Chocolate

From the director of Ong Bak and The Protector, the guy who gave us Tony Jaa, comes  a female Tony Jaa and Ong Bak with a girl!

Well kinda.

Chocolate is a rather bizarre story of Thai vs Japanese gangs, with an Autistic girl and a fat kid caught in the middle. It's sort of 1 part family drama, 4 parts martial arts action movie.

I really liked the Tony Jaa films, Ong Bak was pretty much by the numbers, but had a certain inventiveness to it, The Protector went slightly overboard, but again had some good bits. What both films gave us is some decent bone cracking stunt work that's not really been seen since classic Jackie Chan. Chocolate continues that trend with some serious injury inducing action (as demonstrated by the end credit outtakes).

As a film, it's not the greatest, the filmmakers can do action, but not so hot on the drama side. It's starts very differently from the Tony Jaa films, with a heavy French influence, echoing something more along the lines of a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film, it soon gets into standard territory though, although the action takes it time before it really kicks in.

Having an autistic girl as the lead is certainly a bold move, and to be fair, it works pretty well, JeeJa also sells it well on both the acting and action fronts, the latter very surprising as despite being 24 now, so probably 22/23 ish while filming, she certainly looks about 13, so being able to pull of realistically kicking someone's ass is no mean feat. She does start off a tad comical, but it's justified within the context of character, but by the 12-on-1 set piece, she's pretty kick ass.

Once it gets going, another entertaining martial arts flick.

Chocolate - 7/10

[Rec]

Okay so a few days back I threw down my thoughts on Quarantine, which is the recent English language remake of this Spanish horror. I neglected to mention tho (I think, I could check, but sod it.) that the heating in that particular screen of Cineworld Crawley had broken and thus it was pretty cold in there. Despite the offer of a refund/credit if you came out within 45 minutes, only a couple of people left, everyone else stuck it out and was scared shitless, so by the time we left I felt that the cold certainly added to the experience, and wondered if maybe the cinema had done it on purpose, if so I applaud you sirs, well done.

ANYHOO.. Rec/.rec/[Rec]/[.rec] whatever.. there's probably gonna be SPOILER stuff here

Pretty much every thing I'd heard about Quarantine was that [Rec] was better, all the internet buzz and fanboys were "[Rec] is sooo much better, Quarantine is EPIC FAIL!" (paraphrased), even after I'd seen Quarantine and twittered how scary it was, someone posted "Rec is better IMHO :)"

My view on this is if you see [Rec] first, then you'll probably think [Rec] is better, the same with any original and remake combo, which ever you see first, you'll probably think is the better, there are going to be exceptions yes, but as a rule I think this will apply. Thus I saw Quarantine first, and do happen to think it's the better film, I digress..

Okay, so they're pretty much the same film from the overall structure and setup, the infection device is changed between the two, for clear cultural reasons, and to be honest the US one makes more sense to me, but there's still the reporter following the fire crew which leads them to the house and the old lady.

The main thing I found watching this second, is that there doesn't seem to be as much that happens, Quarantine, when it gets going, is pretty relentless, [Rec] gets going a bit, stops to throw in some more fluff in the form of "interviews" with the residents (Quarantine has pretty much all it's fluff up top), then ambles back into the "action" again.

I found Spanish Angela VERY annoying, one of the things with Jennifer Carpenter's Angela is she does completely shit scared VERY VERY well, Spanish Angela was just whiny and annoying. [Rec] wasn't as scary for me as Quarantine, this is because I knew pretty much when to expect the relevant beats, and was disappointed when certain ones weren't there, I wasn't as involved with the rest of the residents in this one and by the end I was feeling pretty Meh.

Also reading comments elsewhere like "..THIS is how to do hand-held-POV.." No it's not, unless of course it's supposed to be a 5yr old with a handycam, that's still crap.

Who knows how I'd felt if I'd seen this first, in my view it's an interesting idea, but the US remake takes that and runs with it, something that can rarely be said of a remake!

[Rec] - 5/10

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

The Spanish language version of a "Quentin Tarantino Presents.." this "Guillermo Del Toro Presents..." follows a very similar style to Guillermo's own films.

