Weighted Yet Unbalanced: Story of Woo Viet (1981) Review

Director: Ann Hui

Notable Cast: Chow Yun Fat, Cora Miao, Cherie Chung, Lo Lieh, Gam Biu, Homer Cheung, Lam Ying-Fat, Tong Kam-Tong

 

Story of Woo Viet is a powerfully told, albeit at times unbalanced feature by Hong Kong legend Ann Hui, featuring a subtle but searing performance by Chow Yun-fat, to whom the title Hong Kong legend most certainly applies to as well. This is the story of a Chinese-Vietnamese immigrant looking for a better life when entering Hong Kong, but of course, he and others around him are brought into a world of crime and suffering. Woo Viet will do whatever it takes for a better life. As he says, "Killing here is a lot easier than it was during the war!".

 

Ann Hui pulls together an impressive string of performances by Chow Yun-fat as the titular Woo Viet, Cora Miao as the soft-spoken and emotionally passionate Li Lap-Quan, and even Shaw Bros. badass Lo Lieh gets to brush up his dramatic chops here as Sarm, a co-worker who befriends Woo as they dive deeper into the life of contract killers. Cherie Cheung is fine here, but she doesn't have much to do as Shum Ching, Woo's love interest in the piece.

 

Tears of Blood: The Sadness (2022) Review

Director: Robert Jabbaz

Notable Cast: Berant Zhu, Regina Lei, Ying-Ru Chen, Tzu-Chiang Wang, Tsai Chang-Hsien, Lan Wei-Hua, Chi-Min Chou

 

If there’s one film released this year that ought to create a divide amongst its viewers, it is most certainly The Sadness. Although comparisons are being made online to a comic series Crossed regarding its content, The Sadness is one of those films whose themes and execution are bound to fester under the skin in one way or another. If it isn’t for the visuals one is about to experience, then it’s the nihilistic streak in its themes that simmers underneath its frantic and abrasive surface. Either way, audiences may have trouble digesting what’s in store. 

 

Conceptually, it’s as if director Robert Jabbaz took the idea of 28 Days Later, mixed it with The Crazies remake, and then proceeded to run it through Hong Kong Cat III lenses (a relatively notorious rating due to its use of graphic violence, sex, and absurdity for those new to the term) for two decades. The Sadness maintains this intriguing balance of classic “zombie” survival storytelling that just happens to feature some of the most brutal gore, violence, and sexual depravity on the screen in decades.

 

Gonna Take More Than Killing Me to Kill Me: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) Review

Director: Sam Raimi

Notable Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Xochitl Gomez, Benedict Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Jett Klyne, Julian Hilliard

 

Although I am not the biggest fan of the first Doctor Strange, a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film that continually seems to garner and convert fans year after year, even I was hyped for its sequel, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The combination of director Sam Raimi at the helm and the fact that it was reportedly a direct continuation of the events from WandaVision (a show that easily ranks as one of the most fascinating and best uses of the MCU formula to retcon characters that were horrifically misused or underused in previous films), made this sequel a must see for me. Not that I would have skipped an MCU movie in theaters, but the stars seemed to align with this one. The question remained, how much would Disney and Marvel try to water down the film to get it to mix with general audiences?

 

Fortunately, for this reviewer, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which will just be referred to as Doctor Strange 2 from this point on - although I am tempted to call it 2 Strange 2 Multiverse for the sake of being ‘that guy’, is one that hits its mark. It’s not necessarily the best film for MCU fans, but it might be one of the more entertaining ones in the franchise and it delivers in some surprising ways that allow it to overcome its faults. Although the film requires some stretching and formula establishment to get moving, the latter moments of the film Doctor Strange 2 have so much energy and oddities under its cloak that it does find its voice. 

 

Wild Ride to Hell: Dashcam (2022) Review

Director: Rob Savage

Notable Cast: Annie Hardy, Amar Chadha-Patel, Angela Enahoro

 

After taking the horror world by storm with his Zoom séance nightmare known as Host, director Rob Savage became an overnight sensation in the genre cinema world. If he could pull off that kind of effective horror filmmaking in 60+ minutes with minimal resources in the middle of a pandemic where all of the stars were quarantined, what could he do with more? It’s the question that often gets asked of stylistic and bold indie filmmakers and many of them flounder under the expectations of larger studio pressures or other external factors. The follow-up to a blank check guarantor is always exciting.

