-
THE FAREWELL: Awkwafina Shines in Lulu Wang’s Sundance Hit
Awkwafina leads an impressive ensemble in a film that’s as hilarious as it is heartfelt
Based on “an actual lie” from writer-director Lulu Wang’s family history, The Farewell follows struggling New York writer Billi as she travels to China with her family for her cousin’s upcoming wedding. Unknown to everyone but her Nai-Nai (Grandmother), the wedding is an elaborate ruse to bring the family together in the wake of Nai-Nai’s terminal cancer diagnosis. Much to Billi’s anger, her family has chosen to “carry the emotional burden” for Nai-Nai by not telling her about her condition. As Billi struggles between telling her Nai-Nai the truth or accepting her role in her family’s scheme, Billi reckons with her own familial and cultural identity. Wang’s film is a succinct and heartfelt examination of one family’s emotional crossroads, featuring a rich ensemble anchored by a surprisingly dynamic and layered performance by rapper-actress Awkwafina.
Billi’s parents initially choose to keep the family’s plan a secret from both Billi and Nai-Nai, fearing Billi’s more Western attitudes of wearing her emotions on her sleeve may give the scheme away. In that same vein, The Farewell resists indulging in scenes of dramatic family outbursts. Instead, Wang navigates the trepidatious emotional territory of her film with a calming sense of introspection, reveling in quieter moments of familial awkwardness or absurdity.
As Billi’s disparate family congregates in Changchun from as far off as America, China, and Japan, it’s clear that each member of the family has their own idea of how best to live their lives. Dinner table tensions flare as Billi’s parents trade light-spirited jabs with siblings about the merits of education abroad; a visit to a Grandfather’s grave becomes chaotic when the family bickers about proper rituals, as well as the ethics of giving a dead man cigarettes for the afterlife. As a writer and director, Wang has an impressive knack for comedic timing and emotional specificity, allowing drama to naturally arise and develop without giving way to histrionics.
In more aside scenes, Billi gauges her relatives for their take on keeping Nai-Nai’s cancer a secret. Is Billi alone in wanting to tell the truth, or is the family keeping less of a unified front than they seem? In these scenes, The Farewell’s ensemble truly shines, one comprised of veteran character actors from both Eastern and Western film and TV. Tzi Ma and Diana Lin are the notable standouts as Billi’s parents, who constantly reckon with their roles as both parent and child as well as straddling cultural roles as Chinese and American citizens. Throughout the film Ma and Lin struggle to justify their actions towards Nai-Nai and in how they carry on their familial identity abroad, which exposes an emotional core that both parents have long fought to keep suppressed. Lin in particular has a humbling performance as Billi’s mother, frustrated by and potentially envious of her daughter’s empathetic openness — leading to a classic confrontation of generational and cultural ideals between mother and daughter.
It’s important to note Wang’s maturity in refusing to pass judgment on any of her characters’ words or deeds throughout the film. Instead, Wang imbues each of the family members with the same tension they initially suspected of Billi — all of them feel like they could potentially give up the secret to Nai-Nai. By maintaining a sharp focus on how each character reckons with the same conflict, Wang justifies and deeply humanizes each of her characters, imbuing The Farewell with a vibrant sense of empathetic universality.
Uniting the ensemble are Shuzhen Zhao as Nai-Nai and especially Awkwafina in a true breakout performance as Billi. Wang gives Awkwafina plenty of room to underplay a dramatic moment, while also showcasing the scene-stealing brashness of Awkwafina’s previous roles. As much as Billi confronts her family’s hypocrisy with a much-needed bluntness, she also readily defers to her family’s guidance when Nai-Nai’s well-being comes into question. Awkwafina clues the audience into Billi’s percolating fury and grief, culminating in a beautiful climactic scene when Billi’s emotions are finally allowed to surface, if only for a brief moment. As Nai-Nai, Zhao crafts her matriarch into a beacon of selflessness and love: scenes where she fusses over her children and grandchildren’s health, or haggles with a venue coordinator to get better dishes for the wedding, bely a long life of struggle and pragmatic decision-making in the name of those she loves. There is also a surprising amount of dramatic ambiguity to Zhao, heightening the tension of Wang’s film as the audience tries to determine just how successful her family’s ruse may be.
The questioning of Billi’s cultural identity remains one of The Farewell’s strongest elements, a thematic underpinning that feels as important for Wang to explore as a director as much as Billi does as a protagonist. As Billi wanders the perpetually under-construction streets of Changchun with her family, Awkwafina and Wang turn Billi’s deep-rooted attachment to Nai-Nai into an opportunity to reflect on her attachment to a China that has long since moved on without her. As such, when Billi’s family threatens to do the same to the matriarch who raised them, Billi faces letting go of the one person holding her identity together. But, as The Farewell explores, perhaps one’s identity isn’t rooted in a singular place, person, action, or desire — as Billi’s uncle notes in the film, such thinking is selfish and backward. Instead, The Farewell finds solace in the idea that we’re part of a familial whole that exists long after the people or places that define us are gone.
Billi and the film grow to find comfort in that growing sense of surrender. As Nai-Nai’s elaborate plans for the climactic wedding find their way to fruition, the family realizes that they can’t tell or remember who knows about the lie and who doesn’t. There’s only the joy created by such an event, a joy carefully cultivated by Nai-Nai over her lifetime, one that Billi and the audience carry with them out of the theater as Wang’s film bids its titular goodbyes.
-
Catching Up with the Classics: BEYOND THE HILLS (2012)
Exploring Cristian Mungiu’s bewitching battle between faith and love
Film 54 of 115: BEYOND THE HILLS (2012)
While this ongoing project is called “Catching Up with the Classics,” 2012’s Beyond the Hills is the newest film included in my roster. While I’m drawing heavily from blindspots that I feel are established in a classic film canon, it’s foolhardy for me to believe that cinema’s best years are already behind us. Beyond the Hills has been heralded as an important entry in the current Romanian New Wave, and as a renewed fan of director Cristian Mungiu’s previous 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, I felt it deserved a spot among the 115 films included on my journey.Beyond the Hills follows Alina and Voichița, two women who grew up together (and perhaps more) in a Romanian orphanage, only to take wildly diverging paths as they reached adulthood. Alina pursued better jobs in Germany; Voichița, abandoned by her best friend, sought refuge in a new, isolated convent on the edge of their provincial village. Years later, Alina returns to rescue Voichița with a promised job on a German cruise ship. However, Alina quickly realizes Voichița’s completely devoted herself to convent life, and to the demanding Priest who’s seemingly cast a spell over the nuns in his charge. An emotional and spiritual war of attrition follows between the secular and orthodox forces in Voichița’s life — one that proves to have devastating consequences for all involved.