It got pretty good reviews when it was in the cinema, and overall it's not bad, got quite a good end, although does suffer a bit from Return Of The King Syndrome, my main complaint is that it's VEEERRY SLOOOOW, it's a good story though and we stuck it out.

Not as creepy as I was expecting, there's a couple of creep-out moments, but it's not IMO, a full on scarefest. Well crafted and looks beautiful, Guillermo's certainly on a mission!

The Orphanage - 7/10

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Chinjeolhan geumjassi)

The third and final film in Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy is undoubtedly the weakest.

While it takes things down a different road from the others, although still some familiar themes are there, and introduces a woman as the main character, for some reason it didn't feel like it had the same edge as it's precursors.

It retains the oh so dark humour of Oldboy, whilst still pushing the emotions of the characters and the justifications for their actions (not that Oldboy didn't of course).

Again, it's beautifully shot, beautifully directed and although it's, in my view, the weakest of the three films, it's a must see.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Chinjeolhan geumjassi) - 9/10

Oldboy

Understand this: OLDBOY IS AWESOME!

That's pretty much all you need to know, it's an incredible film from Park Chan-wook, the follow up to Sympathy for Mr. Vengance and the middle film from his Vengeance Trilogy.

Basically after being imprisoned for 15 years Oh Dae-su is released. Shortly after he meets a man who tells him he has 5 days to find his captor and discover why he was imprisoned in the first place. What follows is an amazing, mind-numbing and disturbing mystery tale that left me both horrified and amazed.

Needless to say a re-watch of this doesn't have quite the same effect, but it's still an amazing piece of art, yet again demonstrating Park's amazing skills and talent as a director.

I really don't want to explain too much of this away, not specifically giving spoilers but even hints at the different parts.

No-one can be told what Oldboy is, you have to see it for yourself. SO GO!! WATCH IT!!

Oldboy - 10/10

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Boksuneun naui geot)

I cannot begin to express how simply fucking awesome this film is. Part of Park Chan-wook's vengeance trilogy (including Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance), it follows a series of events leading through a bungled kidnapping and the outcome.

Oldboy was the first one I watched a while back (although I re-watched recently and didn't post so I'll do that after this one, also a re-watch), after hearing a lot of good things about it. Mr. Vengeance is the precursor to Oldboy, but the stylistic similarities are most definitely there, not so much with Lady Vengeance.

The film is beautiful. The lighting, framing, performances, everything about it. The way that Park is not afraid to hold a shot, using single shots for entire scenes, something a lot of Western directors aren't so confident with.

The performances are amazing, the lead character is a deaf-mute, which immediately changes the game in how the story is told and again, there's no trying to 'PC' the guy for the sake of it. One of the other stunning performance comes from Song Kang-ho (pictured), playing a TOTALLY different role from his one in The Host! He's in a fair few Korean films so check him out.

The film is hard to deal with at times, it's slow paced, but you want to stick with it, not quite a full on and gruesome as Oldboy, but still potent enough. AWESOME!

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance - 10/10

Amelie (Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain)

It doesn't matter how many time I see this film, it will never be anything less than awesome.

One of several examples of why Jean-Pierre Jeunet is one of my favourite directors, Amelie is a heartwarming take of imagination and romance. It helps that the adorable Audry Tatou is in the lead role too!

I love pretty much everything about this film, the story, the characters, direction, cinematography, it's simply brilliant. You need spirits lifting, watch Amelie.


Amelie (Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain) - 10/10

Switchblade Romance (Haute Tension)

Most of the way through the film I was thinking that it was a pretty run of the mill, bog standard slasher flick, better than Wolf Creek (although pretty much every other film ever made is better than Wolf BOOOORRRING Creek), but not really doing anything that original apart from making the lead a lesbian that doesn't get naked and get it on with another lead female (had Eli Roth directed it could be a different story).

Then it reaches it's climax, and I was caught unawares. Apparently there are clues throughout, although clearly not in a good Sixth Sense way, as I didn't really pick up on them, there was a bit of one at the top but that's it.

