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NYAFF 2023: MISS SHAMPOO
The 22nd annual New York Asian Film Festival took place between July 14 and July 30. For more information on what you missed, click here.
I do so enjoy it when things wind up getting all Full Circle on me.
Miss Shampoo, a mostly fluffy comedy with some decidedly dark moments, has some surprisingly comprehensive cross-connections with Kai Ko’s Bad Education, the blackly comic thriller that kicked off this year’s festival for me. Which makes it, in more ways than one, a delightfully circular way for me to be closing out this years coverage. They’re two very different film in tone, in goals, and in execution, but in their own way they’re both highly effective pieces of entertainment.
Writer-director Giddens Ko was responsible for The Tenant Downstairs, the gleefully nasty and highly enjoyable closing film of my first ever NYAFF back in 2015, and even when applied to significantly lighter ends, it’s clear he’s only gotten better at playing audiences like a fiddle. With Shampoo, he’s given himself the unenviable task of finding something new and interesting to do in the fields of romantic comedy and triad crime, two genres that have been intertwined so often that even that combination has moldy tropes of its own. But rising to the challenge, Ko has crafted a raucous, laugh filled romantic comedy that find ever more inventive, ridiculous and dirty minded ways to sidestep the usual cliches. It may be only his second time up to bat for the festival, but he still knocks it out of the park.
Baseball, as it happens, is one of the passions of the energetic and (seemingly) demure Fen (Vivian Sung), the other being hairdressing. We are introduced to her as she sculpts the coiff of her trusty mannequin head, and acting as imaginary coach to pro batter Zheng Xuxiang (Bruce Ho). Fen, we will soon find, is not one of those heroines bored with her lot in life and craving danger or excitement. But it’s coming for her anyway, in the form of Tai. And as with all the best meet cutes, this one involves a murder.
A wounded Tai (Daniel Hong) stumbles into the salon, having barely escaped the attack that took the life of his Triad boss, Hsing. Letting him hide out and throwing his would-be assassins off the trail, Fen assumes that will be that. But Tai, being the honorable type, wants to repay her kindness. And now has the power to do so; with the death of Hsing, Tai finds himself promoted to leader of the gang. Which means the responsibility of tracking down the people who ordered the hit and exacting bloody retribution falls to him.
Though in a twist that people expecting more of a plot than they’re going to get might find deflating, the movie is nearly as disinterested in solving this little mystery as Tai himself seems to be; he’s unabashedly smitten with Fen, and almost from the moment their eyes meet, he becomes her number one priority.
Comedy, and some downright ridiculous hairstyling decisions, ensue.
There’s a very amusing meta layer to all this, of course… our leading man want to be in a romantic comedy, while half the cast keeps trying to drag them into a crime drama. And the leading lady would just looooove to be in a romantic comedy, but has a better sense than our hero that gangsters can only pretend they’re not in a gangster movie for so long until the genre comes looking for them.
(And as for the rest? Well, they’re all just trying to get laid)
Mind you it’s hard to argue that Tai and Fen don’t have the right idea, seeing as how the plot, a bunch of jibber-jabber concerning land deals and inner circle conflicts that the movie can’t even pretend to give much of a fig about for more than a couple minutes at a time… not when there are dick jokes to get back to. Ko and the cast commit fully to embracing a sense of silliness. From the visual humor of Tai’s increasingly goofy hairstyles, to a series of introductions that turns into a rake gag extraordinaire, to the films’ hilarious sex obsession, which stays just on the right side of juvenile (if only just), the movie is shameless in its eagerness to show the audience a good time, but never makes the mistake so many movies that try for this brand of humor make: it might have some fun at the characters expenses, but it also has a great deal of affection and kindness towards them. The joke might be on them, but it’s rarely at their expense. And that small but vital distinction allows them to get away with absolute murder.
Not every movie can manage to make the line “I swear on my dick” seem like the most romantic statement in the world.
Few movies would even try, the cowards.
It’s not until roughly the final twenty minutes that the gangster plot really takes precedence, at which point we are treated to some last stage revelations that reframe Tai’s reluctance, and lead us pretty directly into a tense, violent finale. It’s an inevitable confrontation, but all the more effective for spending so much time making the characters out to be such endearing goofs; less than any ideas of grand retribution (Hell, the audience barely even knew Hsing), we simply want the heroes to make it out alive. Which, as anybody who has spent much time in the tonally helter skelter world of Asian genre cinema knows, is far from guaranteed.
There is no discussion worth having about Miss Shampoo that doesn’t focus the bulk of said discussion on the exemplary cast, starting with the leads. Daniel Hong has the look of a typical genre protagonist, which makes it all the more fun to see the ways in which he is willing to look and act like an absolute goof. His delivery on the various sex speeches he gives alone make his casting worth it. And he plays off of Fen divinely.
So frequently, the female half of this kind of mash-up can get short shrift, but as written and as performed, Fen is a more than capable match for all the antics around her. Giddy whenever possible, but grounded when absolutely necessary, Sung sells the role with ease. Never before, and perhaps never again, will the words “Very fake ejaculation” be used as such a profound expression of eternal love and commitment. And it’s hard to imagine all that many actresses convincingly swooning upon hearing it. Such is the skill of Vivian Sung.
The chemistry is so on point from almost the very start that it comes as rather a surprise to both Tai and the audience alike to learn that Fen already has a boyfriend (a juicy cameo by Kent Tsai, de facto lead of the aforementioned Bad Education). But even this is less an actual complication than an excuse for Hong a hilariously overextended stunned reaction that seems to last several weeks worth of screen time.
But while Tai and Fen are undeniably the star attractions here it’s a very generous movie, acting-wise: the entire supporting cast seems to have a contest going to see who can steal the most scenes with the least screen time, and all seem equally delighted when the scene gets stolen out from under them. Indeed, the majority of members on the mob side of the story has less to do by virtue, but, to a man, make a meal of what they get.
Most prominent would be Long Legs (played by Kai Ko from, well…. you know), Tai’s right hand man and the member of the crew who seems most put out by the romance. He seems miffed at not being crowned leader by Hsing, or at least he’s increasingly annoyed at Tai’s seeming ambivalence towards the whole vengeance thing. But while you might think you know where this plotline is going, it takes a number of unexpected, refreshing, occasionally discursive seeming swerves that keep it interesting, not the least of which is a subplot where he gets really into crypto with a NFT-loving douchebro working for one of the other bosses.
If nothing else, there’s an interesting metatextual element in the idea of Ko playing a character that seems to long to be in charge, right before going on to make his own project.
(Who knows which endeavor came first, but Giddens Ko is an executive producer on Bad Education, and it’s not hard to imagine Ko The Younger not having learned a thing or two about balancing tones from his similarly monikered director here)
As the two other main members of Tai’s gang, Emerson Tai and Ying Long-Feng are less prominent, but like everyone else, score major laughs with their antics. In fact, Tai’s flirtation with Guan (Bai Bai), one of Fens’ co-workers at the salon, kind of leads me into my only complaint: there’s not nearly enough of it. Giving off, of all things, an early Yeardley Smith vibe, she pulls a truly impressive amount of laughs with nothing more than a look. She disappears from the movie roughly halfway through, and though there are plenty of laughs to compensate, her offbeat presence and endlessly expressive, endlessly watchable face are sorely missed.
It’s just an embarrassment of riches. Hell, there’s an entire article I could write just on Fen’s family alone. But I’m already running a bit long here.
