Movie Review: The Dead Lands

The Dead Lands(2014)
Director: Toa Fraser
Writer: Glenn Standring
Starring: James Rolleston(BOY, The Dark Horse), Lawrence Makoare(LOTR trilogy),Te Kohe Tuhaka

"...Death is not noble. Nor is life."

This came under my radar a few months ago when I seen some blog post with James Cameron & Peter Jackson praising it(or something like that), so I didn't even bother watching a trailer or even reading the post in it's entirety. I just put it on the watchlist. Not that I'm a Cameron or Jackson stan or anything, though Cameron has made some great films I admire. It's just that when I hear high praises for films that sound up my alley, I like going into them without knowing as much as possible.

This film starts out like a horror. A man, obviously scared as hell, is running for his life through the forest and is caught and promptly killed in the most brutal manner by another man who looks as if he's possessed. Then it cuts to a scene with two rival tribes convening to make peace. The old chieftain explains to the visiting tribe that they haven't hunted in the lands they last fought them in since the battle ended long ago and by doing so they've honored the visiting tribe's dead. They allow the standing leader of that tribe, a young man named Wirepa(Tuhaka), to go forth and give their dead a proper burial. The son of the chieftain & our lead, Hongi(Rolleston), follows Wirepa out of curiosity. He trails him to a cave in the forest where the remains of Wirepa's ancestor's out in the open. Wirepa picks up one of the skulls and speaks to it for a moment and then he put it down, turns and takes a dump on it. He literally takes a dump ontop of the skull and then licks it. Not even joking. There's a character in this film who only eats other people's flesh and this guy, to me, is crazier than him. Hongi sees this act and throws a rock at him. Wirepa chases Hongi down then takes him to his father and lies saying that Hongi defiled the remains of his ancestors. The chief offers to kill his son to make it right. Hongi denies having done wrong, but accepts his fate. Wirepa, glory hungry, says there's no remedy for what has happened and that there will be war and then they go their separate ways. Wirepa and his men come back in the night and massacre Hongi's village and take the chief's head.

After that Hongi sets out for the titular Dead Lands in seek of a flesh eating "monster" to help him reap revenge on Wirepa and his men. This is where the film really starts. Hongi finds the "monster"(Makoare), the man from(and only a man), from the beginning of the film and he agrees to help. What follows could easily be a western, in fact, the whole movie could easily be a good revenge western. Rolleston is good here, he plays the young innocent, but rising warrior well. But Makoare absolutely steals the show. He brings depth to a seemingly savage character displaying a deep vulnerability and wide range of other emotions at the drop of a dime. He & Rolleston play off each other very well and would not mind seeing them in a western together. Tuhaka is great as the villain, reminds of a young Dwayne Johnson looks wise with the charisma Johnson has now.

The script is good. Nothing complicated, but it does offer a refreshing take on this type of story with the demythologizing of the warrior's code/honor. I like how it offers good and bad examples of going against that way of thinking. You hear/see the words "gritty" & "dark" a lot today when it comes to action movies, comic book adaptations particularly, but this film genuinely merits those terms with true grit... see what I did there? No? Okay, I'll be moving on. I don't have anything at all against today's CGI-heavy action movies. I actually love a lot of them, but I can say those CGI spectacles can get tiresome. I can't speak for everyone, but as an action junkie sometimes you just wanna see two people hit each other and actually see blood. The fight scenes aren't extensive like The Raid or anything like that, but they're still pretty gory and the choreography is good. I'm not sure it was intentional, but some of the visual language is right out of a classic Kung Fu movie and it's absolutely awesome so if you're into old Wuxias, that's another reason for you to watch. The only problems I had with is the pacing at times, but that's me just wanting to get back into the chase more than anything. And the logic in how some of the fight scenes are staged is questionable, sometimes I'd be sitting wondering "why don't they all just attack at once?" But that's nothing untypical for any action movie that involves a lot of fighting. All in all, this is one of the most visceral action movie's I've seen in a while and it while it may not land it's punch with everyone, I'd recommend it to hardcore action junkies like myself that are looking for an alternative to the sanitized PG-13 action movies that are the norm now.

Movie Review: No Tears For The Dead

No Tears For The Dead(2015)
Writer/Director: Lee Jeong-beom
Starring: Jang Dong-gun(Tae Guk Gi:The Brotherhood, My Way), Kim Hee-won(The Man From Nowhere, Running Turtle, My Way) Kim Min-hee(Helpless),  Brian Tee(Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift, The Wolverine, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2)

"...Please don't cry. Don't you cry, Jin-gon."

Last year my friend linked me to the trailer for this movie because he knew how big a fan I am of Lee Jeong-beom's The Man From Nowhere. I was super excited, but after seeing some early reviews that were unfavorable my anticipation kind of died down. I recently decided to give it another chance. 