Unfortunately the latter part of the film doesn't really work for me, mainly because when you look back very little of what's happened previous makes any sense in this new context and by the end it still hasn't really done anything that I haven't seen before in other films (I'm not gonna say which cos that'll give it away) and to be perfectly honest the end of Aja's The Hills Have Eyes dicks on this, which it shouldn't.

And thank Christ it's called "Switchblade Romance" over here 'cos "High Tension" sounds like a Van Damme movie!

Switchblade Romance (Haute Tension) - 5/10

Agitator (Araburu tamashii-tachi)

Had this one sitting in my DVD rack for a while, waiting for me to be in the right mood to watch it, as it's a Japanese yakuza (gangster) movie which I thought was going to be pretty hard going.

It's another from Miike Takashi, who I'm a big fan of and am gradually building up my collection of his works.

It's a twisty twisty crime flick, lots of double crossing mixed with traditional yakuza loyalty and is surprisingly easy to follow. The acting is top notch, with well placed comedic turns to avoid taking itself too seriously.

The only downside really is it's a bit of a slow burn at 150 min (apparently there's a 200 min version!), which was a little testing at times, but the story and characters were strong enough to keep me engaged all the way through.

A solid gangster flick.


Agitator (Araburu tamashii-tachi) - 7/10

Cronos

FINALLY! This completes my Guillermo del Toro feature film education, his debut feature and apparently widely regarded as "One of the finest chillers of the decade. A masterpiece - Mark Kermode", thankyou Dr Kermode and thankyou the DVD's cover sleeve.

The first film of his I saw was Mimic, (which I need to re-watch as it's been a while), then came Blade II - CHEERS! - followed by Hellboy, which after the second viewing.. CHEERS!! So i started thinking, who is this guy?!?

Cue, The Devil's Backbone, followed a bit later by Pan's Labyrinth, and now finally Cronos.

It's the story of Jesús Gris, an elderly antique dealer, and his grand-daughter Aurora. It's also, I think, the most original vampire story I've seen. Most of it's in Spanish, although he chooses not to push Ron Pearlman too much! (I'm wondering now what American or English actor has done the most foreign language films.) Not that this is an issue as i was expecting that, like foreign films and can read.

It's a little slow to start, well it kinda gets into the story reasonably quickly after the initial prologue, but feels slow. (Why am I having to wait for my damn browser to catch up with my typing?!?!?), but apart from that it's along the same sort of pace as both Backbone and Labyrinth, and with a similar tone, although Cronos is essentially a contemporary film by the looks of it (albeit made a few years ago now), i could be wrong about that tho, it could be set a little earlier.)

Anyway, it's a brilliant film, not up to his more recent ones, but that only goes to show how much he's grown and also how good he was to begin with.

Well worth a watch...so?...go..now!

Cronos - 8/10

Night Watch [Nochnoi Dozor]

Another film somewhat over-hyped I feel. I expected a roaring, visceral, damaging vampire movie, what I got was a slow, mostly dull, somewhat confusing film with an annoying lead, who just needed to SPEAK UP!!

Yes I know it's in Russian, but still the noise of a man trying to speak through a millennia's worth of phlegm is not that nice!

Some of it was quite good, where the action got going that is, although I can understand that the main guy is tormented, depressed whatever, but why so weak?!? C'mon man sort it out!!!

Anyway, the marketing and what I'd heard about this film, pretty much misled me in most ways possible, not sure I'll be bothering with the other two.

Plus point tho, another two words to add to my russian vocab!

Night Watch [Nochnoi Dozor] - 5/10

Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)

Hello Guillermo!

My introduction to Guillermo Del Toro was through Mimic, although at the time I didn't really know who he was, I took more notice after Blade 2, then went on to watch Hellboy, then The Devil's Backbone and now his latest piece Pan's Labyrinth.

Pan's is far more along the lines of Backbone than the others I mentioned, it's a fantastical story of a young girl, Ofelia, who finds out she is a princess from an underground realm, set against the backdrop of the latter days of the Spanish civil war, she must perform a series of tasks to prove that she still has her 'spirit' and can return to her kingdom.