Much like how I went into Mungiu’s previous feature, I had only the basic knowledge of Beyond the Hills’ premise: a woman attempts to liberate her childhood ex-lover from a Romanian convent. Like 4 Months… and its day-long glimpse into the lives of two women in the midst of the chaotic Ceaușescu regime, Beyond the Hills’ story expands far beyond this logline. Here, Mungiu extends his themes to Romania’s present, where little appears to have changed. Surrounded by crumbling infrastructure, the choices presented to the women of Beyond the Hills are few and far between. They can flee the country in search of jobs, usually service-based, in the rest of the Eurozone. As an exasperated doctor dramatizes, they can remain mired in a society ill-equipped to handle the problems facing it. Lastly, as with the women of the convent, they can flee society in general. This choice is appealing to most — basic human needs are met, with an added spiritual fulfillment — but life in the convent is marked by a strict obedience of Orthodox biblical teaching and the patriarchy that administers it.
Mungiu allows these complex issues to arise through his characters’ organic interactions with the world around them. Periodic excursions to the nearby town give fleeting glimpses into a world of barely-staffed government buildings and decaying orphanages. Church services allow parishioners to delve into personal stories of cancer cured through faith alone, struggles to find work, and other climactic events that have otherwise become part of daily life. The nuns find themselves pulled towards the outside world as well — as one nun debates whether or not to return to her abusive husband. As much as the priest wants to ensure the convent’s isolation from society’s corrupting influences, his efforts prove increasingly dubious. Alina’s arrival brings this brewing conflict to the fore, as an outsider who immediately questions the rigorous norms of the church.
Mungiu plants the seeds of this conflict throughout the film’s first half in the look and design of Beyond the Hills. Mungiu’s camera is never still; each sequence’s roaming, endless shots keep the characters locked in focus, preventing every attempt to escape the frame. Meticulously-detailed sets also disappear from view as quickly as they arrive; fellow victims of the frenzied situational whirlwinds these women become trapped in day after day. As such, Beyond the Hills creates an endlessly-intertwined link between the inner and outer lives of its characters — one where, despite their best efforts, chaos becomes a common denominator.
What kept me anchored throughout Beyond the Hills were Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur’s performances as Voichița and Alina. In keeping with director Mungiu’s organic, reserved approach, much of Voichița and Alina’s relationship is conveyed through body language as much as it is through direct conflict. From the film’s opening on, Alina’s drive for closeness, and Voichița’s opposing piety is frustratingly palpable — from deliberate averted gazes to avoiding someone’s touch like an oncoming bullet. As the film goes on, this internal tension pivots in unexpected directions, turning Voichița’s deliberate lack of connection into a litmus test for how long one can allow another person to endure suffering. Beyond the Hills is one of those rare films where the protagonist feels as removed from the film’s central conflict as they are wholly part of it — which made for an unusually engaging watch.
I had no idea that the film was based on real events, which were documented in two non-fiction novels by former BBC reporter Tatiana Niculescu Bran. What’s more, that Niculescu Bran’s second novel seemed obligatory in addressing the further complexities of the real-life situation rather than oversimplify the incidents in a demonization of Romanian Orthodox faith. This maturity extends into Mungiu’s film; Voichița’s detachment feeds into a refreshing refusal to wholly persecute the actions of its characters. Yes, Valeriu Andriuţă’s priest remains an imposing, hypocritically devout figure throughout the film, and Dana Tapalaga’s Mother Superior is overly willing to do whatever it takes to stay in his and the Lord’s favor (as are the rest of the nuns). But Mungiu’s depiction of their devotion, while posited as the source of the film’s later atrocities, comes from an equally earnest and sincere place. There is as much joy — however fleeting — between Alina, Voichița, and the convent as there is terror. While antagonistic actions occur, of which they are condemned, Mungiu carefully chooses not to depict any of his characters as villains.
Rather, the orthodox and secular worlds of Beyond the Hills exist in a tragically symbiotic relationship with each other. A world without faith seems doomed to vice and ruin; a world with too much faith leads to ignorant, fatal consequences. A fear of knowledge pervades the film — not in broadening one’s horizons, but in acknowledging the limits of one’s own understanding. Early on, the priest acknowledges the holy sites he wishes he could visit, but refuses to step foot in the amorphous “West,” which has lost the true path. It’s this same admonishment of potential corruption that in turn corrupts himself and those who follow him — which Alina wholly understands and rebels against. It’s in the acknowledgment of this chaotic ouroboros that Voichița realizes how vital her escape from this life really is and finally takes action. It’s only fitting that the moment comes when it may be too late for them all.
Much like his previous feature, Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills is a disturbing yet riveting look at how society shapes our beliefs and actions, anchored by two equally powerful performances by its lead actresses.
-
THE LION KING Triumphantly Roars Over Other Disney Re-Dos
A visually dazzling adaptation that may win over most, but not every fan of Disney’s original animated classic
Full confession: I was among the many skeptics when Disney announced that they would be tackling The Lion King as their next “live-action” project. While their past adaptations have allowed me to revisit old favorites, their overall execution has left much to be desired. Furthermore, these adaptations at least had the advantage of working with a wholly human cast of iconic characters. With the original film as a treasured memory — it was the first I remember seeing in a theater as a kid — I went into Jon Favreau’s film with uneasy anticipation.
