Tag Archives: Film

Movie Night: Project A

Year: 1983

Director: Jackie Chan

Production Company: Authority Films

Leads: Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo

ProjectAOne thing Netflix does have a lot of is old Jackie Chan movies. I have to be careful to avoid the R-rated ones with Little Satis (it’s usually just for Chris Tucker‘s foul mouth), but there are plenty that are pretty much just harmless fun. A particular joy are those from the eighties before he moved to Hollywood, because some of them just don’t make any sense. We watched The Accidental Spy once (fair enough, that one’s from 2001), which is about a salesman who just happens to be a karate master. Fair enough.

At least in Project A Jackie Chan is an ex-cop turned sailor, so the martial arts is a little more explainable…maybe? Anyway, long story short, pirates are attacking the Chinese navy in Hong Kong, and despite all their efforts, they always seem to be one step ahead of the navy’s plans. The admiral, a kindly old man, is discharged, the ships abandoned, and naturally all the sailors become police officers. It turns out, however, that it was the police who were giving the information to the pirates in the first place. With the help of a shadowy, overweight kung-fu-chopping madman friend and a haughty police officer who nonetheless has his heart in the right place, our hero manages to fool the cops, bust an arms trade with the pirates, sneak into their island cove, duke it out with the super-badass pirate bad guy and escape just before it all blows to hell.

Frankly there isn’t a whole lot to be considered here. The whole thing feels a little bit like a Chinese James Bond film with martial arts. IMDB labels it as a “costume drama”, and the costumes certainly couldn’t be more dramatic. The pirates are wonderfully stereotyped, complete with swords and bare chests and pantaloons and drooping pencil mustaches:

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All in all, the main reason to watch this movie – the main reason to watch any Jackie Chan movie – is for the stunts, and of those there are numerous and spectacular examples. The cycling stunts through the back alleys of Hong Kong are splendid, and when Jackie Chan manages to climb to the top of a forty-foot flagpole, jump onto a roof and crash through a loft window, all with his hands manacled, my heart did actually do a little leap. Every fight scene is beautifully choreographed, which is simply a pleasure to watch. There is humor, but often the true laughs are at the attempts to deliberately be funny – the crudeness of the slapstick is itself amusing (for example, when Chan’s bicycle seat falls off without his knowing, and he sits down on the bare pole).

There was one thing about the film that stuck out to me, and it was something that I personally was very appreciative of. Unlike many of his more modern films (and unlike most films these days), the on-location filming in the streets and back alleys of Hong Kong lends a wonderful authenticity that is so often missing these days. No spectacular sets, no jumping out of airplanes or off skyscrapers; the story is a simpler one, and so the locations are simpler. It makes one realize that huge sets are very impressive and all, but it can actually take away from what you’re supposed to be impressed by: the actors, and the action.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Devil’s Details: Bryan Singer the Giant Slayer

jtgs10I’m rather looking forward to Jack the Giant Slayer. It’s my kind of movie – epic fantasy, more CGI than live action, and a plot that’s frankly just an excuse for two hours of visual excess. I thought it might be a remake of Jack the Giant Killer from back in 1962, which Little Satis and I watched a while back. It isn’t, really; it’s as different from the original fairytale as the first movie was.

In all of this, I honestly never gave a second thought to the cast and crew, and certainly not the director. Didn’t really know who Bryan Singer was – I’d heard his name somewhere, but couldn’t really associate it with anything. But, for some reason, he really, really wants me to know that he directed it:

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I can’t recall ever seeing this on a movie poster before. I get the whole “from the director of” ploy: if you liked that, then you’ll love this. I remember this vividly from the previews of 10,000 B.C.; all I really saw was “from the director of Independence Day“. I recall wondering what on earth the two movies had to do with each other, and why the director made any difference. But, the big difference was that it was never pointed out who that director was (some dude called Roland Emmerich). Frankly, I didn’t care; even if the two were related in some way, it didn’t matter much to me who the director was – I knew it wasn’t Steven Spielberg or Ridley Scott.

