'The Good, the Bad, the Weird': High style and humor in Korean treasure-map 'Western'

Sometimes the kind of movies we see depend upon our expectations: We get to see whatever serves the stereotypes we have. If you've been thinking that Korea just has those K-pop idol vehicles, soft romantic chick flicks that are far from chic and the whore and gore stuff, then you've missed the real genre flipping fun that is the 2008 "The Good, the Bad, the Weird." The movie is currently available for instant streaming on Netflix.

This guksu gunslinging Western is all that the movie "Wild Wild West" should have been. Directed and written by Kim Ji-woon (with Choi Jae-won), "The Good, the Bad, the Weird," is an homage to the 1966 Sergio Leone Italian spaghetti Western, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" starred Clint Eastwood as "The Good" with Lee Van Cleef as "The Bad" and Eli Wallach as "The Ugly." That movie was set during the American Civil War (1986-1865), but the characters aren't really involved in the war. A bandit, Tuco Ramirez (Wallach), is captured by a bounty hunter, the unnamed "Blondie" (Eastwood). Blondie turns Tuco in, but saves him from behind hanged after he collects the reward money. This unlikely partnership breaks down with Blondie deserting Tuco in the desert. Tuco hunts Blondie down and then forces him to march across the desert. During this journey, Tuco finds a carriage with the dying Bill Carson who is babbling about Confederate gold buried in a graveyard. Tuco leaves to get water, but returns to find Carson dead, but Blondie has heard Carson's secret.

Dressed as Confederate soldiers, Tuco and Blondie are captured by Union soldiers and put in a POW camp. Angel Eyes (Van Cleef) knows about the gold and tortures Tuco to get the information. Angel Eyes then forms a partnership with Blondie. Like social quicksand, the partnerships shift and change as the three men go after the gold until their famous Mexican standoff.

Leone was criticized for the film's violence, but by exaggerating the violence Leone  pushed the film toward a cartoonish reality and brought a "tongue-in-cheek" satire to the Western genre.

Kim Ji-woon transports the action to the 1930s, so we have better weapons and the confusion of the Japanese invading China (Manchuria) and Korea. Yet the Japanese Imperial Army are minor players in this story which insinuates that the best fighters weren't in the army...they were bandits. Kim gives us gorgeous blue skies with picturesque clouds and wide open spaces of the frontier of Korea and China. As another nod to Leone's movie, the musical score swells with dramatic movement mixing Spanish and Asian influences. Ennio Morricone fans won't be disappointed although the heavy musical tie-in isn't consistent throughout.

The Bad (Lee Byung-hun) is hired to steal back a treasure map from a Japanese official. We know from history that the Japanese army are the bad guys so we should be okay with this double cross. Dressed in black, The Bad is the one with fashion sense, forced to glower through locks of hair that obscure a third of his face.

The Weird (Song Kang-ho) brings comic relief and crosses paths with The Bad during a train robbery. The Bad has come to reclaim the treasure map, but The Weird takes off with it. The Good (Jung Woo-sung), a bounty hunter in a long tan dress coat, also turns up, seeking the bounty of The Bad's head. The Weird also has a price on his head, becoming a bonus.

The Weird flees with The Good and The Bad is in hot pursuit. Joining them is the Japanese Army; the map is vital to saving the Japanese empire. Along they way to the treasure, with the advances in weaponry in the 1930s versus the 1860s, opportunities for bigger, better, badder booms and blasts abound. There will be a Mexican standoff and they will find the treasure, but not everyone will have a happy ending.

This guksu gunplay movie is great fun, with a graphic flair aided by CGI. Kim's movie isn't a slavish homage to the Leone films. It has more intensely choreographed fights scenes and a wicked humor accompanied by a firm fashion sense. "The Good, The Bad and The Weird" screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 (out of competition). The movie was given a limited release in 2010.

Jung Woo-sung (The Good) won a Best Supporting Actor award at the 2009 Asian Film Awards. Kim Ji-Woon took Best Director at the 2008 Sitges Film Festival and the 2008 Blue Dragon Film Awards.  The film also received awards for cinematography (Lee Mogae). In Korea, Mandarin and Japanese with English subtitles.

'The Great Magician' introduces an amusing romantic triangle

An ice queen dressed in white with a severe set of bangs, a magician who has returned to China after the fall of the Qing Dynasty mixing Western and Eastern magical skills and a big bully who remains fascinated with prestidigitation come together for this amusing period piece, "The Great Magician," currently streaming on Netflix.

