As part of the unequal treaties and the 100 years of shame endured by China, European companies came into China and exploited the resources--human and otherwise. One of those companies was Siemens AG under the leadership of John Rabe. Rabe's diaries recorded the atrocities of Nanking and this 2009 German-Chinese-French production, "John Rabe," is based on those diaries, reportedly rediscovered by the late Iris Chang.
The Hamburg, Germany born Rabe entered China in 1908, working for Siemens AG China Corporation in various locations including Peking, Shanghai and finally Nanking. Siemens was founded as Siemens & Halske in 1847 based on a telegraph that didn't need to use Morse code. By 1919, S & H had entered into the production of light bulbs and in the 1920 and 1930s, as Adolf Hitler was rising to power, Siemens was making radios, TV sets and microscopes. The company supported the Nazi Party and eventually built factories in and near the Nazi death camps. Prisoners at the infamous Auschwitz worked at a Siemens factory inside the camp. Camp factories were often run by the SS.
The movie doesn't go into the history of Siemens and the Nazi party, but the allegiance of the company is clear from the Nazi flag it flies.
The movie begins with a phonograph playing European music. We meet John Rabe (Ulrich Tukur) and he speaks in German to his female Chinese telephone operators. The movie cuts between scenes that look like archival footage and richly colored scenes of the foreigners and their life of luxury. News of the Japanese invasion begins in 27 November 1937 when Rabe writes about it with optimism. In a voiceover, Rabe explains, "They say the Japanese razed Shanghai to the ground. I just don't want to believe that." In Nanking, all is quiet although some people are running away in anticipation of the Japanese invasion.
Rabe isn't a particularly likable person. He's been reassigned and is leaving Nanking. As he attempts to move his prized piano, he finds the Chinese workers aren't very helpful, speaking in German, he declares, "these idiots are good for nothing." He has the same opinion of his driver Chang, exclaiming "How can anybody be so dumb?"
Before the invasion, he wasn't against the Japanese invasion, writing "it wouldn't be bad if Japan gained more influence in China" because the Japanese are allies of the Nazi regime. And China isn't his concern any more as John Rabe is getting ready to leave China after 27 years and 142 days. At an elegant ball in his honor, all of Nanking's high society attend. A woman sings a Western sounding ballad about waiting for someone to return. The crowd is mostly non-East Asian.
Not all of the foreigners in Nanking are allies of Germany. American doctor Robert O. Wilson (Steve Buscemi) snidely remarks at Rabe's going away party about a Nazi being honored by a less than honorable Chinese official, "A corrupt Chinese general honors a Nazi." Yet this is balanced by the other foreign guests complaining about almost everything from the way the Chinese serve wine to the Japanese ambassador Fukuda (Togo Igawa) explaining how China should not see Japan as an enemy, "but as an opportunity." After all, "the clever must lead the simple-minded." Sounds like the White Man's Burden has mutated in Japan.
The party clearly shows the separation of the privileged foreigners from the normal native Chinese population and even their distain for the Chinese whose hospitality they exploit. Yet things are going to change because this is late in the year 1937. After the Chinese official intones, "All Chinese must be sad today" because John Rabe "has done more for China than one could have expected from a foreigner," Rabe gets up to address all the guests, but he never gets a chance to finish his speech.
The Japanese are entering Nanking with bombs and even the foreigners aren't sheltered from the bombs. When Rabe and others including Wilson (a real person) form the International Safety Zone Committee, the American Minnie Vautrin is replaced by a fictional French woman named Valerie Dupres (Anne Consigny). The "safety zone" isn't entirely safe.
Rabe is forced to act and throughout Rabe finds his decisions questioned--not only by a more staunchly Nazi German, but also by other Germans such as Dr. Rosen (Daniel Bruhl) who have felt the dark shadows of the European Holocaust. Rabe might be the "good German" but he wasn't saintly. Likewise, the Chinese and the Japanese aren't all saints against the sinners.
The film was controversial in Japan because the Prince Yasuhiko Asaka (Teruyuki Kagawa), who was commander of the Japanese forces in China, is shown as having a decisive role in the Nanking Massacre. The film did not receive a theatrical release in Japan. While that might be a political problem with the film, the other is point of view. The movie is from a Rabe's point of view, a foreigner's viewpoint of Chinese history without a counterbalance of, say, the chauffeur's experience (Ming Li) or that off a Chinese doctor. Too often, expositions substitute for visual character development, but even this isn't too tiresome as the movie attempts to show the enormity of the Nanking Massacre.
The movie, which was nominated for seven German Film Awards, won for Best Film, Best Actor, Best Production Design and Best Costume Design. In German, Chinese, Japanese and English with English subtitles, the movie is available on Netflix for streaming.
