Perhaps a beautiful refutation of my claims about changes in action cinema, Johnnie To’s exhilirating Exiled may be my favorite movie of his so far.
To is all about the composition (and chaotic interaction) of figures in a rigorously-defined space. The opening sequence of about 15 minutes has maybe 15 lines of dialogue and is crystal clear in its exposition of the conflict; a gun battle is painstakingly set up, carried through, then (in a way) deconstructed (or maybe reconstructed). The plot follows a group of old friends (all of To’s cast of now-familiar faces) now on opposing sides, one pair set to kill an errant gunman for the evil Boss Fay, another pair there to protect said gunman. Without revealing too much, the movie lovingly displays its adherence to the codes of tough-guy bonding…
… yet it also just as lovingly and playfully pulls the rug out from under us again, and again. I was always taken with To’s ability to choreograph mayhem. The opening scene is tense and terse and fun; subsequently, two quick-to-follow sequences confirmed my appreciation for his aesthetics (including one smoky dark yellow-lit long-shot which captures a gunbattle slowly making its way down a set of stairs on the edge of a tenement). But by about 1/3 of the film’s length I thought I’d gotten its number, thought it was going to do X and Y. Instead, the film zigged off-course from my expectations, with wit and panache. I enjoyed THE HELL out of this movie.
Chris and Arnab–I know you both appreciate To’s films, and I know this is planned for cinematic release in a couple weeks. I’d dig seeing it on a big screen … but I also have the dvd. If either or both of you are interested, I’m more than willing to send it along. (I grabbed a few dvds from ebay, including this, To’s first Election, Chan-Wook Park’s I’m a Cyborg…, a Korean crime film called Uahan Seqye (or English title “The Show Must Go On” starring the inimitable Kang-ho Song, and another HK action film called Divergence.) To you guys–to anyone of the bloggites here–I’m willing to mail along these flicks for a borrow, as I finish watching.
mail? you drive down here and drop ’em off. and bring me a couple of bunches of italian parsley as well.
I’d love to see Election (why is it not on Netflix?), Exiled and I’m a Cyborg. Please put me on the list to borrow them after Arnab. I have nothing to offer in return, except thanks. Though I’ll record and send you season 5 of The Wire, if that were useful. I’ll watch them fast; I have nothing to do but reinstall software for the next few months. Fucking viruses.
All righty then, I’ll get through the other two Chris mentioned by next week. Arnie, we’ll either have you up here or we’ll come there, then you can send ’em on to Chris once you’ve finished.
Others are welcome to get on the list, too, if interested.
I do know Exiled is coming to theaters; I think the Election movies are being released straight to dvd. Beats me when Park’s next film will get shown. I rely on ebay for so many of my global cinema needs.
Sorry about the viruses. Could be worse, eh? I slept in John’s bed once and got crabs.
I’m kidding, of course. I never slept in John’s bed.
as i recall, mike slept in closets and bath-tubs through most of grad school–though this may have been enforced by mauer’s legendary hungarian b.o.
mike, what are you guys doing saturday? we’re planning on coming up to the cities. jeff? perhaps we could all meet at the midtown market for brunch and line dancing?
We are, alas, babysitting–for a kid down the street. You are welcome to swing by here? You have my number, eh? Or my email at least.
How’s this for abusing the blog’s objectives!
watched this last night. i liked it a lot but not as much as ptu, which remains my favourite. i too was wrong-footed a number of times when i thought i’d figured out what was going to happen, who was going to die–and this without feeling jerked around.
the female characters, while not given much time, are far more interesting than those in to’s other films–something i’d complained about in the other johnnie to thread started by mike and mysteriously titled “johnny to” (should i merge them?). the women in the other films are either comic or foils to male bonding. there’s some of the latter here as well, but with a critical edge: wo’s wife is shut out of the male bonding, given no voice in wo’s fate, but at the end cuts through all the macho crap. less sure what to make of the prostitute who wanders around the edges of all the gunplay.
chris, this will make its way to you soon along with the rest of mike’s stash.
Great — I need my Johnnie To fix. If you need my address, email me.
I watched this film; obviously I’m in the minority on this one, but I can say with all abandon that it seemed less concerned with mimesis than various aesthetic objectives (when characters get shot, a puff of candy-apple red spray perfumes the air). Mostly it felt like a Marx Brothers movie directed by Sergio Leone and underscored with a sub-standard, faux Ennio Morricone knockoff recorded on a Casio keyboard (there’s something of a compliment hidden in that statement). Those first fifteen minutes or so struck me as over-determined at best, though I did enjoy the interior decorating to follow. Sure, its is “all about the composition (and chaotic interaction) of figures in a rigorously-defined space,” but the majority of these spaces are inhabited by no one else but the film’s five or six central characters. Paul Greengrass’ work in The Bourne Ultimatum puts this film to shame. I did like the comic throwaway moments but the film’s notion of brotherhood and loyalty and blah-di-blah-blah felt hugely derivative. I guess I need to call my doctor for my annual testosterone injection. Me, I prefer Amy Adams.
if you watched more action films you’d know not to take the brotherhood and loyalty and blah-di-blah-blah too seriously.
I took it as parody, but to be honest I truly wasn’t sure.
it’s not parody in that film–more like a genre convention. to my mind, it is like asking why people cry in melodramas.
HK genre films or all action films ever?
all films since the beginning of time. i mean, i don’t understand the question exactly.
Stop beating around the bush, Arnab. Is it safe?
Indeed, “tell me what the ‘it’ refers to.”
let’s face it: sex sells.
Throwdown was a film I’d deferred on for a long while. The trailers made it seem like a judo fight film, the long-retired and emotionally-guarded ex-prizewinner slowly lured back in. I love To films, but I was in no rush to see what looked like one of his more conventional outings. But this film skews off and skitters around in all kinds of directions. For starters, it’s not really an action film, ‘though there are a few trademark finely-choreographed To free-for-alls. It’s gorgeously shot, with an attention to light and dark, to the vivid hues of nightclub neon, that makes it never less than lovely. The plot is: three sort-of losers (aforementioned ex-fighter now drunken bar manager, bad-girl wannabe-singer, and cocky wannabe-prizefighter) have adventures. There’s an array of people against whom–and later with whom–these three collide, including one fantastically funny video-game loving, gambling-addicted gangster. The tone jumps about, but it’s often very funny, then moving, then hopped-up melodramatic, then more nuanced and subtle. Before the credits roll, there’s a dedication to Akira Kurosawa, and… yeah, I can see why. This was quite enjoyable, and may even be of interest to those not To-obsessed….
Vengeance is reviewed in the New York Times today, and available for instant watching on Netflix now. I’m halfway through. Very good indeed.
I strongly recommend To’s “Vengeance”. Costello, is an elderly French man (played by ex pop idol Johnny Hallyday) whose daughter is living in Macau. The daughter’s family is killed in a Triad hit. Costello, who has some dark past but now runs a restaurant in Paris, swears vengeance. He hires a trio of hitmen to track down the killers. The movie appears to center on the trio, who manage to be ruthless while simultaneously deeply sympathetic to Costello. The leader is played by a wonderful Anthony Wong. But while Hallyday drifts in an out of the movie, he remains its emotional center, and becomes its explicit focus in the last 20 minutes. At some point he loses his memory because of an old bullet wound, and there are some clever and touching mechanisms devoted to helping him identify who are his friends and who his enemies. But the real payoff is the utterly gorgeous rendering of the action sequences: a shootout in an old dump, with waster paper flying everywhere; another at night in a park, with little but muzzle flashes to direct the eye of the viewer. Just a real treat.