Much like Backbone, it's really told from the child's perspective, and I can't see that it would've worked in any other way. It's dark, violent and emotional and although a little slow in places, yet again an amazing film from one of the modern masters of cinema.

Pan's Labyrinth 9/10

Taxi 3

I’m a big fan of the previous two instalments of this series (I’ve thus far ignored the American remake!!).

What they are, are simple good fun action-comedy movies, at times cutting very close to the bone with humour that you simply wouldn’t see in a British or American film.

As per usual it starts in much the same way with a practically vomit inducing ride in Daniel’s uber-taxi, this follows and forms part of an unexpected cameo appearance.

There’s a lot of ‘technical’ or ‘reality’ errors in this film (as with the other two), you’ll se what I mean, but at the same time, you just don’t care, the whole thing is ridiculous, and these ‘errors’ are perfectly acceptable.

It’s a proper buddy movie, sentimental, comical and fun, something which is lacking in most of the movies that Hollywood’s churning out at the mo.

If you want a stupid, fun film (or three) watch Taxi.

Taxi 3 – 8/10

The Protector

More cheese penguin? This film is ladled with it...and it's damn good fun!!

Tony Jaa, the Thai bastard lovechild of Jackie Chan (who makes a humorous cameo) and Bruce Lee, kicks more ass in the follow up to his bone breaking..breakthru movie Ong-Bak (also bloody good).

Now I was watching the un-subtitled version, so mostly Thai, some sporadic Aussie and oddly enough English accented dialoge and apart from the odd lengthy dialogue and exposition scene, I could pretty much follow what was going on, depsite the really bad cutting, but then it's a martial arts action flick, not a David Lynch mind-fuck.

Basically Mr Jaa, has his elephant nicked and he has to go to Sydney to kick ass and get it back.

If you like martial arts movies (proper ones, not the ponce like Crouching Tiger..) you'll heartily enjoy this!


The Protector - 7/10

The Devil's Backbone

Apparently this is regarded as a horror movie. I don't feel that it is.

Now I don't mean that in a derogitory sense, simply that it doesn't strike me as a horror. It's a ghost story yes, but not in the same way that say Poltergeist is, playing it solely for scares, but I felt that the ghost element is merely superficial to the rest of the story.

Set in an orphanage in Spain during their civil war, the story follows Carlos, the new kid, he soon discovers that things are not quite right in his new place of residence and starts to uncover dark secrets.

Overall this is a brilliant piece of storytelling mainly Guillermo del Toro is a hell of a storyteller! Next up for me of his Cronos, unless of course I end up watching Pan's Labyrinth beforehand, which bearing in mind how many films I've seen recently is perfectly feasible.

El Espinazo del Diablo, is widely regarded as Guillermo's best film, in the special features, Guillermo himself says that it's the first one he was actually happy about, it's certainly better than Mimic, better than Hellboy, although in a totally different class, and as to which I'd watch again in a hurry, Hellboy snags it, but technically Backbone is the better film.


El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil's Backbone) - 9/10

Haze

I do not get this film!

Haze was a random HMV purchase, wanted to get something new, perused the world cinema sections and Haze caught my eye. I read the back and was hooked.

It's a Japanese film, of only around 49mins, from director Shinya Tsukamoto, who previously directed Tetsuo, which I've only seen once and remember it to be a horribly disturbing film at the time.

So, the film..

A man wakes up to find himself locked in a tiny, cramped concrete room, in which he can barely move. He doesn't remember why he is there and where he came from. He has a terrible stomach injury and is slowly bleeding to death.

(Taken from the synopsis by Anon on IMDb)

A brilliant idea, but I just don't get where it went. The film was creepy, really pushing the claustrophobia, (I had to turn the light on!), there's some horrible moments involving grinding but overall I just didn't know what the hell was going on by the end, no clearer than when it started.

However, I will be going back for a second viewing, it may just have been that it was late and I was tired and not trying to freak myself out before bed, but I am still intrigued.


