4v291o

Wuxia’s version of Infernal Affairs (or The Departed if you prefer the remake) - it even stars Andy Lau.  With the Tang Dynasty falling and corruption spreading, the title rebel group has formed to help the people, using the Robin Hood path of stealing from the rich to give to the poor.  Policemen Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro are ordered to kill the group’s leader, so they plant Kaneshiro to get close to a suspected Flying Dagger, a blind dancer (Zhang Ziyi) at the local entertainment establishment.  Kaneshiro breaks her out of jail and flees the city with her, while Lau follows in hopes she will take them to her leader ;). But what price will they pay to accomplish their mission?

House of Flying Daggers doesn’t look as good as Zhang Yimou‘s prior Hero, but it still has its moments - notably a fight in a bamboo forest and a sudden blizzard during the final fight.  All three leads are reliably good, and Zhang is easier to like here not playing a brat as she did in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Anita Mui was supposed to play the Flying Daggers leader, but died before filming, so director Zhang puts a tribute credit in and instead adds an imposter for a while and then only shows the eyes of the actual leader when she is shown - classy.  Secret identities are big here - I almost lost track of all the double and triple crosses and actual loyalties and abilities of both main and side characters.  The stunts are a mix of practical and increased CGI, with Hero’s storms of arrows now outdone with flying daggers that can even change direction in flight.  Romance is also ramped up, to the point that the decisive battle between the police/soldiers and the Flying Daggers is not even shown - all that matters is the fight between the main characters, which is so intense that the weather suddenly changes into a blizzard (though to be fair much of the film was shot in Ukraine and winter really did come during the shoot).

House of Flying Daggers does have some pacing issues though, bloating to two hours on protracted slow scenes like one where Zhang is leaving a scene and seemingly shown from every angle and closeup and zoom for minutes.  And many of the plot revelations don’t happen until very late in the proceedings, keeping the characters shallow and their interactions less meaningful for the first half.  Shrinking story, weaker scripts, and too much CGI would eventually catch up with Zhang with the infamous 2016 international flop The Great Wall.  Here he stays on the right side of them, but you can see things shifting…

The wuxia best known in the West, even winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film.  Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh star as a pair who’ve secretly loved each other for years, but been separated by the fact that Chow has not gotten revenge on the person who killed his master - who happened to be the guy Yeoh was engaged to.  Chow still needs to get over his feelings that he would be betraying his master to be with Yeoh, but he takes a step towards retirement (and Yeoh) by giving his friend Sir Te his famous Green Destiny sword.  Bad timing - the Green Destiny is immediately stolen by a mysterious thief (Zhang Ziyi) who is working for Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-pei, the biggest female star of 60s/70s wuxia) - the very person who killed Chow’s master!  Now Chow and Yeoh are back on the trail of Jade Fox - as well as getting involved in a battle for the soul of Zhang, who is involved in an impossible love affair of her own.

Confused?  Yeah Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is complex indeed, written by three screenwriters.  Ang Lee makes it look good, with a lot of romantic longing punctuated by great wuxia or hand to hand duels - especially the famous one between Chow and Zhang on the swaying branches of a forest.  Chow already had a name for himself in the US and was doing some US films, but this was a coming out party for Yeoh, who obviously makes US films and TV all the time now (and wins Oscars - that was so great after all her genre work over the years!).  Zhang found her way into several US films after this as well, while becoming a big star at home.

Definitely a great entry in the wuxia subgenre, although I like other ones better.  And despite the ending, there was actually a sequel, which I’ve never bothered to watch ;)

Whew!  Like I said for Final Reckoning Part I, I always felt a little concerned going to these like I was helping fund Tom Cruise’s death wish, so I’m relieved he made it through alive and unmaimed.

