Category: Live Action

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The Woman King

Director – Gina Prince-Bythewood – 2022 – US – Cert. 15 – 135m

****

The warrior women of Dahomey defend their people against capture by neighbouring nations for the white foreigners’ slave trade – plays as part of Art of Action, a major UK-wide season celebrating the artistry of real action choreography at cinemas across the UK October-November 2024

Outside of the Greek myth of the Amazons, we don’t really think of armies as being made up of women rather than men prior to the last few decades, yet historically this actually occurred in a West African country, the Kingdom of Dahomey (further info: National Geographic; wikipedia) between the middle of the seventeenth and the end of the nineteenth centuries. These warrior women are the subject of this film which takes place in 1823.

A prologue shows a small unit of the women in action under their General Nansica (an unforgettable Viola Davis) as they attack and slaughter a unit of (male) soldiers from the neighbouring Oyo kingdom who have invaded one of their villages. These women are fearsome indeed and fly in the face of the representational norms of female or military.

After this compelling, action-packed opening, the narrative shifts to follow rebellious, young Dahomey girl Nawi (Thusu Mbedo) whose traditionalist father attempts to marry her off to an older man.… Read the rest

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Aimless Bullet
(Obaltan,
오발탄)

Director – Yu Hyun-mok – 1961 – South Korea – 110m

****

Former soldiers and others struggle with the effects of post-war economic depression in the newly constituted South Korea – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

Made and released in the brief period of about a year between the collapse of one dictatorship and the rise of another, and the temporary relaxation of state censorship that accompanied it in South Korea, Aimless Bullet deals with the struggle to survive in that country amidst economic collapse. Men including demobbed soldiers and officers struggle to find work, others lucky enough to have jobs struggle to support their extended networks of loved ones while women drift into prostitution – or, if they’re really lucky, become movie stars.

It opens with crippled, former officer Gyeong-sik, constantly asking Sgt. Park and other drinking buddies not to call him “The Commander”, making a scene in a bar and smashing a glass door. Wandering through the streets at night alone afterwards, he’s accosted by former girlfriend Song Myeong-suk (Seo Ae-ja) who desperately wants him to fulfil his promise and marry her, but he won’t because as a cripple he feel an incomplete man.… Read the rest

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Save the Green Planet!
(Jigureul Jikyeora!,
지구를 지켜라!)

Director – Jang Joon-Hwan – 2003 – South Korea – Cert. 18 – 118m

*****

NSFW

Convinced that a corporate boss is an alien who killed his mother, a man takes him prisoner and tortures him to find out his race’s plans for planet Earth – plays alongside Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

Lee Byong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun) is convinced that corporate CEO Kang Man-shik (Baek Yoon-shik) is not only responsible for the death of his mother but also is an alien spy set to communicate with his extra-terrestrial superiors at the next full moon in seven days time. So, aided by girlfriend Sooni (Hwang Jung-min), Lee kidnaps Kang and brings him back to his underground workshop beneath his hilltop home near which he keeps bees in hives. Lee wants to hear the truth from Kang’s own lips, and is prepared to torture him to get it.

CEO Kang is clearly not a nice guy – he is obviously raking in the money, yet we watch him driven home drunk by a valet who he shamelessly short changes on his fare.… Read the rest

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Mist
(Angae,
안개)

Director – Kim Soo-yong – 1967 – South Korea – 78m

****

A married man leaves Seoul to visit his dull hometown for a few days, where he embarks on a brief affair with a music teacher from the local school – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

Yun Gi-jun (Shin Seong-il from The Barefooted Young, Kim Ki-duk, 1964) is bored with his job. He sits at his desk in a huge office looking at the paperwork, seeing it crawling with insects. But when others enter the office, they don’t see any of that, so it’s clearly all in his head. In many ways, that sets the scene for the mood of this heavily introspective piece which makes much use of voice over and flashback, as Gi-jun takes time out in his hometown of Mujin, for which he claims not to feel much affection but which is nevertheless full of personal history and memories for him.

We see him at home with his wife as she straightens his tie, and later as she brings her rich father over to the house.… Read the rest

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The Marines
Who Never Returned
(Doraoji
Anneun Haebyong,
돌아오지 않는 해병)

Director – Lee Man-hee – 1963 – South Korea – 110m

***1/2

A small unit of Korean soldiers pushing North in the Korean War adopt an orphaned girl as a mascot before being all but wiped out – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

This opens impressively with what looks like stock footage of armoured cars and infantry coming up a beach. Soldiers race across open ground to a safe shooting position, briefly going back a couple of dozen or so feet to drag two of their wounded comrades forward into comparative safety.

They move on to a derelict, war-torn town. Burning buildings, half-collapsed sections of walls (one of which partially topples as they wait momentarily beside it). One soldier advances across a patch of open ground, gun in hands, grenade at the ready, watched by his expectant comrades from their positions of cover. Time seems to stand still. Eventually he lobs the grenade and the others move up behind him. He drops into a ditch. Ahead of him, a civilian woman comes onto the waste ground with her small daughter.… Read the rest

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Nowhere to Hide
(Injeong Sajeong
Bol Geot Eobtda,
인정사정 볼 것 없다)

Director – Lee Myung-se – 1999 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 100m, 113m

***1/2

A cop determinedly pursues a gangland killer in a city where, since he committed the murder for which he is bing hunted, it always appears to be heavily raining – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

Effectively a four-hander – an impulsive detective, his partner on the force, a ruthless killer gangster and his long-suffering girlfriend. Like a slobbish, South Korean version of Chow Yun-fat without the charm, Park Joong-Hung is the Oriental action movie homage-named Inspector Woo, who before the titles have rolled has pursued a black-clad gang into an underground train for a machete fight, shot in stylish, bleached black and white for no apparent reason.

