Martial Arthouse

I put on The Invincible Dragon (2019) because I was in the mood for some mindless Asian action. What I got was either much less, or much more mindless than I thought.

We meet Kowloon (Max Zhang) in hot water. Gangsters have in tied up and in a pot being boiled in a Hong Kongbanquet hall kitchen. The gang suspects him of being a police informer. He tells them the story of the dragon tattooed on his chest. When he was a kid, he spent one summer day playing in a pond with a nine-headed dragon - the best day of his life. He felt the dragon would always protect him. The gangsters laugh at him and pull him out of the pot to kill him. Of course, once he's out, he fights his way free, kills the henchmen and chases the boss into the banquet. He gets him down and shoots him through the wrist, causing the boss' hand to wind up on someone's plate.

It seems Zhang was a policeman, after all. He is swiftly demoted for this exhibition, and sent to the boondocks. He has cleaned up, shaved the gangster soul patch and got a haircut. Even though things are usually quiet, policewomen start getting killed around him. He has a serial killer on his hands, and seems to be related to the case.

His method of of investigation is largely putting himself into the killer's shoes and imagining the crime. Or is he remembering it? He seems a little unstable.

When his policewoman fiancee is killed, he snaps. He is kicked out of the police, starts drinking, grows his hair and beard, earns a living getting beat up in fixed underground fight clubs. One of his old coworkers says he was a bad policeman, but a great fake boxer. 

As the movie goes on, he gets twitchier and twitchier. One character, a good looking doctor who wants to help, notes that he's counting people again - PTSD, OCD, who knows what else. But he does try to solve the case.

SPOILER - He figures out who the culprit is by seeing him in a vision. Maybe dragon related?

It turns out that director Fruit Chan is more of an arthouse director, not an action movie director. He did try to make this a commercial action film. Did not entirely succeed. Zhang is an action star, so the fight scenes were fine. It's also interesting to see him undercover, then cleaned up, then going crazy. 

The final fighter with - SPOILER - UFC monster Anderson Silva, is pretty funny. They started trading movie cliches like "We're not so different, you and me," and accusing each other of stealing their lines. 

Monkey Time

I was in the mood for some good Chinese fantasy, and saw Stephen Chow's name, so I picked up the two-disc set A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora’s Box (1995) and A Chinese Odyssey Part Two: Cinderella (1995). 

I'm not sure I will be able to summarize these crazy movies. It starts with Monkey King (Stephen Chow) mouthing off to Kwan Yin, refusing to help Longevity Monk (Law Kar-ying). Kwan Yin subdues him, and decides to kill him ("He's really annoying!"), but the monk intervenes for him. So she only makes in incarnate as a human, 500 years later. 

As a human, Chow remembers nothing of Monkey or his quest. Instead he is the leader of a bandit band. The band runs into a pair of demon women, Spider Lady (Yammy Lam) and Bai Jing Jing (Karen Mok). They plan to find the reincarnated Longevity Monk and eat him, to gain his powers. Both of them also more or less fall for Chow, but Chow particularly goes for Mok. There are some more demons, some hurly-burly, and Mok thinks that Chow got Lam pregnant, and kills herself. 

When Chow finds out, he is frantic. He finds "Pandora's box" which allows him to travel back in time. Each time he does, he arrives too late. On his last try, he goes back 500 years. He meets a minor deity, Athena Chu, who tells him everything in the area belongs to her, including Chow himself and the Pandora's box.

In Part Two, we learn a bit more about Chu's character. She is a swordswoman wandering the dunes, in a very Ashes of Time manner. In a fight with some disguised demons, she reveals her true self, and her sword. The sword is magic - it can only be drawn by her true love. When she meets Chow, what do you think he does? So now he is entwined with three beautiful supernatural beings. He has also realized that he is really the Monkey King, but still doesn't want to go to the West with Longevity Monk. He's really annoying.

As far as I can tell, Chu has an evil twin, with whom she shares a body - the evil twin only comes out under the moon. Is this magic or mental illness? Chow romances the twin to get the Pandora's box back - or is he really falling for her? This is another Ashes of Time theme - the mutability of identity.

Then a lot of stuff happens, and he gets killed. He realizes that Chu is who he truly loves, but Kwan Yin reminds him of his duty, and he accepts it. His ghost wraps up a few loose ends, and it's off to get the Sutras in the West. 

So, a lot of stuff happens, which is normal for these Monkey stories. There is also a lot of low humor, also typical. My favorite is in the second part, when Longevity Monk gets on everyone's nerves by being so pious. As he explains to the demons who are guarding him, "Demons are the same as humans. They should be treated with kindness." The demons listening throw up, and/or attempt to kill themselves. Even Kwan Yin, Buddha of Compassion, thinks he's annoying. 