(Though in keeping with the “full circle” of it all, special shout-out to McFly Wu, last seen as the hilariously baffled gangster in Bad Education, has a small cameo as a cheating gambler who suffers through both bad math and terrible consequences, in roughly that order. Both because it’s a fun little bit and because I’ll take any excuse I can to get to type the words McFly Wu again)
In the end, it is perhaps a strange thing that I’ve written so many words on such a fluffy bit of fun as Miss Shampoo. As the wonderfully meta final line of the film makes clear, it’s a film with little on its mind more than making sure its audience has a good time for two hours. And yet, how many films try to do exactly that, and fall flat on their face? In its success, and in its minor yet personally significant ties to other films that I’ve seen both this year, and starting all the way at the start of my journey in 2015, it is the perfect representation of why I love this festival so much, and why I keep coming back, over and over again. And thus, a perfect note on which to close out another excellent NYAFF.
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NYAFF 2023: Interview With Anshul Chauhan, Director of DECEMBER
The 22nd annual New York Asian Film Festival took place between July 14 an July 30. For more information on what you missed, click here.
Among the many great movies I watched during this years’ New York Asian Film Festival was December, an emotionally charged courtroom drama telling the story of Katsu (SHOGEN) and Sumiko (MEGUMI), a formerly married couple living in the aftermath of their daughters’ murder. Katsu, a walking wound of a man, refuses to let go of his anger, threatening Sumikos’ hard-won sense of stability and balance. Try as she might to move on, she finds herself inexorably trapped in old cycles of pain as an obsessive Katsu does everything in his power to make sure the murderer of their daughter, a young girl named Kana (RYO MATSUURA), stays behind bars. It is a gripping, well-acted story of guilt, grief, repentance, and acceptance, and I was lucky enough to be able to conduct a brief interview with the films’ director, Anshul Chauhan.
Mild spoilers may follow.
What attracted you to this script?
You know, the story is about a retrial drama. When I first received the initial draft from my friend Rand Colter, I saw it mainly as a courtroom drama. I thought it might not be suitable for me, or it could be too challenging to find funding for such a project. However, during the Covid, I revisited the script and looked at it with a fresh perspective. I discovered that it also has a significant human drama aspect, which caught my attention. Instead of focusing solely on the court procedures, I decided to emphasize the human elements in the story, and that’s what made me interested in the script. The most attractive part for me was finding characters with both good and bad sides.
There was a credit for “Japanese dialogues”; what was the reason for that and what was process of collaborating with Mina Moteki?
Mina plays a significant role in my filmmaking because I’m not a native Japanese speaker. Sometimes, I struggle to understand the deeper meaning of certain scenes. That’s where Mina comes in to help. She translates the script from English to Japanese, but it’s not just a simple translation. We work together to do research and understand the context and character behaviors etc. For example, when we were working on DECEMBER, we visited real high court sessions in Tokyo multiple times. We took notes and then worked on the script. Translating the Japanese dialogues was particularly challenging in DECEMBER because the courtroom has its own language style. Mina consulted with lawyers and studied how they speak in court to accurately translate the script. In addition to her translation work, Mina is also one of the producers, along with Takahiro Yamashita. We both run Kowatanda Films together since 2016.
Kana is a very layered, very complicated character that is key to everything that happens in the film, and Ryo Matsuura does an excellent job. Was it difficult finding the right actress to play such a complex role?
It wasn’t difficult at all. I actually met Ryo during the screening of my second film, KONTORA, in March 2021. She came to watch the film, and we met outside the theater. I was really impressed by her appearance, especially her eyes. Six months later, when I started reworking on the script, I couldn’t stop thinking about her for the role of KANA. Since she mainly works as a model, I was unsure about her acting skills. So, I auditioned her along with ten other girls. However, I wasn’t fully satisfied, so I auditioned her two more times to be sure she was the right fit. One day, Mina and I took her out for coffee, and she finally opened up, and we had detailed discussions about her life. In the final audition, she nailed it, and we offered her the role. But what surprised me even more was when I saw her acting on the set on the first day. She was extremely well-prepared and had the fewest retakes on any scene.
What was the thinking in making Naoki also have a lost child in his past?
The main reason was to establish a connection between Sumiko and Naoki and give them a shared background of suffering. As mentioned in the film, they both met in the grief support group for the lost kids, which was the best choice for the script. Both characters experience similar pain, but one is able to move on while the other remains stuck in the past. This basically creates a good drama with conflicts and tensions.
Was there a particular reason that Katsu’s old job was as a novelist?
I suppose it was just so I can have a stronger connection with the character, given my background in writing. Although I’m not a novelist myself, I do write extensively. Additionally, I have some friends who are novelists, and I know they enjoy their fair share of drinking, haha.
We get glimpses of Emi in Kana’s flashbacks and in the later scenes with Katsu. But was there ever any thought given to having Emi be more of a presence throughout the film?
During the shooting, I considered it, but ultimately, I decided against it. My main focus was on the three central characters. If the film had centered around the first trial, which was more evidence-based, I would have undoubtedly given more attention to Emi’s character.
What scene in the film proved the most difficult to film?
From a technical perspective, shooting most of the scenes was quite challenging due to limited time and budget. Courtroom dramas usually have multiple cameras, but we managed with just one. Our team was small, with only six people, and everyone had to handle multiple tasks. Despite these difficulties, the shoot was enjoyable overall.
One thing I had to be careful about was capturing the first meetings between Kana and her parents. They hadn’t looked at each other before in the film or on set, so we kept them in separate rooms while shooting and made sure to get the first take right.
The school bullying scenes were also tough because we wanted to depict them authentically, and the actors got very serious, Kanon who played Emi was really bullying Ryo and both got into serious fights many times.
The hardest shot was the one with blood and fist with Katsu. Getting the blood out of the fist on the right time and place was the most difficult shot I guess. And the glass piece in the river was a challenge due to the intense sunlight, so we ended up using VFX for that particular shot.
Given the subject matter of the movie, there was a strong potential for it to be a more sensationalistic type of film, but it always stays very grounded. How difficult was it to find the right tone with which to tell this story?
As I mentioned earlier, my main focus was on the human drama outside the courtroom in the story. This decision helped the film to feel more real and connected to everyday life. If I had focused more on the trial and prison system, the film would have turned out differently.
During the shooting, I often deviated from the script, except for the court scenes. I made changes based on the performances of the actors and the locations we found. This creative process helped shape the story into what it is today. I removed anything that didn’t feel genuine while shooting and stayed true to the characters.
I receive many questions about why I didn’t show more about the first trial or add media perspective etc. But I believe that by staying authentic to the characters and their journey and only focusing on the retrial drama, the film became more compelling. In the editing process, I also removed some scenes that we had shot, as they would have taken the film in a different direction.
Expanding on that last question, I wonder if you could describe how you figured out the structure of the film in terms of when in the story to reveal certain plot elements?
Since I do my own editing and enjoy it a lot, I like to try different things and be experimental. When I edit, I approach it with an open mind and don’t think about the plot or structure right away. Editing is like writing the final version of the script for me.
I did many tests and experiments with different editing styles and perspectives to see what works best for the film. Eventually, through these tests, I found the final version of the film. I don’t follow the script order while editing; instead, I rediscover the characters and follow their body language to shape the story. Just a joke but at one point Sato looked like the main character from the way I was editing, he still has more screen time than Kana actually but it doesn’t feel like that, just because of the way he was placed in the final edit.
I faced some challenges with the flashback scenes because they were improvised during the shooting and not written in the script. Placing them properly in the film was a big challenge. We actually had a lot of footage and coverage from the shoot, which gave me the freedom to experiment and shape the story the way It is today.
