Fat Dragon

Well, the trilogy has ended, and it's time for some conclusions. First of all, Return of the King is, IMO, not as good as Fellowship of the Ring. On the other hand, it's definitely better than The Two Towers, which I think is by far the weakest of the three films.

All in all Return of the King is certainly a good film, but it's too long, the battle scenes somewhat lack intensity and when it's all over you're left with this lingering "was that it?". Don't get me wrong, I like the film, but it does feel as something of an anti-climax. Perhaps it's simply not possible to transfer the enormity and intensity of what's meant to take place to film. The battle scenes are a bit dull, they lack intensity and realism, which is too bad because the battle scenes are in many ways the most important part of the film. To make it all worse (at least as I see it), they try to make up for it with slapstick, kill count and silly comments from Gimli, who is again reduced to comic relief, as well as a tendency to focus on the "really big stuff" (TM); oliphants, various trolls and the big siege weapons, instead of really following the battle. Also, I find the constant switching between Frodo and Sam and the battles annoying because it breaks up the battle scenes, jerking you out of the action just as it's starting to pull you in. RotK simply doesn't do a good enough job of making you "feel" the intensity of battle. Some movies can almost make you smell the blood, RotK doesn't achieve that, in fact there's hardly any blood at all and often just a lot of CGI (I guess the PG13 rating didn't help in that department). CGI has come far, but battle scenes are still vastly better with real people.

Anyway, most of the movie is pretty good, but it never quite achieves "lift off" before it touches down on the ground again. As with the Matrix trilogy, the sequels just don't quite live up to the first, although I will say again that I think RotK is a good, although not brilliant, movie, and definitely better than Two Towers. There's no reason not to watch this film and I'm almost certain it won't be as good on DVD as it is on the big screen (mostly because the CGI and FX are so important), so go see it in a cinema while you have the chance. If you say this is the best movie you've ever seen, however (and it's almost a law of nature that some people will whenever a new LotR flick is out), I suggest you see some more movies. (Yes, I find all the LotR fanboys, and -girls, who uncritically love the movies with a zeal unmatched even by the most die-hard religious fundamentalists, extremely annoying)

I had great expectations when I sat down with Bichunmoo. What little I'd seen and read about it, plus previous experiences with Korean cinema, suggested it would be a very good movie indeed. Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed...

The story is too chaotic and incoherent. During some parts I had to ask myself "is this actually going anywhere?". Bichunmoo does eventually move towards its conclusion, but much of the movie consists only of random occurences that never seem relevant to the whole. It also suffers from a lack of focus. Too much time is spent on fairly insignificant characters, without ever really getting beneath the skin of the protagonists. Another problem is that I never really felt for Jinha. It's difficult to say if Hyun-joon Shin is to blame, but personally I didn't find Jinha a very likeable character even during his best moments... He fits into the "silent, invincible warrior/butcher" stereotype common to Japanese anime (indeed he almost seems like an anime character), which to me is strange in a movie that presents itself more as "a tragic tale of love and loss" or something along those lines.

It is also frustrating that it feels like the director/screenwriter seems to have simply chosen a random historical period as his backdrop without really paying much attention to it. I almost get the feeling that the main criterion was "I want this guy to use a sword... a LOT!" and everything else was just put there to accommodate that.

While there is some good camera work and music, my opinion is that Bichunmoo spins too many threads without ever weaving them together and falls victim to an avalanche of cliches and stereotypes pilfered from Hong Kong cinema and Japanese anime as well as, of course, other Korean movies. The plot never really seems to be going anywhere, and too often it is simply an excuse for Jinha to kill more people with his "superior Bichun techniques"... The ending is also left me quite unsatisfied, being just another cliche (as well as making Jinha come off as even more of a selfish bastard than he already was).

Tokyo Raiders is, in short, very much a standard contemporary Hong Kong action movie. It seems to have somewhat higher production values than most Hong Kong movies, but like so many movies out of Hong Kong these last few years it simply tries to imitate Hollywood. And like so many others, it only succeeds in proving that Hong Kong can't make American movies. It just doesn't work, and it never will. Hollywoodization is not the way to save the Hong Kong movie industry. Korea is king of "Asian Hollywood" (and the way things are going, Korea may be king of Asian cinema in a few years), and even a great cast like this can't change that.

And let me just state for the record that the cast is pretty good. Obviously, there are a lot of "pretty faces", but most of the actors do a good job acting as well, and you simply can't go wrong with Tony Leung. Tôru Nakamura is also one of my personal favourites, but unfortunately his role in Tokyo Raiders is very small.

That said, however, just about everything else is sub-par. For starters, the plot makes little sense. Why would the CIA want to devalue the Japanese yen? Well, the movie certainly offers no answer, it only asks you to accept that they do, for one reason or another. And why would any newspaper write about the love affair of a yakuza oyabun's girlfriend? Relax, I'm not giving away much here. In fact, part of the problem is that there's actually very little to give away. Nothing really happens, except for a broken heart and a few not too spectacular fights...

The music is another story. I won't get into too much detail, but I find the soundtrack choices a bit odd. The on-screen action and the music just don't fit each other. Basically, Tokyo Raiders is a fairly mediocre affair. While I wouldn't say it's a total waste, there are certainly better movies you could see.