Beginning with a shot-for-shot remake of its iconic beginning, The Lion King immediately dazzles with a fusion of CGI animals against equally incredibly realistic backgrounds. It’s a visually stunning film on all fronts, bringing the colorful beauty of the original film to life without sacrificing a crucial sense of realism. Simba, Mufasa, Scar, et al. manage to feel like tactile, living creatures with more than a few animalistic idiosyncrasies.
The Lion King soars when it most deeply reckons with translating moments meant for animation into reality — from how certain scenes play out to the film’s musical numbers. Fans of the original will most likely be delighted with how some of these latter scenes are performed with a certain degree of practicality. The Lion King’s most iconic moments especially don’t disappoint, and utilize the IMAX format for all its worth. At points I thought the film was almost wholly shot for IMAX, until clever moments of changing aspect ratios — notably a stampede sequence — further immersed my audience in the action.
That said, there are still moments where The Lion King struggles with its transition into the “real world.” One of the biggest questions I had when it came to adapting the original film was how Favreau would approach animals that could walk and talk. For the most part, these animals look and feel near-photorealistic at their best. Whenever they talk, however…that uncanny valley took more than a few moments to get across, feeling more like something out of Clutch Cargo than prime 2019 CGI. As the film progresses, the effect slowly dulls, but one can’t help but feel that this bit of magic was somehow lost in translation.
As with the best of adaptations, Jon Favreau’s direction shines most when he’s given the chance to be less than beholden to his source material. Side characters are given more of a chance to shine, and there is a standout moment, completely dialogue-free, that riffs on and truly honors the spirit of the original Lion King. It’s clear even in his diversion from the base story that Jon Favreau and company truly want to do justice to what they have, and that dedication is on full display throughout.
Favreau has also assembled a truly stacked cast for his film, including the return of James Earl Jones as Mufasa. Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen are undoubtedly the standouts as Timon and Pumbaa, melding the duo’s personalities in line with their own. Their raucous improv moments definitely caused the most cackles between both the children and adults in the audience. Donald Glover and John Oliver fit pretty well, too — Glover slides into the role of Simba with the carefree ease that marks his best stand-up and musical performances, and Oliver’s Last Week Tonight persona meshes unusually well with a flustered horn-billed bird. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Florence Kasumba lend appropriate scene-chewing villainy to Scar and Shenzi, and Keegan Michael Key and Eric André provide a welcome banter-filled turn to supporting hyenas Kamari and Azizi.
Of the cast, the only person who feels unexpectedly out of place is Beyoncé. While she does portray Nala with an expected sense of regal ferocity, the aforementioned uncanny valley between the CG animals and their performers heightens whenever she’s present. Beyoncé’s clearly enjoying the role, but never fully commits to her performance. Granted, that’s a tall ask when one’s playing an animated lioness in a film where nearly nothing is real, but when the others in the cast blend in so much better in their roles, Beyoncé can’t help but stand out as one of the film’s more noticeable weak links.
For fans of the original Lion King, this version definitely does not disappoint, and at times Favreau and his team are able to build upon and improve the classic material they’ve been trusted with. For skeptics of Disney’s latest venture, some fears are confirmed in few, fleeting beats where the reach of the film’s technology exceeds its grasp. But while there are moments where the illusion rings false, The Lion King remains a roaring good time for both children and one’s inner child.
-
STUBER: Uproarious Laughter in Old School Action-Comedy Package
The buddy cop comedy will never die
Eliciting gut busting laughter through all three acts, as well as glorious R-rated gore and action, Stuber is everything you could possibly dream of from a modern action-comedy.
Kumail Nanjiani is one of the most exciting names in comedy cinema right now, with a host of ensemble parts under his belt and the mega-hit The Big Sick launching him into leading man status last year. Pairing him with similarly rising star Dave Bautista, who rose to prominence as a WWE wrestler but who has parlayed that career into a robust acting resume displaying comedic chops in Guardians Of The Galaxy and dramatic range in Blade Runner 2049 (as well as some starring roles like Bushwick and Final Score)… turns out to have been a stroke of genius.
The buddy cop action-comedy formula is one of my very favorite in all of cinema history. The go-to modern example of the subgenre would be the Lethal Weapon films, which milked the dynamite chemistry between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover all the way to four highly successful films. Countless iterations of the formula have come and gone, with PG-13 and R-rated versions, with every kind of oddball pairing of leads one can imagine. There have been female-driven offerings like The Heat or The Spy Who Dumped Me, stuff that skewed more in the detective comedy direction like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or The Nice Guys. Examples are endless. But the formula hasn’t gone wide-release with as much 1980s action cinema influence as Stuber brings in quite some time. And the result is cinematic heaven for this action-obsessed viewer.
Finding actual laughs, repeatedly, from a situation as silly and potentially disastrous as “temporarily blinded meathead detective forces Pakistani Uber driver to solve a case with him” is somewhat of a miracle, I must admit. But virtually everything in this briskly paced 93 minute film fires on all cylinders. Director Michael Dowse has pulled off the miraculous before in Goon, a hockey comedy with so much heart and soul as to be one of the greatest hockey movies ever made. I’m unfamiliar with the brief body of work writer Tripper Clancy has put out thus far, but he’ll be on my radar now. The supporting cast in Stuber includes Mira Sorvino (!) as Bautista’s police chief, GLOW’s Betty Gilpin as Kumail’s best friend and unrequited love, The Raid’s Iko Uwais as a blonde bad guy, Jimmy Tatro (hilarious in American Vandal) as Kumail’s douchey manager, and Natalie Morales as Bautista’s daughter. There’s varying levels of opportunity for these supporting players to shine. The film’s under-utilization of Iko Uwais is perhaps its greatest sin, with a shakey cam opening fight and a neat little trick of hopping down some balconies being the only real times Uwais gets to do his thing. Sorvino is always fantastic and it’s great to see her emerging out from under the blacklisting that Harvey Weinstein apparently imposed upon her. Betty Gilpin and Jimmy Tatro probably get the best opportunities to flesh out Kumail’s Stu with several funny scenes throughout.
