THE REBEL

Written by Fumo Verde

When I was growing up Sunday afternoons meant one thing, Kung Fu Theater. My friends and I were so into it, we tried to make our own. That’s when video cameras where half the size of you or at least they weighed like it. Hence, I took a shot on The Rebel from Dragon Dynasty, and I was not disappointed. The story centers around the oppressive French rule of Vietnam or French Indo-China as it was known in 1922. The French use other Vietnamese to do most of their dirty work, and our hero is one of these men. As the film progress, the hero played by Johnny Tri Nguyen, comes to understand why the rebels are rebelling, he also falls in love for the heroine played by Veronica Ngo. As in most Kung Fu movies, the good guys suffer but in the end they defeat their enemies as they come to grips with their own internal problems. Director Charlie Nguyen captures this along with some incredible fight scenes.

The mindset of the early 20th century was still the same mindset of the past 200 years: if you weren’t a white European or a white North American, you were considered sub-human, so killing you, because you gave me the stink eye or whistled at my woman wasn’t a big deal. The brutality of most conquerors over their newly inherited subjects is usually one of disdain and contempt with a belief that these sub-humans should be thankful for us saving them. With this as the backdrop the viewer quickly identifies with the underdog, and has you waiting for the shift in momentum when the repressor gets repressed. I found myself shouting at characters urging them to fight their enemy. Charlie Nguyen artfully builds the climax and draws it out just a little more; this makes the viewer want to get up in there and fight.

Now they say on the back jacket Johnny Tri Nguyen is a double agent. You get the feeling from the start that he should be with the rebels, but it doesn;t happen until he meets the rebel girl played by the beautiful Veronica Ngo. Her character gets tortured and beat down, but she always rebounds and kicks ass.

My favorite character has to be 21 Jump Street's own, Dustin Tri Nguyen. He plays the role of the evil sadistic captain who follows out the French colonel’s orders with a coolness that Fonzie couldn’t even match. During the fight sequences, where everyone is going balls out, Dustin moves like he’s in slow motion. I started to call him "the Terminator" because nothing was stopping him. The only thing I didn’t like is how they made him wig out when the French called his mother a whore. They made him beat up a cement wall, and the wall didn’t win. It didn’t fit the character but it did come in useful at the end. The fighting style was called Le Fung Quin, and I do apologize if I hacked those words right there, but on the Extras, which is a separate DVD, Johnny Tri Nguyen is interviewed and this is the style he said they were using. It’s all ass-kicking to me and the energy brought to this film by the cast and crew never fades.

This movie was put together well and all the actors played their parts with a true passion. Being it's a DVD I had the option to either read subtitles or get it dubbed in English. Hell yeah I dubbed it and I’m not worried if I lost anything in translation because I would still be reading the English on the screen. This is why they give you the option. The Extras feature interviews with Johnny, Dustin, and Veronica along with a Martial Arts Demonstration by Johnny.

If this movie had played on my TV 20 some odd years ago on a Sunday afternoon, it too would have sent me outside with my younger brother and friends to recreate what we saw. The Rebel is a statement from the Vietnamese film community and it’s a loud and ass-kicking one. Watch for more films like this coming from Dragon Dynasty, powerful and poignant.

THE LEGEND OF THE BLACK SCORPION

Written by Musgo Del Jefe

The 2000 release and subsequent Western world success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was supposed to pave the way for more big budget wu xia films for China and Hong Kong. Much like the same promise that Life Is Beautiful would make Roberto Benigni a star in the US or that Amelie would pave the way for more French films, this promise has only been hinted at. Director Zhang Yimou answered Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger with his own Chinese epic, Hero (2002). The success of that film led Zhang Yimou to film his more romantic take on the wu xia genre, House Of Flying Daggers (2004). That movie took place in 859 A.D., as the Tang Dynasty was starting its downfall. The latest in this line of epic Chinese storytelling is The Legend Of The Black Scorpion (2006), known internationally as The Banquet.

This 2-disc release from Dragon Dynasty comes with best pedigree of all these previous epics. The action is choreographed by Yuen Wo-ping who worked on Crouching Tiger as well as 2004's underrated Kung Fu Hustle (where he worked with LOTBS director, Feng Xiaogang). The star of the film is Ziyi Zhang is arguably the most famous Chinese actress in the world. It's hardly a wu xia epic without her - she's starred in Crouching Tiger, Hero, and Flying Daggers.

Legend Of The Black Scorpion is "inspired" by Shakespeare's Hamlet. In truth, Disney's The Lion King is "inspired" by Hamlet. This film isn't the direct adaptation of the play that Kenneth Branagh's four-hour epic is either, but LOTBS never strays too far from its source material. It's the choices that the writer and director make that deviate from the original story that will make or break a movie like this.

As it starts, we are quickly set into 907 A.D., towards the end of the Tang Dynasty. While the Prince is away studying acting, his father, the Emperor, has been killed (presumably by a Black Scorpion) and his Uncle has assumed the throne and plans to marry his father's wife, a woman that the Prince was previously in love with. Assassins have been sent to kill the Prince.