The Final Reckoning got off to a rocky first 30 minutes or so for me, with someone having to say “everything has led to this” every five to ten minutes, as if to emphasise this was the end for any Netflix viewers half-watching while texting.  There’s also a killer AI that doesn’t really participate in doing anything, unlike the first part, and an important death that felt too early in the film for me.  And after killing off Rebecca Ferguson in Part I, I was already going to be numb to any body count this time.  But then The Final Reckoning re to be an M.I. film again, and does a good job ramping up the tension and action, with a major assist from tributes to Cold War thrillers like The Hunt For Red October and Fail Safe (and even a little from Colossus: The Forbin Project, as Alamo’s pregame reminded).  There are plenty of Easter eggs and callbacks to the rest of the series for fans - including plot things that make no sense ;)  And Cruise pulls off a number of impressive big time stunts again, including tributes to some of the earliest film stunts of all on the wings of biplanes.

The franchise has been on a good run for a while, and if this is truly the end (as it appears), it goes out pretty well too - not the series best, but pretty good.  Maybe now we will even get to see Actor Tom Cruise again now - the guy who made Magnolia, Interview With The Vampire, Born on the Fourth of July, Eyes Wide Shut, A Few Good Men, and so on.  I miss that guy.

Lovely little British film about a rich eccentric (Tim Key) on a remote coastal island hiring a defunct folk duo (Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan) to come perform a one night only show.  Sure, you should be able to see every plot twist coming, but it’s done with so much heart and humor.  And sure, it may be John Carney-lite, but that’s fine with me ;). 

Key and Basden wrote it as well, based on a short film they did in 2007 when they were starting their careers.  Well done!

Aside from everything else, Hero is a movie about storytelling.  Jet Li plays a nameless warrior who is brought before the King of Qiu after successfully killing the three assassins who’ve been out to kill the King because of his plan to conquer the other six Chinese kingdoms and unite the nation.  The King rewards Li, and asks him how he was able to defeat these amazingly skilled assassins - Sky (Donnie Yen), Snow (Maggie Cheung), and Broken Sword (Tony Leung).  And so Li tells his tale…but there are many ways to tell a story, and only one is the truth.

I originally saw Hero long before I saw Ashes of Time, but now that I’ve seen the latter I can definitely see the visual and voiceover influences here.  That’s also not a huge surprise given that WKWs usual DP Christopher Doyle filmed Hero.  And Hero is absolutely gorgeous (maybe the most in all of wuxia), with its color coded design for each version of the story, and the stunning battle between Maggie and Zhang Ziyi with both dressed in blood red dresses amidst blizzards of falling yellow leaves.  The wuxia action and stunts are fantastic, and each character gets a chance to shine (Maggie even defends against hails of CGI arrows with nothing but the long sleeves of her dress).  Both Li and Leung get to drop their usual stony expressions in places to reveal real emotions.  And if you enjoyed Tony and Maggie as a couple who never actually got together in In The Mood For Love, you get to see them as an actual couple here - but you might not be any happier ;)   Hero also originally introduced me to Yen, which is another plus.

But your final opinion of the film is going to be influenced on how you feel about the ending, which turns into a philosophical discussion of the pros and cons of nation building, and if the ends justify the means.  In fairness that’s a discussion it feels like every nation has long after the fact, and often divides people.  It does lend a little uneasiness to the film, but it didn’t hurt box office - Hero is still in the top 5 grossing non-English language films in US history, and was a huge smash in China.

Ben Foster is a consistently good actor who’s usually a smouldering standout in whatever he’s in.  So it’s great to see him get a lead role in Sharp Corner, playing against type as a family man.  Foster moves wife Cobie Smulders and their young son out of the city to their dream home - but the first night they are there, a car accident happens right in their front yard due to their house’s location on the title sharp corner.  While Smulders seems to want to just sweep the impact under the rug and move on, Foster gets obsessed with it - finding out info about the drunk teen who died in the crash, cutting back the overgrowth that is blocking a caution sign, talking about it with the couple’s friends at a dinner party.  