But this is Nanjiani and Bautista’s show, and they’re frankly fantastic together. Bautista’s Vic is every muscle-bound 1980s cop you’ve ever seen in an action movie before, only that trope is being subverted left and right by Stu and by Morales’ Nicole. It is my contention that Dave Bautista has now surpassed The Rock as the greatest acting talent to ever emerge from the WWE and it’s precisely because of his willingness to subvert expectations, be the butt of the joke, or go R-rated where the squeaky-clean Rock rarely dares go. It’s marvelous that the character growth shown in Stuber involves Vic embracing the advice of his puny new friend Stu and his artist daughter rather than Vic’s roughshod alpha male bending everyone else to his style and way of life. Stu gets some growth too as he grows in confidence throughout his hilarious life-or-death ordeal. I loved that Stu just kept trying to leave because a normal man taken hostage by his Uber passenger would do that, but the writing kept this odd couple together rather believably.
With one-liner after zinger after barbed insult landing with a much higher than average rate, Stuber is full-on hilarious. Bolstered by the fantastic chemistry between the leads, an overall fun ensemble, and some occasionally shockingly R-rated action gore, this buddy-action-comedy is good enough to breathe a little life back into the entire subgenre and I hope it lights up the box office as a result.
And I’m Out.
-
BLACK MOON RISING: Genre Kings & Queen Assemble For Sci-Fi Heist [Blu Review]
Tommy Lee Jones as youthful, daring cat burglar?
The talent involved with Black Moon Rising makes it simply irresistible. With a script based on an original draft by genre legend John Carpenter, a score by Lalo Schifrin, and stars Tommy Lee Jones, Linda Hamilton, Robert Vaughn, Richard Jaeckel, and even Police Academy’s Bubba Smith, there’s simply an embarrassment of riches, talent-wise, involved with this film.
It’s probably never much more than the sum of its curious parts, but ultimately does result in an enjoyable ride.
Perhaps the biggest knock against the film is that the star and the character archetype he is playing never quite gel. I adore Tommy Lee Jones and have so for decades. Black Moon Rising came earlier in his career and he’s playing this dashing, sexy, cavalier cat burglar who wears all black and drives fast cars. It’s the type of badass action hero who gets introduced by diffusing a convenience store robbery before the opening credits. You know, just like half a dozen other action heroes. Yet I just categorically have trouble accepting Jones as a youthful swashbuckler type. Maybe it’s just me, but the central casting never feels entirely right. Jones gives a perfectly solid performance, it’s just that his legend casts an imposing shadow over this outlier of a role in his career.
That said, Linda Hamilton actually acquits herself quite well and has a meatier role than your average female love interest. Jones plays Quint, a hotshot thief who’s been conscripted by the government to steal some files from a big, shady corporation. By chance he encounters the crew of the Black Moon, a prototype car that runs on hydrogen and can hit over 300 miles per hour. Stashing his stolen files in the car in a pinch, he becomes mixed up in a wider plot as Hamilton and a group of high end car thieves steal the Black Moon and dozens of other cars. It turns out Hamilton’s Nina is the tough, capable lieutenant for Robert Vaughn’s Ryland, a possessive criminal mastermind who’s built an empire out of stealing cars. Trouble is, Ryland wants to own Nina, and Nina wants out. A bit of a love… rectangle?… forms between Quint, Nina, Ryland, and that super cool car.
For a movie called Black Moon Rising, the slick-looking car at the center of it all gets very little screen time. The filmmakers were able to find a very sleek prototype vehicle and used it largely “as is” for the production. Of course, the practical car was neither capable of super high speeds or of running on hydrogen, but through movie magic it always manages to look awesome on screen. It helps that Schifrin’s futuristic electronic score pulses throughout as the car zooms around town.
Aside from the future-car elements, Black Moon Rising is largely an action-heist movie complete with assembling a crew, pouring over maps and schematics, and executing the ultimate escape. It succeeds pretty wildly in these regards. Vaughn cuts an imposing villain, we’re rooting for Nina to escape out from under his possessive clutches, and Jones cracks wise, kicks ass, and burns rubber. Director Harley Cokeliss delivers a solid film balancing lots of disparate elements and keeps them all together in a cohesive package. Schifrin’s score elevates everything a notch, as does Hamilton. And the very name of John Carpenter attached gives Black Moon Rising an air of genre royalty. It may not be a top notch entry on the resumes of most involved with it, but the film certainly benefits from having all that talent involved.
The Package
Treated with all the dignity it deserves due to all the Hollywood royalty attached, this Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray release is absolutely stacked with bonus features. Kino loaded the bonus features with historians and experts who wax eloquently across a commentary track and a video essay and more. You’ll come away from this disc having a full context for the origins of the film, all the way through the production and audience reception. It’s absolutely astounding to have a film this largely forgotten by mainstream culture treated with such reverence. It’s a genre fan’s dream come true.
- Commentary Track W/ Historian Lee Gambin
- Interview W/ Director Harvey Cokeliss
- Interview W/ Producer Douglas Curtis
- Interview W/ Composer Lalo Schifrin
- Video Essay on John Carpenter by author Troy Howarth
- An archival “making of” documentary
- An alternate Hong Kong version
And I’m Out
Black Moon Rising is now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics
-
FURIE: Vietnam’s Veronica Ngo is a Full-On Action Queen
She will never stop
There are few cinematic thrills greater than discovering a brand new emerging talent in the action filmmaking world. One thrill that DOES top that is discovering that said talent isn’t “emerging” at all, but rather already has an awesome, time-tested body of work from which to sample and enjoy. Such was my experience in watching Veronica Ngo’s star vehicle Furie, from Vietnam. The trailer sold me on the film. A gender swapped Taken with a killer tiger mom rescuing her kidnapped daughter and punishing the captors? Absolutely sign me up. I need no further details.
Ignorant of Ngo’s previous work (and that of this filmmaking team), I watched with jaw agape as Furie dished out bone-crunching fight sequences and heart warming melodrama in equal measure. Ngo completely commanded the screen and the filmmaking was vivid and energetic. I was shocked, then, to find that Ngo played the small but pivotal role of Paige Tico (sister of Rose) in The Last Jedi! Not only that, but Ngo has prominently featured in several Vietnamese action films of note. I took the opportunity to track down a couple of those titles, namely Clash and The Rebel. That’s all it took for me to dub Ngo a full on Queen of action cinema. She gracefully dominates in four out of the four films of hers that I have seen. But Furie is the only film among them which truly stars Ngo as the central character, and she rules the screen with ferocity.