I’m interested in the performance of Toru Kizu as Sato, because sometimes it was difficult to tell what his intentions were in taking this case and it wasn’t always clear whether or not he was being intentionally manipulative, which lent an interesting ambiguity to his character. Was Kizus’ interpretation of the character different from what was on the page, and if so, how?
Every lawyer wants to win the case, and Sato was no different. However, he did have some inner conflict at times because he felt a connection to Kana and was pushing her hard to confess. We had discussions about his interpretation of the character, but it mostly had to do with the difference in acting styles between senior Japanese actors and newer ones. It can be challenging to manage or control their style on set. Personally, I find it difficult to ask them to change their style or to encourage experimentation and improvisation which Ryo wanted to do.
Despite any misunderstandings about his intentions, he is a fantastic actor, and I enjoyed working with him. If you or the audience didn’t fully grasp his character’s intentions, I take responsibility for the way I presented him in the film.
Did you know how the judge was ultimately going to rule when you started writing, or did that decision come later in the process?
The decision was made during the writing stage and remained unchanged since Rand first wrote the script. However, we did make some adjustments to the language used in the Japanese court scenes, as parole works a bit differently in Japan. In Japanese, it’s not exactly the same as what you read in the subtitles. In Japan, juvenile parolees are assigned special probation officers, and the legally prescribed maximum period of supervision is until the probationer’s twentieth birthday or at least two years from the date of the decision by the family court, whichever is longer. In Kana’s case, she was seventeen, so it was three years. I hope this makes sense.
Our thanks to Anshul Chauhan for joining us for an interview!
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NYAFF 2023: BACK HOME
The 22nd annual New York Asian Film Festival took place between July 14 and July 30. For more information on what you missed, click here.
In my review of Kitty The Killer from earlier in the festival, I made note of how action movies get a certain amount of leeway that other genre fare doesn’t get.
I was not expecting such an immediate validation of my whole thesis.
Nate Ki’s directorial debut Back Home is a horror movie that, while ultimately too muddled to be a full success, has its fair share of very effective unnerving moments… as well as some would-be spooky scenes that feel overly familiar, which can be the kiss of death when it comes to the horror genre.
The story is set up with a welcome efficiency in its opening moments: Wing Lai (Sean Wong as a child, Anson Kong as an adult), a Chinese expatriate living in Canada, returns to his home country when he receives word that his mother Tang Wai-Lin (Bai Ling, either unrecognizable or I’ve gone face blind) attempted suicide and languishes in a coma. It’s not a happy homecoming, as he has very painful memories related to his upbringing, as definitively demonstrated in the very first scene, a POV shot that places the viewer in his shoes as his mother repeatedly tries to slap the third eye out of him.
The third eye being the one that allows him to see ghosts. He says he’s gotten over it, but the vision he had of his mother sitting on his couch in a cocktail dress with her tongue removed right before receiving the call about her condition somewhat puts the lie to his claims.
That his comatose mother is also missing her tongue isn’t a particularly great portent, either.
Settling into his mom’s apartment, he meets the neighbors, prominent among them a friendly elderly couple who claim to have known him as a child (Tai Bo and Helen Chan as Uncle and Grandma Chung), and Yu (Wesley Wong) a young boy who, it soon becomes clear, shares with Wing the ability to see ghosts. Though he shows little interest in solving the mystery of what happened to his mom, a rash of attempted suicides in the building and a lurking mystery about the abandoned seventh floor draw him in to the kind of supernatural conspiracy that defies all logic and reason… both in the world of the film and for audiences alike.
The thing that Back Home does as well as, if not better than, any other horror movie I’ve seen in quite some time is make the layer between fantasy and reality gossamer thin. So many horror movies, favoring shock over atmosphere, make the tactical error of having clear delineations; how many times have we seen a scene that ends with the protagonist waking up from a horrible moment? It’s a quick fix of endorphin rush, when creating a consistent sense of disorientation and dread without the comfort of that release would be so much more effective.
Here, strange beings lurk in the background, uncanny and unacknowledged, the dead seem to briefly return to life in a crowded room and people staring right at the body don’t seem to notice. Even the ostensibly normal people have a habit of sticking around just a beat longer than is comfortable, as if their systems are ever so briefly glitching out. It builds an undercurrent where the viewer finds themselves just as unmoored.
So its a pity that the film doesn’t have the will to stay in that space for longer. About halfway through, we start getting more of the conventional scares: ghosts poking their heads in through cracked doors, a spectral presence in an incongruous form (in this case, geisha gear), taking the authorities to the spot where they saw the thing, only to reveal nothing, making the protagonist seem crazy… we’ve seen it all before, and while it looks better than 90% of case (Director of Photography Rick Lau and the Art Direction from Ceci Pak Pur Sze and Cheung Bing create some undeniably gorgeous imagery), there’s no escaping the mold permeating all those moments where the movie is supposed to be at its most horrifying.
For all the attempts to wring scares out of old saws like ghosts singing nursery rhymes and haunted elevators, the most visceral moments come in much smaller moments, like an unnerving lingering shot of the passengers in a toy car (all credit to the deft, restrained sense of when to cut and not cut from editor Barfuss Hui) and the deliciously wince inducing punchline to a runner about Wing clicking his thumbnail when he’s agitated (all credit to Lau Chi Hung’s exquisite sound design)
The cast is very good, which helps. But the further into the movie we get, the more I had to question some of their choices. The flashbacks that provide insight into Wings traumatic past plant an interesting seed in the idea of exploring the strain of having a child so connected to the supernatural, a sort of dark mirror to The Sixth Sense. But as it plays out, Bai Ling only has a couple of moments of maternal affection and the rest of the time she’s just a loon crowing about how he drove his father away (plus one particularly tasteless and unnecessary scene of sexual assault thrown in for little gain). Watching the slow collapse of Tang, and how Wing might have difficulty reconciling his abuse at her hands with a misplaced sense of guilt that his abilities might have driven her to it, just plain would have made for a stronger connection to the themes the film seems to be toying with.
Without question, she’s very, very good at the loon stuff. But… to what end?
And it’s even odder that they don’t really connect Wing’s past to Yu’s present, except in the broadest of strokes. The way the film resolves, it doesn’t even seem necessary for Yu to have been able to see ghosts in the first place, except as an excuse to throw in more cheap scares. And it all culminates in the reveal of a conspiracy that really could have landed if they’d just cut out a few of those aforementioned cheap scares for a bit more thematic development. Wing is made an offer that should have been tempting, but since we got a snootful of his trauma and none of his life outside it, we’re not given any reason to think what’s on offer is a thing he would even want. It simply doesn’t land
But whatever the failings of Back Home, it feels they could very easily be chalked up to the sort of rookie mistakes that befall any overly ambitious first timer; if lacking in focus, Nate Ki absolutely displays an impressive level of skill for a debut feature. Back Home may not have entirely worked for me, but it’s got more than enough goos qualities to make me eager to see where he goes from here.
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NYAFF 2023: MAD FATE
The 22nd annual New York Asian Film Festival took place between July 14 and July 30. For more information on what you missed, click here.
I have spent well over thirty minutes just trying to come up with an opening sentence to lead into my review of Soi Cheung’s Mad Fate, something a little bit more articulate than ‘that was… deeply, deeply insane’, but I keep coming up short.
Probably because the movie is deeply, deeply insane.
Now, it’s a Milky Way Production, so we already know that at bare minimum it’s going to be a high-end bout of insanity, but regardless, there’s no way around the fact that this movie is unhinged in ways that mostly work for it, and a few that work against it.
