Category: Movies

The long Labour Day weekend was pretty dreary, overcast and grey if not actually raining. Not particularly condusive to outdoor activity, but more than acceptable for take-out Chinese food, wine, and lots of movies. The first batch:

Friends With Money

A cute, meandering, character-based film that ultimately doesn’t really go anywhere. Jennifer Aniston goes through her life as a maid, after dropping out of a promising career as a teacher, while all her friends are rich, married, and seemingly happy. Jane (Frances McDormand) is a successful fashion designer, married to a loving husband who may or may not be gay, and seems to be angry about everything; Christine (Catherine Keener), a successful television writer, is having marital problems with her writing partner husband even as they’re building a second story on their hous; Franny (Joan Cusack) just seems to be incredibly rich and happy.

It’s worth watching for the cast alone, which is, as one might expect, quite good. But the balance of the cast is also a drawback: Aniston is set as the focal point of the film, if not the star, yet she can’t compete with her more experienced co-stars. She’s a decent enough actress, but seems pale and two-dimensional next to Cusack, McDormand, and Keener. She ends up the least interesting of the quartet, and possibly the least likeable, an odd accomplishment considering Keener and McDormand spend much of the film being bitchy, if not downright psychotic. (See also: The Devil Wears Prada, with Meryl Streep vs. every other actor in the film)

The casting also creates a slight oddity: While the four women seem to have been friends for some time, one wonders how it came about. Keener is 46, Cusack 44, and McDormand 49, while Aniston is only 37 and looks younger than that. The older three might have been school friends, but it’s hard to see how Aniston fits. Your particular suspension of disbelief mileage may vary.

While all the performances are nice, the story doesn’t really go anywhere. Some character arcs get a bit of resolution, others don’t. Cusack’s character doesn’t really do anything other than act pleasant and reasonable. At just under an hour and a half, the film doesn’t feel like it gives all its characters room to grow and develop; in some respects, it feels like the pilot for a TV series, though I can’t imagine that any network would have the budget for the cast.

Cute, funny, sweet, and nicely acted, but ultimately diversionary.

The Inside Man

Let us not mince terms: Spike Lee’s latest film is a caper film. Clive Owen is the bank robber with the perfect, flawless plan. Christopher Plummer is the bank president with a secret in a safety deposit. Jodie Foster is the woman he engages to keep it a secret. Denzel Washington is the cop trying to figure it out. Willem DeFoe is the kind of funny-looking cop heading the SWAT team.

It’s all snazzily executed, full of plots and counter-plots, bluffing and stoic poker faces from both the cops and robbers. Clive Owen is cool and composed, Denzel Washington plays it loose and easy. The concept of the robbery is creative, though it does remind me of Bill Murray’s Quickchange performed with a straight face. Lee tries to keep the audience guessing, though certain aspects of the robbers’ plan begin to become obvious after a certain point. Still, it’s a fun, suspenseful thriller with a story that’s tightly plotted for about 95% of the film.

But Lee can’t seem to let go of his serious filmmaker credentials and let the film fly as a fun, tense thriller. So there are discussions of civil rights and police ethics and post-war morality. Lee tries to give the script more heft than it can support, and the film lumbers and sways accordingly. Sometimes, more is less, and the excise of 10-15 minutes might have made the film more successful, and let it remain true to its caper roots.

The core of any caper film, of course, a fair helping of suspension of disbelief: You can’t really pull off the perfect heist, particularly when it relies on secrets the robber has no way of knowing about, police politics, and some fairly shoddy and uninspired detective work. These things can be overlooked when the film has an aura of fantasy and escapism — no one really takes Ocean’s 11 seriously, because it doesn’t take itself particularly seriously — but Lee keeps trying to ground things. He’s trying to mix Bond-style escapades with gritty, modern-day realism, trying to add track lighting and a state-of-the-art home security system to a castle in the sky.

He almost gets away with it.

