By Kendra Hibbert
One of the great things about living in Vancouver (the Canadian city, not the one in Washington state) is the Film Festival, which rolls into town this time of year and is just late enough and unglamorous enough that the city is virtually celebrity-free, and it's actually possible to get into screenings without waiting in stupidly long lineups to see obscure French films you don't really want to go see, but they're the only ones you can only hope to get into because all the really good ones were sold out three years ago.
But the best thing about the festival is not the sloppy seconds from Cannes, Sundance and Toronto: it's the huge selection of films from Asia that take over. As anyone who has ever lived here or even visited here for more than 15 minutes will tell you, Vancouver has a huge Asian population that makes for some great sushi/ Korean barbeques, a large selection of Bubble Tea shops and a population that can support a variety of Asian DVD stores. Being a film buff in a city where everyone in the know watches bootlegged movies from the Orient, I've been exposed to some pretty entertaining flicks that aren't getting too much press in the outside North American world. So this Underexposed is dedicated to Kick Ass Asian Films Everyone Should Watch with special emphasis on the ones that just shown here in the festival.
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A festival favorite for the last three years has been films by director Takashi Miike. Out of everyone in Asian cinema, Miike has the best chance of becoming the next John Woo. He turned heads in the international Festival circuit in 1999 with AUDITION and DEAD OR ALIVE and has in the past three years made an impression with any one of the 17 films he's put out since then (though not all have made it to festivals in North America). AUDITION is an unassuming horror film disguised innocently enough as a movie about a man who, after being a widower for 7 years, decides to hold a fake audition to find a suitable partner to replace his wife. What makes this film stand out from the rest of the horror genre is the fact that the majority of the first hour or so is drama. The film is funny, touching and at times moving so you really get to like these characters then -- Kaboom! Things get really screwed up when the women he chooses as his companion suddenly becomes obsessive and violent. The same technique is more or less used in DEAD OR ALIVE -- a Yakuza gang war film involving a cat-and-mouse game between gang member Ryuuichi (played by Riki Takeuchi -- the king of the Japanese straight-to-video market) and Detective Jojima (played by Sho Aikawa, who shows up in a bunch more Miike films). The film starts off with an amazingly violent action scene filled (in Miike style) with surreal moments -- like a slew of noodles exploding from the gut of a fat gang boss when he gets shot. Despite this flashy beginning, the plot slips into drama as we get deeper into Detective Jojima's world -- the problems he's having with his wife and his pregnant teenage daughter. Just when you're starting to feel for his family, they're killed in a car bomb and Miike slips into the surreal again as Jojima and Ryuuichi meet for a final showdown so hilarious and absurd they end up blowing up the entire world.
How strange then that there should be two more sequels - DEAD OR ALIVE II: BIRDS and DEAD OR ALIVE III: FINAL, both starring Takeuchi and Aikawa -- but as completely different characters in a completely different story. The bizarre moments continue through the series and feature (in the second movie) a scene in which one of the characters pulls a cinderblock from behind his back -- Bugs Bunny style -- in order to get himself out of a tough situation, as well the exaggerated amount of wire-fu style fighting in (presumably) the final chapter of the trilogy. The first DEAD OR ALIVE sequel is much more dramatic and much less violent as it follows the adventures of two boyhood friends who return to their hometown on an island in the South of Japan. As with most of Miike's work, it's dramatic, touching and hilarious, but strays away from the offensive material that turns most audiences off of his movies.
There's also offensive material like last year's ICHI THE KILLER, a movie about a serial killer who is nothing more than a boy helplessly compelled to dress up in a suit possessing hidden razor blades he uses to cut people in half. The film features rape, torture and a guy who cuts off his own tongue -- all the things Hollywood won't let you see. But as much as ICHI has got to be one of his more violent films, VISTOR Q is his most disturbing. It follows a dysfunctional family that includes a heroin-addicted mother, a daughter who has left home to become a prostitute and a father who is her frequent customer. The film features, (among other things) a scene of excessive lactation (and I mean *excessive* lactation) and a conclusion that has the father performing necrophilia on a woman, getting ... stuck and returning home to his wife to get unstuck, the corpse all the while defecating and spilling its bodily fluids -- this final scene of "unsticking" played out like a slapstick comedy that ends up bringing the family back together -- united by this unsettling circumstance.
Though he's most loved for his violence and disturbing plotlines, Miike showed this year that he can pull off a straight comedy with SHANGRI-LA. Its considerably toned-down theme, based on a best-selling Japanese book, tells the story of a group of squatters who execute an elaborate scheme to strike it rich. This is a much more inoffensive film than the others -- no violence and besides the odd fart joke there's nary a scatological specimen in sight. SHANGRI-LA shows a different side to Miike -- one maybe more near the Juzo Itami (TAMPOPO, A TAXING WOMAN) school of filmmaking. It still has Miike's style of humor though, and a few of his standard surreal scenes -- moments that separate his films from the rest of the films out there -- moments that could make him the next most influential director of the new generation of filmmakers -- an idea I'm not quite sure I'm enthusiastic about. God forbid Hollywood should ever decide to emulate Miike in the same way that Tarantino started the John Woo fad years ago. As much as I can tolerate this kind of filmmaking if someone like Miike is doing it, I have no desire to see a fecal fad invade mainstream films.
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The underground hubbub of this year's Festival wasn't Miike's films however, but Korean films which are supposedly the next, coolest Asian invasion to strike. The one Korean film I saw this year was VOLCANO HIGH - a highly stylized, heavy on the digital effects film with a lot of fun anime-like energy balls flying around. The plot revolves around a 108-year-old school where all the students have super powers and are at war with the teachers headed by the principal, Cold-Blooded Venom -- keeper of the Secret Manuscript, which is prophesized to be the only thing with the ability to end the chaos started by the Great Teacher's War. The plot doesn't matter, folks. This is a purely entertaining special-effects action masterpiece. The only flaw to this film is that it's packed so solidly with action it has no place to go -- the fights are all so spectacular it's hard to top any one of them. But it's so fun to look at that it doesn't really matter. Maybe when this look gets over-imitated people will start to complain about the plot, but for now since this is the first film of its species we can all just sit back and enjoy the show.
Speaking of mindless digital-effect-related entertainment -- hands down the most enjoyable film to come out of Asian cinema in the last few years has got to be SHAOLIN SOCCER, directed by Stephen Chow. The English-dubbed, edited for an American audience version is reportedly coming to theatres in April, thanks to Miramax. This completely hilarious kung-fu movie tells the story of a group of disillusioned Shaolin monks living in the big city whose powers are reawakened and brought together when Sing (Chow himself) convinces them to form a soccer team. A side-splitting combination of kung-fu and special effects, I have friends who say this movie actually changed their life -- that's how good it is. You can wait for the English-dubbed version in the spring (though I've heard horrible things about the re-editing/dubbing, but that just may be bitter Internet fans venting their bitter Internet views) or you can find your local Asian DVD place and get the subtitled version -- the less than perfect translation provides its own source of amusement. Stephen Chow has been getting a lot of attention for this film starting from its release last August when it beat out RUSH HOUR 2 in the Hong Kong box office. Is Chow the next Jackie Chan? I'm not one to stroll into blasphemous territory, so I won't answer that question. I will however say that Chow's one hilarious dude with a big career ahead of him.
Next column: More entertaining films no one else is paying attention to. I'd tell you what they are, but then you won't read the column (plus I don't know what they are yet). Stay tuned.
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