And its that way from the very start: the opening set piece involves an attempt by The Master (Lam Ka Tung) to save the life of May (Wong Ching Yan Birdy), whose star chart portends doom in the next couple of hours unless The Master can perform a special ritual to change her fate. That the ritual involves a (fake) burial is… well, just par for the course, apparently. But a sudden torrential downpour almost turns the fake burial into a real one and May rightly flips out and leaves before the ritual is complete.
Determined to save her life, The Master follows her back to her apartment where the first of many, many unexpected events occurs: upon returning to her apartment, May is set upon by a serial killer who, despite being interrupted by Siu Tung (Lokman Wong), a delivery boy with the wrong address, manages to slice her to absolute ribbons.
The Master arrives too late to save May, and in the second of the unexpected events, the cops arrive and give chase to the actual killer (a.k.a. The Murderer, as played by the impeccably named Chan Charm Man Peter), cutting off at the knees my assumption that The Master or the delivery boy would be mistaken for the killer.
The third, and perhaps least expected of all the moments in this opening act, was the moment where the delivery boy goes into a trance and starts splashing around in a pool of May’s blood like Gene Kelly in a rainstorm.
Taken in for questioning by one of the cops (Berg Ng, credited only as The Veteran), The Master senses a potential for evil in Siu Tung and vows to combat fate itself by
At this point, it is probably worth noting that The Master considers Fate to be a manifestation of God on Earth.
So, yeah: this is a buddy film about a potential murderer and a mystic who team up explicitly to spite God.
Like I said: deeply, deeply insane.
The script by Melvin Li and Yau Noi Hoi (with a credit for Chan Siu Hei as ‘assistant screenwriter’) benefits from a heedless pace and a bold, almost reckless approach to its big ideas. It is, perhaps unsurprisingly quite rare that a film is so top heavy with conceptual brush strokes that an actual serial killer becomes little more than a Macguffin. But it makes for interesting viewing.
Adding to the bewildering nature of the film, is the tone. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that Asia has a different philosophy and intellectual approach to matters of the supernatural and the afterlife. And as always, I have to allow for the possibility of the western disconnect; there are concepts here that might come naturally to its local target audiences, the nuances of which would be entirely lost on less informed outsiders. But while the movie traffics unrepentantly in absurdity, the thing that might be most disorienting to western audiences is just how seriously the film seems to take all of this. The opening scene read as almost slapstick in its convolutions, so when the tone turned grim, it was a bit disorienting to adjust. While I would never call the film in any way dour or humorless (there are any number of unexpected, fully intentional laughs), the concepts it delves into the deepest are the ones that we’re less inclined to take quite so seriously here. But then, with a protagonist like The Master, it’s unclear just how seriously we’re meant to take all the talk of stars and signs in the first place. Which is as good an excuse as any to transition to talking about an aspect of the film that might be polarizing: the performances.
As a buddy film, much of the overall success for audiences will rest on the chemistry of the two leads, the ways in which they bounce off of one another. And these are two characters who, to put it mildly, don’t fall into the usual buddy dynamics.
Siu Tung would be a tricky character to pull off even in a more conventional film: a character who is capable of terrible things and only barely motivated to not do those terrible things, but is also (allegedly) the victim of cosmic forces beyond comprehension. Yeung does frankly impressive work marking out a character who the audience roots for, without making him in any way likable, and only sympathetic in a very abstract (some might say, cosmic) sense.
And his reactions to The Master are extremely well calibrated; not as easy an ask as it might sound, because Lam Ka-Tung is doing a lot.
It’s strange to think that his opening scene with May is him at his most subdued, because for any other actor, I might put that at an 8. But after that understandably intense set piece, when Ka-Tung starts interacting with other characters, he’s so twitchy and high-strung that it became a bit off-putting; this is the de facto protagonist of your film. Are you sure this is what you wanted?
Turns out there’s a method to the madness, and when we find out what it is about 45 minutes into the proceedings, it both explains everything and gives Ka-Tung license to go ever further over the top, until eventually the Earth itself is merely a cosmic speck, spinning in the void.
It’s… an acquired taste of a performance. But perfectly in line with the films aggressively offbeat agenda.
There are lots of things I could go on to mention, like the inexplicable use of maritime and classical music pieces as comical counterpoints, or the satisfying way most of the characters are credited by their professions or affiliations (or in the case of The Murderer, their hobbies): besides The Master and The Veteran, we have Prostitute May, Prostitute Jo, and The Master’s Ex-Girlfriend (an extremely brief cameo by Zhao Yiyi who, weirdly enough, always made a brief cameo as an ex in Everyphone Everywhere. Curious bit of typecasting, that). Or the deceptively innocuous way The Murderer re-enters the picture after having gone missing for like an hour of screentime. Or the incident that takes place in the morgue near the end of the movie. Or the visual metaphor of an ant in a puddle, which lands way better than it has any right to. Or the incredibly impressive cat puppets which might require a trigger earning for animal lovers. Or this film’s truly deranged take on the concept of a happy ending.
Or this, or that, or the other.
The point being this: even if you don’t like Mad Fate (and as it happens, I rather did), it still leaves even the most jaded viewer with gobs and gobs of stuff to talk about afterwards.
In that sense, it seems impossible not to respect the sheer audacity of Soi Cheang. This isn’t just another genre exercise that plays the hits. It’s ambitious, unpredictable and entirely dancing to its own tune. You will not guess how this movie ends from where it starts, and that’s a rare enough phenomenon that it deserves all the attention it can get, and then some.
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NYAFF 2023: GREENHOUSE
The 22nd annual New York Asian Film Festival took place between July 14 and July 30. For more information on what you missed, click here.
Greenhouse has been billed as a thriller, and ultimately it is, though it takes an extraordinarily different path to get there than personal festival favorite Geylangs’ more visceral approach. It is nothing if not a slow burn, more akin to a psychological drama than a nail biting seat clencher. So much so that at a certain point I found myself checking out of the narrative; when one utterly predictable plot turn was followed by a fairly ludicrous one, it shattered my suspension of disbelief and I just waited for what felt like the inevitable so I could move on to the next, hopefully better, flick.
It’s good to be wrong sometimes.
As it turns out, Greenhouse is playing the long game; once again I cackled when I realized what the film was actually up to, and the cascading series of bad luck, bad decisions, and terrible consequences that both feel out of nowhere but also inevitable made me regret ever having doubted writer/director Lee Solhui.
If you have doubts, stick with this one; it gets gooooooood.
Lee Moon-jung (Kim Seohyung) is a troubled woman who is doing her best to put a brave face on. Her son, in juvenile detention for reasons that aren’t particularly important, will be released soon, and she’s pinning all her hopes on getting a new apartment for them to live in, a prospect he seems to reject outright. As it currently stands, she spends her nights at a remote greenhouse in which she’s carved out a messy but functional living space. Her day job, as a caretaker for blind, elderly Lee Tae-Kang (Yang Jaesung) and his Alzeheimer suffering wife Hwa-ok (Shin Yuensook), affords her access to a car and human contact; aside from the free group therapy sessions she attends, she doesn’t seem very capable of human connection at all.
That changes, sort of, when she befriends another member of the group, the clearly unstable Soon-nam. Fresh off a suicide attempt and the death of her mom, Soon-nam takes a liking to Lee Moon-jung, and circumstances lead Moon-jung to invite her to stay for a couple of days to get away from an abusive partner.
Like all acts of kindness in films of this nature, it’s a move that may or may not come back to haunt her.
These early scenes, all based in the quotidian details of day-to-day life, do draw you in. There’s no sense of tension, no sense of impending doom, just an overall pall of depression, with flashes of wry humor (the leader of the group therapy sessions generates no small amount of giggles with her inane platitudes and performative cheeriness).
