Revenge of the Samurai

It's a splendid week for fans of classic Samurai films to have access to money and a DVD player, though some may prefer a dark and haunting Korean thriller.

This Week's Region 1 DVD Releases

REBEL SAMURAI: SIXTIES SWORDPLAY CLASSICS
Japan. 420 minutes.
Release Company: Criterion Collection.

Four-disc collection. Titles also available individually. Detailed information about the films is available at the Home Vision web site. Here's a list of the features:

KILL! (1968):
# New, restored high-definition digital transfer
# Original theatrical trailer
# New essay by film and cultural critic Howard Hampton
# New and improved English subtitle translation

SAMURAI REBELLION (1967):
# New, restored high-definition digital transfer
# Excerpts from a 1993 interview with director Masaki Kobayashi
# Original theatrical trailer
# New essay by Japanese-film historian Donald Richie
# New and improved English subtitle translation

SAMURAI SPY (1965):
# New, restored high-definition digital transfer
# Exclusive interview with director Masahiro Shinoda
# New essay by film scholar Alain Silver
# New and improved English subtitle translation

SWORD OF THE BEAST (1965):
# New, restored high-definition digital transfer
# New essay by Japanese-film and pop-culture authority Patrick Macias
# New and improved English subtitle translation

SPIDER FOREST
South Korea. 2004. 120 minutes.
Directed by Song Il-gon.
Release Company: Tartan Extreme Asia.

"An enigmatic mystery that follows a tormented car accident survivor haunted by visions of murder, this dreamlike thriller is a challenging audience puzzle."--TLA Video web site.

Features:
# Deleted Scenes,
# Behind The Scenes
# Cast Interviews
# Photo Gallery
# Original Theatrical Trailer

Pressed for a Festival

Happy to say I'll be covering AFI FEST 2005 for Twitch. Several of my advance reviews have already been posted, with more to come.

Earlier in the month I reviewed the fine Japanese police drama THE SUSPECT, the latest entry in the Bayside Shakedown series.

The other Asian film I've seen so far is the Korean RED SHOES, which I am still trying to process (!). The festival proper gets underway in Los Angeles next week.

Support Asian American Films

Busy busy on a very rainy day in Los Angeles: two screenings, more to come this week, and plenty of work that might actually pay me a little. But there's always time to recommend Alice Wu's SAVING FACE and the latest edition of the very few films made by the very legendary Bruce Lee.

This Week's Region 1 DVD Releases

BRUCE LEE ULTIMATE COLLECTION
Hong Kong/US. 501 minutes.
Release Company: Fox Home Entertainment

Five-disc collection, said to be remastered and include THE BIG BOSS, FIST OF FURY, WAY OF THE DRAGON, GAME OF DEATH, and GAME OF DEATH II. Also said to include new 5.1 DTS and 5.1 Dolby Surround English audio tracks, interviews with celebrities, rare outtakes, and original trailers.

Haven't had time to research advance reviews, so not sure if this is a worthwhile investment. List price is $49.98.

SAVING FACE (2004)
US. 97 minutes.
Directed by Alice Wu
Release Company: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

A female surgeon in New York must deal with her disgraced pregnant mother moving in with her while trying to keep secret her gorgeous dancer girlfriend. With Michelle Krusiec and Joan Chen.

The DVD is said to include deleted scenes with optional commentary, audio commentary by the director, a featurette, and "Sundance Diary." Though I missed this during its brief theatrical run late this spring, this sounds like a recommended rental. List price is $26.46.

Arthouse vs. Multiplex: FLIGHTPLAN and Trailer Exhaustion

If your cinema taste is sufficiently broad to encompass a regular diet of big studio offerings, it’s impossible to avoid feeling overexposed to certain movies far in advance of their release.

Big studio marketers prefer “audience awareness” to “overexposed,” but the plain fact is that seeing the exact same trailer more than three or four times gradually dims any initial enthusiasm. Given the growing propensity by the marketers to reveal the majority of a film’s plot twists in the trailer, it’s no wonder that, by the time the film is finally released, it stands a good chance of tasting like pizza that’s been reheated one time too many.

The initial U.S. trailer for FLIGHTPLAN sucked me right into its premise: a woman’s daughter disappears during a transatlantic flight. The woman’s desperate entreaties result in the plane being thrown into an uproar, complicated by the revelation that no one else remembers seeing the child. Finally the pilot has some bad news: the woman’s daughter is dead. But the woman remains convinced that her daughter is alive, and since she helped design the plane, you can darn well believe she’ll do something about it. The trailer ends with the woman smashing a fire extinguisher into the camera POV. With Jodie Foster as the woman, Sean Bean as the pilot, and Peter Sarsgaard as an air marshall, I was sold.