The ground is covered in Autumn leaves, recalling The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970). The downtown location of public stairway 40 Steps has a schoolgirl look up and see it begin to rain, the torrential downpour continuing for the two months and more of the remainder of the narrative. A man leaves his car to ascend the steps; halfway up, he approaches another man (Song Young-chang) and kills him, even as the victim stretches out his hand in a futile attempt to keep his murderer’s knife at bay.… Read the rest

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A Woman Judge
(Yeopansa,
여판사)

Director – Hong Eun-won – 1962 – South Korea – 87m

***

A woman becomes a judge at a time when the idea of women in such professions is unheard of – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank – from the London Korean Film Festival 2019

Heo Jin-suk (Moon Jeong-suk from Aimless Bullet, Yu Hyun-mok, 1961; The Devil’s Stairway, Lee Man-hee, 1964) wants to be a judge, traditionally a male profession. Her childhood sweetheart Wan Dong-hoon (Park Am from Promise of the Flesh, Kim Ki-young, 1975; The March of Fools, Ha Gil-jong, 1975) always assumed they were destined to be married. He too has entered the professions, in his case as a doctor. That’s okay for him, being a man, but for her, he thinks it will conflict with her duties as a wife and mother. So she dumps him. 

This looks like being a mistake since, on some level, his motives are pure. Instead, she ends up married to Chae Gye-sik (Kim Seok-hun) – not so much because of the man but because his social climber father, CEO of Sangyeon Construction Chae Sung-jin (Kim Seung-ho) thinks marrying off his son to one of the first female judges would be a really good idea, not least since it might put him in a useful position to be able easily bribe a member of the judiciary. … Read the rest

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Stuntman
(Mou Tai Do,
武替道)

Directors – Albert & Herbart Leung – 2024 – Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 114m

****

20 years after a stuntman on his team was hospitalisedwhen a stunt went wrong, an action choreographer takes on his first stunt job since the tragic incident – plays in Competition at the 2024 London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) which runs from Wednesday, October 23rd to Sunday, November 3rd

This opens with a terrific cops and robbers fight in a shopping mall at the top of an escalator bearing remarkable resemblance to (and just as exciting as) the one towards the end of Police Story (Jackie Chan, 1985). However, while this might be an obvious homage to that film specifically and 1980s Hong Kong action cinema generally, it’s far from a mere attempt to retread the same ground: we suddenly cut from the cops and robbers scenario to reveal a film crew of that period shooting an action movie.

There is a particularly dangerous stunt coming up. A (stunt)man must jump off a bridge onto a lorry as it passes below, with a car immediately behind. (Again, this is remarkably similar to the stunt in Police Story II (Jackie Chan, 1988) where Chan leaps off a balcony onto a lorry passing in the street.)… Read the rest

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Terminator 2
Judgement Day

Director – James Cameron – 1991 – US – Cert. 15 – 127m

*****

A second Terminator is sent from the future to kill the future leader of the war against the machines – plays as part of Art of Action, a major UK-wide season celebrating the artistry of real action choreography at cinemas across the UK October-November 2024

In the 1984 original, a Terminator robot (Arnold Schwarznegger) is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother-to-be of the leader of the war in the future against the machines, who are exterminating humanity.

This sequel sees a more advanced T-1000 robot (Robert Patrick) sent back in time to kill Sarah’s now-ten-year-old son John (Ed Furlong). Another Terminator (Schwarzengger) is also running around in the present (i.e. 1991).

Sarah’s recurring nightmare pictures the coming apocalypse when the machines unleash nuclear missiles on humanity. That aside, this is basically an essay on mothers and sons – and fathers and sons – wrapped up in the best chase movie you’ve ever seen.

What makes the film work is the mother and son element. Sarah is a believer in Terminators, the coming war against the machines, and humanity’s fightback in a world where such beliefs are dismissed as delusions.… Read the rest

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Terminator 2
Judgement Day
3D

Director – James Cameron – 1991 (3D version 2017) – US – Cert. 15 – 127m

*****

A second Terminator is sent from the future to kill the future leader of the war against the machines – remastered 3D version of James Cameron’s classic is out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, August 29th 2017

Painstakingly remastered in 3D, this plays as well in its current rerelease as it did back in 1991. In the 1984 original, a Terminator robot (Arnold Schwarznegger) is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother-to-be of the leader of the war in the future against the machines, who are exterminating humanity.

This sequel sees a more advanced T-1000 robot (Robert Patrick) sent back in time to kill Sarah’s now-ten-year-old son John (Ed Furlong). Another Terminator (Schwarzengger) is also running around in the present (i.e. 1991).

Sarah’s recurring nightmare pictures the coming apocalypse when the machines unleash nuclear missiles on humanity. That aside, this is basically an essay on mothers and sons – and fathers and sons – wrapped up in the best chase movie you’ve ever seen.

Unlike the 3D conversion of the same director’s Titanic (1997) which proved 3D to be a greatly improved, astonishing revelation, the improvements afforded T2 by 3D are comparatively minor (though they’re peerlessly executed).… Read the rest