My original review of "The Flowers of War" received a lot of negative attention. My views haven't changed, not even with so many commenters pulling the race card.
Director Zhang Yimou is known for movies that have the theme of Chinese people facing hardship such as his 1994 "To Live." That doesn't mean he hasn't directed action movies. His wuxia movies include the 2002 "Hero" and the 2004 "House of Flying Daggers." Like these movies "The Flowers of War" has a rich use of color.
"The Flowers of War" was based on a best-selling novel by Geling Yan "13 Flowers of Nanjing." One wonders if Geling Yan wasn't pandering to a Western audience with the choice of 13 because in Chinese and Japanese 13 is not an unlucky number. The bad luck vibes come from a European Judeo-Chrsitan tradition. I haven't read the novel, but this 2011 movie was the Chinese entry for the 84th Academy Awards but did not make the shortlist. It also was nominated for the 69th Golden Globe Awards, but not for Best Motion Picture. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film but lost to a movie from Iran, "A Separation." It was nominated for a Best Film Award at the sixth annual Asian Film Awards, but lost to "A Separation." Ni Ni did win an award as Best Newcomer. The movie won an award for Best Sound Editing at the Golden Reel Awards.
Set on 13 December 1937, "The Flowers of War" takes on a mystical air with children running through the fog with an air of desperation. The narrator is a young girl, Shu (Zhang Xinyi), and she and her classmates are running back to the sanctuary of a Christian church, the Winchester Cathedral. The pursuers are the lustful Japanese army and the flight of the girls and one boy is aided by the remnants of the Nanjing Army led by Major Li (Tong Dawai).
Bale's character, John Miller, is also heading toward the cathedral. He's a mortician and the cathedral's priest has died. John meets up with the girls and they reach the cathedral which has a large compound encircled by high solid walls and a wood gate. With the priest dead, his body blown away by a bomb, and the cook, runaway with the food, the children are alone--a dozen girls and a one orphan boy, George Chen (Huang Tianyuan). You can see where this is heading?
John is not a good man, yet. He is a mercenary at heart and his scenes with the young girls comes across as a bit creepy. John isn't the only opportunist searching for sanctuary. A group of high-class prostitutes also force their way into the compound. They are glamorous, beautifully coiffed and made-up as if they were just taking an evening stroll through the bombed and burned city, stepping elegantly over the corpses.
John is delighted with these ladies of questionable virtue and takes a particular interest in the haughtiest, and the formerly most sought after whore, the aloof and beautiful Yu Mo (Ni Ni).
John is searching for money. The ladies are hoping he'll be able to use his Western face to get them out of Nanjing. They take over the basement. John remains upstairs in the late father's room, getting drunk. When the Japanese break in and attempt to rape the students, he at first cowers in an armoire, but eventually John emerges, dressed as a priest and attempts to bluff his way past the Japanese. The Japanese aren't quite convinced, but the noble Major Li picks a few soldiers off and the soldiers retreat to capture the sniper.
The character development of the adults is shaky. John's English dialogue seems unnatural and even after the initial creepiness of John's money-grubbing, grasping character wears off, there's still something queasy about the juxtaposition between the nostalgic sensuousness of the inner sanctum of the women's world of lingerie and laughter in the basement and the death and grittiness of war. The situation will tug at your heartstrings, but still the transformation from drunken mercenary to conscientious "father" isn't convincing.
The girls are temporarily "safe" when a good (a stiff Atsuro Watanabe) Japanese officer assures Father John that order has come to Nanjing and the Colonel posts soldiers to "protect" the girls--keeping them in. Yet under orders, the colonel "invites" the girls and not their guardian to a party where it seems assured they will be raped and then killed.
Using his mortician skills John helps replace the girls with the courtesans who nobly sacrifice themselves, but they are one person short. The young boy volunteers to pretend to be a girl. There are 13 flowers. John and the girls make their escape into an uncertain future because Chinese viewers will know the Christians weren't particularly welcome under the communists.
"The Flowers of War" is a propaganda movie coming out in a time when most of the world has moved past the simplistic characterizations of the enemy as evil and the other side as saintly. Chinese soldiers and Japanese soldiers both committed atrocities during the war and pre-World War II China was subjected to humiliation by Western nations for decades. In 1937, consider the condition and legal status of the African American man in the Deep South and the native Africans in South Africa and you'll be able to put things in better perspective. The 1930s and 1940s was a time when inhumanity toward other men and women based on race was considered reasonable. Were the Japanese expected to be any different?
In reading history, I find that the Americans atrocities are often somewhat mitigated by accounts of Japanese torture and war crimes. I've also read, in English, similar explanations for Korean and Chinese transgressions. I seldom read that about Japanese soldiers even thought there are accounts of Chinese atrocities against Chinese and Japanese prior to Nanking, recorded by Swiss businessman Tom Simmen. What happened in Shanghai preceded Nanking and it seems that the Chinese weren't above torture and this is something that should be remembered when historically evaluating what happened in Nanking.