To put this in a historical perspective, the Qing Dynasty began in 1644 and was the last imperioal dynasty for China. China's power was undermined by wars with European nations and those infamous unequal treaties that Western nations such as the U.K, the U.S., France, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Prussia, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Belgium and the Netherlands. The first of the unequal treaties for China was the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing with the British Empire. The 1901 Boxer Protocol would add an Asian nation to this exclusive club and the U.K. would add the 1914 Smila Accord and a year later the Empire of Japan would have the Twenty-One Demands and then the 1933 Tanggu Truce.

Japan's first unequal treaties would be signed in 1854 with the U.S. (Convention of Kanagawa) and the U.K. (Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty). Japan would be first in line for an eneuql treaty with Korea (Japan-Korea Treaty of 1876). The U.S. and the Qing Dynasty would also impose an unequal treaty in 1882. Japan and China would be the only Asian nations to impose unequal treaties.

The Qing Dynasty ended with the ouster of the Empress Dowager Longyu and the last emperor Puyi. Puyi would be briefly restored to the throne in 1917 by the Chinese warlord Zhang Xun, but that would last less than a month. Puyi would be expelled from the Forbidden City in 1924. In 1932, he'd become the ruler of Manchuria under the support of the Imperial Japanese Army.

The 2011 movie "The Great Magician" (大魔术师; traditional Chinese: 大魔術師) takes place during that time of chaos between the fall of the Qing Dynasty when the Western nations had imposed the unequal treaties and China was reduced to squabbling warlords attempting to enlarge their own fiefdoms. There is a looming Japanese presence (Kenya Sawada), but the invasion hasn't yet been fully realized

If you're wondering how the warlords got their hordes, according to Derek Yee, Chun Tin-nam and Lau Ho-leung's script, a little fear and a bit of magic never hurt. Liu Kun Shan (Wu Gang) performs a frightening bit of magic that convinces a large group of men to join the forces of warlord Lei Bully (Lau Ching-wan). Bully has several wives, six to be exact, and hopes to add a seventh.

Wife seven, Liu Yin (Zhou Xun) resists Bully who has threatened her father. Her fiancé had disappeared during his journey to Europe. Yet now he has returned as a magician, Chang Hsien (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) who is working with revolutionaries who want to use the magic show to kidnap Bully.

This production is richly realized with detailed backgrounds and costumes. There is no real enemy and neither Bully or Chang Hsien are political animals. Both entranced by the pale and unyielding Liu Yin, they are bound together in a comedic triangle.

Director Derek Lee, gives us both magic that crosses over into fantasy (with just enough CGI) and a light-hearted rivalry that ends with a question mark and hopefully more adventures to follow. The movie won a 2013 Hong Kong Film Award for Best Costume and Make up Design (Jessie Dai and Chung Man Yee).  In Mandarin with English subtitles, "The Great Magician" is available on Netflix for instant streaming.

'City of Life and Death' sheds light on the gray areas of war

The 2009 Chinese historical drama has a poetic English name, "City of Life and Death," but a repetitive Chinese name "Nanking! Nanking!" (or "Nanjing! Nanjing!") Either way, this movie which was written and directed by Lu Chuan attempts to shed light on the gray areas of war by looking at the lives of several people in the city of Nanjing when it fell to the Japanese Imperial Forces in 1937.
Filmed in black and white, the city of Nanjing has just been captured by the Japanese Imperial Army. We learn before the movie really begins at the camera shows us old postcards with dire short messages. From there, we are introduced to a Japanese soldier, Kadokawa Masao (Nakaisumi Hideo), who has been lying on his back looking at the sun. He joins other soldiers in a foxhole before a burning city. Tanks are moving toward the city's walls as the men wait.

Another postcard tells us that the Chinese National Revolutionary Army is in chaos. We are in the city and soldiers line up. Along with them are the city residents. Chinese soldiers want to leave the city, but their fellow Chinese soldiers attempt to prevent them from exiting. Here we meet Lieutenant Lu Jianxiong (Liu Ye) and Shunzi (Zhao Yisui) who attempt to convince some of their comrades to stay and defend the city. With the black and white format, it's not easy to differentiate the two sides and the horror of the bloodshed, burned bodies and mutilation is muted. We don't see the beauty of flight as in the strangely dream-like desperation of the girls at the beginning of "Flowers of War," and instead we see dust and confusion in the ruins of a city.

Much of the aftermath is from Kadokawa's perspective. He watches men being killed on the streets, women being led away. He sees corpses--some whole but not untouched as the naked woman and some mutilated. Heads hang like macabre celebratory decorations from the ruins. And yet those still living stand like a grain field. Leaving Kadokawa, we see things from an overhead view. From some vantage points, the people fill the streets in a seemingly unending fields of humanity. It is at this point we understand just how few men are in this victorious army. As the Japanese mow down people running into the sea, use them for bayonet practice, bury them alive or burn alive in a building set on fire, the military necessity of the actions is hinted at. What if, each Chinese person had been willing to sacrifice for the greater good?