But, of course, things start creeping in around the edges. Hwa-ok has periodic fits of rage in which she hits Tae-Kang or accuses Lee of wanting to kill her and her son; Lee is warned that Soon-nam drove a previous member of the group away with her obsessive behavior; the kindly old man gets some very bad news… things don’t even remotely start out happy. But, as it turns out, they can always get worse.
But there are moments of kindness and minor joys interspersed throughout, mostly involving Tae-Kang: a lovely sequence in which Lee finds a way for him to drive a car despite being blind; when he meets up with
It’s nice to have these things to hang onto when everything goes terribly, terribly wrong.
Obviously I’m not going to spoil the incident that takes place roughly halfway through that kicks the thriller elements into Medium Gear (slow burn, remember), but while it is a moment that seems almost inevitable as soon as the specter is raised, the action that follows rests on a coincidence of timing and a completely unmotivated turn from a character that, frankly, isn’t well-developed enough for the whole thing to seem like anything other than a painful contrivance. You can see the strings being pulled, which is never good for a movie of this kind.
And for me personally, it really impacted the next scene, which is as close to a conventional thriller set piece as the movie gets; a genuinely Hitchcockian episode that would have worked so much better for me if it hadn’t been set up in such a hackneyed way. And yet, divorced from all of that, it’s a highly effective sequence.
The film then proceeds to go even further down the rabbit hole with a twist that comes out of absolutely nowhere, involving a character that hasn’t even been properly introduced yet. But in its way, this almost worked for me; it’s an absolute contrivance, but it’s also such a wild swing that even though I was on the verge of rejecting the premise, I had a deep curiosity about where all of this could possibly be going.
And that patience was rewarded. It turns out this twist adds psychological texture to an earlier reveal, and plays with the films themes in a very intriguing way. And as the characters’ bad decisions start piling up, the film makes great use of its jagged edges; it’s not a case of all the threads coming together, as it is everything falling apart with a kind of deranged yet inevitable logic, an anti-Rube Goldberg trap that still destroys everything and everyone in its path.
The more I reflect on Greenhouse, the more what I initially perceived as flaws sink into the background, as the end product proves a bleak, compelling and original vision of a woman in trouble. It’s not the most elegant piece of work, but its cumulative force cannot be denied.
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TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM Review: The TMNT Movie We Should Have Had Decades Ago
PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES Present A POINT GREY Production “TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM” It took the better part of four decades, at least two separate reboots (three, depending on how you’re counting) for Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles to finally receive the big-screen treatment they’ve always deserved and yet – somehow inexplicably – they haven’t received until writer-producer Seth Rogen, his longtime writing-producing partner/lifelong friend, Evan Goldberg, and writer-director Jeff Rowe (The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Gravity Falls) stepped in to take over a perpetually floundering big-screen franchise.
Of course, the turtles have had ample success in other media beyond their comic-book origins and merchandizing second to none, specifically multiple animated series across those four decades, series that, individually and collectively, primed generations of TV viewers of all ages for the literal heights of movie-theater screens. Why, however, that success has eluded them until now probably has something to do with a lack of, if not ambition, then imagination, relying on crude live-action hybrids (first animatronics, then CGI/mo-caps) to do the serious lifting story- and character-wise.
With Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, that’s no longer true. Despite once again focusing on the turtles and their origin story, the decision to go not just fully animated, but to fully embrace a distinct, rough-hewn style for character designs, backgrounds, and the inevitable set pieces, but to also deliver a layered story involving the bickering protagonists and their distinctly teen, distinctly relatable concerns, while also mirroring those concerns thematically in a villain and his mutant cohort is nothing short of brilliant. That Rogen and company don’t forget to keep the story constantly moving forward while also delivering a fair share of comedic bits and consistently humorous sight gags makes this latest reboot the first film in the series to be actually worthy of a sequel.
After rapidly dispensing with the overly familiar origin story involving a rogue scientist, mutagenic ooze, and said ooze infecting the teens of the title, Leonardo (voiced by Nicolas Cantu), Raphael (Brady Noon), Donatello (Micah Abbey), and Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), and their adopted father figure/martial arts mentor, Master Splinter (Jackie Chan), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, skips ahead 15 years. Living in the sewers with dear old xenophobic dad, the turtles have taken his anti-human advice to heart, fearing what they don’t understand and avoiding human contact wherever and whenever possible, running errands in the dead of night while wistfully conjecturing about the human world below.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES Present A POINT GREY Production “TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM” That desire for connection, adventure, and experience, all universal to the teen experience, drives the turtles’ first meeting with April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri), here an enterprising teen reporter for her local high school hoping to get the kind of world-changing scoop that will make her name and her reputation. That she’s trying to overcome an unfortunate on-air incident adds to her relatability; likewise, her natural curiosity when the turtles, springing into action hero mode for the first time, help April recover her stolen scooter.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES Present A POINT GREY Production “TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM” And thus begins a beautiful friendship between the turtles and their first but by no means last, human ally. Having stumbled into something far greater and far more sinister than a stolen car/scooter ring, the turtles and April find themselves playing detectives to track down the latest in a long series of high-tech machinery being collected by the turtles’ bizarro mirror image, Superfly (Ice Cube), an incredibly bitter human-hater with a typically grandiose, comic-book villain-inspired plan to literally remake the world in his own image.
Superfly’s plan doesn’t win points for originality, but at least it gives Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem the high stakes it needs to put the titular heroes in world-saving mode. Not surprisingly, the set pieces get bigger along the way, allowing Rowe and his team of ultra-talented animators to leverage their imaginations to the highest degree possible. To say the turtles have never looked like they do here is an understatement. To say they’ve never better isn’t one.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES Present A POINT GREY Production “TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM” The deliberately unfinished, hand-drawn look of the turtles and their environments may just be worth the price of admission alone but add to that engaging storytelling, lively characterizations, and positive, community-centric character arcs, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem qualifies as a win for the turtles without hesitation, reservation, or doubt.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem opens theatrically on Wednesday, August 2nd.
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A Not Wholly Unbiased Review of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM
PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES Present A POINT GREY Production
“TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM”The year is 2014. Five years after purchasing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property from Peter Laird’s Mirage Group, Viacom releases their first theatrical TMNT movie, via Paramount. The lead-up to the film engenders dread and apprehension among its fanbase as each announcement, trailer, and new piece of information (including an atrocious and allegedly genuine leaked script) fuels the horrible realization:
These people have no idea what they’re doing.
Fast forward to 2023; Paramount has their head in the game for their third at-bat. This latest reboot of the property is steered by comedic veteran Seth Rogen, a lifelong Turtles fan, producing and writing as usual with his partner Evan Goldberg. It’s amazing to see the difference in reactions as the response has been, for the most part, very positive. Each trailer and clip feels fresh and exuberant, with unique animation, a more youthful approach to the turtles, and a large cast of mutant characters and designs clearly channeling – for the first time in a movie – the 1987 cartoon (the property’s most familiar and, for many, most nostalgic iteration). Fans are actively anticipating, rather than dreading, heading to a movie theater because they can see that there’s some genuine passion concerning what they love.
Film review or criticism is usually supposed to be objective and impersonal, but that ain’t happening here. The Turtles are easily my favorite property or fandom or what have you. I’m that guy who knows every nuance, owns all the comics, collects the action figures, you name it. For this review I actually watched the movie twice before locking in my thoughts – first with my kids, and then again on my own.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES Present A POINT GREY Production
“TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM”From the beginning, Seth Rogen’s been vocal about his plan to make the Turtles more like real teenagers – thankfully he didn’t mean a raunchy Superbad approach, but rather portraying kids who react and behave like kids, and voiced by actual teens. Despite the “Teenage” moniker, the Turtles have always been kind of treated more or less like adults (not to mention their saga has extended well beyond their teenage years in every medium, and in many stories simply are adults).
