The Yellow Sea (2010, R)

This South Korean film is about a Chinese taxi driver named Gu-nam in Yanji City, the crime-ridden region between North Korea, China and Russia. He owes money to the criminals that obtained his wife's visa to work in South Korea (which the characters simply refer to as "Korea"). He hasn't heard from her in a while nor received any money from her, so he assumes she's cheating on him and/or prostituting herself. Kind of like Lucky Number Slevin (though far less humorous), he's offered a job to kill a man in Korea to wipe his debt and he can look for his wife in the meantime. Things don’t go as planned and he has to improvise.

Red Cliff (R, 2008)

This Chinese film takes place in the third century A.D. and concerns the military campaign of a Prime Minister warlord's invasion of two southern regions.  The PM just wants to invade the independent areas of the country to get them under his control, and he easily convinces the weak young emperor to approve his war.  The leaders of the two southern regions form an alliance to the surprise of the PM in order to combat the massive imperial army.

I didn't recognize any of the actors in the film but further investigation shows that several actors had parts in House Of Flying Daggers, Hero and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.  The director was John Woo (Face Off, Mission: Impossible II) and he did a fine job.  The picture and sound quality were good, special effects were pretty seamless (some scenes included CG assistance by necessity, but it was head and shoulders better than pretty much any non-Hollywood film I've seen), and in accordance with what I presume must be a national law, there was a obligatory wirework for some of the martial arts.

The Adventures Of Tintin (2011, PG)

The Adventures Of Tintin is a computer animated feature film about a young early 20th century newspaper reporter who goes on adventures.  The character - English in the film, Belgian in the original print material - is from European comic albums by a Belgian under the nom de plume Hergé and that were later made into cartoon adventures (short-ish).  This particular adventure involves Tintin, his faithful dog Snowy and sea captain Haddock trying to beat the bad guy to find the mystery behind a 17th century lost ship and some non-lost models of it.  Tintin is not Batman in terms of brilliance or fighting prowess, but he is brave, competent and willing to get in there and get the job done.  I'd been told that this movie was good, but I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would.

First and foremost I have to say that the animation in this movie was gorgeous.  The textures were great (particularly Tintin's sweater, also at one point Tintin held a paper pamphlet that I could have sworn was in my own hand).  The faces were a great midway between animation and realism that is visually pleasing, expressive and not creepy.

True Legend (2010, R)

This Chinese film is almost like two separate movies (as I guess the title implies a sort of dichotomy).  The first half plays out like a legend of a great military fighter and a supernaturally powered despot.  The second half is the true story of the man who created a new style of martial Wu-Shu fighting (Drunken Fist, like in Legend Of The Drunken Master with Jackie Chan, though I think this film is far superior), both about the same character/actor.  I really liked both parts and think they were very well done.  The visual quality (film stock, etc) was very good for a foreign film, and the special effects were for the most part seamless (there were a couple parts where a bird or carved mountain was obvious CG animation, but otherwise solid).  Much of the fighting was done with wirework, but it still looked clean.  The fighting was a treat to see, and reminded me of some Dragonball Z fights minus the fireballs and aliens (I mean this in the best possible way).  The story wasn't overly complex like Dune or Watchmen (the graphic novel more so than the film), but that's fitting for a legend/fairy tale and for a true story.

This film includes appearances by Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, 007: Tomorrow Never Dies) and David Carradine (Kill Bill, the Kung-Fu tv series), both of whom performed their roles very competently but did not steal the scene.  The acting was competent for all of the actors actually, even for the main character's son.  I liked the character arc, the various things he had to overcome and how he overcame them.

If you liked the films Ip Man/Ip Man 2, or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; the graphic novel Infinite Kung-Fu; the video game Jade Empire; or the show Dragonball/Dragonball Z, then I think you'll love this movie.  During most of the movie I had a big dumb grin plastered on my face and I'm pretty sure it was only partly due to the tasty beverage in my hand (which makes me embrace any story a bit more).  I wish this movie was around when I was younger and that I'd had a copy of it: it's a top-notch sleepover movie.  It takes only a small amount of generosity for me to give it a 5 star rating.

Wasabi (2001, R)

This French-language feature is an action/comedy about a police detective played by Jean Reno (The Professional, The DaVinci Code) traveling to Japan where he had met the love of his life and now meets trouble with the local criminals.  I've always liked seeing Reno on screen ever since I first saw The Professional, and this is now (tied for) my favorite film of his.  His character is (I know this is kind of impossible, but) a very competent version of Inspector Clouseau crossed with a less-homicidal Judge Dredd.  He's a straight-to-business action type and has seemingly left social graces behind.