Here Ngo plays Hai, a former streetwise gangster who walked away from it all when she became a mother. Living in total rural obscurity and raising her daughter Mai (Cat Vy in a precocious performance), it’s clear that she is struggling in a variety of ways. One of Furie’s strengths is actually having the courage to not make Hai a particularly likeable lead character at first. She’s angry and does some debt collection work to make ends meet, which Mai greatly disapproves of. It’s amidst a fierce mother/daughter argument that Mai is kidnapped, an event which is random and having nothing to do with who Hai used to be. Unfortunately for the kidnappers, Hai has a special set of skills. While the Taken comparisons are apt and ripe for picking, the way Furie plays out really doesn’t feel similar to Taken at all. Where Taken’s Bryan Mills has resources and connections, Hai is a woman alone who must spring into action instantly as she witnesses her child being taken. Hai is desperate and out of practice, totally without any resources beyond her own relentless determination as a mother who happens to know how to beat some asses.
Much of the appeal of Furie is its extremely basic premise. Terminator-like mother will stop at absolutely nothing to get her daughter back from kidnappers. The thrills come from the show-stopping fight sequences and the drama is derived from the human stakes of the set up. I’m not here to tell you that Furie reinvents any wheels. It doesn’t. But it sets up and pays off an action movie that easily gets you pumping your fist and feeling emotionally invested as well.
Much of that has to do with the aforementioned action queen Veronica Ngo. But the filmmaking team is on point in Furie. It’s a good-looking movie that makes a case for a visually compelling Vietnam as a thrilling place to set a film. The Winding-Refn/John Wick-inspired colored lighting is fun. And the action is the ultimate test for something like this, which is great because it rules. The bonus features on the Blu-ray release indicate that some French action film veterans (Kefi Abrikh and Yannick Ben) handled much of the action, stunts, and fight choreography, and have made quite a calling card for themselves in the process. There are some one-on-one fights, car chases, tight-quarters melees, and even some gun battles. They’re all really top notch work that bolster a stripped down but effective story.
There’s a pure simplicity to Furie that might make it too slight for some people’s liking. I found it to be refreshing to watch a star emerge before my very eyes in Veronica Ngo and to see her emote compellingly and kick ass effectively from one scene to the next. There’s also a build up to perhaps the most exciting action set piece all the way at the end, so Furie feels well paced and balanced. This is one of the best action films of 2019.
The Package
I noted that the film looks pretty gorgeous. Vietnam is captured with vibrancy and Veronica Ngo completely owns the screen as well. In terms of bonus features, there’s a very simple behind the scenes featurette and a trailer. You can apparently watch the film in English, too, which I will never do. I highly recommend watching Furie, but the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack may not be essential to own.
And I’m Out.
Furie is available now on Blu-ray/DVD from Well Go USA
-
KEOMA (1976) Blu-ray Screen Comparisons: Arrow Video vs Mill Creek’s 2012 Release
This article contains several comparisons which contrast Mill Creek Entertainment’s 2012 Blu-ray transfer with the new Arrow version. The frames aren’t necessarily exact matches, but should give a solid indication of the visual differences.
Arrow Video recently released Keoma on Blu-ray with a new restoration and special features. Directed by the great Enzo G. Castellari and starring Franco Nero (Django) and western legend Woody Strode, the 1976 film is a late-entry, old-fashioned spaghetti western treasure, trailing the heights of the genre’s popularity by a decade but staking a bold claim with legendary talent and a stylish and evocative approach culminating in a Christ allegory.
Keoma was previously released on Blu-ray in a double feature edition from Mill Creek Entertainment, sharing a single disc with The Grand Duel, plus trailers for both films. (Before being too critical of Mill Creek’s disc, fans should bear in mind that it was a budget release using available materials, and an excellent value, considering).
Like many aging Italian films, that older scan was a noisy, smeary affair with artificial smoothness and yellow bias. Arrow’s new edition is a definite and all-around improvement in every way, not only fixing those issues with color correction and a much cleaner 2K scan, but also fixing the print’s sometimes faded, desatured appearance and even opening up the image to fit a bit more of the frame on all sides.
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow 
Close-ups help accentuate these differences — note in particular the difference in clarity in the textures of skin and fabric and Woody Strode’s skin tone.
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow Like any great western, Keoma is full of vistas and landscapes, and it’s here that the old scan’s faded, desaturated colors are perhaps most evident. The restoration fixes those old gray scenes with clearer images of lush greens and blue skies.
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek // Bottom: New Arrow
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
More than just a new restoration, Arrow’s new edition boasts numerous features:
• New 2K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative
• Uncompressed mono 1.0 LPCM audio
• Original English and Italian soundtracks, titles and credits
• English subtitles for both soundtracks (with a new translation for the Italian track)
• New audio commentary by spaghetti western experts C. Courtney Joyner and Henry C. Parke
• The Ballad of Keoma, a new interview with the legendary star Franco Nero
• Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, a new interview with director Enzo G. Castellari
• Writing Keoma, a new interview with actor and writer Luigi Montefiori AKA George Eastman
• Parallel Actions, a new interview with editor Gianfranco Amicucci
• The Flying Thug, a new interview with actor Massimo Vanni
• Play as an Actor, a new interview with actor Volfango Soldati
• Keoma and the Twilight of the Spaghetti Western, a newly filmed video appreciation by the academic Austin Fisher
• An Introduction to Keoma by Alex Cox, an archival featurette with the acclaimed director
• Original Italian and international theatrical trailers
• Gallery of original promotional images from the Mike Siegel Archive
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sean Phillips // booklet with new writing by Simon Abrams and Howard HughesA/V Out.
Get it at Amazon:
If you enjoy reading Cinapse, purchasing items through our affiliate links can tip us with a small commission at no additional cost to you.Except where noted, all 16:9 screen images in this review are direct captures from the disc(s) in question with no editing applied, but may have compression or resizing inherent to file formats and Medium’s image system. All package photography was taken by the reviewer.
