Violence, Bloody Violence: "The World of Kanako"

Last year at Beyond Fest, the rapidly steam building genre festival at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, a film called The World of Kanako was screened.  At the time I had tried to watch it, I had drank just one too many beers and the rapid cutting of the opening sequences gave me just enough motion sickness feeling that I had to walk out and curse my stupidity for drinking that last beer.  So imagine my lack of surprise that the film still hasn't received US distribution.  I then turned to my usual alternative methods of finding the film.  Lo and behold, there is a Hong Kong DVD release with English Subtitles!  So let's get to it shall we?

Kanako is a story about a mentally unhinged, violent, ex-cop Akikazu Fujishima (veteran actor Koji Yakusho) who is asked by his estranged wife to find their daughter, Kanako, who has gone missing 5 days ago.  The story unfolds in a time jumping fashion where we slowly get closer and closer to the truth of Kanako's world; a world where innocence is lost and violence, secrets, and lies are the common core.

This film is, to put it simply, intense.  From the beginning with it's fast paced editing and it's chronological jumping we know that we're about to dive into a perversely dark world and the main question immediately becomes, who is the worst monster?  In that sense, the movie is incredibly mean spirited, with most of the main cast of characters being overly cruel and at times incredibly sadistic.  But there's something arresting about this cruel world and its inhabitants.

In an almost voyeuristic fashion the audience is pulled into the story and it's hard to look away, no matter how disturbing the scene may be.  In this way, the film is an almost candid look at the nature of violence in a society that tends to hide behind the veil of politeness.  The brashly violent Akikazu, in that way, is the perfect antidote for the otherwise passively scheming group of people he encounters.

The film features some very slick direction, camera work, and editing, but it is definitely not for the feint of heart.  It is unrelenting in it's violence, which is portrayed in almost every gamete, from physical to mental.  Characters are beaten savagely, murdered, raped, you name it, the film has pretty much got it.  In that way it's almost a testament to the violence and corruption that occurs in every level of society, from the police force, the Yakuza, to the school yard and behind the closed doors of one's home.  The film's original title is Kawaki which literally means thirst.  Given the style of the film, this is an apt title, as each character seems to go through the story driven by an unquenchable thirst, be it for answers, for love, or for retribution.  Worth a watch, but it might not land many repeat viewings for most.

"Let's Wage War": Beyond Outrage

When I was fresh out of High School and in my first year of college I used to go to this video rental in Old Town Eureka called Video Experience.  I was tuned into the place by the brother of my girlfriend (at the time) who was also introduced me to the insane world Takashi Miike.  I was hooked on this place.  I used to rent 7 movies a week from them and just eat up foreign films and gangster movies etc.  Then came that fateful day when they announced they had to close that location.  I was crushed, but we went to their going out of business stock sale and I found this little VHS tape of Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine pointing a gun at me on the shelf.  It was 2 dollars, I figured "What the hell."  Ever since I've been obsessed with Kitano's films, so imagine my delight one particularly sleepless night when I found Beyond Outrage as I scrolled through the netflix titles.

Picking up five years after the events of it's predecessor Outrage, the film chronicles the booming Sanno and Hanabishi crime families.  Opening with the discovery of a dead cop and a bar hostess in a sunken car, the police force determines that the Sanno have gotten too big for their britches.  They employ the skills of Special Inspector Kataoka, who has gotten close to the families under the guise of a corrupt cop.  Through suggestion and direct maniuplation, Kataoka uses Kitano's character Otomo and another disgraced yakuza, Kimura, to completely destroy the leadership of the Sanno family.

Kitano has had a tough time with critics following the release of his "Meta Trilogy" (Takeshis', Glory to the Filmmaker!, Achilles and the Tortoise) so when he returned to the yakuza film genre with Outrage it came as somewhat of a surprise as well as a delight to audience and critics alike.  While Outrage and Beyond Outrage don't quite have the meditative quality about them that a film like Sonatine or Hana-bi do, they still manage to pull in the audience and hold interest up to the final moments.  One of Kitano's best qualities when it comes to this genre is his ability to set up and expectation and then surprise the audience in it's delivery.  As a dramatic actor, he has a kind of new wave deadpan style, only showing emotion in the extremes which makes his violent explosiveness sudden and thrilling to watch.

The disappointing thing about this film is the incredibly straightforwardness of the plot.  It's very much an A + B = C sort of experience, which is not what I usually expect out of Kitano.  However, this is subjugated fairly well by the actors and cinematography.  Fumiyo Kohinata eyes everyone with the look of a Japanese Fox mask as Kataoka.  It's no surprise to the audience that he's manipulating the outcome at every step planting suggestions that the yakuza hotly act upon bringing their own doom upon them.  Even though we know that Otomo and Kimura are going to get these guys, Kitano manages to still do it at the moment when least expect it making the violence sudden and brutal.  I'll never be able to look at a baseball batting cage the same way again.

Not one of his best, but certainly not his worst either, Beyond Outrage is a solid yakuza film and the first direct sequel that Kitano has ever made to one of his films.  There are currently talks of a third film, which would make it his first direct trilogy of his career.  If you haven't seen Outrage watch it first.

The Serpent and the Spider

If you know me, you know that I'm an avid fan of asian cinema, particularly the cinema of Japan.  I go to great lengths to find films that are otherwise impossible to find in America, simply because I like the Director's work.  This is achieved through websites like Yes Asia and various other means, such as bootlegs and torrents.