Criterion makes very nice DVD sets. They’re beautiful packages, and usually include insightful commentaries and interesting supplemental material. I already own several, and would own more if they weren’t so expensive. But now they’re tempting me — no, daring me — to buy their latest, an all-new edition of Kurosawa’s masterpiece The Seven Samurai. Including, in addition to one of the greatest films ever made:

• All-new, restored high-definition digital transfer
• Two audio commentaries: one by film scholars David Desser, Joan Mellen, Stephen Prince, Tony Rayns, and Donald Richie; the other by Japanese-film expert Michael Jeck
• A 50-minute documentary on the making of Seven Samurai, part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
• My Life in Cinema, a two-hour video conversation between Akira Kurosawa and Nagisa Oshima produced by the Directors Guild of Japan
• Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences, a new documentary lookimg at the samurai traditions and films that impacted Kurosawa’s masterpiece
• Gallery of rare posters and behind-the scenes and production stills
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• A booklet featuring essays by Peter Cowie, Philip Kemp, Peggy Chiao, Alain Silver, Kenneth Turan, Stuart Galbraith, Arthur Penn, and Sidney Lumet and an interview with Toshiro Mifune

What’s all the more depressing/amazing about this is that I already own Criterion’s Seven Samurai, one of the first discs they put out. And while it’s an okay package (featuring a nice commentary which points out the guy being run over by a horse in the final battle), this new one is too good to resist. It’ll probably be a rental initially, but I’ll need to own it within a few months. (which would be, say, Christmas!)

Much of my love for comics began with the X-Men. I read a few issues when I was a kid, and became addicted for many years. So while I’ve long since stopped caring about most of the comics, I still retain a lot of fondness for the characters and themes which the first two films — the second in particular — presented so well.

Of course, the first two films in the series were directed by Bryan Singer, an excellent filmmaker with a great understanding of the X-Men. When he bailed to work on Superman Returns, he was replaced with Brett Ratner, who… is not Bryan Singer. Rattner’s a competent, unspectacular filmmaker, the sort of guy a studio hires when they want a no-muss, no-fuss production that’ll stick to budget and won’t ruffle any feathers. Accordingly, X-Men: The Last Stand is a rather dull film that hits a bunch of plot notes and character moments the fans want, but doesn’t do a whole lot more.

One of the keys to the trilogy comes in X2, when Nighcrawler asks Mystique why she doesn’t use her shape-shifting powers to blend in with all the regular humans. “Because we shouldn’t have to,” she tells him, effectively summing up the entire point of the franchise. It’s telling that the third film, which partly deals with a “cure” for mutants, doesn’t come anywhere close to that kind of insight. Rattner attempts to tell the story in big, bold gestures; everything seems to be Very Important, with terribly serious (and occasionally seriously terrible) lines delivered with great importance by the cast. It all ends up feeling rather condensed, with events unfolding without the character development needed to make them significant.

Many plot lines are edited down to their essence: Jean Grey returns as Phoenix, makes a big mess, then stands around like scenery for an hour, waiting for the big FX finale. Rogue is still upset that her powers won’t let her touch her boyfriend Iceman, who’s beginning to show an interest in the very touchable (if she wants to be) Kitty Pryde. Kelsey Grammer shows up in bad makeup as the Beast to provide exposition on the government’s plans and policies. A rich scientist tries to cure his mutant son. It feels heavily edited, and it should surprise no one if the eventual Special Edition DVD contains 20 or 30 minutes of extra footage.

But the problems go beyond studio time constraints. While Singer was able to cut to the core of the X-Men thematically, Rattner seems to be trying to do it visually. The Last Stand often plays like a Where’s Waldo of Mutants, with characters running around in the background who might look kinda like someone who once appeared in the comics. Yeah, that’s Marrow, and hey, this is Arclight… and the credits tell us that both Kid Omega and Glob Herman made appearances. It might be more interesting if any of them amounted to anything more than scenery or plot points. As it stands, most of the attention is focused on Wolverine, Storm, and Magneto, with Jean mostly standing around and looking contemplative. The Bobby-Kitty-Rogue triangle gets reduced to the most basic elements, which doesn’t really work when it should be the most emotional arc to the film. The Beast seems a totally superfluous character aside from a bit of exposition, and one can’t help but suspect that somehow Frasier got lost on the way to a costume party.