This movie certainly isn't as tight as Journey to the West, which Chow directed as well as starred in. This one is written and directed by Jeffrey Lau, and it's a little bit of a grab-bag. Some stupid jokes, some thrilling fights, some hot demon-girls - really what more could I ask for?

Michael Jai White Zone

I was stuck for movie to watch due to a streaming bait and switch.  So I grabbed Dead Zone (2022), the nearest action film with a recognizable name. It was Michael Jai White, and it was all downhill from there. 

Time: The Future. Dystopia: Zombified. Living humanity has kept the zombie hordes at bay by dropping A-bombs on infected areas. Large swaths of the country (? world?) are now radioactive and also zombified. 

Our intrepid team must go into one such dead zone to retrieve the MacGuffin serum, etc. Leading the team is Jai White. They will be going in with armor and opaque helmets, which makes the stunt doubles' job easier. Instead we get close-ups with HUD interface. 

Once in zone, after a few zombie fights, one or two guys bit, they run into a civilian, a woman who for reasons I didn't get, has been living in the zombie zone for months, with makeshift protection. With her help, they will find the serum and "get to the choppa." Oh, and find love?

This was pretty bad. Having close-ups of (and some fighting by) Jai White made it better, but he was a part of the ensemble. The rest of the ensemble is fine, but nothing special. Without White, it would be worse, but still a fun bad movie. Well, I was desperate, and Michael Jai White was in it. 

Kaboom?

I had heard that The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (2024) was pretty good, so I figured I'd try it out. I wonder if I was thinking of a different movie.

It starts with a scientist seeing an asteroid heading towards Earth, but also a UFO. The UFO crashes near by, after leaving a goo-rimmed hole in someone's roof. The scientists goes to investigate, and disappears. The scientist scenes are animated in a sort 1940s Max Fleischer Superman style. 

The movie then inroduces us to stars Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. As orphan shoat and duckling, they are found and raised by kindly Farmer Jim. Their idyllic upbringing is depicted in a vaguely Hart Benson style with Farmer Jim drawn as if Benson had to design a round cheeked smiling farmer for a corporate mascot. 

But all good things come to an end. When the pair has grown, Farmer Jim walks off over the horizon, leaving them the house and enjoining them to always stay together and help each other. 

In the present day, they still live in the house, now modified in wacky ways, presumably by Daffy. Porky is too much of a straight arrow, cautious, rule following pig. He knows that the building inspector (Laraine Newman!) will be visiting that day, and gets Daffy up to try to get up to code. They do not succeed. That's not even counting the big, goo-rimmed hole in the roof. Now they need jobs. It won't be easy, because they've never worked before and one of them is Daffy.

At a local diner, they meet Petunia Pig, and Porky falls hard. She is a flavor scientist at the local bubble gum factory - although she is very dismissive of their latest flavor. She gets them a job at the factory, and Porky even gets Daffy to do the job without mayhem. Things are looking up for the pair. But we know that people chewing the new gum (starting with the scientist) become zombies, who live only to chew ... gum.

So, what are my complaints? One is the way they pounded the "stay together" theme. Although Porky is driven to distraction by Daffy, he repeatedly comes to the realization that they belong together. Repeatedly. Look, I think he could stand to be a bit more dependent. But they have to beat that lesson into our heads. I wasn't really thrilled by Petunia Pig as a near-autistic flavor scientist, but I guess that's just because she's not a big member of the 1940s "classic" cast. 

I also didn't like Daffy's characterization. He's still a chaotic nutcase, but here he's capable of self-reflection and acting sensible. I suppose that's a good lesson for the kids, but not as much fun.

Then there's the character design. They were going for the look of the original Bob Clampett designs, and they did pretty good with Daffy. But I wasn't happy with Porky's face. Sometimes it looked very old-style - 1930s say. Other times it showed a lot of 21st century influence. Not just the 201x Loony Tunes, but some traces of Ren and Stimpy. 

Maybe if I had watched a lot of the twenty-teens Loony Tunes, I'd be more accepting. A lot of the animation looked fine - just not what I was looking for.

Finally, guess who was not in the UFO? Marvin the Martian, that's who. It's called the Day the Earth Blew up! There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!

No Accident

I watched Accident Man (2018) because it stars Scott Adkins, and I got a bonus bit of Michael Jai White.

Adkins is the Accident Man, an underworld assassin whose specialty is making it look like an accident. We meet him killing some rich guy, cleverly rigged to look like a suicide - all with Adkins voice-over explaining his methods and philosophy. Then he retires to his local, a private club for the band of assassins. Ray Stevenson (Punisher, R.I.P.) is the landlord, a retired killer. The rest of the crew are:

• Ray Park and Michael Jai White as a pair of American and English ex-special ops guys who specializing in making their hits look like crackhead street crimes. 
• Stephen Donald is Poison Pete, a creepy rat-faced poisoner
• Perry Benson is a bespectacled bloke who researches new murder techniques, like bandags that tigger anaphylactic shock
• Ross O' Hennessy is Carnage Cliff, a berserker killer
• Amy Johnson is a honeypot beauty with a katana

Finally, David Paymer is the middle-man arranger. He meets with the clients and brings the jobs in. So none of the crew know the clients, and vice versa.

