- Mar 14, 2012
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Let's move on, shall we?
MOVIES YOU HAVE TO READ
Oh no, not those! Who wants to read subtitles of mopey Europeans? I sure as hell never did. I was and am an action junky. The few foreign language films I actually had been exposed to as a kid, I couldn’t keep up the with subs, which means I didn’t understand what was going on, and I was so busy reading I missed the visuals. The flip side was I couldn’t stand watching a dubbed version either. I like words syncing with mouths.
My first year of college, I decided to expand my horizons and subject myself to ‘art’ films, which for me meant anything with subtitles. Low and behold, turns out foreign films can rock some serious action too!
La Femme Nikita – 1990
This is the one that opened my eyes to other country’s movies. I probably read a review of it in Rolling Stone, which was my guide to movies in the early 90’s, and the poster featured a hot chick holding a gun. Those two things were probably all I needed to seek it out. Had to go 45 minutes to find a theater playing it, and I remember turning my nose up at the venue since it was so small and rinky dink.
All was forgiven once the movie started. Luc Beson, the writer/director, pretty much ushered in the era of the ass kicking chick. Buffy, Alias, Lara Croft, they owe a debt to La Femme. Here was a tough as nails chick who gets turned into an even more lethal assassin. There are touches of Clockwork Orange at play here, and you genuinely care about Nikita reforming her ways.
And then there’s the action. Luc knows how to set a situation up, twist the screws, and make the audience white knuckle their arm rests. Heroes get hurt and banged up, emotions get wrecked. These characters feel pain, are not super human. Just fantastic.
Now this movie also showed me how badly Hollywood adaptions can be. Point of No Return is the American remake, and it is completely soulless. It lost all the grit, all the style, yet tells a near identical story. Don’t settle for the carbon copy just to avoid sub titles!
Hard Boiled – 1992
I barely knew of Hong Kong cinema back then, amazingly enough. Martial arts movies were those cheesy things aired on Saturday afternoons with flying guillotines and really horrible English dubs. A friend of mine lent me a tape of John Woo’s The Killer, and my eyes were opened.
For whatever reason, Hard Boiled got an American release and played in regular theaters. I went thinking I knew what to expect, but wow did it exceed those expectations. The violence was shocking, the gun play amazing, and the stunt work made me wonder how anyone didn’t actually die making this. This made Die Hard look like an also ran. Go ahead, watch the trailer that is linked in the title of the movie, and tell me you don't want to watch this right now!
This was the start of a whole new time in my movie watching. Star Wars was it for me until I was like 13, then I saw Terminator and that became my end all be all. Well, John Woo obliterated my way of thinking with Hard Boiled, and soon I was devouring Asian cinema as fast as I could. Thank God for the video rental department at Tower Records! They served me well. I think anyone raised on today’s chaotic nonsensical action movies would be as equally shocked as I was, and I was an 80’s action junky.
The City of Lost Children – 1995
I was bouncing a lot between Hong Kong cinema and French when I saw this. I was still under the influence of Rolling Stone’s reviewer Peter Travers, and I was also digging on anything with an over the top visual style. Simply put, I was in without even seeing the trailer.
I just re-watched this the other week AFTER putting it on this list. I probably hadn’t watched it in a good 10-12 years. It is a twisted faery tale, about a man that cannot dream, so he kidnaps and extracts the dreams of children so that he can sleep. The problem is all the kids have nightmares because they were kidnapped and scared of him. There’re also these blind dudes that have a camera installed on their face so that they can see, and they remind me of Cenobites from Hellraiser. Children seem to have the run of the city, with adults only there to make their lives difficult. It’s all very bizarre, and I can see why I loved it back then.
This is a movie with a distinct color pallet, where set design is paramount, and the camera work a character unto itself. It’s also a movie that many would shut off 15 minutes in, as it is just so very European. But like I said, I was delving into this stuff head first at the time, and City of Lost Children was unlike anything I’d yet seen. This is accessible ‘art’, with only a hint of pretension. It is also a solid mix of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror.