-
SILENT HILL Screen Comparisons: Scream Factory Blows Away Sony’s 2006 Disc
One of the earliest horror films to hit Blu-ray gets a surprisingly revelatory upgrade
This article contains several comparisons which contrast Sony’s 2006 Blu-ray transfer with the new Scream Factory Collector’s Edition. The frames aren’t necessarily exact matches, but should give a solid indication of the visual differences.
Silent Hill was one of the earliest Blu-ray titles available, hitting soon after the format’s launch at a time when Sony’s discs were considered among the industry’s best in terms picture quality. Having watched this Blu-ray a couple times and being content with its appearance, I wasn’t expecting a big difference, if any, on a new release. I was wrong, because Scream Factory’s disc is a Silent Hill revelation.
With some transfers, there are a lot of varying factors and nuances to discuss, but with this comparison, it’s very straightforward. Scream Factory’s new presentation is sharper, brighter, and clearer. By comparison, the older disc almost looks like it’s got a milky haze that’s suddenly been cleared away — particularly noticeable in the now inkier blacks.
Though touted as director-approved, the new transfer isn’t advertised as being a new scan. Whatever the case may be, there’s clearly an improvement, and the difference in brightness and contrast (and I’m just guessing here, but seemingly an absence of artificial smoothing or DNR) provides far greater clarity.
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory 
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory 
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory 
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory 
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory 
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory 
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory Close-ups
‘“A horror movie where I don’t get killed? No, I don’t need a script. I’m in.” 
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory 
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory 
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory The only drawback to the newer, better transfer is that the darker, more muted picture of the prior disc helped to conceal or neutralize some of the dodgier effects and compositing. The film is very heavy on CGI not only for nightmarish creatures but also environmental effects, and in a harsher light some of it looks more garish and artificial.
There’s also an argument that could be made that the murkier transfer rings truer to the foggy, hazy aesthetic of the games, but I believe the inherent craft of the film carries this through where applicable, without the need for reliance on hazy video.
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory 
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory 
Top: Old Sony // Bottom: New Scream Factory
Besides a new transfer, Scream Factory’s Collector’s Edition also includes a second disc full of new features and interviews. Check out our Blu-ray review by Julian Singleton to read more!
Get it at Amazon:
If you enjoy reading Cinapse, purchasing items through our affiliate links can tip us with a small commission at no additional cost to you.Except where noted, all 16:9 screen images in this review are direct captures from the disc(s) in question with no editing applied, but may have compression or resizing inherent to file formats and Medium’s image system. All package photography was taken by the reviewer.
-
Two Cents Makes a New Best Friend with CHILD’S PLAY
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick:
Of all the long-running franchises to emerge from the slasher-glut of the post-Friday the 13th ’80s landscape, the Child’s Play series, starring Chucky the killer doll, may be the unlikeliest. Not only because “doll possessed by a serial killer” would seem to be a fairly limited premise, but because Child’s Play exists as a reaction to a very specific, very ’80s moment in pop culture.
The original script by Don Mancini was a fairly grim number, a jet-black satire of the growing corner of the toy industry including things like Cabbage Patch Kids, Teddy Ruxpin, and My Buddys, toys that blinked and moved and spoke. These toys weren’t designed to just be…you know…toys, but to act as friends, playmates, custodians, even surrogate parents, provided dear old mom and dad also spent the cash on all the auxiliary products that went with the dolls. Mancini’s script envisioned a doll built so realistically that it included fake blood. When young Andy Barclay mixes his own blood with the doll’s, it comes to life and begins to target and kill those people who have earned the child’s wrath.
The finished Child’s Play ended up being a good deal more playful (natch) once it passed through a number of other writers and director Tom Holland. Chucky (Brad Dourif) is a murderous creep who gets gunned down in a toy store by no-nonsense Detective Mike Norris (Chris “Humperdinck” Sarandon. Before he dies, Chucky uses a voodoo ritual to transfer his soul into a nearby doll, one of a popular line of ‘Good Guy’ toys. The doll ends up in the possession of hard-working single mother Karen Barclay, (Catherine Hicks) desperate for a gift for her 6-year old son Andy (Alex Vincent). No sooner has Chucky been let out of the box then he starts wreaking murderous havoc in Andy and Karen’s life.
Over 30 years later, the havoc hasn’t stopped. The Child’s Play films have continued, always with Mancini as a guiding hand as either writer, co-writer, and more recently director as well. The sequels pivoted to a more comedic bent before committing to being out-and-out absurdist comedies, climaxing (ha) in Seed of Chucky, in which Chucky spawns a gender non-conforming child, jerks off into a turkey baster, and kills both Britney Spears (played by an impersonator) and John Waters (played by John Waters). The franchise then pivoted back to horror, with Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky serving as stripped-down returns to the creepy, lo-fi aesthetics of the original. Despite this bizarre journey to absurdism and back, the Chucky films have maintained a single continuity for their duration, with Mancini as grand architect and Dourif’s maniacal voice work as the twin constants.
Due to a rights snafu, MGM retained creative control over the original Child’s Play (but not the Chucky sequels) and decided to launch a remake, despite the original series continuing in popularity. The remake, released last week, aged up Andy to a young teenager and swapped out the voodoo mythology in favor of making Chucky an AI unit run amok, replacing Dourif with Mark Hamill (the dude from The Guyver).
Some folks liked it, some folks didn’t, but regardless, Mancini, Dourif, and their creative partners are still moving forward with a TV continuation of their original series, with classic Chucky set to stalk SyFy channel sometime next year.
Here’s to 30 more years of Child’s Play.
Next Week’s Pick:
We don’t know if you know this, but there’s an international holiday called “Independence Day” next Thursday? No longer remembered as an American holiday, it was globally canonized in 1996. Anyway, we’re taking a break so you have two weeks to send us your thoughts on the amazing, the spectacular, the sensational, the ultimately Academy Award winning, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, now available to stream on Netflix!
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday, July 11!