In this, he nailed the approach and it works really well, and the boys (Nicolas Cantu as Leo, Brady Noon as Raph, Micah Abbey as Donnie, and Shamon Brown Jr. as Mikey) are fun and endearing as the four young turtles, ready to go out and explore the outside world but held back by their apprehensive father and teacher, Splinter (Jackie Chan), whose frightening experiences with the surface world have led to bitterness and cynicism against humanity.
The Turtles’ and characterizations are spot-on, each holding true to their classic personalities while reworked a bit to give them a little uniqueness in this new context, including visual nuances and, in terms of their design initiative, asymmetry.
As with every version, the story begins some fifteen years ago when a vial of mutagenic ooze is accidentally lost in the sewers, where it encounters four baby turtles, changing their lives forever. Some details of the origin story are slightly retrofitted and commingled with that of the film’s other mutant characters and scientist Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito), but it’s no worse for these changes.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES Present A POINT GREY Production
“TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM”As the boys become old enough to go out on errands and food runs, it does little to sate their need for outside friendship and “human” connection. Things start to look up when they encounter their first human friend, April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri), an aspiring journalist. It’s one of my favorite portrayals of April, who in recent iterations has trended toward being more of the Turtles’ same-age counterpart and less like a big sister or den mother. This April is more of an outsider than previous versions, which lends a slightly misanthropic spark to her partnering up with the Turtles – for once, she needs their friendship as much as they need her. Meanwhile, urban legends and increasing reports of a criminal gang run by a “Superfly” (Ice Cube) catch their attention, and together they hatch a plan to get the Turtles the human acceptance they crave, and April her big break, by taking down Superfly and his goons and having April broadcast it to the world.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES Present A POINT GREY Production
“TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM”Turns out Superfly isn’t just a name – he and his cohorts are mutants, including fan favorites Rocksteady (John Cena), Bebop (Rogen), Mondo Gecko (Paul Rudd), and Leatherhead (Rose Byrne) among several others. When the Turtles meet the larger mutant cast (or the “Mutanimals” as they’re known in other iterations), they discover they aren’t simple baddies but a sympathetic group of characters, and even a bizarre family of mutantkind which readily and openly embraces the Turtles (definite shades here of the X-Men and their relationship with Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants), shifting perceptions and casting doubt on the original plan.
Superfly, a new character spun off of Baxter Stockman (who in several TMNT iterations was himself transformed into mutant fly), is a definite highlight of the movie, brought to life by Ice Cube in a standout performance that capably points the needle from hip and friendly to darkly sinister.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES Present A POINT GREY Production
“TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM”The movie’s a blast. It’s all a lot of fun and the treatment is mostly both reverent of the material and high-spirited in the Rogen-Goldberg mold. The unique animation has a sketch-paint look that’s one-of-a-kind, both totally amazing and yet deliberately unpolished, giving so much character and style to a familiar story. The colorful palette and character designs recall the 1987 cartoon while also feeling a little more grounded in the art and world of the comics. And unsurprisingly for a Rogen-Goldberg joint, there were tons of laughs.
On the second viewing, I was also much more aware of how incredible the music is, mixing up old-school hip-hop with a brash, moody, and low-end-heavy score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. If there’s any weak spot in the music, it’s that I couldn’t pick out a “main theme” by ear.
While I loved the film, there’s one pretty major bummer that I’m not thrilled about, regarding one of my favorite characters, Splinter. He’s often the character whose adaptations have suffered the most over the years: unfortunately a lot of writers just don’t understand who he is, what to do with him, and to a smaller extent that remains the case here. Happily, most aspects of this character are spot on: a loving if overbearing dad, a wise teacher, and a devastatingly capable fighter, though showing his age. Jackie Chan is a wonderful fit in the role, delivering a sensitive and endearing performance that really expresses the relationship that Splinter shares with his sons.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES Present A POINT GREY Production
“TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM”But this telling also seems to strip him of his identity, repeating one of the worst mistakes of the 2014 movie and making him a seemingly random New York City rat with no mention of any Japanese or Asian ancestry, nor martial arts background. Splinter’s own relaying of his origin seems to sever any historical ties to Oroku Saki (the Shredder) or Hamato Yoshi (Splinter’s human companion or human identity, depending on the telling). This point is even driven home in a scene where the Turtles realize they don’t have a last name (suggesting they have not taken up the adoptive mantle of the Hamato family).
This might seem like a small quibble, or even as slavery to retreading ideas that have already been done, but these details are not just nerd-rage talking points: they speak to Splinter and the Turtles’ core identity. These points don’t really impact the narrative so far, but they are relevant to the future of this narrative. Inheriting a family feud is the primary conflict of the larger Turtles’ saga, and it would be a palpable loss, rendering far less relevance to the Shredder if he’s just some random villain stripped of these personal stakes (and doubly so another major character, his daughter Karai, who serves as a direct foil to the Turtles).
Being an immigrant family is also an important part of the Turtles’ cultural identity, and the potential loss of their heritage is not lost on Asian-American children of immigrant parents or grandparents – myself included. I remain hopeful, as the casting of Jackie Chan acknowledges at least that Splinter is coded as Asian, and his tale is left just open enough that maybe he simply hasn’t told us his full story and that fuller answers will be revealed in time.
One major gripe aside, this is not only a really solid Turtles movie but a terrific and highly enjoyable movie in general. My audience laughed and cheered, especially at the “Fan Event” preview which would’ve pulled in a more focused core group than a typical showing. I also found that I liked it more on the second viewing, which is a terrific indicator that it’s going to be one to watch and rewatch.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem opens theatrically on Wednesday, August 2nd
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Living With Miyazaki, Part 11 – THE WIND RISES
The Final Life Lesson From the Animation Maestro
Previous life lessons:
Part 1: LUPIN III — THE CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO
Part 2: NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND
Part 3: CASTLE IN THE SKY
Part 4: MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO
Part 5: KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE
Part 6: PORCO ROSSO
Part 7: PRINCESS MONONOKE
Part 8: SPIRITED AWAY
Part 9: HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE
Part 10: PONYOAnd so we come to the final lesson.
For now.
Even as I write this, Japanese audiences are getting a look at How Do You Live, the new “final” film from Hayao Miyazaki (although this time, retirement probably will take, whether Miyazaki wishes it to or not). GKIDS will be releasing the film under the title The Boy and the Heron in America sometime this year.
But for the moment, the journey ends here. Not with a fantastical kingdom under siege. Not with magical creatures running amok. When characters take to the skies in The Wind Rises, it is only possible through dreams or machines that extract an awful cost in exchange for bringing those dreams to life.
It is impossible to view The Wind Rises independently from its framing as the intended final statement from Miyazaki, capping off a decades-long run as the world’s preeminent animation master and one of the shining paragons of the cinematic form regardless of genre or medium.
When viewed through that prism, or simply in contrast to the candy-colored fantasia that was his previous film, the steadfastly earthbound nature of The Wind Rises can’t help but shock. Gone is the whimsy and the (literal) flights of fancy. We are bound to the unmoving province of the real world, where disease can consume true love and war can consume continents. No reprieves. No magic fixes. No happily ever after.
Instead, Miyazaki takes you through the life of an artist, from youthful idylls and daydreaming through the diligence required of mastering a craft, through careers ups and downs, trials and errors, up to and including those electric moments of sudden inspiration and revelation where the artist has their art revealed to them as if it has been whole and complete the entire time, waiting to be revealed.
