the media. Isawa works at the the major media studio, which is a giant tower in the middle of the big city. Life revolves around the television and the people that work at the tower lead very different lives from those that dwell in the dirt of the outskirts of the city. In contrast the people who work in the tower enjoy a life of gluttony, and are domineered by their most successful star, Ginga (Reika Hashimoto). She is a popstar in her late teens who is cruel and superficial, a suiting queen for the studio. Tezuka hates working there and frequently contemplates suicide until he meets his neighbor's 'idiot' wife who he connects with.
'Hakuchi' translated means 'idiot' and this is word that is frequently used throughout the movie. The neighbor's wife is mentally handicapped, so they refer to her as an 'idiot'. Isawa's neighbors who live in filth, committing petty crimes and congregating around television sets are also idiots. So to are the people working at the studio as they hurriedly try to produce a new show. Even the mass audience which will consume the movie they are creating (and by association, us the viewer). Each group is considered an idiot by someone else, each thinking they are better than the other. Chief among them is Ginga who literally seats herself above people as she reigns down insults. The movie does a good job exploring this theme, and exposing who the truly idiotic are.
What I loved about this movie is its visual style. The color pallets used are powerful, and there are some absolutely stunning set pieces. I couldn't help but be reminded of Andrew Lesnie's work in 'Babe: Pig in the City' which has a similar gritty, futuristic beauty to it. I was continually amazed by the shots put together. The artfulness with which it was shot contrasted starkly with the sloppiness of the storytelling. That was the main weakness of the movie. There is so much going on that it becomes jumbled and unwieldy. There was some extremely interesting things being explored with topics ranging from film making, to governmental oversight all the way to the meaning of life and religion. It was too much. I was completely invested in the first third of the movie, but rather than stay focused Tezuka strays into dozens of different directions. I applaud him for making each piece interesting, but I never came away from any vignette feeling satisfied. They were beautifully laid out, but they were never put together. I feel like there was so much I missed out on and that is frustrating. This movie could have been truly great, but it gets lost in itself. This is underscored by the final scene which is just a disaster and left me really disappointed. It was if Tezuka wanted the audience he was making something very deep and meaningful and on the surface made it appear that way, but somehow he failed to actually convey it.
My favorite dynamic in the film was the interactions between Isawa and Ginga. They contrasted each other extremely well. Isawa barely speaks any words the entire film and curls away too meek to face hard tasks. By contrast Ginga is bold, fierce and full of sexual tension. She becomes fascinated with, and at the same time hates Isawa because of his nature. Throughout the movie Isawa is described as transparent. It's his honesty which makes her repelled by him, it frightens her. She can't control him like she does everyone else around her, and its maddening to her. What I like about Ginga is that she is a very complex character, and we only start to delve into what makes her who she is when Tezuka makes the unfortunate choice to switch gears and go in a different direction. I wish the film focused more around this pair rather than rambling on about other less successful plot lines.
There were times when I watched this that I thought it was a masterpiece and I could not understand why it was not more well known. There were other times were I was frustrated and disappointed by it. It's unfortunate the final scene left me feeling as cold as it did since it painted the entire experience poorly. This is not fair since there is a lot to like here. There are so many interesting places the movie goes, and although I'm not sure any one tangent was completely successful I was still griped with it, even with its long running time. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the questions brought up in the movie, but I had a very hard time grasping what the main theme was. It's this kind of movie where I wish I had other people to discuss it with when I was finished. I feel that there is a very good movie here if was heavily edited down. Regardless, it is really something to look at, and its an experience I enjoyed immensely even if I was at times frustrated.
Verdict: Both of these films suffered from an overly ambitious director, and both frustrated me with their potential but lack of execution. However,
Hakuchi is the clear winner here. It is without hesitation a round 3 caliber film, while Yellow Fangs probably should have stayed in round 1. I will be very interested in the review of whoever gets Hakuchi in the next round!