Our Guests
Chris Chipman:
It’s easy to forget that the original Child’s Play is actually played pretty serious. Charles Lee Ray (played by Grima Wormtongue himself, Brad Dourif), who voodoo-maguffins himself into a Good Guy doll, is depicted as a crass, nasty, dangerous criminal and he continues in that vein as Chucky (also voiced by Dourif). The setup and pacing of the film are tight and the deaths and puppetry on Chucky still hold up. Not having seen this film since I was very young, I was also surprised at how much it still unnerved me.
Like clowns, the idea of a kid’s doll talking on its own or being possessed by some malevolent spirit is a common fear that seems to resonate well in horror films, particularly now with films like Annabelle and the Child’s Play reboot. I saw this film when I was very young, I would say between 6–8 years old, similar to the age of Andy in the first film. There was just a way about the score, cinematography and tone of this film that REALLY got to me as a kid. The fact that this doll was supposed to be Andy’s friend and not only betrayed him but tried to kill him really spoke to me and made me take a second look at my own toys. Also, that creepy voodoo knife with the weird zig-zag on it still creeps me out today.
As an adult with a child with an Autism Spectrum Diagnosis and seeing the way children who are seen as “different” are treated now and also thinking back to the way my own brother had been treated for being autistic and nonconforming in our early private school education, the scenes with Andy just being taken away from his mother and locked up in a creepy psychiatric hospital instead of being listened to really shook me. I thought back to my brother, being treated as if he was “bad” for being different and thought of Andy, who is both being betrayed by his “friend” Chucky and left for dead by the adults who should be protecting him. I then thought about my daughter, who is being treated with such empathy and affection by doctors, specialists, school and society today.
Because of both of these experiences, I am able to look Child’s Play as both a great example (that truly holds up) of this particular brand of horror movie and also a document of the archaic way mental health, especially in children used to be handled. Great to see that in my life-time things have gotten much better. Anyway… Child’s Play… it gets WAY sillier after the second one. (@TheChippa)
Child’s Play is one of those movies that terrified me long before I was old enough to actually see it. Just the premise, combined with VHS art, was enough to overstimulate my young imagination. Looking back, the Chucky/Child’s Play franchise is easily one of the most consistently good slasher series of all time — and with this first film it hit the ground running. The animatronics aren’t as polished as they would become in later sequels, but the ‘less is more’ approach (a la Jaws or Alien) is very effective. Of course Brad Dourif is perfect as Chucky, and Chris Sarandon is a lot of fun as the no-nonsense detective. But what really makes it work is Alex Vincent as Andy — his youth heightens virtually every bit of horror and suspense. I also love the way the film diverts into a weird voodoo revenge subplot, with Chucky hunting down the people who have wronged him. Child’s Play isn’t always my first choice when picking an old school slasher, but it definitely holds up. (The remake is surprisingly good too, albeit in some very different ways — but that is another story!). (@T_Lawson)
Today is Trey’s birthday so we want to give him a special shout!
Brendan Agnew (The Norman Nerd):
I dunno if this qualifies as a Hot Take or not, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that original Child’s Play is a better version of itself than the original Friday The 13th.
At least in how it creates a truly iconic horror personality and uses all the tricks in its tool chest to utmost effect. Don Mancini and Tom “Fright Night” Holland know exactly just how breezily to play the premise of “dead serial killer uses voodoo to possess a kid’s doll and then do more murders” while also crafting genuinely effective set pieces that play with the fun gimmicks afforded to “small scary thing in familiar settings.” There’s also the commendable way the cast play to the film’s strengths, and the focus on the precocious kid and harried mom being terrorized by Brad Dourif (who, predictably, owns) allows the filmmakers to dispense just enough information for the audience to understand the basics without overloading on lore or exposition.
I really can’t say enough good about how pacey and economical this thing is. Child’s Play spends exactly enough time on “Cabbage Patch Rear Window” before people other than the kid start to catch on, at which point Holland and Mancini load up every gag they can think of to put the cast through the wringer (poor Chris Sarandon damn near gets the Bruce Campbell treatment) and then just empty the clip to make sure that damn near every “wouldn’t it be cool if…?” moment gets a spotlight. Holland’s visual sensibilities are both adept at mitigating some dodgy Chucky doubles while also ratcheting up tension by holding shots with him in the background of the frame or accentuate his stillness so that final act can really go off.
Child’s Play leaves everything on the table, executing a “so crazy it just might work” premise with gusto and then literally burning through it, and however many times Chucky returns, his first outing still holds up as something special. (@BLCAgnew)
The Team
There are a couple elements that really make Child’s Play sing, above and beyond the standards of an agreeable ’80s creature feature. Number one is the design of Chucky himself. It’s nothing less than masterpiece, sitting perfectly at the intersection between ‘cute’ and ‘creepy’ so you understand why kids would desperately want the thing, while also ably building menace as it sits and watches hapless humans wandering around unawares of the danger that might spring out at any second. When Chucky comes to full life, the combination of puppetry, animatronics, and performers in costume, working with Dourif’s pre-recorded voice work, create a living, dangerous creature. The seams are visible, particularly whenever they just toss a kid or a dwarf in the costume and have them run around, but Holland is crafty enough in how he shoots and stages the Chucky scenes that it’s never a deal breaker.
But the real magic comes from Hicks and Vincent. The script does an exceptional job at illustrating their dynamic quickly and efficiently (none of Andy’s clothes really ‘fit’, a beautiful, uncommented on touch that highlights the economic straits the family is under) and both are among the most sympathetic victims in any horror film. Vincent, in particular, is almost too good, as the terror and trauma he expresses when Chucky turns is so convincing that Child’s Play, for the first and last time in this series, is at times genuinely upsetting. (@theTrueBrendanF)
Despite being a big horror fan who came of age in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I’ve never been one to hold the big franchises of that era as sacred cows. While I love most things A Nightmare on Elm Street, others like Halloween and Friday the 13 never meant much to me. Sadly, Child’s Play is included in this category. While I’ve always appreciated the original, I’ve never seen the sequels that I can recall and my appreciation of the original is mostly a shrug and a simple “I dig it.”
