The latest Asian movie releases, reissues and trailers. This week, the lavish Chinese action epic Shaolin, starring Andy Lau and Jackie Chan comes to DVD and Blu-ray in Hong Kong, while Isao Takahata’s charming anime My Neighbours The Yamadas makes its UK Blu-ray debut.
SHAOLIN
Benny Chan, 2011, Hong Kong/China
Hong Kong DVD/Blu-ray (Vicol Entertainment)
The last time Hong Kong veterans Andy Lau and Jackie Chan appeared in the same movie together was back in 1994 (leaving aside 2009’s cameo-packed The Founding Of An Empire), when Lau had a supporting role in Jackie’s modern kung-fu masterpiece Drunken Master 2. Seventeen years later, Andy Lau is now one of Chinese cinema’s biggest stars, while Chan continues to maintain a hugely successful career in both Asia and Hollywood. Lau takes the lead in this big budget historical action epic, with Jackie on board to provide the comic relief and audience-grabbing star power.
Shaolin is set at the turn of the 20th century, a time of political turmoil, as various Warlords fight it out for control of China. Hou Chieh (Lau) is one such general, whose thirst for land means that he’s quite happy to double-cross his allies and kill innocent Shaolin monks if they get in his way. But when Hou Chieh is himself betrayed by his protégé Tsao Man (Nicolas Tse) and his young son is killed, he is forced to take refuge with a kindly cook Chan. Overcome with grief and remorse, Hou Shieh enters the Shaolin temple to train in their ways and join the fight against the tyrannical Tsao Man.
Director Benny Chan has developed a mixed filmography over a 15 year career, both in terms of genre and quality, and the lengthy Shaolin allows him to juggle several balls at once. It’s part historical drama, part action movie, with a heavy dose of Buddhist philosophy thrown in for good measure and a few laughs courtesy of Chan’s dryly funny chef. And for 45 minutes it all works superbly. Lau is given the chance to flex his dramatic muscles as the conflicted warlord – a loving, patriotic family man driven by a lust for power – and there is a powerful contrast between the lavish, political life of the reigning elite and the humble, starving Shaolin monks. This section climaxes with a thrilling Cory Yuen-orchestrated action sequence, which begins with Tsao Man’s assassins entering Hou Chieh’s house and ends with a breathless nighttime carriage chase along the edge of a clifftop.
Unfortunately at that point, Shaolin settles into a mid-section lull from which it never really recovers. Lau enters the temple, Chan’s character is introduced, there is some training, some meditation and some more confrontations with the dastardly Tsao Man. But it’s all curiously unengaging, no matter how much money is thrown at the screen (and it’s a lot – the set and costume design is impeccable). Â Perhaps it’s the familiarity of this sort of narrative, but my feeling is that any film that gives Andy Lau five times as much martial arts action as Jackie Chan has a confused set of priorities.
Ultimately Hou Chieh’s story is far less interesting than that of either the Buddhists’ fight for survival or the power-hungry generals gradually carving up China; it’s a shame that both of these broader subjects take a backseat to our hero’s not-entirely-convincing redemption. There’s too much talent both behind and in front of the camera to turn Shaolin into a bad film, but it’s exactly because it starts so well that the end result seems so disappointingly ordinary.
Isao Takahata, 1999, Japan
UK Blu-ray (Optimum)
Studio Ghibli’s domestic comedy My Neighbours The Yamadas is the latest of the company’s films to come to Blu-ray. Director Isao Takahata is Ghibli’s co-founder, but while his partner Hayao Miyazaki is the most prominent anime director working today, Takahata’s work is less well known in the West. His heartbreaking World War II tale Graveyard Of The Fireflies is an undeniable masterpiece, but while Yamadas is a slighter, less assuming film, it’s still a delightful look at modern family life.
The Yamadas are a typical Japanese family – hard working husband, mum at home and two young kids, plus a grandmother and dog. The film is structured as a series of chaptered vignettes – there’s no plot, just strange, funny and sometimes moving sketches centered around this quintet. There are stories of lost children, missed business meetings, high school romances and arguments about TV remotes, umbrellas, food and shopping. Some sketches are ten minutes long, some little more than quick exchanges of dialogue.
On the production side, Yamadas is notable for being Ghibli’s first entirely digital film, which is ironic given that modern technology was used to recreate the crude, sketch-style of the newspaper comic on which it was based. But it would be a mistake to consider the animation a step down from the lush, vivid visuals of other Ghibli movies – Takahata not only mimics the look of a comic strip, but the very experience of reading in a way that I’ve never seen before in a movie. The animation is consistently inventive, witty and a delight to behold.
At heart, this is a film about families and how they argue, misunderstand and mock each other whilst still loving, caring and supporting. And if that sounds heavy-going or sentimental it’s neither – it’s certainly moving in places, but only in its honesty and perception about the way families act around one another. My Neighbours The Yamadas never found the audience of other Ghibli movies in Japan, and over here didn’t even find a release for seven years. But it is a film ripe for discovery on Blu and comes highly recommended.
Underwater Love
Underwater Love is already starting to pick up some buzz following its recent screening at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival, and this trailer provides something of an idea why. It’s a collaboration between Shinji Imaoka, one of Japan’s best known soft porn ‘pink’ directors and the brilliant cinematographer Christopher Doyle, best known for his work with Wong Kar-wai. It’s billed as a porn musical, with creature effects from the team behind Tokyo Gore Police… what more needs to be said? Trailer courtesy of Twitch.
Moby Dick
This new South Korean thriller might share its name with Melville’s classic tale of whale hunting, but this is otherwise a contemporary thriller about a reporter who is drawn into a mystery following an explosion in downtown Seoul. It’s the directorial debut of Park In-je and features rising star Hwang Jeong-min, and as can be seen from the trailer should feature the expected mix of internet intrigue, truth uncovering, explosions and car chases. It’s out in next month in Korea.
