morakanabad

This is a film that has several things going for it, none of them technical. The idea of shooting a movie with a largely black cast on dark streets at night without any sort of extra lighting is... well, a bad one, and coupled with its mic-in-the-cameraman's-back- pocket sound mix, an awful lot of the first half of the movie is just shy of being incomprehensible. Add in an editing job that suggests somebody was busy talking on the phone during the cutting of several key scenes, and you could have a real patience- tester of a film on your hands.

Thankfully, the mood of the film is positive enough that its deliriously illogical plot actually works in its favour. Greasy kid Mario van Peebles (minus the "van" here) is transformed into strapping man Melvin van Peebles in a meaningful encounter with a hooker, and you can buy it. On-the-lam hero Sweetback is challenged to a duel by bikers, and nobody so much as blinks when he suggests that it should be a duel of sexual prowess... hell, they don't even seem to care that he doesn't need to move in order to drive his women wild. He's even brought back from the dead by the chorused voices of The Black Community, and it all sort of makes sense, kind of.

In fact, it isn't until the very last shot of the movie, when you realize that 90 minutes and change have built up to... well, nothing much, really, except maybe a shred of belief in the power of an act of will, and perhaps the promise of a sequel, that you feel like taking the movie to task for its gaping technical flaws again. Even then, it's made so earnestly that I don't really have the heart to slag it for its ineptly-blocked camerawork and dreadful acting. I've seen much worse from filmmakers who weren't trying to change the world by giving a damn, so instead I'll talk it up by calling it the spiritual ancestor of the basketball-teleportation ending to He Got Game, and pretty much everything in The Matrix, too. That it was largely the work of one hugely inspired guy makes it all the cooler, so struggling filmmakers, take note! As long as you crib your technique from other places, Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song should be an inspiration to you.

When Stanley Tong shot Rumble in the Bronx, I suppose the North American setting and actors made it a lot easier to secure a North American release (and presumably a bigger overall box office total) for the movie; it doesn't take much of a cynic to suggest that Japanese TV star Norika Fujiwara's presence in the cast was meant to give this one a shot at a third market.

The Japanese release of the movie makes a big deal of Fujiwara's presence as a second- string character and underwear model, perhaps deservedly so. With the camera's help, she fights better than Jade Leung did in the first Black Cat movie, and she's certainly got the goods as far as the stripping and stretching scenes go. Still, you sort of have to wonder if some distributor wasn't going a bit far in releasing it here under the name "SPY_N"... it is, after all, primarily a movie about other characters.

When it isn't making you wince over the English pronunciation or chuckle at the really obvious subbing of stunt doubles, though, this is a halfway decent attempt at creating a B-grade action flick with international appeal. The plot is disjointed, but piles on enough stunt pieces that you aren't endlessly looking at your watch during the eventual plot exposition scenes, and the rest of the movie is silly enough (see the motorcycle that rides up the back of a bus, or the hopefully intentional comedy resulting from Coolio's character being named "Coolio"... "Coolio killed my partner!", etc.) that you don't feel completely bad for renting it and turning your brain off for an hour and a half. Besides, just like in the commercials, Norika Fujiwara is always nice to look at, so there are definitely worse things to spend your rental dollars on.