Rewatching the original film for the first time in roughly a decade or more, I feel more of the same. It’s a clever premise and a compelling story. Its brand of kindertrauma doesn’t scare as an adult the way it did as a kid, but it’s still very entertaining. While the latter films are mostly played for laughs, as far as I can tell, this film takes the premise rather seriously. And, despite enjoying a good horror-comedy, I appreciate this choice and think this film has aged quite well.(@thepaintedman)
As a kid, I had a vivid dream in which I thought I had seen my frog hand puppet (a real toy I owned) moving in my peripheral vision, so to expose him I abruptly acted as if I was going to bite his head, and he suddenly wiggled alive in my hand. When I awoke I told my sister about my dream and it distressed her so much that she didn’t want her own puppet anymore.
Similarly, I heard a playground urban legend about a Teddy Ruxpin that came to life in a child’s room at night — a quick Google search shows this telling was not an isolated phenomenon. Incidents like these are definite and irrefutable proof to me that Mancini, Holland, and company definitely tapped into something primal in children’s psyches when they created the Child’s Play concept.
Like Trey, this franchise was introduced to me at the video rental, many years before I actually viewed it. I loved perusing horror covers of movies I wasn’t allowed to watch. The first couple Child’s Play tapes were some of the most memorable images to an impressionable young mind (Chucky decapitating a Jack-O-Lantern!), and I picked up on the name “Chucky” before I knew Freddy or Jason.
As it happens, I didn’t watch Child’s Play until I was an adult, but even so it has some really effective moments of horror, in particular the moment where Catherine Hicks realizes something may actually be wrong with her child’s doll and puts it to the test by threatening violence — a scene which absolutely and immediately recalled when I did the same with my frog puppet.
As I was editing this article my 4-year-old caught a glimpse of Chucky and expressed her opinion that he looks creeeeeepy. Yes, friends, this will be a horror classic forever. (Austin Vashaw)
Next-next week’s pick:
-
THE HEAD HUNTER: Micro Budget Meets Medieval Horror Fantasy
More than just a calling card for a fantastic new filmmaking team
With somewhere around 100 words spoken in the entire duration of the film, and just about as many gallons of blood spilled, The Head Hunter is the truest form of lean and mean cinema.
A nameless warrior (Christopher Rygh credited only as “Father”) goes about his solitary business of monster killing as the camera watches on. We don’t actually see very many of these monsters, mind you, as the rumored budget of The Head Hunter is somewhere around $30,000. But we do see their remains. Trophies of monsters long vanquished adorn the walls of our warrior’s home. Alone and with a score to settle, Father occupies himself with the creation of potions that heal him and prepare him for the next battle. When a distant howl is heard, he will suit up and square off against the latest creature threatening the vaguely defined kingdom our protagonist lives on the outskirts of. There’s one creature in particular that he is after: the creature that took his daughter from him. Most of the words spoken in the film are Father to himself, or Father to his long-deceased daughter. It seems his only reason for living is vengeance against the monster who claimed his daughter’s life.
Few words, less dollars, and even fewer characters do not a slight movie make, however, if the filmmaking team is creative. And man… writer/director/editor Jordan Downey and writer/producer/DP Kevin Stewart sure do make the most of the resources they have. Probably most notably, for those skeptical of a film so shockingly inexpensive: The Head Hunter looks fantastic. Our solitary hero is clad in costuming that gives The Lord Of The Rings a run for its money. And the various creature designs and overall production value are laudable. While the world feels desolate and verging on apocalyptic, it also feels vast and expansive, with many sweeping vistas and environments explored. Most of the action takes place in and around Father’s home, but even his home is well designed and integral to the survival of this totally isolated man.
Are there limitations to what can be achieved with The Head Hunter? Sure. One notices when there are so few characters, or such little dialog. And you become aware of the distinct lack of screen time given to actual monsters whilst watching a movie about a monster hunter. The “Castaway Effect” might sour some viewers on The Head Hunter, as we really just watch one guy go about his lonely existence. None of those shortcomings diminished my own personal enjoyment or investment in the film, however. The smart script both creates a world which can be brought to life on a budget, and serves an actual function for a story about isolation and the futility of vengeance. The fact that it creates its own version of a world filled with horrible medieval magic and monsters will, I believe, draw in genre fans and engage them with a true medieval horror film with stakes and emotional weight.
And the final act really does go out of its way to create some true on screen action and monster thrills to compensate for the open space it leaves your brain to paint a visual picture of the action in the first two acts. I compare the feel of the early half of the film to the much-lauded video game Shadow Of The Colossus: an almost empty world, beautiful in its abandonment, and haunted by giant inexplicable creatures. As vengeance gets within tasting distance for Father, however, the tone becomes more claustrophobic and immediate. There’s even a bit of a Basket Case vibe to the final act, which I’ll leave at that.
I’m drawn to films like this with their own production mythology surrounding them. Oh, there’s a $30K fantasy film out there that’s actually awesome? I’m going to have to seek that out. So I was probably a mark for this all along. But The Head Hunter is more than just a calling card or a gimmick. It marks the genuine arrival of Jordan Downey and Kevin Stewart (not to mention their entire team who composed music and did production design and built gore effects, etc) as filmmakers to keep an eye on. And it also completely works as a narrative divorced from the knowledge of its humble origins. It’s gorgeous, it’s mean, it’s smart, and it pulls zero punches as a hard fantasy tale.
The Package
True to its scrappy origins, The Head Hunter is only available on DVD and VOD, so no high def physical media option is available. I’m personally thrilled to own this DVD and while The Head Hunter probably looks even more fantastic in high def, it still looks pretty stunning in standard. There aren’t any special features to speak of on this DVD release either, but the filmmaking team asserts that there are many behind the scenes materials that may someday get to see the light of day. Support this film with a DVD purchase or a VOD download, I say. If a grassroots fanbase emerges, we’ll likely get to see a lot more material on how they accomplished this feat, and perhaps they’ll get a chance to create something new for us as well.
And I’m Out.
The Head Hunter is now available on DVD and Digital directly from the official website.