Adkins gets a call from Paymer, telling him he can't pick up the payoff, and directs him to what turns out to be an ambush - not a very effective one either. But before he can get to the bottom of this, he finds out that his ex-girlfriend has been murdered.

She had left him for a woman, the hostile Ashley Greene. She lets him know that she was pregnant with his baby. And she was working on some ecological investigative MacGuffin. So Adkins comes to the conclusion that someone is killing everyone who might know about this. And they are hiring from his own crew. Guess how it comes out?

I like Adkins a lot, although he is usually a minor bad guy or the star of a bad (in a good way) movie. I've said I keep thinking he's Paul Rudd or Ben Stiller, but here, he's clearly doing Jason Statham. Partly it's his accent, partly it's his coarse misogynistic, misanthropic, asshole persona. 

As for the fights, they are great. Director Jesse P. Johnson has a stunt background, and of course, Adkins is an accomplished martial arts actor. Slo-mo flying kicks are a specialty. Other than Park and Jai White, maybe Amy Johnson, the others aren't big fighters. But they are great character actors. You'll see seversal "that guy" types.

The movie has a sort of amoral, sniggering asshole-ish attitude, but it is a comedy. It's kind of offputting, but representation is not endorsement. This is the first slick, real budget production I've seen Adkins star in. I like it. 

Snakes for the Memories

Man, I almost forgot that we watched Anaconda (2025). It's easy to see why.

Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Steven Zahn, and Thandiwe Newton were childhood friends, united in their love of bad movies - such as Anaconda. With Black as a budding director and Rudd a hope-to-be actor, they even made their own amateur films. Now, Black is a wedding videographer, and Rudd is an aspiring extra in Hollywood, with a few episodes of S.W.A.T. as his resume. But when Black has a significant birthday, he shows up back home with a copy of their childhood movie, and a great idea.

At the party, he tells his friends that he got the rights to remake Anaconda for a song, and suggests that they go to the Amazon and do it, with Black directing and Rudd starring. And off they go.

The boat captain they hired doesn't show up, but someone claiming to be his daughter lets them aboard. But we know she's a fugitive from the police. Their local snake wrangler shows up with an anaconda that's a little spicy. And then it gets weird.

However, it doesn't get that weird. It spends way to much time on the group's mid-life crises. Black and Rudd have unsatisfied ambitions, Newton and Rudd have unsatisfied sexual tension, and Zahn has addiction issues. He's "Buffalo sober", just beer, wine and lighter pills - no hard liquor or drugs. He's does a lot with a tiny role, and I wouldn't have minded seeing a little more.

The Amazonian setting was largely wasted, and of course all snakes were CGI. There were some decent gags, like when Black is eaten by the big snake and killed - SPOILER! But there could have been a lot more. For a talented group of improvisers, they don't make much of what they have.

So, amiable fun, but not really fun enough. There's some cute stuff with Rudd and Black trying to work Themes into the script, and maybe that's the idea - there are no themes in this movie. Except the theme seems to be "mid-life crisis", and it doesn't do that very well. Also, the movie wants us to see the crew as completely incompetent and talentless, but also good enough to pull this remake off. 

Once I noticed this movie on my "To Watch" list and realized that I had watched it, I remembered quite a bit of it. But I don't think I will for long. 

K Hole

I just came off a Jackie Chan marathon, and part of the weaning process was Detective K: Secret of the Living Dead (2018). I've mentioned Detective K before - a three movie Korean series inspired by the Detective Dee movies. now I've watched all three.

In the Jeoseon Korea, a young woman wakes up in the rain. She has no memory but incredible strength. In this town, people are being found dead, with two holes in their neck, leading to rumors of vampires. Other people are also turning up burned to death, and we actually see one. Someone is shooting flaming arrows at people - and burning is one of the only ways to kill vampites.

When Detective K gets involved, the first "vampire" tracked down turns out to be a porphyry victim, drinking blood as a palliative for his condition. Typical Detective Dee/K - apparently supernatural events have a mundane, scientific explanation. But what about the girl with super-strength?

SPOILER - there are vampires, and she's one. 

The movie has the classic Detective K mix of buffoonery and horror. K is a braggart, full of himself even when wrong. And his sidekick is always there to make fun of him. But he quickly teams up with the girl, working together to get to the bottom of the vampires.

I enjoyed this in a sort of passive way - I didn't track most of the plot, but I laughed at the jokes and liked the action. I think the series may have run out of steam - the first was better than the second, and the third is weakest. But as a time-wasting fun movie, it was fine, and I hope to find more movies like it.