And then a second crash happens…

Sharp Objects is good at setting up the differences and strengths and weaknesses of its central couple, and then showing how the accidents feed into all of that and drive them apart.  We see the little ive-aggressive things between the pair begin to stretch.  For being a therapist, Smulders seems bad at diagnosing anything at home or helping or being understanding for Foster or their son.  Meanwhile we see how Foster is disassociating from his own job and how being ed over for a promotion has had an effect.  But mostly we see him obsess and spiral, a man trying desperately to feel in control of something in a life where he seems to be ceding control to everyone else - and in the effort, totally failing his family.

It’s a quiet slow burn where we are waiting for Foster to snap in something like a Full Cage.  Instead, Foster gives a master class in body control and showing us his disintegration through his eyes and facial language.  He communicates perfectly that his path makes perfect sense to his character, which makes it more heartbreaking for us.  And he follows it to its logical conclusion.  And that’s where Sharp Corners stops, with an ending bound to displease those who want to know what happens next.  The film seems to argue that doesn’t matter - the resolution for the character is right there, and whatever happens next can’t be good whatever it is.

This is my second King Hu movie, and wow, could that guy direct!  Dragon Inn is one of his most famous ones (and I just need Come Drink With Me to complete the Big Three - and that’s supposedly coming to 4K this summer).  An evil eunuch (is there any other kind in wuxia?) runs the Imperial secret police and is purging good and loyal officials from the government.  But after executing General Yu and exiling his children, the eunuch decides it would be safer for his own future to kill the children before they cross the Chinese border.  So agents of the “Eastern Depot” secret police descend on Dragon Gate Inn near the border to lay a trap - but so too do a number of heroes come to protect the Yus.

Dragon Inn introduces its heroes slowly, starting with the loner Xiao (Shih Chun, just as good here as a skilled swordsman as he was as a nebbish scholar in A Touch of Zen), letting each demonstrate their skills and ability to interfere with the evil agents.  What sets wuxia apart from Samurai films and Westerns is the importance of female characters as protagonists and antagonists (sometimes both!), and here we get swordswoman Zhu (Polly Shang-Kuan), who with her brother s Xiao to kick much ass.  After much swordplay, comedy, and trickery, the heroes must confront the uber-skilled eunuch himself, who luckily has one weakness:  the weirdest asthma I’ve ever seen onscreen ;)

Small wonder this is one of the most loved wuxia and Taiwanese movies ever and has been remade several times - it’s thoroughly entertaining.  Someday I have to watch Goodbye Dragon Inn too, one of the famous movies about movie theaters and movies, where Dragon Inn is the final screening by a small theater (and some of the cast of this film appear).

STUNT NOTES:  I know young Jackie Chan was in several of King’s movies, but I missed him in A Touch of Zen.  I swear I saw him here as one of the eunuch’s guards, but I don’t see him listed in the cast on IMDB.  Maybe I was looking too hard this time?

Zhang Yimou amazingly creates a black and white film in color.  All the costumes, set design, and backdrops are black, white, and gray, and all the exteriors are rainy - all to fulfill Zhang’s vision of bringing a Chinese ink painting to life.  Human flesh and blood are the only colors that break through.  Shadow is one of the most gorgeous wuxias ever made, with astounding cinematography and choreography. 

Plotwise, Shadow is also one of the densest and most confusing ;)  The Chinese kingdom of Pei is allied with the kingdom of Yang - and the young Pei king (Zheng Kai) wants to keep it that way, despite Yang controlling the key Pei city of Jing City that the people of Pei desperately want back.  None wants it back more than the King’s military Commander (Deng Chao), who has scheduled a rematch duel with the Yang Commander for the winner to claim the city - without the King’s permission.  But it turns out things are even trickier than that, because the Commander everyone sees in court isn’t the real Commander - he’s the shadow of the title; in a variation on Kagemusha, he’s a peasant who’s been raised to look and fight exactly like the actual Commander, who has been slowly sickening and aging since his initial duel with Yang, and has been plotting his revenge.  