Haze - 6/10

Shiri

Yet another damn good movie to come out of Korea, I don't think I've seen a bad one yet, although I haven't heard good things about The Quiet Family (upon which Miike's The Happiness Of The Katakuris is based).

The Empire quote on the front of the DVD case is "A mix of Nikita and Die Hard", it's been a long time since I've seen either, I can remember Die Hard clearer and it's nothing like that, except for maybe the explosives. A slightly closer comparison would be to Heat; the blazing gun fights in the street, the close meetings between two key pro' and antagonists. Directed by Je-gyu Kang this is a very different film from the other of his I've watched, Brotherhood. This is a reasonably fast paced, contemporary terrorism thriller, set predominantly in Seoul, South Korea and using the re-unification efforts as it's backdrop, think "24", but Korean and better.

There you go, that's my quote "A mix of Heat and 24" ;)

Once again, Min-Sik Choi delivers a brilliant performance, and although (as you'd expect), there have been some negative comments on the IMDB board, I found the plot gripping and extremely clever. Make no mistake, this is an action movie, a clever one, but an action movie nonetheless.

When I saw the trailer for Shiri, I thought I'd avoid it like the plague, but after watching Brotherhood and discovering that it was by the same director, I took a chance on it. I'm glad I did, the only negative for this? The sound mix, you get used to it, but it's not the best and can be a tad distracting at times, despite that, another must watch Korean movie!

Shiri - 8/10

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter And.. Spring

This was not what I expected, although saying that, I wasn't 100% sure what to expect. Everyone who I'd spoke to about it (well, the two people, one of whom lent me the DVD, cheers Conal), said that "you have to be in the right frame of mind for it", I kinda knew what that meant, especially after watching The Straight Story (which I haven't watched all of yet), so I was waiting for the time when I was in the right frame of mind.

That never seemed to come about. So, seeing as this was a borrowed DVD, I thought, sod it, I'm gonna watch it.

I'm glad I did, it's a beautiful, peaceful yet moving piece, the sort of film that you don't see very often, very little dialogue, beautifully shot, accomplished acting, brilliantly scripted and overall a joy to watch.

This is the first of Ki-Duk Kim's films that I've seen (he also makes an appearance in the latter part of the film) and I think it's a good place to start.

It is a very calm film, not slow because apart from the odd couple of lingering landscape shots, it's extremely well paced. For the most part the film focusses on it's two central characters, the old bhuddist monk and his young (companion/apprentice?!?), who grows up over the course of the film. During the second act, a young girl comes to the floating temple they live on and the young monk's world is thrown into disarray.

Although the film is visually beautiful, it's not overly stylised as something like House of Flying Daggers is, it remains very natural looking and allows the landscape it's set in to define the look of the piece.

Subtle, moving and inspiring. Now that I've watched it, I don't agree with "You have to be in the right frame of mind", I think the film gives you that frame of mind.

Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom - 8/10

Brotherhood (taegukgi)

Completely bloody amazing!

It's full Korean title; Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo, this film by Je-gyu Kang is simply one of the best war movies I've ever seen.

Immediatly comparable to Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, there are similar visual stylings, most noticable in the battle scenes, where the use of desaturated colours and a low shutter angle give it the vivid, jarring effect "popularised" by Private Ryan.

The story, set in the Korean war during the 50's, follows two brothers when they get drafted and the elder brother's personal quest to earn a way out for his younger sibling.

To this effect, the film focusses on the personal aspects more than the war itself, the acting by both Dong-Kun Jang (who looks remarkably like Chow Yun Fat) and Bin Won is superb throughout, in fact I don't think I can fault any of the performances! I'm a huge fan of Asian cinema, and have been getting more and more into it in recent years, I heartily reccommend this film to pretty much anyone, although, some are more open to subtitled films than others ;)

Korea seems to be churning out some of the best films out there, far far better than Hollywood, (look out for reviews of Chan-Wook Park's revenge trilogy), next up is Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring by Ki-Duk Kim, although I've been told by two people now "you have to be in the right frame of mind", looking forward to it!

Brotherhood (2004) - 10/10 WATCH IT NOW!!!