Drug War
There’s no shortage of action in this latest effort by HK maverick Johnnie To, who makes his triumphant return to the gangster genre after a short, but enjoyable venture into the world of romantic comedies. The camera is brisk and sensuous and the screenplay is very lean, leaving very little pause to the action, which spans three days and about ten major drug lords. Of course, the politics are all wrong, with a touch of misogyny being stirred in a boiling pot full of disturbing anti-drug sentiment, but that is to be expected from a film shot in mainland China.
Set in and around Canton, the film stars two very dedicated actors, Sun Honglei and Louis Koo, as badass police captain Zhang Lei and slick criminal mastermind Timmy Choi respectively. When the latter is caught by police after an explosion in his drug factory, he is faced with two choices: the death penalty or something less-than in exchange for his total collaboration in Zhang’s ongoing investigation. Wishing to “redeem himself”, Choi immediately accepts the deal and offers his help in toppling a large drug-trafficking ring that extends right up to the lawless land of Hong Kong. But he might also be animated by ulterior motives in doing so…
Johnnie To keeps his fanbase happy thanks to many returning motifs.
If one is to take the film at face value, Drug War could be said to be simply the apology of the well-thinking but brutal constabulary authorities of mainland China and their uncompromising views on drugs. But then, there is something quite enjoyable in seeing all the swift and synchronized efforts involved by the police in catching their prey. These guys are actually so dedicated and tireless that their whole operation becomes like a ballet of government-cautioned violence. I doubt many Westerners will develop empathy for the cops here, save perhaps for the hard-as-nails captain Zhang, but they will still be able to appreciate their muscular contribution to the busy storyline. In some way, they can perhaps best be compared with ants in this context, each working without pause, but without volition or self-interest. And that is why they are almost beaten at their own game by the infinitely resourceful, infinitely charismatic and above all, free-spirited Choi, who manages to capture most of our sympathy despite his fiendish ways.
In the end, you may select whatever deeper philosophy to withdraw from the narrative, be it the romantic representation of the criminal way or the ruthless condemnation of all things drugs, but Drug War still remains what it was meant to be at heart: a solid piece of entertaining. It is superbly produced. The pacing is absolutely spectacular, with nearly no pause to be found in the whole process of dismantling the drug ring. The cinematography is breathtaking, both from an action and artistic point of view. The action sequences are very potent and they include all sorts of lengthy gun fights and car chases, all shot glamorously and without the Hollywoodian recourse to cheaply choppy editing. Actually, there’s one specific reason why this film, and many others of its ilk, easily edges its American counterparts, and it lies in the lack of tedious transition scenes. Instead of having a bunch of CIA bigwigs discussing what to do during a board meeting mysteriously shot action style, all you’ve got is an army of ant cops, perfectly fit to do their duties, but also perfectly fit to die in anonymity. And that spells pure, unadulterated action. Finally, the acting here is as good as in any To film, especially from veteran Louis Koo, who proves once more why he is one of the director’s, favorites.
***1/2 If you like Johnnie To or if you like Chinese action films, there’s no reason for you not to see Drug War. As for the rest of you, I’m sure you can appreciate the film on at least one level, esthetic or otherwise.
Lesson of the Evil
Perhaps more annoying than the half-assed translation of the title (any way you put it, A Lesson in Evil is the just translation) is the fact that Takashi Miike does this kind of shit all the time! He takes a seemingly awesome premise and packages it in a formulaic mold that draws a little bit from eon-old conventions (in this case, the “psycho in disguise” narrative) and a little bit from his own brand of eccentrics (which includes long-drawn visual gags and excessive bloodshed), but rarely ever striking an interesting balance. His take on Pasolini’s Teorema, the irreverent Visitor Q, was perhaps the high point of his career, and it now seems far away, very far away indeed. And while I agree that the Japanese maverick may once have been a truly intriguing voice in Asian cinema, his industrial style of production has now got the best of him, making redundancy the name of the game. I won’t go as far as to suggest a “sausage factory”, like one Montreal critic did a few years back, but I understand the feeling more and more.
The film opens with a troubled teen knifing his parents to death while Die Moritat von Mackie Messer is playing in the background. There’s no onscreen butchery, but the importance of the scene lies elsewhere. It is merely meant to establish a flimsy motivation for the antagonist as well as to instill a dreary leitmotiv in the very song playing in the background. Now, I’m sure that die-hard fans of Miike will argue that the reference to Brecht is actually a brilliant testament of his creative genius, but it’s really hard to think so when you’ve had to sit like a lemon for the following 2 hours, hoping for something, anything to hook you into the narrative. The film then flash-forwards some years, after our knife-wielding psycho has become a well-liked English teacher in a respectable Japanese academy. His English is absolutely atrocious, but students still love and revere him for his childish good looks and cool demeanor, unknowing that he is actually a cold-blooded killer. As the plot tediously unfolds, the bodies start piling up around him and nobody but the murdered are savvier to the killer’s identity... until the final kid-killing frenzy of course!
The climactic massacre scene is bloody indeed.
But it is pretty damn far from the opening scene...