And that’s just scratching the surface of the 4D chess going on here, with plans within plans and twists and turns that keep coming until the literal last moment - which reveals that the opening scene of the whole movie is a framing device.  Each revelation makes things clearer while surprising us even more.  Add to that some astounding duels and battles and the best use of umbrellas ever, and for me you’ve got one of Zhang’s very best movies; a gorgeous puzzle box that keeps us glued to the last move.

Bad.

I the first one being entertaining.  Were they about to lose the rights or something that made them push this one out?

Cool guy Paul Rudd moves in down the street from Tim Robinson, and Robinson’s wife Kate Mara basically sets them up for a play date.  They hit it off quickly and become buddies.  And now that Robinson has a male friend/mancrush, his life spins completely out of control.  Like the tag line says, “Men Shouldn’t Have Friends” ;)

I haven’t cried so much from laughing at the theater in a long time, and the crowd I was with was rocking too.  Friendship is kind of like an I Think You Should Leave segment spun out to feature length, and Robinson is very on brand here.  But writer/director Andrew DeYoung very much keeps steering things in crazy and unexpected ways - it’s been a while since there was such a bizarre comedy in a good way.  It’s a bit like Step Brothers in that there is so much quotable material that will be used in the years to come ;)  Rudd does a much better job at straight man here than he did in Death of A Unicorn, Mara is a perfect straight woman, and Conner O’Malley contributes a great cameo as a veteran.  

Sure, if you really examine Friendship closely you could come up with plot synopses that involve big issues and clever satire.  But I just enjoyed it for its hilarious weirdness, and the different cringey segues it took me on (including the worst drug trip ever) ;). And it’s nice to get an A24 rebound too.

Definitely made with franchise fans in mind, Bloodlines even extends the “which dangerous thing will be the fatal one” game to the 1950s opening setpiece, set in a Sky Tower/Space Needle stand-in.  This time Death is stalking all the survivors and descendants of the opening tragedy, including protagonist Stefani’s entire family, quickly making her a True Believer who tries to save her loved ones.  

There are other tweaks to the formula too, but ultimately we are playing by the rules and exceptions explicitly set out in 2 and 5 (and directly referenced here), so things don’t get super unique.  But the Final Destination films live and die by their death sequences, which are mostly good here - especially the opening and a fatal encounter with an MRI machine.  There’s still some wonky CGI in places, including much CGI blood, but by this point it’s kind of expected, and definitely not The Final Destination level stinkbombs.  The acting is Just able Enough, like usual.  And Bloodlines even gets intentionally hilarious in places, making fun of its own tropes when it’s not tossing Easter eggs from the earlier films at fans.  No spoilers here ;)

Best of all, Tony Todd gets a proper sendoff in his longest appearance in the franchise, and an explanation of his character at last.  RIP Candyman :(

END CREDITS SCENE:  Just the newspaper clippings that come up immediately and just keep going…providing more fuel for the franchise to continue if Bloodlines does well enough.  I’ll be up for Unlucky Number Seven…

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE PREGAME:  even though they didn’t show summaries of the five prior entries, the 30 minute pregame really outdid itself with:

- Kelly Clarkson “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger” video 
- actual Rube Goldberg shorts
- Miles Fisher music video featuring the cast of FD5
- trailers for forerunner films Sole Survivor and The Redeemer
- a series of German PSAs featuring Klaus, the worst new factory employee, who somehow keeps his job despite being so unsafe he maims or kills all his coworkers