The only problem is that the artist is creating something horrifying.
Jiro just wants to create planes. Well, actually, what he really wants to do is fly, but his lifelong nearsightedness puts an end to that dream before it can even really begin. Instead he devotes himself to the study of building planes rather than flying them, years of study bringing him to the forefront of the industry while he pursues his perfect, purest design. Except as anyone who sits down to watch The Wind Rises will most likely already know going in, what Jiro is building towards is the creation of the “Zero”, the notorious plane used for kamikaze suicide raids by Japanese pilots during World War II. In his pursuit of creating beauty, Jiro is enabling, maybe even strengthening, true evil in the world.
Does Miyazaki feel the same way about his own work? Does he look back at one of the most illustrious careers in all of film and animation and think, ‘What have I done?’ Throughout The Wind Rises, Jiro visits an ethereal dream-space shared with his hero, the Italian aeronaut Giovanni Caproni. There Caproni (in what is either a visitation to a spiritual realm or Jiro’s own subconscious sounding alarms) remarks that while planes are a beautiful dream, they are also a “cursed dream” and will only lead to war, death, and ruin.
Is the dream worth the cost? Can any dream be worth such a cost?
On initial release, some took issue with The Wind Rises, viewing it as an apologia for Japanese war crimes during the Second World War. In another dream sequence, Caproni compares planes to pyramids, another astounding achievement that cost unfathomable amounts of human lives and human suffering in order to exist. Caproni phrases it as a choice, and asserts that he has chosen a world with pyramids in it. To the naysayers, this is Miyazaki letting his heavily fictionalized version of Jiro off the hook.
But The Wind Rises does not actually presume to answer the question it poses. It spends two hours laying the question out and leaves you to wrestle with it for the rest of your life. How responsible is the artist for how their art is used? Where does that responsibility begin and end? What is the acceptable price we will pay for advancement (technological, artistic, personal, etc.)?
I don’t have an answer. I’m not convinced that Miyazaki has an answer. I think it’s the kind of question most people get angry at having to consider if you don’t frame it to them in a gorgeous, entertaining movie that doesn’t announce the barbed hooks until they’re safely planted under your skin and about to tug.
But the real life lesson from this film, and from all of Miyazaki’s films, is right there in the title, taken from Paul Valéry’s “Le Cimetière Marin”:
“The wind rises! We must try to live!”
It may only be Miyazaki’s final film that is actually titled How Do You Live, but each film in his career is essentially asking and answering that question over and over again. And not just “How?” but “Why?”.
Why keep going when all seems lost? Why try to make tomorrow better when all signs point to it being every bit as bad as today? Whether his characters are eking out an existence at the edge of an ever-growing radioactive wasteland or simply young people lost in an adult world that makes no sense and doesn’t play fair, again and again Miyazaki brings his protagonists face to face with the inevitability of doom, failure, decay, hopelessness, and dares them to give up.
But…they don’t.
As one of the lepers says in Princess Mononoke, “Life is suffering and pain. This world and its people are cursed, but we still wish to live.”
The trademark beauties of Miyazaki’s films and Studio Ghibli’s output in general become more meaningful when viewed in contrast to the statements of this nature present throughout the various works. The world may be cursed, but there is still wonder to be found in a sizzling plate of delectable food, in the music of water rushing over stones, in the feel of wind on your skin as it wraps all around you. You may write these things off, in movies and in life, as passing fancies. As incidental, forgettable distraction in between the important achievements and moments of your life.
But it is these things that keep you alive, that make the world so beautiful that you fight to remain in it, no matter how painful things might get. Loss and suffering and death are what we inherit as humans brought to life upon this planet, but in between these certainties we can steal all the joy and wonder that our hearts can possibly bear.
We can’t control the times we live in. But we can choose how we live during it.
At the close of The Wind Rises, Jiro is confronted by the devastation his creation wrought and by the woman he loved but lost to a terminal illness.
In a kingdom of ruin, in the land of the dead, a man is still moved to tears and can only speak of gratitude.
The wind rises.
But we will try to live.
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PASSAGES and the Irresistible Chaos of Connection
Ira Sachs’ latest quietly devastating drama is all about the power and pain of human desire–but does it place polyamory in an emotional crossfire it doesn’t deserve?
Tomas (Franz Rogowski) is a mercurial art film director whose professional outbursts mirror his personal ones. He loses himself in parties with friends, constantly seeking new stimulation; his husband, Martin (Ben Whishaw), has quietly adapted to Tomas’ unpredictable behavior, finding method in his madness–even Tomas’ spur-of-the-moment romances with others. Tomas’ sudden spark with schoolteacher Agathe (Adèle Exarchapoulos) catches both men by surprise–neither Tomas nor Martin knows how to confront Martin’s emerging bisexuality. Tomas loses himself in the passion of being with Agathe, but when Martin decides to explore his own affections elsewhere, Tomas’ resulting emotional frenzy threatens to wreak havoc on all three connected partners.
Befitting its title, the characters of Ira Sachs’ latest film are perpetually caught in liminal spaces. Its biggest moments occur in places of transition–hallways, sidewalks, vehicles–as the three leads pursue passions or surrender them to others. Likewise, any moment that takes place in somewhere static–a classroom, kitchen, or more pointedly, a bedroom–threatens to gather up the energy of its stationary characters to near breaking points. After Tomas’ first encounter with Agathe, Martin cautions him that something like this happens to Tomas after he finishes a new project; that filling one emotional void leaves Tomas with another. When in motion, Tomas is especially happy to shed off his excess energy–when forced to stand still, he can’t help but want to be anywhere else. To Tomas, to remain somewhere is to leave other places or people unexplored–left with nothing but the consequences of where he chooses to be.
It’s also fitting, then, that Passages’ opening scene features Tomas berating the lead of his film for their inability to properly walk down a staircase in what should be an interstitial shot. It’s a moment that should only last a few seconds onscreen but spirals out of control due to Tomas’ manic inability to convey what he wants as much as his actors struggle to adhere to his indeterminable direction. There are limits to how much Tomas can make himself understood, as well as to how others make themselves understood by him. As much as Tomas revels in this sense of emotional control, he’s blind to how much he can’t control his own emotions–even as everyone around him suffers for it. Passages maintains a patient yet exacting gaze upon the characters’ varying ability to reckon with these moments of emotional transition, and their inability to communicate and understand how precisely these characters impact one another.
Tomas, Agathe, and Martin’s central emotional dynamic undoubtedly makes for compelling drama despite their own admonishments of melodrama or erratic behavior; it’s a trait of Passages that drew both equal fascination and hesitation, as a cis bisexual man in polyamorous relationships. There are enough films and TV that dramatize negative tropes of both bisexuality and polyamory/ethical non-monogamy; there’s nothing more to be gained from yet another story about a depraved bisexual whose fleeting whims inflict emotional damage upon their partners, of bisexual characters who must be forced to pick a side, or of triad-plus relationships whose consensual formation contains within them the seeds of their own inevitable failure.
