Asian Film Festivals and Awards

[GeneChing]

Same problem with WAR. And I personally thought that was worse than RH3. Perhaps it's an Asian thing. Gotta tip the hat to J&J...

Is whitey as derogatory as jap?

[Lucas]

Nah.

I'm not Japanese, but "Jap" offends even me.


whitey is just funny imo. i suppose a white person could get all puffed up and pretend they would be offended, but the truth is, its just funny.

[GeneChing]

It's delightful to see four martial arts films at SFIFF this year. Here's the picks.

Black Belt
At last, a thinking person’s martial arts movie. Or, in other words, a well acted, deliberately nuanced drama about the moral dilemma of a young man forced to choose between his principles and his obligation to defend the helpless. Plus a few broken heads. Trouble develops in Japan’s late Showa dynasty (1932), in the wake of that country’s invasion of Manchuria, when a company of kempeitai military police arrogantly disrupts the karate studies of three young men—Taikan (Tatsuya Naka), Giryu (Akihito Yagi) and Choei (Yuji Suzuki)—at the rural dojo of their wise old master (Shinya Ohwada). Convinced that the students’ skills can help in battle, the army wants to conscript them into service as fight instructors. Screenwriter George Iida and veteran independent filmmaker Shunichi Nagasaki (Dogs, A Tender Place) are obviously skeptical about Japanese militarism in the first place, but leave it to bashful Giryu to set things straight when the hideous army commander widens the scope of his depredations beyond able-bodied fighting men to include innocent local villagers. The fact that actual karate masters portray the three main characters guarantees that when justice prevails it looks like it actually hurts. No wires, no stunts, no elaborate sound effects. The no-frills fisticuffs are quick and brutal. Stunt coordinator Fuyuhiko Nishi’s authentic fight choreography is matched by cinematographer Masato Kaneko’s dazzling establishing shots of the lush greenery of Kyushu. The film’s true subject, though, is the moral calculus of violence, and when, if ever, it should be used.

Mongol
Sergei Bodrov’s historical epic about the pivotal early years of Genghis Khan measures the human qualities against the legend, coming to a provocative conclusion. Namely, you don’t marshal disparate tribes and conquer more land than any warrior before or since by being a brute, but rather by being a visionary and, to some degree, a mensch. Therein lies a tale arrestingly filmed on Mongolian steppes as barren and forbidding today as they were in the 12th century. Part one of a proposed trilogy, Mongol has all the pleasures of the genre (including the guilty ones, like artful spatter). Tadanobu Asano, the popular Japanese actor (Zatoichi; Last Life in the Universe), plays Temudgin (as he was known before assuming the title “khan,” or tribal leader) in a spirit of indomitable, pensive forbearance. The nonprofessional actress Khulan Chuluun, comfortable in the role of a strong-willed thinker, plays his wife, Borte—guileless when it comes to love, crafty when it comes to survival. Other local non-actors people the film. Bodrov has considerable experience directing young people—Freedom Is Paradise and I Wanted to See Angels (SFIFF 1990 and 1993, respectively)—and the scenes in which his principal characters are children remain in many ways the most absorbing. Hunted by traitors following the death of his father, the boy Temudgin is spared a similar fate only by the law of tradition: Mongols do not kill children. Later on as an adult, and fair game, he will impress enemy soldiers with simple principles of his own on the path to becoming khan of all the Mongols. But you saw that coming.

Redbelt (our thread)
David Mamet enlivens the real-life Fight Club of UFC and MMA (mixed martial arts) with his trademark con games, plot twists and male camaraderie (and competition) in his newest mind-bender, a crowd-pleasing action movie that he describes as a samurai film in the tradition of Akira Kurosawa. In the semi-seedy, macho realm of the West L.A. fight scene, bouncers, cops, ex-cons and ex-Marines grapple to get their piece of the American dream. Some do it honorably, others less so. Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dirty Pretty Things) leads an honorable life as a jiu-jitsu trainer; able to kill if necessary, he chooses to teach, train and live peacefully with his wife Sondra (Alice Braga). A modern-day samurai who has given up battle, Mike soon finds himself in a whole new world when he meets Hollywood superstar Chet Frank (Tim Allen) and the scene’s sleazy promoters, powerbrokers and hangers-on. Forced to reenter the ring, Mike must decide when to fight, and for what. This territory is all Mamet’s: profanity-slinging men fighting, with words or fists, for control, advantage or merely to survive. (Mamet is also a jiu-jitsu practitioner himself and a self-confessed UFC addict.) House of Games with gloves off and feet flying, Redbelt also features UFC/MMA stars Randy Couture and Enson Inoue, along with Mamet regulars Joe Mantegna and Ricky Jay. The con is indeed on, but so is the fight.

The Warlords (our thread)
With a cast of thousands, spectacular battle scenes, Shakespearean-style rumination on the corrupting influence of power and a story of love and loyalty played with dramatic intensity and martial arts fury, The Warlords reigns as the Asian super-production for the new millenium. All revolves around the tragic fate of General Pang (Jet Li), whose noble intention to bring peace and stability to late 19th century Qing Dynasty China turns into vaunted ambition for personal power and glory. Pang is joined by two bandits who become his sworn blood brothers. Zhao (Andy Lau) and Jiang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) help Pang’s rise to power, carrying out impossible campaigns for the Qing court, defeating Taiping rebels and conquering cities. Along the way, Pang becomes attracted to Zhao’s wife (Xu Jinglei) and massacres prisoners whom Zhao had promised to protect. The brotherhood collapses in a spiral of betrayal and death. Jet Li delivers an impressive performance as the flawed hero who ignores his conscience in a blind drive for worldly success. Lau and Kaneshiro, major stars in their own right, hold their own admirably in the action sequences and emotional life of this historical drama. As in Perhaps Love, director Peter Chan establishes both the style and the rhythm of the film with masterful visuals. His camera sweeps and swoops over a panorama of action, moving in tight on the dilemmas of love and duty. And the political import of the Qing aristocracy’s disdain for the General, even as he does their dirty work, resonates long after the fighting is over.