Bangkok Dangerous (1999, R)

This film is quite different from the 2008 Hollywood remake starring Nicholas Cage.  They both feature a hitman and take place largely in Bangkok, Thailand, but the tone and storytelling styles of the two are almost polar opposites.  The original film is about a deaf-mute, living and working in Bangkok his whole life and has two close friends who also work in the industry (one is a male fellow hitman with whom he has partnered in the past and the other is a woman who gives them their assignments); the remake is about a distinctly non-hearing impaired American lone hitman whose current assignment is in Bangkok.  The dialogue of the original film's script could probably fit on a couple sheets of paper, and the story is told mostly with the music, a home-video style montage and some brief interactions; the remake is a full-scale action movie with a tremendously higher budget and full-conversations.

The Human Tornado (1976, R)

This movie was pretty ridiculous.  I haven't seen a lot of blaxploitation movies before, so I don't know if the things that struck me were tropes of the genre or not.  I don't think it was intended as comedy (but maybe it was), but just one of those 70's B-movies that we can watch and laugh at today: there was some horribly mid-dubbed dialogue with what I'm pretty sure is an entirely English-speaking cast, and the small-town white people in the first scene were caricatures of next-to-retarded racist hicks.  Elements that I know were common tropes were the "martial arts" fighting, and the song and/or dance numbers in the nightclub scenes.  The premise of the story is that the main character, Dolemite (who apparently is the lead in a series of films), is on the run from the small-town racist sherrif and when he looks for his friend, Queen Bee, in California he finds out she's in trouble of a different kind, so he decides to help.  Her (mostly black) nightclub has proven to be too much competition for a mafia-backed (white-owned, clientelle is largely black with some white) nightclub, so the Italian owner starts some trouble. 

The Seige (1998, R)

This film falls pretty cleanly into two arcs and each has solid value, I personally enjoyed the first part more than the second.  Denzel Washington (Remember The Titans, Training Day) plays an FBI agent in charge of an investigation to catch/stop a fundamentalist Islamic terrorist cell in New York city.  The first part of this film has the FBI following leads, investigating, responding to threats, and chasing suspects.  I'm starting to realize that I tend to enjoy procedural police investigations on film, at least when the detectives are clever.  The Denzel's unit in the FBI had a plethora (I always think of The Three Amigos when I hear that word) of other television actors that I like: his partner was played by Tony Shalhoub (Monk, Wings), also in the unit were Lance Reddick (Agent Broyles from Fringe), Mark Valley (Fringe, Human Target), and Danny Proval (The Sopranos). 

Assault On Precinct 13 (1976, R)

I had first heard of this film as the 2005 remake with Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Gattaca) and Lawrence Fishburne (The Matrix, Boyz N The Hood) which I still have not seen though I am a fan of both of those actors, so when I saw that there was an original film written and directed by John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing, Escape From New York) I had to add it to my queue as homework.  And I'm so glad I did!  Hollywood tends to remake films not because they think the first one had unfulfilled potential, but because it has a strong following and/or made money and they want to make more money.  That in mind, it will usually be worth your while to watch a movie that was later remade.  When the film began the first thing I noticed was the low-resolution film quality, which I suppose is inherent for any movie of a certain age that has not been transferred to Blu Ray.  The opening music, while unfamiliar to me does have that certain quality that can make it recognizable and a good iconic them to a song (kind of like the theme to Halloween [Tubular Bells, it's called], and interestingly enough John Carpenter also composed the music for both Halloween and Assault On Precinct 13).  The early lines in the movie seemed kind of uninspired as the backdrop for the story was being set up, but the dialogue for the main characters once they were introduced was noticeably sharp.  One of the elements that makes a film a cult classic is to have infinitely quotable lines, and this one delivered.  The dialogue was sparse compared to most other movies, but almost every line tended to be a one-liner that made each character a great character.  The early scenes were sort of whatever, but as the movie progressed I found myself very much invested in the characters.  Though the characters in this movie wore nothing like a tuxedo or a formal suit, I can imagine a damned fun cocktail party with the main characters of this film along with Rick (Humphrey Bogart's character) from Casablanca and Frank Sinatra.