 

With his follow-up, Dashcam, Rob Savage partnered up with Blumhouse to dig back into the “found footage” end of the genre, and, quite frankly, it’s easy to see why he would. His technical prowess in delivering some shocking visuals and moments within the confines of the style is impressively bombastic with this film. If anything, Dashcam knows that it doesn’t want to deviate too far from the style that worked in Host, but it also wants to expand on it in some immense ways. The combination, while occasionally at odds with one another, provides one of the more fascinating horror experiences of the year. 

 

This Song Has Me Buggin': Macross Frontier: The False Songstress (2009) Review

Director: Shoji Kawamori

Notable Cast: Jun Fukuyama, Aya Endo, Megumi Nakajima, Yuichi Nakamura, Aya Hirano, Kikuko Inoue, Megumi Toyoguchi, Hiroshi Kamiya, Kenta Miyake

 

The entire release strategy for Macross and/or Robotech in the United States is a fascinating endeavor to unravel. Although that history is fairly well researched and written about in a variety of places by incredibly knowledgeable fans and cultural writers, it remains one of the cornerstones of understanding the relationship between Japan and the United States through the lens of anime. It’s complicated and the two industries often mistranslated the appeal of these kinds of shows. Yet, with anime now being one of the biggest industries in the world due to more avenues of access, the time is ripe to re-evaluate the relationship as the tides rise. 

 

Although I am hardly an expert, only recently starting my journey through the anime landscape, the release of the Macross sequel series and its film, under the banner Macross Frontier, piqued my interest. Although the series and films had been obscure for western audiences since its debut in 2008 (with the final film dropping in 2011), the two films were finally getting theatrical releases in the US in 2022. For Macross fans in the US, what a time to be alive, right?

 

Yet, as I walked out with my family from seeing the first of the two films, Macross Frontier: The False Songstress (great title, might I add - considering the themes of music within the Macross series), a thought crossed my mind. Perhaps the release of Macross Frontier was influenced by the fact that this film is a messy barrage of self-praising referential moments, a combative combination of traditional animation and computer-generated material, roughly 200 thinly drawn themes, and main characters that waver between the traditional Macross love triangle and cringe worthy teen horniness. Compared to the other Macross films, which already have their highs and lows, The False Songstress is a wildly uneven and problematic ride. 

 

No Bones About It: Jurassic World Dominion (2022) Review

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Notable Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie, Isabella Sermon, Campbell Scott, BD Wong, Omar Sy

 

One should always carry a suspended sense of disbelief when going into a Jurassic Park film (or in the case of the latest ones, Jurassic World.) Even the original, which remains a bonafide grade-A slab of cinematic brilliance in the realm of blockbusters, requires its audience to not question its many coincidences or shortcuts to set up its premise. Still, the latest entry into the series, the sixth one overall, is a film that requires its audience to fully lose consciousness to even attempt at following along with its bloated story. 

 

Jurassic World Dominion is a spectacle through and through, although certainly not in the way that the ending of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom promised. Crowds are apt to respond to director Colin Trevorrow’s occasional visual wonder, cheap heroic one-liners, and ham-fisted nods to the original run of Jurassic Park movies, but all of those are at the expense of any kind of narrative weight. If anything, Jurassic World Dominion proves to be the most perplexing film of the franchise in how poorly everything is constructed despite the fact that it should have been the easiest film to deliver on all levels. 

 

The Fist of Preboot: Fist of Legend (2019) Review

Director: Liu Chun

Notable Cast: Tiger Xu, Huang Weiting, Xu Shaohang, Wang Jiusheng, Wang Hongqian, Ye Xinyu

 

As of recently, the online, streaming exclusive releases in China have been plentiful. I briefly mentioned it in my piece on The Emperor’s Sword HERE, but properly conveying the number of titles being unleashed on various services can easily rival the breaking dam of titles in the US. Fortunately, a handful of streaming services in the US and other western countries have picked up a few of these titles for release, and, after seeing some overall positive reactions to Fist of Legend, I dove into Hi-Yah! to check out this kung fu flick. 

 

At a wickedly fast 70+ minutes, Fist of Legend is precisely what the doctor ordered. It’s not one of those films that genre fans will feel like they missed out on because they didn’t see it in theaters - thanks to its smaller scale and limited budget. However, it’s still a relatively solid film, entertaining enough, and features plenty of ass-kicking beatdowns to keep kung fu fans appeased.