When it comes to summer blockbusters, one can always hope that the action and effects outweigh any deficiencies in storytelling, but The Last Stand falls oddly flat in this area, too. It’s decent, but at no point does it actually WOW! the audience. While X2 built largely around the Wolverine-Deathstrike fight at the end, X3 offers no such thrills; the Wolverine-Juggernaut fight is fairly pedestrian, and the grand melee at the end offers few thrills, aside from Magneto and Pyro’s teamup to throw exploding cars at people. Most of the CGI is either poorly integrated or just plain unimpressive: While Phoenix’s eventual explosion looks pretty cool, it doesn’t interact terribly well with the actual actors; most of the time, it just looks like a nifty little CGI show. And Angel’s wings don’t look particularly convicing, particularly when stacked against the real angel wings in Constantine, which managed to look both majestic and as realistic as could be expected.

Ultimately, The Last Stand ends up looking like the studio concoction everyone was afraid of. It tries to do too much, to shoehorn too many characters and too much story into a cineplex-friendly running time. It tells a straightforward story, gives the stars the screen time, and shows off some acceptable effects, but never manages to say anything new beyond the usual Humans vs. Mutants dynamic, and never offers any emotional connections to the characters. Characters are killed and depowered, but no one cares because they’ve only been on screen for 5 or 10 minutes.

To draw a totally nerdy analogy: The first X-Men film was like the early Lee/Kirby/Adams/Steranko years of the comic, with some great moments but never finding the much-needed consistency. X2 represents the Claremont years, finally figuring out what it was the franchise needed to be successful and building stories around both social commentary and emotional character arcs. And The Last Stand, sadly, finds itself standing among the modern era of X-Men comics, fuelled by events, deaths, and fanboy placation, nearly abandoning quality storytelling in favour of attempts at being really important and meaningful.

The Last Stand does most of what it set out to do, but it didn’t set its sights very high.

I confess, my last few posts have been kind of snarky. But no more! It’s Friday, yes, but I’ve also found two very good reasons for living:

Finally! The “definitive” (or something like it) version of Blade Runner is being released on DVD next year, along with a theatrical run, according to The Toronto Star. It doesn’t really matter which version is the “ultimate” one, since the DVD set will include multiple versions, including the original theatrical one with the bad voiceover and even worse happy ending. It’ll still be interesting to see the theatrical cut – it may be vastly inferior to Ridley Scott’s version, but it’s interesting to see how a movie can be changed just by editing; I quite enjoy Criterion’s awesome Brazil set, which includes both Gilliam’s masterpiece and the more easily digestible (and also with a happy ending) version cobbled together by the studio.

But since that’s next year, I need something to look forward to this year; thankfully, Cinematheque has delivered with their Summer Samurai programme: Classic Japanese samurai flicks on the big screen. The requisite Kurosawa masterpieces (Seven Samurai and Throne of Blood in particular) are present, and so is a nice assortment from other directors: Some Zaitoichi, Samurai Rebellion, The 47 Ronin, Three Outlaw Samurai, and many more. Yay!

First things first: I love the design of the V for Vendetta posters. They’ve got a classic theatrical, almost Vaudevillian feel, but updated and dark. Unlike many Hollywood action films, it stands out as a nice piece of art.

But wait… Something… Not… Quite… Right:

V for Vendetta is not the vision of the Wachowski Brothers. Unless they’ve completely deviated from the source material — and all indications so far suggest they’ve been fairly faithful — the vision of the film, both conceptually and visually, is courtesy of Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

And yes, Alan Moore refuses to be associated with the film, and there’s probably no point in giving David Lloyd prominent billing… but still, let’s not take credit for other people’s work, shall we?