The story is pretty straight forward. It's about a hitman, Gon(Jang Dong-gun), born in South Korea, raised in the U.S. who botches up a job by a kid by killing a kid. He decides to retire, but his boss sends him to South Korea for one last job which turns out being the kid's mother, Mo-kyeong(Kim Min-hee). There's a reason why, but that's spoiler territory + I didn't really care for the rest of that story. And that's not me being an action whore it's just that it's not that interesting of a sub-plot. Once Gon gets to S. Korea he meets his liaison(Hee-won) to get info on the target and starts on recon. When he meets his liaison he curses him out and I didn't notice this until later, but this movie is really vulgar film. That's not a complaint, it's just that it's was so over-the-top I found it funny.

This is definitely a thriller, but not entirely. At times t's morose enough to pass for a drama alone. For a good third of the film Gon spends a lot of time sulking or stalking the mother and not killing her. On top of that we see Mo-kyeong's side of it with her grieving over the death of her child. She doesn't say it explicitly, but you can tell she blames herself. It's weird connection the two have. Gon's mother abandoned him as a child, Mo-Kyeong in a way feels like she abandoned her child. It's not unusual for an action-thriller to have some plot-foddering melodrama, but that's not the case here. It's genuine emotion and the acting is brilliant. One thing I've always noticed in Korean cinema is the balance of thrill and drama. What's unfortunate is that here the balance is achieved by mucking up the film's pace as a thriller.

When Gon stops sulking and finally goes to kill Mo-Kyeong he stumbles onto her attempting suicide and actually saves her after he tells her about his mother abandoning him. He's not a good guy at all and they don't try make him one at any point. So why he saves her after connecting her attempted suicide to his mother leaving him is kind of an oddity in his character arch, but not a big deal really. After Gon saves Mo-Kyeong, his boss back in the states decides to send another one of his men, Chaoz(Tee) whose life Gon once saved, to finish off the target and take Gon out. Finally all hell breaks loose. High volume shootouts. Though the camerawork is a bit erratic at times during, the hand-to-hand combat/knife fights are well choreographed. It's almost non-stop action brimming with blood and bullets. There's a moment amid all the action where Chaoz & Gon come face-to-face, Chaoz asks Gon why he's doing what he's doing and it's a very slight scene, but Tee plays it so well. You instantly feel the connection between the two, a bromance akin to something out of a John Woo movie that later leads to a very visceral final fight between the two.

The film's climax is more emotionally charged than what you're ready for and it comes to an extremely sad conclusion, but in a good way. It's a bittersweet ending that perfectly caps off the film's motif. It's easy to get caught up in the blood soaked goodness of the action once it takes place, but this is more a dramatic story of redemption for a hitman who's dead inside and finds a release through unfortunate means.  It's toted as an action-thriller, but to me the plot and action takes a backseat emotional aspect of the film. It's not as good as The Man From Nowhere, but not bad at all. Worth the watch, just manage your expectations going in.

On Netflix instant now

Movie Review: The Big Bad F*cking WolfCop

WolfCop(2014)

Writer/Director: Lowell Dean

Starring: Leo Fafard, Jonathan Cherry & Sarah Lind

"...I'm the fuzz."

I liked this movie, but probably more than I should have. There are plenty of flaws that just beg for me to consider this movie as bad, but I just found it to be too awesome. Let's start with how cool of a concept this is. It's about an alcoholic cop who's suddenly turned into a werewolf then decides to go around and use his new abilities to eradicate crime. Well, sort of. But when you sum it up in that respect, it could've easily been a superhero movie. In fact, if this had the budget like one of those big superhero movies, with the story it has, it could've been a great one. Though, it probably wouldn't have all the things that make it cool like ripping people's faces and arms off. That's one of the main things that contribute to me liking this film; the vintage practical effects. Lou's(Fafard) first transformation is the high point of the film for me and rivals that of the eye-popping classic one in 1981's The Howling . And speaking of "eye-popping" there's a scene where a guy literally gets stabbed in the eye by one of the film's villains and it's absolutely glorious in all it's gore and exaggerated sound design.

The movie is pretty short clocking in at 78 minutes so it kicks off fairly fast. It opens up with an alcoholic Lou falling out of bed dragging his hungover body out the door to his job at the sheriff's department which he's regularly late for. As Lou cruises through his schlocky small town, we're made aware of current mayoral election going on and are introduced to front-runners; the longstanding incumbent, Mayor Bradley & an up-and-comer, Terry Wallace. We also quickly get a feel for how much Lou cares for his job or at least a picture of just how non-relevant local law enforcement is to the townspeople. This is made even more clear when Lou pulls up to the station and the front of the building has a busted door and is vandalized with the word "PIGS" (one of the many wolf-related puns in the movie.) Lou walks in trying to duck everyone, but is immediately grilled by his coworker/supercop, Tina(Matysio.) & his Chief who claims that Lou's father would be disappointed in him. Lou doesn't seem to care about that much which points me to an element of the film that I consider quality & a flaw: the overall casualness of the movie.