Swordsman II, or That One Where Brigitte Lin Plays a Man Who Castrates Himself To Gain Supernatural Skills And Is Now Becoming A Woman.  Tsui Hark (as producer for this one) and often running mate director Ching Siu-tung strike again!  Lin is nominally the villain here, Invincible Asia (or Dawn depending on the subs), while Jet Li is the hero Ling who means to retire from all the conflict around him and instead has to help old friend Rosamund Kwan’s group which is being persecuted by the Japanese (secretly backed by Lin).  Nominally the villain, because the guy in charge of Kwan’s group seems even worse.  Honestly I’ve seen this twice over time and I’m still foggy about all the relationships and goings on ;). But that’s besides the point, because the point is lots of wuxia action, as well as which of at least three potential love interests (including Lin) will wind up with Li.  At one point snakes and scorpions are being summoned and thrown at either side.  And like so many martial arts/wuxia, anime, video games, and manga, everyone is always shouting the names of their moves as they perform them ;)

Swordsman II (known in the US as Legend of the Swordsman) reminds me of a living breathing version of the Poochie joke from The Simpsons:  Invincible Asia should be the focus at all times, and when they are not on screen, everyone should be talking or asking about them.  Lin’s character is very much the main attraction and made this film a hit, taking the androgynous roles she often did to the next level, so much so that the sequel The East Is Red only brought back Invincible Asia and made the film all about them.  And Lin is great here as always, as are Li, Kwan, and Michelle Reis.  I’ve never seen a movie go to such lengths before of getting around Li and Lin hooking up despite their characters’ obvious attraction, with almost Shakespearean switcheroos and results.

Now that Shout has the rights to the Golden Princess catalog, I’m looking forward to a restoration of this one and The East Is Red, which I haven’t seen.

After finishing Andor, the best show that Disney+ has produced to date (sorry Grogu!), I had to quickly rewatch Rogue One and finish Cassian’s story (as well as several compatriots from the show).  It’s amazing what a great job Andor did to make the transition mostly seamless; the only thing that feels off now is Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) really taking over as main character in the second half - which felt right at the time of release, even if the Disney+ posters now move her image to the background;)  Maybe if Andor had the five seasons originally planned, we could have had some of Jyn’s story sprinkled in there too.  But honestly I think condensing all the other seasons into S2 worked best and made Andor more propulsive on the fast track to destiny - look at how S2E2 dragged a bit to see the kind of filler that got avoided.

I the whining at the release that Rogue One was inessential, covering a tiny story that we already knew the end of.  That was ridiculous - Rogue One was gripping and moved like a bullet despite the destination being known, and stuck to its guns to have a downbeat ending (bridge to A New Hope notwithstanding).  For me it’s probably the third best of the films, definitely no worse than fourth.  And now it carries more gravitas saying goodbye to Cassian Andor, who Diego Luna did such a great job with here and in Andor.  Jones gives a strong performance as well.  And without Rogue One we wouldn’t have Donnie Yen’s wuxia contribution as the blind wannabe Jedi - one of the most memorable side characters in the entire franchise.

I’ll definitely miss looking forward to weekly drops of Andor, but we’ll always have Rogue One, thank goodness.  A late May the Fourth Be With You All!

King Hu is widely credited as the filmmaker who created the modern wuxia subgenre in the 1960s, and his masterpiece is considered to be A Touch of Zen.  The film begins with protagonist/audience stand-in Gu (Shih Chun), a mousy but cheerful scholar/painter who still lives with his mom, investigating the new neighbors who quietly moved in - as well as a stranger who seems to he very interested in them.  The determined Gu gets to the bottom of both mysteries, and finds himself caught between two sides in a huge struggle that will overwhelm his home - and most of the surrounding country too ;)

A Touch of Zen was apparently originally released in two parts in Taiwan and did not do well at the box office.  It was then edited into a single 3 hour film and played Cannes in 1975 where it finally received the praise it deserved, because it really is a masterpiece.  Given a long runtime to work with, King takes his time setting things up and establishing mystery in the first hour, then plot revelations in the second hour, then all-out asskicking in the final hour.  And just when you think it’s over, King takes things up a notch with the best depiction of warrior monks ever onscreen (hence the title), where the slightest touch sends bodies flying.  This final battle culminates in a series of images of sheer transcendence (and golden blood!).

