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Reviews
Evil Dead II (1987)
the cinematic equivalent of noodles
Cult films are a funny group of films, some receive that status due to being so bad that they are actually good, other are just iconic and memorable, and you can always have films that started movements in either fashion or culture. If Evil Dead 2 is any of the above it would be the second one - iconic and memorable - due to the moments that are created throughout the film, moments such as 'groovy', ash having a fight with his hand, the camera on the end of a stick, there are loads. But for all the iconic moments, is this example of cult cinema actually any good? Well here's the funny thing - I appreciated the tension and the progression of the plot, the comedy and the scares (however wafer thin), I enjoyed it all. But at the same time I didn't really enjoy it, it felt as though there was something missing. Now maybe, now I've grown up a bit cinematically since I last seen it, so its references and its nuances don't thrill me in the same way that they once did? I don't know. But its definitely missing something, it's like the cinematic equivalent of noodles. You enjoyed it when you were having it, but once it was finished you have a 'is that it' sort of moment. You wish there was more to it.
San taam (2007)
pretentious guff or ambitious failure?
City on Fire, The Infernal Affairs trilogy, One Night in Mongkok, Hard Boiled, The Killer, Bullet in the head, Election and A Better Tomorrow all of these films are classics of the Hong Kong crime thriller genre, but all are fairly typical in their execution - this is where Mad Detective comes in.
I've read a lot of press for this film, press which basically states that this film has carved out a niche all of its own. Now upon reading this, it gave the impression that it was one of two things: a pretentious load of rubbish or an ambitious failure, luckily its neither of these things.
What makes this film different is the lead character (Detective Bun), someone who claims they can see people's inner personalities or inner ghosts. It's never determined whether he can see such things or it's the visual representation of his madness, either way such an ambiguous concept is a good thing, if it was confirmed to be one thing or the other it would damage the tone of the film.
The story of Mad Detective revolves around an 8 month old case to find a missing police officer and his gun, a case which a former employee of Detective Bun's openly asks for help from the Mad Detective. He asks as Bun has been fired for literally being the mad detective, it'll make sense when you watch it.
What follows is a fairly typical police crime thriller, outside of Bun's world, anyway. On the face of it, mad Detective is a simple tale in which Bun and his junior officer are investigating what has happened to a missing officer and who is responsible for his disappearance. This is punctuated by certain realities of Bun's life and the reality of his madness in everyday situation which helps flesh out the story considerably.
But the investigation is where the story lies, the main narrative of the story focuses on the confusion of whether Bun is solving the crime correctly or whether it is just his madness leading him in a certain direction - something which pervades the junior officers every thought (after a certain point). Yes, this is confusing, but at the same time it's brilliant, much in the way that the final few scenes of fight club & memento change the entire meaning of the film. That for me is what I want from a film, an ending which shocks and entertains in equal measures, and better than most other contemporary films.
So given the inclusion of Bun's madness it does, as certain film critics have claimed create a niche unto itself. One thing is for sure you won't have seen many films like this, I certainly haven't. A truly brilliant, rewarding film, even if its demands quite a bit patience.
Hadashi no Gen (1983)
One of the most emotionally ravaging anti war films, and a classic anime to boot.
Sequels are always billed to be inferior to their predecessors and animé is no different - animé can potentially knock out endless sequels each one worse than the next, because of this my expectations were that this film was only going to be a shadow compared to the excellence of its prequel. I believed that once the bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima not a great deal could happen in this film, thankfully I was wrong. Barefoot Gen was centred around the suffering caused by the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and the immediate after affects caused by the disease caused by the nuclear fallout (Pika), that was emotionally ravaging enough, but this sequel builds further upon the effects of the bomb drop, its expands its critical claw further to how people are affected in the long term. Issues such as: the brutality, bullying and negligence of occupying forces; the long term affects and the slow death that Pika brings; children being orphaned and hated by the community for the deaths of their parents. All are done well and it could be argued to be one of the great contemporary anti-war films - along with grave of the fireflies. These films, whether left as Sequel and Original or if they are converged into a singular entity they are both incredibly emotionally harrowing as was intended when Keiji Nakazawa wrote that Manga which this was adapted from. Regardless of the strength of the sequel, the original is probably more horrifying and emotionally crippling, one scene in particular is the moment when Gen goes back to his house to see his younger brother, whom the director and indeed writer (Nakazawa) has masterfully created a beautiful relationship between the two, is trapped inside the house, not yet dead but in his last moment, that scene is amongst the most beautiful and heart wrenching I have ever seen in my 22 years that I've been around for. It's also amazing how a film which evokes sadness through the characters on screen merely crying can be so upsetting, again I can't emphasise the excellence of both the story and the direction (in this sense). I'll make no bones of it, this film is grim; the story is a thing that I could never forgot due to the horrifying nature of the power that the American military holds and the horrific nature of the very event the film is depicting in itself. Yet the beauty of this film is that it shows people in the most extreme conditions not being beaten down by their conditions, it shows the power of human nature: their city has been all but turned to dust, the survivors were beyond lucky to survive but regardless of that they are slowly being picked off by 'Pika' but the protagonists are always laughing and smiling, trying not to let their circumstances get the better of them, which by and large throughout the film excluding the more emotional parts of the film(s). To summarise, this easily, in my opinion at the very least, goes down in history when you coalesce parts one and two together as one of the best war, and anti-war films or dare I say propaganda films- ever made. A must see animated classic that deserves place in all DVD collections.