It's quality because it doesn't take itself too seriously, but it's a flaw because that overall casualness about it dampens some important scenes concerning the story with apathy. The perfect example is the scene after Lou's cursed and has his first transformation where kills a bunch of bad guys at a bar... the next day he comes back and the bartender says to him that he wasn't himself when he did what he did, but he saved her. The exchange is just so drab that the scene feels like a throwaway. It's not that I feel she should've been freaking out or anything, it just that even with a black comedy, scenes like that should at least make an effort to mount some kind of tension or suspense when there's a mystery at play. And there is definitely one at play, but the overall casualness that I mention doesn't allow for you to feel it enough to care that there is. It instead leaves you waiting for the next wolf-up, scene of carnage or whatever campy craziness you expect coming into this. And it does deliver on those expectations, but not enough for you to say "story be damned, this is great." Like  I said, the story is actually pretty good, but due to it being poorly handled I wish the filmmakers would've scaled back on the story and focused more action. Luckily there's a sequel on the way so I know there'll be plenty of fun to be had now that they've gotten this out of the way. 

Hot Fuzz does everything tried here better even the horror stuff, but I still liked this for what it was. Campy genre fare that fails to balance elements of Mystery-Cop & Black-Comedy Horror movies, but entertains anyways. Especially worth watching if you're a die-hard genre fan like me. 

Movie review: Michael Jai White Falcon Kicks The Sh*t Out Of People

Falcon Rising(2014) (AKA: Favela)
Director: Ernie Barbarash(Assassination Games, 6 Bullets)
Writer: Y.T. Parazi
Starring: Michael Jai White(Spawn, Black Dynamite, Undisputed 2), Lateef Crowder(The Protector, Undisputed 3, Tekken) & Neal McDonough(Minority Report, Captain America: The First Avenger)

"You didn't wash your hands... that's nasty."

I think I read about this movie over on cityonfire.com some months back and just added it to the netflix queue. So this morning after compiling a 100 movie list of possible movies to review, I figure what better movie to start with than this? It's supposed to be the first of a franchise to be lead by Michael Jai White entitled "CODENAME: FALCON" that will run for god knows how long. It's about John "Falcon" Chapman(White), an all-around badass ex-marine with some hardcore PTSD that ultimately feels pointless in his whole character make-up, but he has to have some kind of quirk, right? From the jump we see him home alone in his apartment drinking like a fish, clutching old comrades' dog tags & playing Russian roulette. And as if that opening scene doesn't effectively illustrate to us how down in the dumps this guy is, the next scene is of him in a convenience store looking to stock up on more liquor to continue binge drinking. Two baddies come in to hold the store up and he just continues to casually browse the liquor shelf while one of the guys has a shotgun pointed him at shouting. Yes, the obligatory "I'll show you how much of a badass I am"-scene, right? Ehh, kinda. John turns around and almost begs the guy to kill him. When the guy freezes up he then disarms him, kicks his & his partner's asses followed by him paying for his liquor and walking out like nothing happened. The first twenty or thirty minutes of the film is mostly one big heavy-handed attempt to show us how tormented of a man this guy is.

After even MORE veteran's sorrow porn filled with pointless flashbacks John's sister, Cindy(Ali), flies in from Rio De Janeiro and back out of town so that means we can finally get down to some ass-kicking, right? Kinda. John gets a call from an old friend who works at the U.S. embassy in Brazil telling him that his sister's been found left for dead somewhere in the favela where she worked(Laila Ali getting beat up? You KNOW this is a movie.) They really don't give you reason to feel for what's happened to John's sister. In fact, the way she's just suddenly injected into the story seems pretty random because there's no indication that John has anything to live for before OR after we see her. They don't try to establish a connection between the two. She's just used as a means to an end to get the plot moving. Even when he flies down to Brazil and sees her laying in the hospital bed battered and bruised it doesn't seem like he's affected by it much, he just immediately goes into justice mode. I guess we can chalk that up to him military guy and the writer working under the assumption that viewers will naturally make the jump to believe any badass ex-marine in a movie will automatically go try to exact revenge on the baddies responsible for his sisters assault. I guess that's better than overwrought melodrama, though.


When the action kicks off the first bit of it has nothing to do with John directly or the actual story, but it was pretty cool. One of the cops, Carlo(Crowder), that's supposed to be investigating John's sister's murder randomly squares up with a hoodlum and showcases his fighting style that reminded me of Eddy Gordo from the game Tekken(turns out Crowder played him the in the 2010 adaptation.) This fight serves no other purpose other than to show this is the only other formidable fighter in the movie who will eventually match up with John later only for a disappointingly short fight scene that's also shared with two other foes. The stuff leading up to that is pretty cool, though, too. John beats up or shoots anyone who even looks like they know anything about his sister's assault. And when he kicks people, my god it's like a lightning strike. No wonder his call sign is Falcon. The shootouts aren't as good as the fights except for the one during the climax where John runs through a shipping yard a la John Wick jumping off of crates dishing out a combo of falcon kicks & headshots. Not good overall. Hollow script, weak cast, but a moderately entertaining footnote to an action vehicle to be with some flashes of pure badassery from Michael Jai White who's a vintage macho-man action hero that exudes absolute confidence when taking down his foes. There's plenty of room for improvement, but they've built a solid hero so I'll be on the look out the future installments.