(On a similar, note, I’m always kind of wary films that advertise “Creators of…” or “Producers of…”, as if the people doing the hands-on work aren’t good or popular enough to promote.)

I admit to being a sucker for epic battles between good and evil. It appeals to the romantic in me, the 12 year-old who still wants to run off to a far-off kingdom, slay evil wizards, and woo beautiful princesses. The same goes for vampires, really – it’s just such a great premise when it’s done correctly; immortal life, eerie powers, dark and mysterious warriors.

I’m by no means alone in these affections, which doubtless explains the enormous number of books and movies about these subjects. Sadly, most of them are awful, based on a cool idea or two with little in the way of emotion or intelligence involved. Underworld, to name just one, was such a great-looking movie with a fascinating premise that it was quite disappointing when one realized how little thought went into the plot and characters.

Night Watch, the first of a Russian-made trilogy, at least tries to get it right. Adapted from a series of books (the first of which is only seeing an English translation this June), it sees a vast war of good and evil, of the supernatural Others, being waged in the streets of Moscow.

Anton is unwittingly awakened to the struggle between Light Others and Dark Others when he visits a psychic in a last-ditch attempt to win back his girlfriend, who has left him for another man. When he sees what is really going on, and the Others recognize him as one of their own, he joins the cause of the Light.

Twelve years later, he’s trying to protect a young boy following the lure of two vampiric Dark Others. When the boy is revealed to be more than he seems, and a seemingly unstoppable curse vortex begins to form over an apartment building, the two sides realize the Apocalypse may be near.

Night Watch is immediately remarkable for its visual style. Like David Fincher, Timur Bekmambetov uses CGI to pan through walls, zoom through subway cars, and generally take the camera anywhere he chooses. One particularly nice sequence sees a bolt shaking loose from an airplane, falling several thousand feet, and clattering down a ventilation shaft. The visual effects are taken even further, though, with characters half-disappearing into blood vessels and cells, as well as traces of blood following characters around. The most interesting visual effect is largely a product of the North American release: The subtitles are frequently given a life of their own, changing colour, appearance, even placement as the scene dictates. The vampire calls fade away into red, panic scatters words across the screen, words spoken by an injured man fade in and out. It’s a fascinating innovation that might have some luck in converting those who find subtitles frustrating to read.

There’s also a strong resemblance to the films of Terry Gilliam and Jean-Pierre Jeunet: While the world of Night Watch is dark and disturbing, it’s also quite whimsical from time to time. Anton’s backup team and their super-powered truck are particularly odd, while a curse-fuelled string of coincidences could come almost directly from Jeunet’s Amelie or Very Long Engagement. There’s a dark sense of humour to the film, a recognition that while everything is quite serious, it’s still a film about psychics and shapeshifters fighting vampires with juiced-up flashlights.

As the first part of a trilogy and the adaptation of a book, Night Watch doesn’t quite stand on its own. Not unlike the Harry Potter films, one gets the impression that there are a good many things that are either meant to be explained later, or are simply reference points for fans of the books. Anton’s partner, Olga, for example, is given a great introduction, a hint of a dark past, and is then pretty much ignored for the rest of the film. The ending, too, suffers from a feeling of too much editing, or an attempt to cram too much in. The curse plot is fascinating up until the end, at which point it doesn’t seem to have much, if any payoff.

Still, Night Watch wins points for it’s unabashed ambition in creating a huge and complex world, full of characters that are obviously loaded with backstory even if it’s not always fully explained. While there are a number of holes and loose ends, it leads one to anticipate the sequel (Day Watch, already released in Russia), read the book, or hope for a director’s cut of the film. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a hypnotic and addictive one with a clear and well-defined vision that offers a lot of promise for the future.