A Touch of Zen is one of those movies where at the end you look back and marvel how far it came from the start.  It codified a lot of things for wuxia films to come, and you can see its influence throughout the subgenre.  Not least of course Leslie Cheung’s earnest but geeky scholar/tax collector getting involved with another mysterious but dangerous woman in the Chinese Ghost Story movies ;).  Throughout you can really feel a director with complete mastery of his craft at work.  Great stuff!

STUNT GUYS:  I didn’t see them, but I found out afterwards that much younger Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung are here doing stunts in the battle scenes.  I’ll have to watch for them in the future ;)

Thanks to @sensualdelights for the recommendation, and yes this would make an excellent double feature with Ashes of Time.  Tsui Hark’s 1995 wuxia The Blade is a remake of The One Armed Swordsman, but more importantly it feels like his reaction to what WKW did with wuxia.  Tsui takes the voiceovers and internal monologues that Wong used and plants them here, but instead of a tapestry of failed romances and their aftermaths, he centers them on a brat named Ling (Song Lei) who’s the daughter of a sword/knife factory owner.  Ling pits two workers against each other to earn her love - Ding-on (Vincent Zhao) and Iron Head (Moses Chan), but Tsui instead has the pair want nothing to do with her.  Instead they become enemies when Ding-on becomes more noble and wants to avenge his father’s death, while Iron Head gets jealous of his friend’s rise at work.  At every turn, Tsui makes things darker and has the worst usually happen - including Ding-on losing his arm to evil bandits, complicating his plan to avenge his father.  And The Blade is filled with much more action than Ashes of Time, really strong action scenes too, as if Tsui is reemphasising the importance of action to a wuxia.

It’s really interesting to watch these films close together like Hong Kong audiences would have.  If you prefer sad romanticism, top notch acting, and great visuals and dialogue, you’ll probably prefer Ashes of Time.  If you like your wuxia down and dirty and filled with bloodshed and violence and great stunts, with not as much scripting or lyricism, you’ll probably prefer The Blade.  For myself I hated Ling and didn’t care that much about the other characters, and the acting and stylistic gulf was pretty wide between the two films, so it’s no surprise I went with Ashes of Time (which I’m still more obsessed with than most of WKW’s work).

Although The Blade wasn’t a hit, it still feels like most wuxia has followed the Tsui path more than the WKW path - not least because Tsui is still making movies in the genre even today.  I still want to see his new Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants - which interestingly is the latest filmed version of the book to which Ashes of Time is an invented prequel.  Tony Leung Ka-fai also appears in it as he did the former, changing roles from Huang to Ouyang Feng.  Oh the tangled webs of Hong Kong films ;)

I finally finished the pre-Chungking Express portion of the WKW filmography by watching this one.  Also by watching Days of Being Wild and Ashes of Time back to back, you get to see Leslie Cheung blow it romantically with Maggie Cheung, then flip it the other way around (with an assist by Leslie).

Days of Being Wild definitely feels like a progression from As Tears Goes By, and it pairs Wong with DP Christopher Doyle for the first time.  So no surprise that it looks good, though not as dynamic visually as later films.  The plot follows a cad played by Leslie who seduces first Maggie then Katrina Lau, but withdraws from both.  The psychological reasons why become more clear when we get into his relationship with his adopted mother and dream of meeting his real one (foreshadowing his Ouyang Feng character in Ashes of Time with his “reject others first before they reject you” line).  Andy Lau and Jacky Cheung show up as the guys trying (unsuccessfully) to clean up Leslie’s mess.