That was May 2005. More than four months later, having been subjected to the trailer more times than I cared to tabulate, I had built up unreasonable expectations for what I hoped would be a thriller with surprising twists and turns. Could this story have a weird supernatural edge? Was it part of a terrorist plot? Was Jodie a terrorist?

Alas, the surprises had already been disclosed in the trailer, and the third act resolution sharply descends into such routine, predictable nonsense (complete with boorish action heroine cliches, ridiculous plotting, and vigilante-style self-righteous justification for the unnecessary death of the villain) that it made me reassess my assumptions about Jodie Foster.

Because she’s made so few films lately, and is paid such a rich salary, I was under the impression that she was very selective about the characters she chooses to play. Yet this is the third film in eight years (the others being CONTACT and PANIC ROOM) in which she’s portayed a headstrong, wildly emotional woman who is doubted by others but proves by her fierce mettle that she was absolutely correct in all her actions. Oh, if only they had listened to her! Why won’t people believe poor Jodie?

Still, it would be churlish not to acknowledge the consummate skills of Ms. Foster, Mr. Sarsgaard, and Mr. Bean. Ms. Foster is compelling as an ordinary woman beset by grief, her emotions sawed to the bone, to the point where any spark sets her off. Mr. Sarsgaard is quietly firm and convincing as an air marshall – a steelier version of his role in SHATTERED GLASS – and Mr. Bean lends stature as an empathetic authority figure.

Up until the sheer stupidity of the plot derailed my interest, I enjoyed Robert Schwentke’s taut direction and breathless pacing. Schwentke, a native of Germany, made the dark, brooding serial killer thriller TATTOO a few years ago, as well as THE FAMILY JEWELS, apparently a comedy about testicular cancer. His colloborator here was the invaluable cinematographer Florian Ballhaus (son of Michael); the colors favor dark blues during the nighttime flight, but the disruptive searches open up a wider palette while remaining shadowy and mysterious.

More than incidentally, many critics pointed out the similarities to Alfred Hitchcock’s THE LADY VANISHES. I must confess to an embarrassing bout of myopia. Even as I saw the FLIGHTPLAN trailer over and over again, Hitchcock’s train disappearance picture never flashed into my memory. Sadly, I’ve seen the Hitchcock piece only once or twice, and my mind, overflowing with FLIGHTPLAN trailer imagery, must have pushed it back into a remote cabinet. That’s the real price you pay for trailer exhaustion.

Unborn, Unleashed Unrated

Here's a link to a sale at Amazon.com on Asian horror titles. Many interesting Region 1 titles. If you haven't yet taken the plunge into the wondrous world of region-free DVDs (and subsequently kissed your life savings goodbye), you might wish to stock up.

This Week's Region 1 DVD Releases

UNBORN BUT FORGOTTEN (2002)
AKA: Hayanbang
South Korea. 95 minutes
Directed by Lim Chang-jae
Release Company: Tartan Asia Extreme

"A website seemingly kills every woman who views it within 15 days. A female reporter begins an investigation that leads to the discovery of the site known only as The White Room. Uncovering the secret has its price, leaving her only 15 days to solve the mystery behind the cryptic portal and break the curse before its too late."--TLA Video.

Film reviews (ranging from mediocre to awful): Horror.com; The Horror Review; Upcoming Horror Movies; Slashpool.com; City on Fire.

Anamorphic. "On the Set" featurette, interviews, photo gallery, trailer. Available at Amazon for the incredibly low price of $5.99 -- that's 76% off the retail price.

UNLEASHED (2005)
AKA: Danny the Dog
France/UK/US. 102 minutes
Directed by Louis Leterrier
Release Company: Universal

Reviews were fairly well split down the middle, both in the mainstream press and among Asian film fans, though, as usual with genre pieces, some critics became apoplectic when writing about it, as though an action picture was not worth their time or attention.

For me, the film was briskly entertaining, with an appealing performance by Jet Li, and brutally choreographed fight scenes. The color palette was pleasantly unusual for an action flick -- favoring autumnal tones -- and while I thought the pacing was just a step off, overall it was quite satisfying.

Morgan Freeman provided able support in the stereotypical role of "the father figure" (here a blind piano tuner), and Kerry Condon was a delightful surprise as the tuner's stepdaughter. Condon has lately turned up on the HBO series ROME in a more mature role.

Differences in the unrated edition are detailed by DVD Talk. Reviewer Ian Jane also comments on the extra features. Worth a rental if you missed it during its run in cinemas.