The nominations for Best Picture:

• Brokeback Mountain
• Capote
• Crash
• Good Night, Good Luck
• Munich

In 2006, apparently “Best Picture” has been redefined to include films which had some good points, but were otherwise self-indulgent, meandering, predictable, or otherwise just plain bad.

As good as Phillip Seymour Hoffman was, he wasn’t enough to make Capote into a really strong film. It was a character piece, and a very good one, but not a great film. (Meanwhile: Catherine Keener for a Supporting Actress? I love her, but come on; she was on screen for about 20 minutes, and had about two scenes that mattered.)

Crash: Let’s talk about race for two and a half hours. You know what Black people are like. And Hispanics and Asians, they’re just wacky. Isn’t it funny how we’re all racist, whether we know it or not, and it affects every single thing we say and do? Magnolia is one of my favourite films of all time, but between this and Love Actually, it’s got a lot to answer for.

Munich: What happened to Steven Spielberg? The man with the perfect eye for action obviously did some work on this film, but he seems to have been kidnapped during production and replaced by his low-cost Mexican equivalent who is utterly incapable of ending a movie properly.

Lastly: Hollywood just doesn’t deserve Naomi Watts.

Special effects can do a lot. They can make spaceships, monsters, explosions, and epic battles. They can, when properly executed, make you forget about the distinction between reality and fiction.

They have a much tougher time with two things: Wonder and emotion. There’s a difference between being awed by the special effect and the thing it presents; while it’s easy to admire the technical art, it’s harder to distance the audience from the pixels and green screen enough to present something that can be a wonder in and of itself. When I think of Jurassic Park, the scene that stands out isn’t the T-rex attack or the velociraptors; instead, it’s when Sam Neil’s character beholds the first dinosaur, a massive Brachiosaur. Perhaps it’s my soft spot for palaeontology, but that scene perfectly conveys the sense of “Wow, I’m looking at a dinosaur.”

Emotion is a part of this – the audience needs to believe the actors believe the effect is real – but also something in and of itself. With filmmakers increasingly relying on characters composed entirely of CGI, that CGI needs to convey not only reality, but emotion. The camera needs to look its star in the eye and see its heart, whether the star lives in a Beverly Hills mansion or a hard drive.

George Lucas, to pick my favourite target, doesn’t seem to understand this. While the recent Star Wars films were technically accomplished, they were hollow and antiseptic. CGI Yoda lacked the emotion of Muppet Yoda, and all the starship explosions in the galaxy didn’t make me care about Hayden “Corrugated Cardboard” Christenson. Special effects without a soul make for a very nice video game, but I’d just as soon stay home and play Grand Theft Auto.

Peter Jackson gets it. Perhaps it comes from his low-budget, B-Movie, Ed Wood Wannabe days, where the “special” effects wouldn’t convince a developmentally challenged budgie, let alone the sophisticated and mature audiences Hollywood expects. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, for all its faults, relied as much on actors and script as WETA, his phenomenal FX house. Perhaps the most impressive accomplishment was literally giving Gollum a soul: Instead of just pixels and empty space, Jackson made Andy Serkis the real Gollum. Not only did Serkis map the movements of the creature, but he acted the part on set, giving the actors something real to work with.

With King Kong, he replicates the effect on a much, much larger scale. And the most amazing thing about the film may be this: In a film that’s the second remake of a 70 year-old movie, telling a story that everyone already knows, in an extravaganza full of dinosaurs and giant insects, Jackson has bet the entire effort on two things: Naomi Watts, and the eyes of a giant ape who doesn’t really exist.

Let’s not brush past the fact: King Kong is a visual feast and an amazing achievement from both a technical and artistic standpoint. From its opening recreation of 1920s New York to the ghastly landscape and inhabitants of Skull Island to the tragic ending, King Kong is frequently breathtaking to behold. The much anticipated Tyrannosaurus Rex vs. King Kong brawl is a brutal joy to behold, and Jackson revisits his gross-out roots for the cringe-inducing grotesquery of the insect pit. If it suffers from an occasional bit of excess, it’s forgivable because Jackson knows how to do excess right.