V For Vendetta (2005, R)

NOSTALGIA WARNING.  Ok, maybe "nostalgia" isn't quite the correct word, but I should warn you that -unlike every review I've posted so far- this is not my first viewing of this film.  In fact I watch this movie every year on Nov 5 (if you've seen the movie and/or are familiar with Guy Fawkes Day, you'll understand the significance).  But the point of my warning is that I have some pre-existing affection for this film and so you should take my advice with a grain of salt.  But you should anyway, so I guess I'll just try to list the good and bad things about the movie as well as I can.  Also, please be aware that this film is not currently available to stream on Netflix: I watched it on DVD.

This movie is based on a graphic novel by Allan Moore (League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Watchmen; I know people tend to say this about all book-to-film adaptations [except American Psycho, the film of which does a better job of telling a/the story, I think], but the print version is far superior to the films for both of these) and the screenplay was written by the Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix).  Good start, right?  Hugo Weaving (The Matrix, Lord Of The Rings) plays the title role of V, the mysterious anti-hero/vigilante/terrorist who perpetually wears a full black cloak (think Soloman Kane) and a metal Guy Fawkes mask.

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974, PG)

Verbally referenced in the first half of Death-Proof (one of the two mock-exploitation films from his Grindhouse collaboration with Robert Rodriguez) and having similarites to several aspects of the second half of that film, we can be sure that Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry is one of director Quentin Tarantino's many influences.  The big name actor in this movie is Peter Fonda (Easy Rider, Ghost Rider) as one half of the title characters (hint: he's not Mary).  The story starts with Larry and his friend Deke about to embark on a scheme that I could tell was no-good despite their tight-lipped vagueness.  Seriously I had them pegged as scumbags and disliked them from the beginning.  We also meet the trashy and loud Mary who gets herself insinuatede into Larry and Deke's plot.  It's mostly a car chase movie as the police try to catch the main characters and I found myself rooting for the police most of the time (the cop in charge of the manhunt also posesses several qualities not ideal for an officer of the law, but his actions didn't show a disregard for any bystanders unfortunate enough to cross his path... unlike our criminal anti-heroes).  While near the end enough conversations took place to where I could at least identify with the anti-heroes as characters, the only one I found myself "liking" (I'll go so far as to call it that) was Deke who was at least professional and his laconic nature revealed a certain maturity.  Also Deke (played by Adam Roark) reminds me of today's Alec Baldwin in face and in voice, so he's got that going for him.

Most of the car chase stunts turned me off, not because they were unimpressive (in fact, I shudder to think how many stunt-drivers were harmed in the making of this film) but because of the aforementioned disregard for life/health/wellbeing that cauesd the characters to think it was a good idea to do most of these things.  I imagine someone who loves fast cars and fast driving would warm up to the characters and the movie much faster than I would (I've gotten plenty of speeding tickets in the past, and it sucks[!], so I try to drive safely these days).  But I do have to admit there were some cool ideas in how to evade and in how to catch, and I did find the ending quite satisfying.  The target audience is pretty specific for this movie: gearheads who like car chase movies.  Also a film buff might have interest in seeing the movie, or it's an ok movie to have playing in the background at a party.  But if you're not one of thoses groups you could give this one a pass.  For me it's about 2 out of 5 stars: I didn't dig it all that much, but I can't say I hate it either because I got enough enjoyment to make up for my ire.

Dead Heat (1988, R)

When I started watching this movie, I didn't know the title was a pun on zombies.  Honestly, I'm not quite sure if this film is a caricature of several types of movies or just a hilarious example of them.  I'm think it's the caricature though.  It starts off as a buddy cop movie with one clean-cut detective and his partner the meatball musclehead.  I like that despite their personality differences, they do get along as partner cops should.  Their actions piss the heck out of their captain a la Lethal Weapon and if you're in the right mood when you see it, you'll get a big kick out of their flippancy.  They end up investigating a case that involves reanimated criminals and horror(?)/action/comedy(?) stuff ensues.  A lot of the lines are stereotypical film dialogue to the point that it would be trite if taken seriously.

Treat Williams was the only actor that looked familiar to me, though not from any particular role in the past (he played the clean-cut cop), and I'm pretty sure very few people will have heard of this film.  The meatball cop looks like Mark Hamill (Star Wars) on steroids.  It's one of those metatexual self-aware movies (but again, not obnoxiously so, IMHO).  The tone was consistent throughout the film in terms of dark and/or satire humor (but not over the top), and level of action, so I don't think liking any one part will cause you to feel let down by any other part of the film.  This movie has the humor style of a B-horror/comedy (a lot like Army of Darkness), but itself is more of an action/comedy with horror elements.  So if you don't like that sort of of movie (a movie about movies), then this is not for you... but if you like the satire/caricature and a crazy romp, this is a good time.