Days of Being LJ

In recent years Chinese historical epics have been the downfall of many great Chinese directors. Wu Ji (The Promise) drew scathing criticism and various parodies almost ending Chen Kai Ge’s illustrious career, whilst Curse of the Golden Flower definitely didn’t help Zhang Yi Mou’s quest for the elusive Oscar for best foreign film. John Woo joins this distinguished list as he tries to tackle, in Red Cliff, a few chapters from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of China’s most famous and lauded pieces of literature. And tackle, Woo does, with his uncompromisingly brash and heavy directorial hands.

Of course this is not to say that Red Cliff is not enjoyable, in fact I’m sure it’ll be very enjoyable if:

a. You know nothing about Chinese history
b. You like never ending action sequences
c. You hate dissecting films

And if you fit into any of the above categories then please don’t read any further because we are very likely to disagree on this film. So here goes, a short dissection of Red Cliff:

Cinematic Techniques

Whilst  Curse of the Golden Flower indulged in it’s own visual excesses (and Chow Yun Fat indulged in his own hammy acting), Zhang Yi Mou is professional enough to keep the film EPIC, in technique and in tone. In Red Cliff John Woo reverts back to his sophomore homages to the Shaw Brothers era. Whist zoom-ins and time lapse montages worked in the Kung-Fu fiction of Hong Kong cinema in the 70s or in the Chow Yun Fat gun toting action excesses of 80s-90s HK cinema, they tend to cheapen the experience when you’re going for historical EPIC.

With such historical significance presented in Red Cliff you can’t help feel a bit dirty when hit with these amateurish odes to Woo’s ego. The doves, the Mexican standoff (this time with swords rather than the handguns) and hackneyed montages elicit faint nervous laughter rather than emotional empathy (e.g. like the final scene in The Killer, most of Face Off, various scenes in Bullet in the Head). Of course Woo is one of the last directors I’d expect to attempt gritty realism, except even in light of the exaggerated motifs and techniques he uses, he IS capable of toning it down. (Watch the first half of  Bullet in the Head and you might agree), 90% of the time he just chooses not to.

Also the editor responsible should be SHOT for indulging in Woo’s slow superimposed montages, for example, Tony Leung’s contemplative face, superimposed on top of scenes from nature. What does this mean? I don’t know! That Zhou Yu is conflicted and angry like nature? Only Woo knows. Shit like this just makes me cry when I watch films, cry out of sheer frustration.

Characters

I can’t comment on how much character assassination took place since I’ll ashamedly admit to the fact that I haven’t yet read Three Kingdoms (I’ll will be remedying this soon in the future). Although I’ll comment on the following:

Casting - Woo falls into the pit of hell called “Pan Asian Casting”, I’ve elaborated more here in my review of The Shinjuku Incident. Basically this means, take some top actors from various territories around Asia with large potential markets for the film (e.g. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan etc) mix them into a hasty shot production, then market to the relevant territories using their images. It’s the worst thing that has happened to Asian cinema, it encourages inconsistent performances, hammy acting and worst of all, allows someone like Lin Chi-Ling to be in a feature film.

It’s funny how even when given the length of 2 films, Woo can’t cover the necessary character development needed for the emotional and intellectual depth crucial in tackling Three Kingdoms. If Peter Jackson could sell me the ENTIRE fellowship + Sauron + Saruman + Bilbo etc in the 1st LOTR film, then John, you can do so in 2 films with Liu Bei & his cronies, Zhu Ge Liang, Zhou Yu, Cao Cao etc etc.
Alas, when 60% of the film is taken up by poor extras getting hacked over and over again, there’s not much left for Characterisation. Which brings me to…

Action Scenes

What can I say? The CGI was impressive for a Chinese production (on DVD anyway) but again Woo just exaggerates to excess. The thousands of boats stretching across the Yangtze? Fer crying out loud, show some restraint, a little realism never hurt anyone, especially when you’re dealing with history and not something like Lord of the Rings.

The action set pieces were done well as expected (and yes that probably was 20 000 poor extras slaughtered in the background rather than pure CGI). But there was just too much screen time, you felt that by the 50th arrow, the 20th spear to the chest, the 100th soldier bludgeoned to death, the audience would have got the point. If they didn’t well then you shouldn’t really be making films for audiences like that in the first place. I don’t need to see that arrow going into the guys chest from 5 different camera angles in slow motion, this isn’t the Olympics, please move on.

And there-in lies the biggest problem for Red Cliff.

DULLNESS

the cardinal sin of filmmaking.

mindless violence and hackery leaves the viewer disensitized and therefore when you actually WANT to make an emotional impact (i.e in the last battle) the viewer is already expecting it, the arrows, the spears and the bludgeoning. Less is more, and it’s clear that Woo does not subscribe to this motto.

But hey…

Look it’s not a horrifically bad film, it will garn some good reviews, sweep the HKFA and Golden Horse awards but by no means is it a masterpiece…or even a very good film. The thing is that should Red Cliff have had a different director, Chen Kai Ge, Zhang Yi Mou, Ang Lee or even perhaps a 6th Gen Mainland director (Shit perhaps Tsui Hark even) someone with more finesse than John Woo, it could have been something incredible…and that lost chance is what makes watching Red Cliff ultimately a frustrating affair.

I’ve noticed that on rotten tomatoes, Red Cliff is at 90%, but it seems like most of the reviewers saw the international cut where both films where combined into 1 single 2.5 hour film. This could have been a better experience since superfluous story lines (like the random Zhao Wei behind enemy lines plot line) could be cut, the action tightened and overall the character development would be worthy of a single film.