But ultimately, none of that matters. Yes, it’s necessary for Kong to be a convincing giant ape; if you could see the strings (figuratively speaking), the suspension of disbelief would be hard to maintain. But what elevates King Kong from a smash-em-up action flick into an artistic achievement is the ability of Naomi Watts to look her massive co-star in the eyes and see a soul. And what makes it truly magnificent is that the audience can see it too.

Jackson can do big as well as anyone, but he also understands the value of intimacy. He gives Watts the time and space to develop and show her affection for the great ape, from her Vaudevillian play for survival to her recognition that Kong is her best hope for survival to realizing he sees her as more than just a plaything. It’s the quiet moments that give the film its grace: Two shared sunsets will break your heart, and Kong’s discovery of an icy pond in Central Park provides a moment of peace before the film resumes its trek towards tragedy.

Watts deserves an Oscar for her stellar show of falling in love with a co-star who isn’t really there. Though she lives up to Jack Black’s description of her as “the saddest girl in the world,” she also shows wonder and love towards Kong that only the most cynical of audiences could question. And she deserves to be followed to the podium by Kong himself – the combination of Andy Serkis’ live-action modelling and WETA’s phenomenal work has created a beautiful, frightening, and sensitive beast. And for all the dinosaurs, insects and scenery, WETA’s greatest achievement comes in Kong’s eyes.

Watching King Kong like watching a very good production of Romeo and Juliet: You know how it’s going to end. You know the finale where the two lovers ride off into the distance exists only in your mind, and the reality of the fiction will always come crashing down upon you. But it’s all in the lead actors: Believe in them, and you can believe that maybe, just maybe, they can live happily after. The world, to say nothing of the plot, is against you, but there can always be one more scene, one more glance, one more moment shared, to show you that love can be real, and that there are still things to provoke wonder and awe in the world.

The inevitable happens, as inevitabilities are prone to do. The film reaches its tragic finale, the credits roll, and the audience goes home.

But for its all-too-short three hours King Kong can make you believe.

The final chapter of Chan-wook Park’s Vengeance Trilogy (the first two being Sympathy for Mister Vengeance and Oldboy), Lady Vengeance seems like the work of an entirely different director. Where Oldboy was rough and visceral in both content and style, Lady Vengeance opts for a slower, more elegant, and perhaps more devastating approach.

Lee Geum-ja has been released from prison after serving a sentence for kidnapping and murdering a young boy. She’s received her parole after becoming and angel: Good behaviour, helping old and sick inmates, and generally showering everyone with love and warmth. Once she walks out the gates, though, her friendly facade is swept away, revealing a coolly calculating woman who cajoles her former cellmates into helping her execute a plan for vengeance.

Park takes his time in revealing the details of Lee’s plans, mixing the present plans with Lee’s past. And almost as soon as the full details are revealed, Park changes the tune, and turns the film into something else entirely.

It’s difficult to say much more than that without revealing the specific plot twists. Suffice it to say, though, that while the revelations are surprising, they’re not of the same punch-to-the-gut nature as Oldboy – at least, not immediately. It can take a while to sink in, but once it does, it leaves a mark. There are no shocks like in Oldboy, but Lady Vengeance is a different beast entirely, driven more by character than plot. The twists are smaller and less catastrophic, but they hurt more.

Gone are Oldboy‘s digital video and jerky camerawork. Park turns in a far more graceful and elegant film – from the opening credits, it is immediately apparent that he has changed his style and received a well-deserved budget increase. Park takes the camera in and out of characters’ heads, indulging in special effects to make metaphors and the abstract more literal; it’s reminiscent of David Fincher’s approach to Fight Club. Park balances the humour and absurdity equally well, pulling off one of the greatest black laughs to be found in a film this year.