I was watching the third episode of the second season of Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories." In this 23-minute episode now available on Netflix, "A boy uses an ancient Chinese spell to switch bodies with his sick grandfather so the old man can relive his former glories on the baseball field."
Now my Mandarin Chinese is rusty, and I can't even be sure if the ancient Chinese spell is supposed to be in Mandarin, but both actors recite it devoid of tones. With four tones in Mandarin Chinese that means there are so many possibilities.
The spell is: Yijing Meijing Laotsi I will be you and You will be me.
What would have been funnier is if the boy or the grandfather mispronounced the spell and things began to go so very wrong.
I think there was something to that effect (without the magic) in the of TV series "Family Affair."
Otherwise, the "Amazing Stories" suggests that Chinese is very simple for Americans (or anyone) to master (Shades of Rudyard Kipling's "Kim"?).
If just the thought of the larval form of the order or Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) make you a bit queasy, then you might want to skip this 2010 Japanese film now available on Netflix. Directed by Joji Wakamatsu the movie is based on Edogawa Rampo's 1929 anti-war oddly erotic short story "The Catepillar" (芋虫Imomushi).
Not everyone was gungho and ready to rape and pillage in order to have Asia for the Asians as if Asian imperialism in Asia was better than European (or American) imperialism there. That's a bit of delusion equal to the white man's burden.
Edogawa Rampo is the nom de plume of Tarō Hirai (平井 太郎 1894-1965). Rampo was a great admirer of Edgar Allen Poe hence the name. This tale, like many others written by him, is characterized by eroticism, grotesquerie and the nonsensical. This particular story was censored in 1939 which was two yars after the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese War. Censors were perhaps troubled that the storyline would detract from the war effort.
"Caterpillar" is not a bug, but a human who is reduced to nothing more than a human larva. Without arms or legs, deaf and mute with a face that is horribly scarred, he cannot communicate, he cannot eat, bathe or dress himself. He, Lt. Kurokawa (Keigo Kasuya) was not a good man during the war, having committed rape and murder and these memories come back to haunt him. Yet he still wants sex and his wife (Shinobu Terajima), though repelled by his form and greedy lust, feels duty bound to service him.
Yet eventually Kurokawa finds sex with his wife reminds him of his war crimes and he begins to find his current situation unbearable. Love of country and patriotism become empty words for both Kurokawa and his wife.
The late Wakamatsu is perhaps best known for producing Nagisa Oshima's "In the Realm of the Senses" and this movie is in keeping with his pink film legacy. Wakamatsu died in October of 2012 and "Caterpillar" is his penultimate film.
"Caterpillar" is an uncomfortable mix of erotic scenes of the attractive naked Terajima and the frightful flashbacks of the war and Kurokawa's currently pitiful state. "Caterpillar" is not a pro-war movie but it also isn't quite erotica. "Caterpillar" can be streamed on Netflix.
The director of the 2006 "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" and the 2009 "Summer Wars," Mamoru Hosoda, has teamed up again with writer Satoko Okudera ("Summer Wars") for a gentle, lyrical look at a different kind of werewolf in "Wolf Children."
The original Japanese title is "Okami kodomo no Ame to Yuki" (『おおかみこどもの雨と雪』) meaning "The Wolf Children Rain and Snow." Here the wolves aren't so much a threat to humans as the humans are a threat to humans and the movie is a celebration of nature. This is a more lyrical movie than "The Girl" but like that movie as well as "Summer Wars," "Wolf Children" looks at the problems faced by young teens.
Okudera wrote the screenplay for "The Girl" based on Yasutaka Tsutsui's original novel. Hosoda wrote the story for "Summer Wars" with Okudera writing the screenplay. Together, Hosoda and Okudera adapted Hosoda's story for the screenplay of "Wolf Children."
The movie is told from the perspective of the daughter, Yuki. Their father was a mysterious figure that their mother, Hana (meaning flower) met while she was a college student. They fall in love, but he reveals to Hana that he is a wolfman, a descendant of the now extinct Japanese wolf. Hana and her Wolfman become a family having two children: Yuki who was born on a snowy day and Ame who was born on a rainy day. Because Hana is afraid that the babies may be born as wolf cubs or transform in front of the eyes of the hospital staff, the babies are born at home.
On one rainy day, the father disappears, only to be found dead in the form of a wolf. Hana must care for her children alone. With two kids who during times of great excitement transform into wolf cubs, Hana decides to move to a remote country area where her nearest neighbors can't be seen. Although Yuki begins as the wild one, she yearns to belong to the human world and insists on starting school. At school, Yuki only has one mishap, turning into a wolf when she is pursued by a boy who wonders why she is trying to avoid her. The boy, Souhei, is a new transfer student and someone senses something different about Yuki.