With the men and soldiers defeated, the international witnesses who remain in Nanking such as John Rabe (John Paisley), Minnie Vautrin (Beverly Peckous)  and Durdin (Sam Voutas) set up a safety area where people seek refuge, food, water.  By safe, that's a matter of relativity and some of the people there include wounded soldiers. Japanese soldiers periodically intrude; they harass and assault the refugees, especially the women. The daughter of Rabe's secretary, Tang Tianxiang (Fan Wei) is thrown out the window to her death and his sister-in-law is raped (Yao Di). The Japanese demand 100 comfort women.

The camera shake, quick cuts and at times blurred motion produces a feeling of chaos. A whole range of human feeling is portrayed and unlike "Flowers of War" the rapes do not have a voyeuristic quality. The so-called good Nazi, John Rabe is shown protesting the brutality and regretfully finally leaving China, unable to take all the Chinese people he had known and worked with.

Not all the Japanese soldiers feel the weight of their horrific actions. Yet we see how the attitudes of the soldiers toward the Chinese women also carries over to their own women or perhaps it is the other way around. Kadokawa slowly becomes desensitized to the violence but recognizing the same dull resignation in the eyes of a Japanese woman that he has seen in the Chinese breaks the protective shell he has built.

"Life is more difficult than death," Kadokawa tells another Japanese soldier after he has allowed to Chinese prisoners to escape. In the end, photographs tell us the fate of each character by their name and their lifespan.

Although this film has been criticized for its sympathetic portrayal of a Japanese soldier in Kadokawa, the film gives a more balanced view of the Rape of Nanking and clearly shows the brutality of war and the heavy price both sides pay.

"City of Life and Death" is currently available on Netflix for instant streaming.

'White Frog' limp look at Asian American boy with Asperger's

 There are so many things one wants to say, but cultural norms dictate we don't. With Asian Americans, as both a minority and the "victims" of cultures that value humility, we seem to have even more things that we cannot say...except, perhaps, if one has Asperger's Syndrome. Our main character in "White Frog" is Asian American with Asperger's. He goes from being a double A to a triple A, but that doesn't mean this movie deserves an A plus.

Yes, it is wonderful that the movie shows Asian Americans as an average family dealing with average issues, and it's nice to see Asian Americans playing Asian Americans, but there are just too many issues to deal with. Besides Asberger's, there's how three family members deal with death, community involvement (save the community center), in the closet gay youths and faith against tolerance. I don't mean to say that those who are truly faithful aren't tolerant or that people without religious faith are necessarily intolerant.

Fans of BD Wong and Harry Shum Jr. will be disappointed. We don't see either of those men nearly enough. Shum plays the "perfect" son Chaz of Oliver (Wong) and Irene Young (Joan Chen). Nick is the kid with Asperger's. His parents do all the right things. They provide him with therapy (Amy Hill as Dr. King).

Written by mother and daughter duo Fabienne and Ellie Wen, you wonder if there are just too many cooks in the kitchen and not enough critical conversations. One doesn't for a moment doubt that all involved have the best intentions, but with so many different issues, none of them receive enough attention to give this movie direction. Quentin Lee directs.

Fanning the flames of hate with 'The Flowers of War'

The 2011 Chinese movie "The Flowers of War" (金陵十三釵) is a historical war drama directed by Zhang Yimou. In my original essay, "'The Flowers of War' has overpowering scent of nationalism" (also published on Examiner.com) I panned the movie saying:

Have no doubt. Director Zhang Yimou's "The Flowers of War" is a propaganda movie where the Chinese are all heroic and the Japanese invaders are all despicable. We've seen this kind of war movie before, but haven't audiences matured beyond the black and white stark morality?

The LA Times reviewer wrote "Zhang Yimou’s 19th feature is decidedly backward-looking: A lavish period weepie set against the atrocities of the Nanking Massacre, “Flowers” abounds with well-worn movie archetypes and slathers on schmaltz." and then added:

But however terrible and real the threat of rape, the clumsy screenplay turns every Japanese soldier into a rampaging maniac, some of them screaming exultantly upon discovering virgins. The exception is commander Hasegawa (Atsuro Watabe), a soft-spoken man who appreciates music. The genteel colonel isn’t, however, above arranging for the convent girls to be delivered into the hands of his superiors, setting in motion a contrived series of climactic events that are nonetheless affecting because of their elemental power.

 The Hollywood Reporter reviewer agreed writing, “If Warner Bros. had made a film with this plot back in 1942, it would have made effective anti-Japanese propaganda and probably absorbing drama in the bargain. Today it just plays like hokum.”

