THE ASIAN MOVIE COLUMN: #1

Nice introduction there Spike and welcome. I myself am actually a pretty big asian films fan (even though I don't post about them much here) and appreciated your column immensely.

Big fan of Nakadai and his work in Harakiri and Sword of Doom. Not a fan of Kitano's work at all and thought Zatoichi in particular was rancid. Loved what Shintaro Katsu did with the character over the course of those 20+films and the 3 year tv show.

As for upcoming The Kick looks interesting (however what up with that lame comedy at the end of the trailer?) and The Grandmasters did as well until the mythical thing kicked in. Love Leung though.

Look forward to future installments.

I get why people don't like Kitano's Zatoichi, especially if they'ree fans of the original, but I've always loved the style and tone of it. I kind of like how oddly offbeat it is. My favourite Zatoichi is either Meets Yojimbo or At The Festival Of Fire which has Katsu butting heads with Mifune and Nakadai. Always loved Katsu's performances in the film, did you ever see his Hanzo The Razor movies?

Just watched the teaser for The Kick.  So goofy!  It's like 90% Gatorade commercial and then 10% anime humor.

If anyone cares about what the exchange at the end, it was something along the lines of:

"Hey... I'm dying here.  Enough of all this posing!  Let's get out of here!"

"No!  We'll stay here until the release date!"

"You sunuva--- BZZZZZZZT!"

Made me laugh.  Couldn't help it.  Have no idea if Pinkaew had anything to do with the marketing for this, but that kind of comic relief isn't too far off from what was in Ong Bak. 

The Taekwondo footage looked fantastic though.

I was always under the impression that Ken Lo's style was more Muay Thai in Drunken Master 2.  Of course, I only base that off of what I read back then.  Wikipedia shows that he studied both styles.

Ken Lo kicks the shit out of Chan in that film in a really stiff, really controlled way, which to me harkens back to Taekwondo. However it could also be a modified form of Kickboxing, like what Billy Chow uses in Fist of Legend.

I'm thinking you're right about it simply being a modified combination of whatever Lo was capable of.  Chan's fight scenes have rarely been about particular fighting styles (aside from drunken boxing).  He'll use whatever looks the most visually dynamic or useful for a scene.  And in the case of Drunken Master 2, what better to contrast drunken boxing than a stiff and controlled flurry of kicks?

Yeah it's a bit of a mixture of things with what looks like Taekwondo as a good foundation, considering he straight kicks like some sort of kangaroo/cyborg combination.

Jackie actually seems to really like kickers in his fights, all the way back to the first Drunken Master.

Also? Love the idea of an Asian film column so much.

Spike Marshall, Cool new Column.  I enjoy all the Zatoichi Films that I saw on...Kung Fu HD!  I think they aired about 10-11 films in the series til the plug was pulled on the channel.  Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi was...Awesome as well!  I look forward to more of these columns.

Oh and Sword of Doom is so amazing. The fact that Nakadai was in both that and Harakiri so close together, playing such vastly different roles(in both age and psychology) always amazes me. The guy's one of the best actors to ever come out of Japanese cinema.

Yeah I remember getting into samurai cinema when I was about 17 or 18 and just assuming that Nakadai was just this really well known name, but even amongst geek circles he's kind of viewed as a second stringer to Mifune. Which is a shame because Nakadai is every bit the actor that Mifune is and he's just so amazingly versatile. If you haven't seen it give Okamoto's Kill! a chance. It's a remake of Sanjuro, with Nakadai in the lead role, and it's surprisingly great. Okamoto really gives Kurosawa a run for his money with that one.

Great start to this column. I'll be looking out for future installments.

Kill! Is amazing. I bought the Criterion DVD as a blind buy and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made on that front. It's also another great example of how great of an actor he is. The moment in the film when he drops the travelling vagabond act, springs into action, and takes out about half a dozen samurai in a span of seconds to rescue the escaping messenger is one of the most badass character moments in movies.

It's a perfect tough-guy moment too. Because the movie's been building up to him being a lot more dangerous and a lot more wily than anybody has counted on, but at that moment when his whole posture and voice changes, you realize just how much better he is than anybody else around him.

Excellent start Spike. I'd probably say Dongmakgol has more in common with Miyazaki than Spielberg but that might be Jo Hisaishi's work, still a wonderful score though. I disagree on Tae-Guk-Gi though, it's impressively mounted and that ending is a jackhammer but it's overly melodramatic and far too long.

I'm thinking we should make this the catch-all thread for Spike's column for overall discussion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NathanW 

I'm thinking we should make this the catch-all thread for Spike's column for overall discussion.

 

I'm all for that.  Make it like the Box Office thread.  Is it at all possible for upcoming entries in Spike's column (and the Box Office Column) not result in automatic separate threads? 

I'll make sure to update this thread whenever I write up a new column, really glad to have the positive feedback as I was worried this might come across as a little dry.

I stayed away from the Hanzo films. Just sounded too weird for me.

Loved Tae-Guk-Gi damn that was a powerful film. The melodrama worked for me in a huge way in fact it felt very Woo-ish which was a great thing.

By chance have you seen any of the Sleepy Eyes of Death movies starring Raizo Icikawa?

Great column, Spike!  I look forward to reading the next installment, although I have a feeling you are going to cause me to max out my Netflix queue within a matter of weeks...............which certainly isn't a bad thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Daywalker 

I stayed away from the Hanzo films. Just sounded too weird for me.

 

Loved Tae-Guk-Gi damn that was a powerful film. The melodrama worked for me in a huge way in fact it felt very Woo-ish which was a great thing.

 

By chance have you seen any of the Sleepy Eyes of Death movies starring Raizo Icikawa?

Never had the chance to see the Sleepy Eyes of Death as they didn't seem to get a proper release over here. Will have to see what I can find.
 

Since there's actually some Taekwondo discussion going on in here I figured I better repost the comment I made on the main site, some more people might find a good film that way.

Spike, check out City of Violence for a good Taekwondo centered martial arts film. Not only does it have nicely choreographed action and The Warriors references, it also features a pretty good story. In fact, I distinctly remember thinking I wished they gave Tony Jaa a story as nicely done as this film after first watching it. As someone who agrees with your criticism of Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong, I think you’ll quite like it.

http://www.chud.com/69772/the-asian-movie-column2/

Second one is up.

I'm kinda REALLY looking forward to The Kick now.

Nice write-up. I've heard of Pen-ek Ratanuarang but never really bothered to check out his films, I might have to change that.

If you get a chance Spike, check out the film Tazza: High Rollers, it's an epic korean film about gambling, abit more style over substance but still a highly entertaining flick.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

I'm kinda REALLY looking forward to The Kick now.

Yeah I was kind of soured on Thia action cinema after Ong-Bak 2 and 3 and Bangkok Knockout ended up coming across as kinda tedious to me. But this looks really inventive and fun. Then again my favourite moment in Ong-Bak is the footchase through the market so my view is a little skewed.