I liked Days of Being Wild, but didn’t love it emotionally due to pretty much hating Leslie’s character ;). I think it would play better as a rewatch, with the knowledge of how the story would progress and why some characters do what they do.  Since Maggie’s character here has the same name as her In The Mood For Love character, this is considered an unofficial prequel to the later film, though apparently it’s never been confirmed that it’s the same character.  There’s also the strange Tony Leung cameo at the end with his character getting dressed up for an event that never happens and is unrelated to the rest of the film.  Apparently there was going to be an actual sequel, but middling box office on Days of Being Wild meant it never happened, and Wong went on to the ambitious and overlong production of Ashes of Time instead.  But for me, it was fun to think of Leung’s character here as also his later In The Mood For Love character.  In any case, I’ll have to rewatch that soon as well as 2046 to finish that unofficial trilogy.

But come on, how does anyone dump Maggie in this movie?  She’s gorgeous, loving, and can get you free tickets to the local football team she works for! ;)

Clown In A Cornfield gives us a 1991 cold open, with a pair of teens headed into the titular cornfield to have sex, where they are dispatched by the titular clown.  Fast forward to the present and Quinn (Katie Douglas) is moving with her dad to the town ading said cornfield.  When a local warns her that some of the people in the town are weird and bad news, it’s only a matter of figuring out who ;)

The film takes a while to get going, but once the clown deals a victim the indignity of using his toilet before killing him, I began to vibe with it more.  Yes, it slowly transforms into 2025s biggest trend - the horror-comedy.  And much of the humor landed for me, especially Quinn and friends not knowing how to use a rotary phone to dial 911, or how to use a manual transmission to escape in a car.  There’s a fun old vs new conflict that gets going among a few other surprises, but no real scares.  And the actors are entertaining enough.

Like Hell of a Summer, Clown in a Cornfield may be a copy of a copy of a copy, but I still had some fun with it.

Fun underdog anthology of interconnected tales in 1987 Oakland.  The 80s videogame opening and various animations that could be from Better Off Dead enhance the 80s feel.  Movies play a big role as well, whether on the marquee of the central movie theater, discussion of The Lost Boys, or the video rental store where Tom Hanks tried to tell Pedro Pascal the top 5 underdog movies.  Plus the stories are connected by a mysterious green lightning in a plot device reminiscent of the orb in Heavy Metal.

But let’s be real - the best part is that two of the stories deal with inflicting punishment on Nazis and white supremacists.  That’s very much fantasy fulfilment for today.  Each of the stories is loosely based on an actual event in Oakland history of the time, and the actual rapper Too Short who’s fictionalized in the second story serves as narrator throughout.  My favorite story is the last one, with Warriors guard Sleepy Floyd dropping 51 on the Lakers in the NBA playoffs and then going out with Blade leather trenchcoat and sword to take revenge on the Nazis who robbed his house during the game.  

END CREDITS SCENE:  Enjoy a fake music video from the film version of Danger Zone, who really did record the diss track “Don’t Fight The Feeling” with Too Short at the time.

ASHES OF TIME THEATRICAL CUT REVIEW

Link to my Redux review:
boxd.it/9DJspL

As promised/threatened, I watched the cut of the 1994 theatrical cut that I found so that I could compare them and give star ratings based on which I thought was better.  The result?  For me, a tie, because I think they bring different things to the table:

- the theatrical cut is much more like Hong Kong wuxia films of the day.  It’s still not as action packed, but the fight sequences are longer (though still mostly shot In Wong’s slow blurry action fashion) and there’s an opening fight that was totally edited out of Redux.  The score is also much different, more synthy, and has some choral parts that make it feel like a particularly philosophical spaghetti western.  Apparently by the time Wong was reediting Redux, a lot of the negatives and especially the soundtrack was discovered to be really damaged, and so he had it redone more classically.  This cut feels a bit more epic.

- the Redux cut feels much more like a WKW style film we are familiar with from Chungking Express on.  I liked the yellow filter he added, though many don’t.  The score is different as mentioned above, and honestly the Yo Yo Ma cello additions really hit me in the feels harder, especially at the ending.  There are added chapter titles to make the change of seasons clearer too, making it easier to follow the age of time.  Wong also streamlines things, making things a bit clearer than the theatrical and seeming to play up the romantic sadness even more.  This comes at the expense of some action - but you also get the eclipse scenes at the beginning, which add grandeur.