Wing Chun – 1994
Amongst my Hong Kong cinema viewing, I had watched only a couple of Jacky Chan movies. I wasn’t watching martial arts movies so much, as movies that happened to have martial arts in them. To put it to you another way, I was actually blown away by Mortal Kombat, and the martial arts in that are nothing.
So I’m at a friend’s house, and he’s playing a clip from Wing Chun. Michelle Yeoh stars, and she was keeping a big bean curd thing away from an attacker, and making him look like a fool in the process. She was kicking, punching, doing crazy acrobatics, and not even breaking a sweat. My jaw was on the floor. I immediately rented this and was formally introduced to wire-fu, a type of movie where martial artists seem to defy gravity. If you’ve seen Crouching Tiger (which also stars Michelle Yeoh), you’ll know what I mean.
The movie is a period piece, as so many of this genre tend to be. It kicked open a whole new door of cinema I hadn’t bothered with, and soon I was watching Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and any number of other Asian cinema star’s movies. And just in time too, as The Matrix came out a year after I saw Wing Chun. By the time Kill Bill was out, I was able to catch many of the homages that film makes to this kind. And I owe it all to this film.
Run Lola Run – 1998
By this time, I was almost over my ‘opening of the mind’ towards foreign cinema. You soon realize there is a ton of crap out there, just like here. Subtitles do not make up for bad film making! So I look at Run Lola Run as a last hurrah for me.
The gist of the movie is, Lola has a limited amount of time to get some money to her boyfriend across town before he goes and does a very stupid thing that will get him killed. From the moment she hangs up the phone with him, we are off to the races as she sprints to get there. What is unique about this gem of a German film, is that we see essentially branching timelines, showing how even a delay of 30 seconds can change the whole outcome of not just Lola’s adventure across town, but of all those she interacts with on her way there. It’s like a time travel movie without any time traveling.
Franke Potente is Lola, who later on would play the tragic girlfriend of Jason Bourne. She has bright red dyed hair, which Alias wound up stealing for their show at the beginning. Much like La Femme Nikita, there are elements from this that many others would borrow liberally from later. Some crazy animation gets thrown in, there’s this relentless techno soundtrack that propels the whole thing, and it is all killer and no filler.
Shockingly enough, this is one movie where the dub isn’t even all that horrible, for those that are subtitle averse, because there is so little dialogue in it. It’s a powerhouse of a flick, but one that will rarely make a list of great movies. Like I said though, considering how many other projects it has influenced, it isn’t one to be skipped over.
The Raid – 2011
Simply one of the best action movies I’ve seen in the last 5 years. It is an Indonesian low budget guns and martial arts movie directed by a Welshman. How cliche. There is a 15 story (not 30 like the trailer says) apartment building that is floor after floor of bad guys, and the main baddy lives at the top. SWAT raid the building in hopes of taking him down, only to get caught on the middle floors between all the bad guys. Much violence ensues.
If you’ve seen Dredd (and if you haven’t, please do), you’ll recognize that it has virtually the same plot and set-up. What Dredd doesn’t have is the amazingly brutal fights this one does. I tend to judge the success of a stunt by whether I wince during it happening. Like you see it, and even though you know it’s all make believe, it still looks like it hurt. If a movie is lucky, there might be one of those moments. There were 3-5 in this thing. There is no wire-fu, the gun fights are incredibly visceral, and the direction just top notch.
Much like La Femme, nobody has super human strength. Single kicks to the head are enough to drop most. Cuts and scrapes, broken bones, bullet wounds, these are not just shaken off and forgotten about the very next scene. This is a film that renewed my faith in action cinema. I mention it all the time to people, and nobody has seen it. So get out there and find it, because it deserves to be known. The sequel just came out on Blu-Ray. It is epic in scope and throws in car chases too. It's pretty awesome, but doesn't have the laser focus of this. Do a double feature viewing though, and tell me action movies haven't lost their mojo in comparison. Or just wait for the English language remake that is in the works currently and prey it doesn't duplicate the mistakes Point of No Return made. (good luck with that!)
Next time we hit the halfway point, and it features flying cars, space ships, and mind bending realities.