Lee Young-ae is stellar in the title role. We’re never quite sure what she’s thinking for most of the movie, and is malleable enough to fit her performance into what we think we know of the plot. Throughout it all, she is graceful and poker-faced while hinting at the turmoil and chaos simmering below, somewhat reminiscent of Julianne Moore. Park has also assembled a wonderful supporting cast, particularly among Lee’s cellmates. Like the rest of the film, they can be comic relief at one moment and serious dramatic elements the next.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is a much more mature and reserved film than either of its predecessors. Park has moved beyond his admittedly effective shock tactics in favour of a slow-boiling, almost Hitchcockian tale of loss, betrayal, and, of course, vengeance. If Oldboy was Chan-wook Park’s big splash, Lady Vengeance is his prize-winning synchronized swimming performance.

I’m not generally a huge kung fu fan. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good fight scene: When the fighting and the direction are good, it can really take your breath away. But many martial arts movies I’ve seen are simply too weak on plot and script. I rented Once Upon a Time in China a few weeks ago, and while fight scenes are incredible, I just didn’t care about the story or the characters. Frankly, I’d rather just wach 20-30 minutes of hardcore kung fu than sit through an hour or so of clumsy script and flimsy characters. Consequently, I tend to prefer movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of Flying Daggers, which may be lacking in kung fu credentials, but feature more compelling stories.

S.P.L. (short for Sha Po Lang, apparently the astrological signs of the three main characters) isn’t as eloquent as those films – of course, it doesn’t pretend to be – but it’s definitely more than a couple nifty fight scenes draggin along a third-rate plot. For most of the first three quarters, it’s a pretty straight dark copy drama: Detective Chan (Simon Yam) and his squad have been trying to nail crimelord Po (Sammo Hung) for years. When Chan is diagnosed with a brain tumour and faces imminent retirement or death, he steps up his efforts, and his over-zealous team of cops are willing to employ any methods – legal or otherwise – to bring Po to justice. Chan’s replacement, Ma (Donnie Yen) is understandably dismayed with the squad’s methods, and is under orders to bring them under control.

What follows is corruption, violence, murder and deception – on both sides. At times, it’s not hard to be more sympathetic to the crime lord than the cops; as played by the charismatic Sammo Hung, Po is a family man, a caring father and husband who just happens to be a ruthless criminal. At the same time, Chan and his men are so driven to arrest Po that they can completely disregard the law they’re trying to uphold.

Yen’s character is a bit of a dull straight man: He’s the honest-to-goodness Good Cop who wants to catch the bad guy without becoming a bad guy himself. He’s a tough guy with a mean repuation, but he tries to keep his violent streak under control after learning the hard way that with great Kung Fu Power comes great Kung Fu Responsibility.

While the movie simmers and bubbles for the first three quarters, the final half hour explodes like a stick of dynamite in a gasoline stew. When Po finally tires of Chan’s efforts, he calls in his silent and nameless assassin (Wu Jing) to dispatch the helpless cops. Wu is a flurry of punches, kicks, flips, and a very large knife; from the second he steps on screen, you know you’re going to see something very, very cool.

From there it’s an almost constant one-upmanship, as each fight tries to best the last. No one rivals the pure ferocity of Wu Jing: He’s like a vicious cat who wants to inflict the most damage before levelling the final blow. Donnie Yen more than holds his own, but he seems less the focus than his opponents; he’s still fantastic, but one invariably ends up watching the other guy.

And when that other guy is Sammo Hung, it’s a heck of a fight. For a big guy in his fifties, Hung’s a heck of a fighter. Not particularly graceful, but that’s not the point: by the time the final fight rolls around, no one has the time or patience for finesse. It’s a knock-down, smack-around, brutal fight scene that captures the dark and murky nature of the entire film.

S.P.L. has that rare combination of qualities that can make a film great: Stylish director, intelligent script, good actors and some absolutely top-notch fight sequences. Essential viewing for martial arts fans, and a pretty good introduction for those who could never get into them for the usual reasons.