This first lengthy fight scene is also my favorite scene in the film. It has everything that I've come to love about these recent wu xia films. The setting is lush. All the actors are in plain white masks. We've yet to see the Prince, so the viewer and the assassins are not sure which one is the Prince. The fight here is full of ballet-like wire effects and slow-motion shots of blood spattering. This film is noticeably bloodier than the previously mentioned efforts. It works well here, the blood appears almost like Chinese characters against the clean white backgrounds. Not until the end of the scene is the Prince identified.

The theme of masks becomes the major theme lifted from the source material. It's an effective bridge of Western (Greek) and Eastern philosophies and it helps lead us through the major events of Act Two of the film, namely the coronation and the play-within-a-play. The masks in the films are mainly white and frozen in a neutral gaze. The first good look we get at the Prince is when he removes his mask when reuniting with the Empress. The warmth of his face shows the deep love he has for her. Later, the Prince explains to the Empress that without a mask, emotions are just on the surface of the face. With a mask, the deeper feelings below the surface can come out through the actions of the body.

The Third Act brings all the story lines back together for The Banquet. The Prince returns in a mask, almost like the ghost of his father in Hamlet to watch the dramatic events. Among the tragic events, we are reminded of a quote earlier in the film that a broken heart is more powerful than any poison. The best shot of the movie is here as the camera flies above Ziyi Zhang with her brilliantly red dress splayed in the shape of a broken heart.

The most interesting decision made in this production is also what moves it into such lofty company as Kurosawa's adaptation of King Lear, Ran. Hamlet can be read on many levels. It's a political play, a religious play, a philosophical play ("to be or not to be"), and more. By changing the character of Gertrude, the movie was able to condense and lose many of the subplots without the feeling that there was anything missing. Gertrude is Hamlet's mother in the play. By making the Empress a step-mother and a former love interest, she becomes the de facto focus of the movie. Ziyi Zhang's battle for power and the mask she wears regarding her love for the Prince became the main focus of the story.

The tragedy is not just that of the Prince. The female characters of the Empress and Qing (the Ophelia character) are at the center of this film. They are the ones making the important decisions that drive the plot. Their conflict is shown directly, unlike that of the Prince and the Emperor. There just aren't subversively feminist films like this being made in the U.S.

Like the best tragedies, the plot here seems simple on the surface, but below the masks, there's more complex ideas. If this is the type of offspring that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has spawned, I'm more than happy to wait two years between such beautiful, thought-provoking films.

THE CITY OF VIOLENCE

Written by Fumo Verde

The City of Violence? Have these people been to Detroit?

Sure there were great fight scenes, but they were few and far between to deal with the Soba noodle of a plot you have to bare just to get to the action. Director Seung-Wan artfully captured some of the best fights I’ve seen in a long time and the actors performed in the usual South Korean soap opera style—not over the top, but just pushing that edge. The City of Violence is fun and exciting but not because it has that air of mystery about it. The beauty of this movie lays in the cinematography and how it masterfully caught the fine choreographed moves of the Tae Kwon Do fight scenes.

The story is about five friends who have grown up together and have already come of age, so no boobs, okay. Three of them are hoods, Asian Mafia types, and another becomes a cop. Why and how these guys come to be who they are is not explained. When Wang-jae, the thug gone straight, gets murdered in the back alley of his own bar, it is up to his friends to figure out who did it and why. Within the first five minutes I knew the character that did it, and twenty minutes later we all find out why. The rest of the time is spent on letting Tae-su and Seok-hwan figure out what happened. Once this is discovered its time for to seek revenge.

The best fight scene comes near the beginning. Tae-su and Seok-hwan are confronted with about sixty teenagers dressed in outfits ranging from school girl uniforms to the baseball kids from The Warriors and so on. After our two heroes fight off this motley crew, they must face even tougher battles down the road. When the final battle happens, it is one hell of a fight. Was it worth waiting for? I thought so. Seung-Wan frames the fight movements like his idol, Quentin Tarantino, making the battle look more like a dance than a brawl. Would I consider these “produced fights” Bruce Lee-worthy? On a scale from 1 to 10, I give The City of Violence an 8 for fights and a 2 for plot strength.

The two-disc Ultimate Edition comes with a “how it was made” DVD. I was amazed how long it took and how hard this crew worked on getting these incredible fights right. I wish the writers would have worked on the script as long. The extras include deleted scenes and interviews with the cast and director. I like extras like this, going behind the scenes and finding out how the studios create “lighting in a bottle” as it is sometimes called, or used to be.

The City of Violence was exciting when the fight was on. When it wasn’t, it really didn’t matter. Dragon Dynasty has a lot of good movies; this one was just one of their lower grade ones. If you can rent it for a buck, or better yet, wait till a lazy Sunday afternoon and see if you can catch it on Kung-Fu Theater. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a double feature that includes Master of the Flying Guillotine.