MOVIES YOU HAVE TO READ
Oh no, not those! Who wants to read subtitles of mopey Europeans? I sure as hell never did. I was and am an action junky. The few foreign language films I actually had been exposed to as a kid, I couldn’t keep up the with subs, which means I didn’t understand what was going on, and I was so busy reading I missed the visuals. The flip side was I couldn’t stand watching a dubbed version either. I like words syncing with mouths.
My first year of college, I decided to expand my horizons and subject myself to ‘art’ films, which for me meant anything with subtitles. Low and behold, turns out foreign films can rock some serious action too!
La Femme Nikita – 1990
This is the one that opened my eyes to other country’s movies. I probably read a review of it in Rolling Stone, which was my guide to movies in the early 90’s, and the poster featured a hot chick holding a gun. Those two things were probably all I needed to seek it out. Had to go 45 minutes to find a theater playing it, and I remember turning my nose up at the venue since it was so small and rinky dink.
All was forgiven once the movie started. Luc Beson, the writer/director, pretty much ushered in the era of the ass kicking chick. Buffy, Alias, Lara Croft, they owe a debt to La Femme. Here was a tough as nails chick who gets turned into an even more lethal assassin. There are touches of Clockwork Orange at play here, and you genuinely care about Nikita reforming her ways.
And then there’s the action. Luc knows how to set a situation up, twist the screws, and make the audience white knuckle their arm rests. Heroes get hurt and banged up, emotions get wrecked. These characters feel pain, are not super human. Just fantastic.
Now this movie also showed me how badly Hollywood adaptions can be. Point of No Return is the American remake, and it is completely soulless. It lost all the grit, all the style, yet tells a near identical story. Don’t settle for the carbon copy just to avoid sub titles!
Hard Boiled – 1992
I barely knew of Hong Kong cinema back then, amazingly enough. Martial arts movies were those cheesy things aired on Saturday afternoons with flying guillotines and really horrible English dubs. A friend of mine lent me a tape of John Woo’s The Killer, and my eyes were opened.
For whatever reason, Hard Boiled got an American release and played in regular theaters. I went thinking I knew what to expect, but wow did it exceed those expectations. The violence was shocking, the gun play amazing, and the stunt work made me wonder how anyone didn’t actually die making this. This made Die Hard look like an also ran. Go ahead, watch the trailer that is linked in the title of the movie, and tell me you don't want to watch this right now!
This was the start of a whole new time in my movie watching. Star Wars was it for me until I was like 13, then I saw Terminator and that became my end all be all. Well, John Woo obliterated my way of thinking with Hard Boiled, and soon I was devouring Asian cinema as fast as I could. Thank God for the video rental department at Tower Records! They served me well. I think anyone raised on today’s chaotic nonsensical action movies would be as equally shocked as I was, and I was an 80’s action junky.
The City of Lost Children – 1995
I was bouncing a lot between Hong Kong cinema and French when I saw this. I was still under the influence of Rolling Stone’s reviewer Peter Travers, and I was also digging on anything with an over the top visual style. Simply put, I was in without even seeing the trailer.
I just re-watched this the other week AFTER putting it on this list. I probably hadn’t watched it in a good 10-12 years. It is a twisted faery tale, about a man that cannot dream, so he kidnaps and extracts the dreams of children so that he can sleep. The problem is all the kids have nightmares because they were kidnapped and scared of him. There’re also these blind dudes that have a camera installed on their face so that they can see, and they remind me of Cenobites from Hellraiser. Children seem to have the run of the city, with adults only there to make their lives difficult. It’s all very bizarre, and I can see why I loved it back then.
This is a movie with a distinct color pallet, where set design is paramount, and the camera work a character unto itself. It’s also a movie that many would shut off 15 minutes in, as it is just so very European. But like I said, I was delving into this stuff head first at the time, and City of Lost Children was unlike anything I’d yet seen. This is accessible ‘art’, with only a hint of pretension. It is also a solid mix of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror.