Passages doesn’t repudiate some of these ideas–the ethics side of ethical non-monogamy feel like an afterthought to Tomas–but Sachs’ film at least has the emotional and storytelling nuance to not root Tomas’ chaotic behavior in the non-conformity of his sexuality or relationships. While the character’s manic energy slashes the longevity of his connections from the start, Sachs and Rogowski are unrepentant about Tomas’ total fuckboy behavior. What’s more, Whishaw and Exarchopoulous effectively dramatize how such energy draws in both Martin and Agathe–and anyone who could be caught in Tomas’ gaze. Rogowski’s performance is both domineering and vulnerable, exuding an egotistical demand of the world shared between controlling creatives and petulant children; going deeper, Tomas’ sexuality seems to stem from this worldview rather than the other way around. As expressed by director Sachs, Tomas is more sexual than bisexual, someone whose endless drive for attainability and conflict doesn’t have its own roots in one particular sex. It’s clear that Tomas does gain some sincere emotional fulfillment through his relationships with Martin and Agathe; however, Sachs remains skeptical on whether or not the same fulfillment could be gained by swapping out either partner with any other member of the human race, as long as they manage to gain Tomas’ attention and affection. Mileage may vary on whether or not this is truly a subversion of the “chaotic bisexual” trope, or merely sexual semantics posing as a nuanced depiction of one’s non-heteronormative sexuality. However, Sachs and Rogowski admittedly place more emotional judgment not on Tomas’ choice of partners, but his crippling inability to nuture the connections he chooses to have with others beyond the passion of a fleeting moment.
At the same time, the vivacity belying such selfishness quickly inspires an equal frenzy in those around Tomas. Whishaw’s Martin and Exarchopoulos’ Agathe feel like they satisfy Tomas’ craving for reliability and stability for Tomas during emotional crisis; yet Sachs also infers how both partners find similar satisfaction in his appealing spontaneity. With impulsive and intimate sex scenes with both partners, as well as an obsessive amount of attention given once they surrender to Tomas’ pleas to connect with them, Sachs illustrates how rewarding Tomas’ attention can feel to Martin and Agathe even after putting in an unfair amount of comparable emotional labor to attain it. Non-Monogamy, like any relationship, can take an exacting emotional toll as one navigates complex new power and emotional dynamics. It requires self-introspection, attention, and emotional literacy. It’s a damn good amount of work required of anyone to make it work in the first place. While it’s clear that Martin and Agathe may possess the emotional wherewithal to make that effort for someone like Tomas, Tomas’ self-centeredness undoes any effort that his two partners may put into the emotional bonds they have with him.
It’s a nuanced take on polyamory that feels missing from most other dramatizations, admonishing how one person’s selfish actions and lack of communication may bring about an end to what could otherwise have been a healthy relationship dynamic. This is further evidenced in some of Passages’ most moving moments, notably in a climactic scene between Agathe and Martin where the two of them confront Tomas’ impact on them without him present. They find a quiet strength in one another as both metamours and loose acquaintances, a promising friendship undone by the strongest connection they have in common.
But as much as this is an aspect of Passages I praise, the briefly polyamorous nature of this triad’s relationship also feels like one of its most unrealized features. An earlier scene featuring Tomas leaving one partner’s bed for another in the same house may be the film’s most straightforward depiction of polyamory, but at the same time, it feels like one of its most reductive acts of representing what such ethical non-monogamy is ultimately about. It’s fair that Tomas may also have the same emotionally-stunted mindset while Martin/Agathe don’t, which is another reason why this triad seems doomed to failure. However, it feels like such a missed opportunity in Passages‘ brief runtime to deny further illustrating that what inevitably dooms Tomas, Martin, and Agathe’s time together are the individual choices made in their unconventional relationship and not the nature of the relationship itself.
The bittersweet nature of each of these relationships is only heightened by the amount of tenderness each of the three leads gives their characters. While Rogowski’s Tomas can’t help but be a focal point by being the most soft-spoken bull in an antiques shop you’ve ever seen, Whishaw’s Martin manages to be so level-headed in the most trying of emotional circumstances, underscoring a maddening amount of patience that this character has extended his partner over multiple years. Agathe is admittedly a cipher for a good portion of the film’s runtime, kept at arms’ length by being seen only through the lens of Tomas’ frenzied chemistry with her. However, Exarchopoulos lends Agathe greater shades of complexity as the film progresses, as someone attracted to Tomas as a repudiation of the mundanity of life, as seen in her life as a clubbing schoolteacher whose traditionally-minded parents prove to be rightly suspicious of Tomas’ infatuation with her.
In that way, Passages’ fascination with liminal spaces lends itself to the inner push-and-pull of its characters, not to be rooted in one emotional state for far too long, and just how fleeting and fluid our impulses and identities can be. For both Martin and Agathe, they find an intoxicating liberation in Tomas, just as Tomas finds safety in them as he struggles to deal with his own inner turmoil. Each of these relationships, however, is toxically predicated on needing one’s partners to fill a void; it reduces the complexities of others down to their ability to fulfill one basic need that can only be addressed by the self.
Passages opens in limited release on August 4th courtesy of Mubi.
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FANTASIA 2023: THE FIRST SLAM DUNK is a Shōnen Masterwork
Slam Dunk, the iconic sports anime/manga that ran for six years (1990-1996), left an indelible mark on the sports manga/anime. Now three decades later the original creator Takehiko Inoue makes his directorial debut, writing and directing the first new animated feature length film for the property in over three decades titled The First Slam Dunk. This latest entry was a box office juggernaut in Japan and I couldn’t wait to check it out at Fantasia.
I should probably admit that before sitting down, that I have neither seen nor read Slam Dunk, in either incarnation, and I am not the biggest sports fan either. That being said, Slam Dunk is a frantic nailbiter of a film, that like all great sports films at its core has a very human story.
The hook here is that the entirety of the two-hour runtime transpires nearly in real time within the framework of the high school championship game between two teams: the unbeatable Sannoh school, and the manga protagonists, the underdogs from the Shohoku High. As expected the team from Shohoku is your typical shonen ragtag group of outsiders who are faced with beating an unbeatable foe. Interspersed between the frantically paced game is the heart-wrenching story of Ryota Miyagi, the captain/point guard of Shohoku, who uses basketball to heal not only the death of his father, but also the death of his older brother who was a basketball prodigy. We soon learn this game has a very significant meaning to Royota, who after chasing his brother’s shadow for most of his life, is finally standing where his brother always dreamed he would be, facing off against Sannoh.
Unlike most anime films based on a series, The First Slam Dunk feels completely accessible to both fans and those curious to check this series out like myself. The ambitious real time game setup makes this a tense watch, since Inoue masterfully cuts back and forth using Ryota’s emotional story to amplify the game’s beats and illuminate the stakes to not only him, but his teammates. Ryota’s story is one of anger, loss, and how basketball carried him through all of that, taking the sports story and elevating it to something more human and accessible. It’s particularly interesting how this carries into his relationship with his grief-stricken mother, who lost not only a husband but a son, only to constantly be reminded of that loss daily due to both brothers’ shared love of the game.
The film and how it looks is unlike anything I’ve even seen in animation. It’s rumored there was a great deal of R&D put in to achieve its look that perfectly captures the fluid energy and motion of a basketball game, just animated. The animation style uses a combination of motion capture and 3D CG to great effect, while still keeping that hand drawn look of the original manga. Think Chainsaw Man, but a bit less stilted and more organic. There was also no doubt a theatrical budget at work here. This technology has surprisingly grown leaps and bounds in the last few years and does a breathtaking job here at recreating the action in a believable way, bridging the live action and animated world.
Slam Dunk is not just visually a sight to behold, but also a moving story of familial trauma, which is no doubt the reason it resonated with so many. Even while its story is steeped in shonen tropes, Takehiko Inoue has carved a deeply emotional tale in that testosterone and ambition, showing just how these principles and relationships on the court impact the lives off of it. Like any good sports story Slam Dunk is able to make its exhilarating story accessible on a human level; to be honest, I’ve never been more invested in and riveted by a basketball game my entire life. But for those two hours I was cheering the cocky Ryota and his teammates and hoping they were able to unite as a team and take down Sannoh in a story that is accessible to both fans and newcomers alike.