So yeah, I think both versions are great, and give you different things depending on your mood.  Right now Redux leaves me with more emotions at the end, but I’ve also watched that cut twice now with the theatrical in between.  The rewatches definitely help to get the sequence of events timeline clearer too, though I still have questions ;). Either way, I find Ashes of Time to be one of my favorite WKW films so far - but then again, I usually vibe with flawed ambitious films more than well-done generic ones.

SPOILERY STUFF FOR THOSE INTERESTED

- The biggest difference is the opening, where Redux highly abbreviates the opening duel and completely removes the following battle between Huang and the bandits.  This makes Redux start more cleanly, but man, guys bouncing off mountains while fighting is very cool, and Huang wiping out a lot of the bandits by causing an earthquake from his swordplay is wild.  But not only do I see why this was confusing - because I didn’t see them as two events at first - I am still confused who is duelling in either version.  The very few reviews that mention it say it is Feng and Huang, but I don’t understand why they would since they are friends - unless it was for fun.  I thought it was the Feng and Hong Qi duel in the future that the onscreen titles tell us about later when Hong Qi leaves the film.  That makes more sense to me.

- seeing Huang battle the bandits helps make it clearer what Feng tells the Blind Swordsman later about a friend of his having driven them off, but they would be back.  It also reinforces how much of everything that happens in most storylines is Huang’s fault - obviously the bandits coming back (for revenge) has fatal repercussions for one character and maiming ones for another ;)

- in both versions, the Huang and Maggie Cheung scene near the end is the heart of the film that explains most everything.  They are the two most responsible for almost everyone else’s heartbreak.  Maggie refused Feng and married his brother because she felt taken for granted by Feng, always running off on his adventures and never even saying out loud that he loved her.  Now older, she regrets that this decision cost her the happiness of being with the person she loved, while sending Feng out to the desert and onto the path that will eventually turn him into a villain.  Huang meanwhile learns from his unspoken love for her what real love is and how all of his dalliances never brought him love, and so he drinks the magic wine to forget her and all he’s done.  Lucky him then is never aware of how he messes up Yin and Yang and basically causes the death of former best friend Blind Swordsman by making his wife fall for him and Blind Swordsman leave her - then try to earn money by fighting the bandits to get back home to see her one last time.

- I’m still unclear though if Huang encounters Yin/Yang after he’s drunk the wine and lost his memories, or before.  I think it’s before, though they show up to hire Feng pretty quickly after Huang’s last visit.

- I do like that later when Feng finishes the magic wine himself, he doesn’t forget Maggie.  Instead he holds on to her memory more tightly, and feels she will always be there at home waiting though he knows she’s dead, making him finally head home again.

- the Redux ending again cuts down the reprise of the duel and overlaps of Yin/Yang to basically just show Feng in a fight.  I think I like that better - again to me it’s a nod to his end that we know will be coming.  The Yin part is now only a reprise of when she was touching Feng in bed, with both of them picturing the person they really wanted to be with, which really drives home the romantic sadness.

- in either version, the whole sequence with the shadows of the birdcage on Lin and Cheung is visually stunning.

- I didn’t like that in Redux Wong edits out the scene that shows that Hong Qi’s wife nurses him back to health.  He just seems to recover on his own instead.  That takes away from the power of them riding off together and an understanding of what a good pair they are.

- I also miss the opening voiceover from the theatrical cut by Feng that really establishes who he and Huang will become:

“In the years to come.....I’ll be given the nickname Malicious West. 

Well everyone can be very malicious.....if you’ve ever been jealous of someone.

I don’t care how others think of me.  It’s just that I don’t want others to be happier than me.

But there are some people.....who’re just too proud to be jealous.

In the early days of my martial arts adventures...I came to know a man.  He usually makes his appearance in the east. 

Maybe that’s why in the years to come.....people will call him Evil East.”