Wing Chun – 1994
Amongst my Hong Kong cinema viewing, I had watched only a couple of Jacky Chan movies. I wasn’t watching martial arts movies so much, as movies that happened to have martial arts in them. To put it to you another way, I was actually blown away by Mortal Kombat, and the martial arts in that are nothing.
So I’m at a friend’s house, and he’s playing a clip from Wing Chun. Michelle Yeoh stars, and she was keeping a big bean curd thing away from an attacker, and making him look like a fool in the process. She was kicking, punching, doing crazy acrobatics, and not even breaking a sweat. My jaw was on the floor. I immediately rented this and was formally introduced to wire-fu, a type of movie where martial artists seem to defy gravity. If you’ve seen Crouching Tiger (which also stars Michelle Yeoh), you’ll know what I mean.
The movie is a period piece, as so many of this genre tend to be. It kicked open a whole new door of cinema I hadn’t bothered with, and soon I was watching Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and any number of other Asian cinema star’s movies. And just in time too, as The Matrix came out a year after I saw Wing Chun. By the time Kill Bill was out, I was able to catch many of the homages that film makes to this kind. And I owe it all to this film.
Run Lola Run – 1998
By this time, I was almost over my ‘opening of the mind’ towards foreign cinema. You soon realize there is a ton of crap out there, just like here. Subtitles do not make up for bad film making! So I look at Run Lola Run as a last hurrah for me.
The gist of the movie is, Lola has a limited amount of time to get some money to her boyfriend across town before he goes and does a very stupid thing that will get him killed. From the moment she hangs up the phone with him, we are off to the races as she sprints to get there. What is unique about this gem of a German film, is that we see essentially branching timelines, showing how even a delay of 30 seconds can change the whole outcome of not just Lola’s adventure across town, but of all those she interacts with on her way there. It’s like a time travel movie without any time traveling.
Franke Potente is Lola, who later on would play the tragic girlfriend of Jason Bourne. She has bright red dyed hair, which Alias wound up stealing for their show at the beginning. Much like La Femme Nikita, there are elements from this that many others would borrow liberally from later. Some crazy animation gets thrown in, there’s this relentless techno soundtrack that propels the whole thing, and it is all killer and no filler.
Shockingly enough, this is one movie where the dub isn’t even all that horrible, for those that are subtitle averse, because there is so little dialogue in it. It’s a powerhouse of a flick, but one that will rarely make a list of great movies. Like I said though, considering how many other projects it has influenced, it isn’t one to be skipped over.
The Raid – 2011
Simply one of the best action movies I’ve seen in the last 5 years. It is an Indonesian low budget guns and martial arts movie directed by a Welshman. How cliche. There is a 15 story (not 30 like the trailer says) apartment building that is floor after floor of bad guys, and the main baddy lives at the top. SWAT raid the building in hopes of taking him down, only to get caught on the middle floors between all the bad guys. Much violence ensues.
If you’ve seen Dredd (and if you haven’t, please do), you’ll recognize that it has virtually the same plot and set-up. What Dredd doesn’t have is the amazingly brutal fights this one does. I tend to judge the success of a stunt by whether I wince during it happening. Like you see it, and even though you know it’s all make believe, it still looks like it hurt. If a movie is lucky, there might be one of those moments. There were 3-5 in this thing. There is no wire-fu, the gun fights are incredibly visceral, and the direction just top notch.
Much like La Femme, nobody has super human strength. Single kicks to the head are enough to drop most. Cuts and scrapes, broken bones, bullet wounds, these are not just shaken off and forgotten about the very next scene. This is a film that renewed my faith in action cinema. I mention it all the time to people, and nobody has seen it. So get out there and find it, because it deserves to be known. The sequel just came out on Blu-Ray. It is epic in scope and throws in car chases too. It's pretty awesome, but doesn't have the laser focus of this. Do a double feature viewing though, and tell me action movies haven't lost their mojo in comparison. Or just wait for the English language remake that is in the works currently and prey it doesn't duplicate the mistakes Point of No Return made. (good luck with that!)
Next time we hit the halfway point, and it features flying cars, space ships, and mind bending realities.