"The Flowers of War" was based on the novel "13 Flowers of Nanjing" by Geling Yan. The movie was the official Chinese selection for the Best Foreign-Language Film for the 84th Academy Awards and it didn't make the short list. It was, however, nominated for the Golden Globe Awards. 

The story begins in 1937 as the Japanese Imperial Army marches into Nanjing and begins the massacre. Girls run back to their school, a Roman Catholic cathedral. An American mortician, John Miller (Christian Bale) joins them, but he's there to ready the priest for burial. In time, Miller and the girls are joined by prostitutes who hide in a cellar. 

A Japanese officer (Atsuro Watabe) places guards outside the gates and assures the school girls will be protected. Yet he is overruled later when his commanding officers send an invitation to the school girls to come and sing at a victory celebration.  The prostitutes and the only boy in the mission agree to disguise themselves as school girls and sacrifice themselves: They are the 13 flowers . 

Miller leaves with the girls hidden in a truck, supposedly to freedom. That might seem like a happy ending, but we know that Christians and people with Western education weren't treated kindly under the Communist rule that followed the end of World War II. It's something like having the real-life Maria von Trapp and the Trapp Family singers escape into France or the story of the M.S. St. Louis. 

My last review attempted to give readers a historical perspective but mostly bought out comments by hysterical pro-Chinese respondents. I then did research and found, not surprisingly, that other critics found the movie problematic for the same reasons, however, those people weren't identified as Japanese and I've found that sometimes being critical of a Korean movie or person or a Chinese movie or person can bring out the biases. I don't think that I'm prejudiced so much as the writers revealed their prejudices.

• Review for Examiner.com
• Review for Pasadena Art Beat

The movie was based on a novel by Geling Yan, "13 Flowers of Nanjing," (金陵十三釵)  or Gold Tomb (Mausoleum) 13 Hairpins or 13 Girls of Jinling. Consider that Google Translate gives Mausoleum of War for 陵十三釵.  I can't comment on the book because I haven't read it. The screenplay is by Liu Heng. 

The movie was the top grossing Chinese film in 2011. While director Zhang Yimou has stated that the movie is about love and sacrifice, there's an uneasy undercurrent of sexism. Outside, where danger lurks, the world is cast in muted tones. Yet cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding makes the inner sanctuary where the prostitutes hide a place of saturated colors and glamour. The institute of prostitution under the Chinese is seen as less brutal than the rampage of the Japanese, setting up the old concept of war time rape as a crime against the property.  As Susan Brownmiller wrote in her book "Against Our Will," the rape of women during war is used to demoralize the sons, fathers, brothers and husbands who are unable to protect their women.  Rape as an offense against property  becomes part of the rewards of war. 

In "The Flowers of War," we don't see the pimps or madames that have left these prostitutes unprotected.  The focus is on a saintly Chinese soldier who attempts to protect the Chinese women and makes the ultimate sacrifice. Yet while we hear about American soldiers taking revenge for the torture of their comrades by the Japanese, we rarely hear that might be the case with the Japanese soldiers in Nanking. R.J. Rummel wrote that Chinese peasants had as much to fear from the Nationalist Chinese soldiers.  Swiss national Tom Simmen photographed Chinese soldiers near Shanghai in 1937 as they tortured and executed both Japanese prisoners of war and suspected collaborating Chinese. 

The movie fails to evaluate a system of sexual slavery that trafficked women from Japan and China to places as far as the United States.  According to the National Women's History Museum, most of the Chinese female prostitutes who found their way to San Francisco were kidnapped, lured with false promises or purchased by brokers for sale. There were teenage girls and even babies and the average life span in the trade was only four years. 

Because we don't see the ferocity of Chinese pimps but do see the beauty and strength of the 12 Chinese prostitutes in "The Flowers of War" an uncomfortable comparison is made between the benefits and bounty of the Chinese system of prostitution as opposed to the wartime enslavement by alien enemies in the guise of the Japanese. We're left to wonder if the American mortician John Miller wasn't enticed to China by the fleshy cheap adventures made available under British colonialism where exotic women were acceptably enslaved--the original yellow fever fanned by stories like Madame Butterfly. 

There were people who could be called saints during World War II, but as a whole, men at war aren't saints. World War II was a brutal war where women were raped by the Axis powers and by the Allied forces. There are many instances of Allied forces deliberately killing Japanese prisoners. Even on home ground, moral ambiguity existed and in today's movies and TV serials we see such examples  in TV series like "Foyle's War" or "Detective De Luca." "The Flowers of War" is a step backward story wise and it is troubling that China should put that movie forward as its entry into the Academy Awards.