While passable from a purely technical standpoint, Lesson of the Evil is a sluggish, predictable bore that seems more than happy to plunge headfirst into the expected. Fans of “psycho in disguise” narratives should anticipate everything here, and the others should catch on pretty quickly as several plot points are literally spoon-fed to us. Hell, there’s a whole scene in which one of the teachers exposes the killer’s background to an equally suspicious student with all sorts of visual aids. Maybe some people out there will be rejoiced with such a didactic exposé, but I would have personally preferred to have the allotted time frame removed from the total runtime of the film… Then, there is that “infamous” shotgun scene. While largely more entertaining than anything prior, this massive shooting spree involving a whole classroom full of students not only clashes with the killer’s previously established M.O., but it also fails to generate interest for the underdeveloped student characters. I was surprised to hear people laughing as the kids were being butchered, but I should’ve known that laughter was really the only medicine here… or the only thing to fill the moral and dramatic void.
As far as characterization is concerned, anything goes here. Lead Hideaki Ito may be quite efficient in portraying the suave, manipulative killer with an agenda, but his calm demeanor actually seems to come at odds with his psychopathic instincts, creating a character whose motivations are hazy at best. We are thus meant to readily accept that he is an anti-social psychopath, yet one that is perfectly groomed and perfectly integrated to the work-a-day world. From a character standpoint, it makes very little sense. There is some intriguing insight into his pathology that is provided through a flashback of his days in the old U.S. of A. At once a vitriolic pamphlet against the American brand of violence and an impressionistic foray into the mind of the killer, this sequence is not only key to the symbolic side of the film, but also one of the most vivid and memorable. Unfortunately, the dialogue therein is done in such a broken English as to be completely undecipherable. And in the end, everything in the screenplay, including that playful scene, seems like a mere excuse to drag the plot forward to the moment of the massacre, where Miike finally seems to step into a comfort zone and become able to deliver some mildly inspired mayhem. It’s just too bad that he ends the whole thing on the ludicrous promise of a sequel, hence creating what is essentially a ketchup sandwich made with hardened slices of shit.
** Your appreciation of this tedious, predictable thriller will depend entirely on how much you enjoy seeing shotgun wounds on teenage Japanese bodies. Production values are OK.
Samurai Cop
I am always skeptical when it comes to any film hailed as being “so bad, it’s good”. Such descriptions often seem to trickle only from some private joke or from someone’s warped idea of “bad” and “good”, elevating to Video Valhalla some films that have actually no redeeming value. But then there are films like Samurai Cop, films that are so perfectly bad, that they beg for a closer inspection, films that are so bad that they seem engineered for that purpose. So, while I wasn’t expecting much from this 1989 atrocity, considered by many to be the epitome of the enjoyable 1980s b-movie, I was actually overjoyed to see it and to bask in its hilarious ineptitude.
The paper-thin narrative here concerns the LAPD’s struggle in catching elusive gangster Fujiyama, head of the dreaded “Katana” gang. In comes the titular “samurai cop” (Matt Hannon), a transfer from San Diego learned in the ways of the Japanese (but still struggling to pronounce “Fujiyama” correctly). With (loads of) help from wise-cracking black partner Washington (Mark Frazer), the long-haired, vacuous mastodon will eventually manage to shoot, pummel and slash his way through to Fujiyama, and his most pissed-off henchman, Yamashita (Robert Z’Dar). In the process, he will distribute some of the greatest pick-up lines ever to get past a man’s lips and some of the lamest “black ass” jokes out there. Oh, and he also manages to deliver a truly heartfelt condemnation of drug-peddling during one long close-up that REALLY looks too close for comfort.
That goddamn string lion is really a fan favorite...
While it does feature a linear, coherent storyline, Samurai Cop is very much an unfinished film, at least where quality-control is concerned. Oftentimes, an actor will fumble his line, but the shot still makes it to the final cut. Then, there are those counter shots that feature… nothing at all, those impossible eyeline matches, the protagonist’s vanishing wig, the unsynched lip dubbing and those hilarious reaction shots by Frazer, who smiles idiotically at everything that happens around him. But surprisingly, everything works out perfectly, as if the director was somehow in a state of grace when shooting this film. It’s somewhat of a miracle, really, as if the stars had aligned for just that precise moment when the final cut was being assembled. This makes me want to recycle my argument for Dawn of the Dead and use it to describe this film. You see, in my review of the Romero classic, I insisted on the fact that such a collaboration between Romero, Argento and The Goblins was a unique occurrence that happily combined the talents of those many eclectic elements while they were all at the peak of their art. Well, the combination of Matt Hannon, Mark Frazer, Robert Z’Dar, composer Alen Dermarderossian, Amir Shervan and all of their fight coordinators is pretty unique too. Only it reaps quite a dissimilar product, one that deserves a lesser place in Americana, but a rightful place nonetheless.
One more enjoyable aspect of this film is the simple fact that it was produced with no other pretension than to create a fun action flick. With an absolutely crazy, synth-heavy soundtrack straight out of the NES era and a generous helping of fight scenes, the film doesn’t disappoint in terms of quantity. Sure, the gun fights are not realistic and the wrestling holds are an absolute joke, but in this case, this merely adds a humorous dimension to an already exciting happening. And in the end, what comes out of this endless string of hilarious turns (some intentional, some unintentional) is the unflinching desire to please. Add some generous helpings of clunky sex scenes and you've got one of the rare instances of something that can accuretaly be described as "pure entertainment". Long live 1980s cinema!
**** I was a bitter and tightly-wound skeptic before I walked into the theater, but the film was quick to make me a believer. Here is truly one of the few must-see genre films of the 1980s!