One Director, whose work I come back to somewhat frequently, is Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to master film maker Akira Kurosawa).  Most of his films which have received release in America fall into the supernatural, horror, and thriller genres, but some of his lesser known films were genre pieces.  Like many director's cutting their teeth in the late 80s and early 90s, Kurosawa made his fair share of Direct to Video/TV Movie features.  Films like the Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself series, or Door 3 are examples of this.

When he moved to Horror/Thriller, with Cure, the story about a bizarre link in a series of killings, he was on the cusp of leaving "product films," but at the challenge of a producer friend of his he made two more, in the space of 1 and 1/2 weeks.  Not an easy feat, let me tell you.

Those films are The Serpents Path and Eyes of the Spider.

Both films are revenge stories and both films involve a character named Nijima (played by Sho Aikawa), and yet completely different in pace and tone.  The Serpents Path, for example, plays like a traditional revenge/detective procedural with a few interesting twists along the way.  Nijima is a math teacher who helps a low-level yakuza track down a group of people who were all involved in the rape and murder of said yakuza's 8 year old daughter.  We are drawn in because we do not understand until later why Nijima is helping this man.  He has an enigmatic quality about him.  Why would a man who teaches math at a cram school to students young and old (one of which is an 8 year old prodigy) risk his life and his career to help a low-level thug?  Is it out of empathy or does he have an ulterior motive?  Does he NEED to have a motive?  These questions kept me hooked, regardless of my small laptop screen and awful speakers.

On the other hand, Eyes of the Spider, is completely different.  It misleads the viewer into thinking it is going to be another standard revenge procedural when instead the revenge aspect of the story is resolved within the first 10 minutes of the film.

The core premise is the same, with a few important differences.  This time, Nijima, who is NOT a math teacher, but some kind of salaryman, is the father of the victim.  An average man, he goes to the extreme and finds his daughter's killer himself after 6 years of searching.  After satisfying his revenge, his life becomes devoid of meaning and he drifts through each day until a chance meeting with an old high school friend has him leave his salaryman life and enter that of a low-level yakuza gang.  The film has a much more philosophical tone and Nijima has to deal with issues like the validity of life and the effect of his actions on his own soul.  What is right and what is wrong when the whole world seems to be absolutely insane?  And what about consequences?

The world, as we know it, always finds a way to give consequences to our actions.  It is no different in films than it is in life.  Spider does an excellent job of showing the consequences to all the characters actions, whether they are physical or metaphysical in nature.

Despite these glaring differences, their are also structural similarities that needn't go unlooked.  Each film starts with the revenge plot, each film has a bloody climax, and each film has an open ending that begs certain questions from the viewer.

Unfortunately, these films still do not have domestic release, but if you're internet savvy, you can find a way to see them.  Definitely worth the watch.

Note: I am in no way, shape, or form, condoning piracy to the readers of this review.  As such, I will not be held responsible for the individual actions that any person who reads this review makes.

Smash His Face In!

Everyone seems to have a blog these days.  Everyone also seems to use them to talk about their lives, or films they've seen, or music they love, or their comments on the current status of political destruction of the nation.  That being said I suppose it's about time that I joined this community of wanna be journalista's and editorialist's.

I'm going to talk about a film that everyone is still talking about.

It seems that about a month or two ago, when I would look up what films to see I would sigh negatively and resort to my back-catalogue of DVD's I have yet to watch, most of which are foreign, and make remarks about how american cinema is dead.

All the while I start hearing this buzz from certain friends and co-workers in the independent film community about this amazing film with Ryan Gosling.  "You have to see it!" was a common phrase and the most unanimously praised aspect of the film had been the score.  So finally, I went to see it with my girlfriend and few friends, but not before I did a little research on it.

Looking it up on imdb, resulted in my astonishment at discovering the film was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, more recently known for his second English language feature Bronson, but known to me by his first feature, The Pusher.  If you know anything about Refn's previous body of work you know that he tackles concepts that are generally hard to handle and that he has an affinity for leaving his films open ended.  Thematically, his stories delve into the realms of man vs. man and man vs. self.

Back to Drive.  The film uses some of the greatest bloody lighting I've ever seen, creating expressions with shadows in a way almost forgotten from the days of Noir and, even further back, German Expressionism.

Since I don't want to spoil it for any of you who are still hiding under your rocks, there is a rather amazing slow motion scene in an elevator through a beautiful lighting pool that preludes an act of ultra violence which left the audience both mesmerized and astounded.

Fans of Refn's work know that he has a very realistic approach to scenes of violence.  Who can forget that scene in The Pusher where our anti-hero comes within an inch of losing his life, but not after a little torture.

I would be incredibly surprised not to see both Gosling and Brooks nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor in the upcoming Oscar Nominations next year.  Gosling threw himself into this role, as he has in all of his previous films, physically and mentally to become an intriguing character driven (pun not intended) by love and the desire to do the right thing (within a few moral gray areas).  Brooks, on the other hand, went way outside of his typical character type to play a cold and calculating man.  I still get chills thinking about a specific scene in the garage involving a straight razor.

There is one other film I saw all year that impressed me as much as Drive, and hopefully there will be a few more coming up as the final bit of Oscar season takes hold, but if you have the time and the cash to go catch this film in the theatre, then climb out from under your rock and do yourself a favor.