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10000bc-poster1So why is it so important to Bryan Singer that we know he directed the movie? And of all things, why point out he’s the director of X-Men? Why not The Usual Suspects? That would tell me this guy is a masterful director. (Of course, it would also tell me Jack the Giant Slayer was a mind-bending crime flick with an ending twist to rival The Sixth Sense.)

Is it just me, or does this seem just a tad self-congratulatory? Have you ever seen this before?

Movie Night: Time Bandits

Year: 1981

Director: Terry Gilliam

Production Company: HandMade Films

Leads: John Cleese, Sean Connery

time_bandits_movie_poster_01Time Bandits is one of those wonderful films that I started watching many years ago, and somehow never got to finish (like Pulp Fiction – it was nearly ten years before I saw how it ended). Written alongside the Monty Python films, it shares many of the hallmark characteristics (and actors) of those inimitable televisual feasts, not the least of which is their complete and utter disregard for anything making any sense at all. Little Satis has not seen any Monty Python yet, but I suspect the time is coming.

In a nutshell, Kevin is a oppressed and imaginative 11-year-old who is whisked off by a band of six time-travelling dwarves in search of treasure, and on the run from the Supreme Being from whom their time map was stolen (still with me so far?). Enter a series of irreverent clashes with famous moments and figures in history, including Napoleon’s victory at the Battle of Castiglione, Robin Hood, and the sinking of the Titanic. The seven eventually end up in the Time of Legends, face off with Ultimate Evil in the Fortress of Ultimate Evil, and are rescued by the Supreme Being. Supreme Being sets things right, sends Kevin back to bed, and everything ends with a hunky-oh-it-was-just-a-dream feeling. Only…

Not giving that one away. All I’ll say is the ending to Time Bandits is one of the most paradoxical and nonsensical moments I’ve ever seen in film, and Little Satis and I were discussing for days afterwards.

It was interesting to watch this film with Little Satis, for he hasn’t grown up with the same British humor that I did. This film, along with pretty much all of the Monty Python canon, is a blend of slapstick, nonsense and subtle wit, and there were a number of times when I had to point out to Little Satis why something was funny.

The poor are going to be absolutely thrilled. Have you met them at all?

Who?

The poor.

The poor?

Oh you must meet them – I’m sure you’ll like them. Of course, they haven’t got two pennies to rub together, but that’s because they’re poor.

This is followed by a fellow who decks every person they give gold to – because it is necessary, actually. Dear me…John Cleese as Robin Hood couldn’t be more perfect. Then again, he couldn’t be more perfect as Napoleon’s extremely tall general; watching Ian Holm as Napoleon Bonaparte descending into a drunken stupor whilst rambling about extremely short military conquerors of the past is one of the most exquisitely funny things I’ve seen. But this was lost on Little Satis of course, because they don’t teach kids about the Napoleonic Wars these days in third grade.

There are some surprising twists in the film, and they are twists of the tiny and subtle kind. A pivotal point is when Agamemnon is talking to Kevin about finding his friends and returning home. He asks Kevin if he wouldn’t like to be with his own mother and father again, and where pretty much any other film would take the heartstring-puller “yes,” Gilliam goes for the “no; it’s much better here.”

Given the limits of technology and budget of the time, the visual effects are splendid. It helps, I suppose, that in keeping with Monty Python’s aesthetic there are many effects which are quite deliberately “obvious”, but effective nonetheless: the giant who rises from the sea with their ship on his head is, of course, simply a man with a ship on his head. Other sets – in particular the scenes in the Fortress of Ultimate Evil – are striking and impressive, and the scene in which the dwarfs swing on ropes from great iron cages above a bottomless abyss is genuinely heart-stopping.

Gilliam hits all the right notes with this gem; from slapstick and nonsense to pithy wit and genuine emotion, he directs a seasoned cast in a delightful fantasy that never takes itself too seriously, yet somehow feels as though it has a serious point to make. If only we could work out what it is…

If anyone else has seen Time Bandits, what were your thoughts about the ending? Is it genuinely impossible, or am I missing something?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★