Perhaps I expected too much, maybe it is John Woo’s best film in 10 years,  but when you realise that the last watchable John Woo film was Mission Impossible II, it’s not a great stretch to say that Red Cliff is a clear achievement. However in comparison to some very VERY good Chinese Historical films in the past (The Emperor and the Assassin, The Emperor’s Shadow and even Hero to a degree), Red Cliff pales in comparison.

LJK film chinese cinema, film review, hong kong cinema, john woo, takeshi kaneshiro, three kingdoms, tony leung

Okay so the title of this post suggests that Shinjuku Incident (Jackie Chan’s latest Non-Kungfu offering) was a bad film. It’s not, it was actually quite enjoyable. A few unintentional laughs yes, (but when do people like Alan and I ever not laugh at unintentional moments?) but some good tension and action set pieces too.  Chan takes a few acting risks which is nice but overall he is slightly miscast as Steel Head. Derek Yee like most HK directors needs to restrain his actors badly, and what often starts as a nice scene descends into scenery chewing with bad moustaches.

Shinjuku Incident also embodies elements what has often become the scourge of HK cinema in the past 5 years or so:

1. Way too many actors from across the regions, HK actors, Mainland actors, Taiwanese actors and of course Japanese, cause the film is set in Japan.
2. Because of 1, you get HK actors trying to speak mandarin whilst lapsing into Cantonese or trying to sound Dong Bei but with an unconvincing Dong Bei mandarin accent, Taiwanese speaking hakka and mandarin, Japanese speaking Japanese AND Chinese and Mainlanders speaking standard mandarin (no that they’re actually capable of doing anything other). Like WTF people, have some consistency. The thing is that if it was a Hollywood film and Brad Pitt was meant to be a British character but instead spoke in an American accent they’d be uproar, but in Chinese films it happens all the fucking time. Like someone introduce the notion of a “Dialect Coach” into Chinese Cinema…PLEASE

• • But wait, you say…What about something like Hero or Lust Caution where you have HK actors speaking mandarin with an accent? That’s okay I say because those characters where never explicitly said to be from a certain place in China. For Ancient China we don’t even know what the accents were so it shouldn’t even be a problem to the viewer. In Lust Caution, Tony Leung’s Character was from the South, so he had a southern mandarin accent which worked. But in Shinjuku Incident, Jackie Chan and Daniel Wu were both meant to be from Dong Bei…but had southern mandarin accents.
  • But hey if you don’t even understand Chinese you wouldn’t care, so maybe I’m just being picky.

1. Total inconsistency with tone, Shinjuku Incident is part country bumpkin migrant rags to riches, part black society, part TV Soap, part weird surrealist punk rock anti-drug story.

Derek Yee is a director with some good solid and interesting films under his belt, but overall I can’t help but feel that The Shinjuku Incident was another failed attempt at pleasing the Pan-Asian market. Yet because of it’s subject matter, it didn’t get a release in the lucrative Mainland market and thus had to settle for whatever profits it can take from HK (It headlined the HKIFF) and peripheral markets like this weird deal made in Australia where it was exclusively shown at Hoyts cinemas.

What I think has been the fundamental downfall of the HK film industry is not only due to the rise of the Mainland China but more the lack of development of it’s own talent. In the golden age of HK Cinema the directors, actors and other crew came up through the studio system from the 1960s-70s with the likes of the Shaw Brothers Studio. They were essentially trained as collaborative filmmakers not as money men. Time and time again we see the same directors making the better films now, John Woo, Derek Yee etc.

Later on actors came though the TVB training system which has now become weaker and weaker because whilst previously young men and women who tried out for the TVB school did so not for the fame or money but because they didn’t have any other avenues (Chow Yun Fat, Andy Lau, Tony Leung etc etc). But now acting is seen as lucrative, HK people go into it for the wrong reasons and hence you keep getting more and more mediocre graduates.

So now you’ve got a lack of young developed talent both in front and behind the cameras in HK who have to compete with the greater numbers of more talented people over the border on the mainland. So we have actors and directors in their late 40s-50s who are still taking the top billing and getting the best projects…why? because no one younger can come close.

It’s a serious dilemma, and HK Cinema is not going to improve until it decides to start nurturing the younger talent like it did in the past. So in 10 years time I hope I’m still not stuck watching Jackie Chan, Tony Leung and Andy Lau in roles which should be played by guys in their 30s.

So has HK Cinema lost it’s mojo? Yes, and tt has since probably 2005 and probably even much earlier (although I think 2004-2005 was the last year for solid films like Breaking News, 2046, Jiang Hu, Love Battlefield etc) And it probably won’t regain its mojo in the near future. I’m thinking there’s at least another 10-15 year wait until there’s a possibility of a resurgence. It’s sad, but the damage has been done.

—

We have a similar issues in Australia with both Film and TV. I was looking at the BBC blogs over the past few days and stumbled over these:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunity/college_of_comedy.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunity/writers_academy1.shtml

The BBC has a Writer’s Academy and a College of Comedy…to do what? To nurture new talent. And this is why they’re able to continue to output new and interesting programs because they always have a fresh crop of youngsters waiting in the wings. But not only do these programs benefit BBC itself but it also benefits the entire UK TV and film industry.

*sigh*

LJK film accents, bbc, dialects, filmmaking, hong kong cinema, jackie chan, writing