Yuki and Sohei eventually become friends.
Ame finds his own education in the forests. His teacher is an old fox and despite his sister's urging, Ame finds no interest in the human school learning. Being both children of the natural and human world, the children must make choices as they are on the edge of adulthood.
Besides the obvious references to nature (Rain, Winter and Flower), to the Japanese, the kanji used for Souhei hints at nature, referencing both a flower (wisteria is fuji) and meadows (sou is grass and hei means peaceful or flat). There's also a play on the Japanese phrase ameotoko (which literally means rain man), a phrase used to label someone who brings rain.
Historically, the last known Honshu wolf died in 1905 in Nara prefecture. Japanese wolves were relatively small--only 12 inches at the shoulder. According to Japanese folklore, the Honshu wolf was supposed to be the guardian of the mountains. The Japanese fox still exists in the wild and in Japanese folklore are shapeshifters. While foxes in Japanese folklore are often portrayed as tricksters, they are seen as something more noble here "Wolf Children."
The werewolves in "Wolf Children" aren't frightening, but merely misunderstood and like all children need to learn how to control their wild impulses. The full moon doesn't force their transformation, because they have control of their emotions. In that respect, this movie seems to be a subtle portrayal of humans learning to live within a loving more positive culture found in the countryside and an allegory of humans learning to live with nature.
"Wolf Children" was nominated for a 2012 Asia Pacific Screen Award and won a 2013 Japanese Academy Award for Best Animation Film. It also won a Mainichi Film Concours Award, the Audience Award and the Films from the South Award at the Oslo Films from the South Festival as well as a Orient Express Award for Best Animated Feature Film from the Sitges-Catalonian International Film Festival.
"Wolf Children" is dubbed in English. Currently, "Wolf Children" is scheduled for a limited run and is screening only at the Laemmle Town Center (in Encino) until 3 October 2013.
Watching "Pacific Rim," I could help but think of the Rock-em Sock-em robots. I know that the movie is targeting a male audience and I'm not a guy. I also know that the writers are trying something new, but that still doesn't make it good, particularly when you consider the
tradition of the creatures called kaiju and Godzilla.
Godzilla is a kaiju, but not the only kaiju. To be specific, Godzilla is a daikaiju. My trusty Japanese-English Kenkyūsha dictionary defines a kaiju as "monstrous beast" but we can edit that down to monster. Monsters come in all sizes and forms as all Lady Gaga followers know and that is true even for Japan where pocket monsters came from (Pokkemon).
Godzilla doesn't make an appearance in "Pacific Rim," but you can feel his hot atomic breath in its every frame. We could call it Godzilla envy or licensing envy. Without a claim to the kaiju of fame, the writers decide to create their own kaiju. These kaiju are gigantic and we're not sure how they are fed, but they could have Tokyo for lunch with a few buses as appetizers. They have that anthropomorphic form of a man walking in a monster suit, but they move with surprising grace underwater. The animation is of a high level as you'd expect from the director Guillermo del Toro who gave us such wondrous creatures in "Pan's Labyrinth."
So the story, written by Del Toro and Travis Beacham goes like this. Sometime this year, 2013, our cities come under attack by kaiju. These are extraterrestrial beings who usually take the lone-wolf approach to attack. They are based under the Pacific Ocean, arriving through a interdimensional portal. The nations of the Pacific Rim come together to construct the humanoid war machines called Jaegers that require two humans to control inside the detachable head. Despite the coolness of Samsung and Sony cellphones and tablets, Honda's ASIMO and the Toyota Prius, the East Asians aren't really that involved in this production. Why else would these supposedly sophisticated machines get a German name?
Jaeger is a German word and I confess that I never saw the need for studying German. There is still time, indeed, but this movie won't convince you to get out and get more serious than toasting to Octoberfest. Of course, I don't drink so that puts a bit of a damper on the whole we are German for a month thing in the U.S. But the like-em or leave-em sentiments about Germany are of little consequence for "Pacific Rim" because the Germans and German don't have much to do with this film. That makes some sense because Germany is not a Pacific Rim nation.
What makes less sense is that Japan, the country that supplies us with the term for the alien enemies, only supplies the movie with its female possible love interest. If you're still at the girls got cooties stage of development, then don't worry. The ick-factor of romance, and even the ick-factor of a Madame Butterfly romance is totally absent from this film.
What isn't absent is the concept of White Man's Burden (that's a Rudyard Kipling reference). Yes, white men save the world and its not the reds although I did debate whether the Star Trek TOS red-shirt plan was in effect.
First we must find our white hero. One of the first Jaegers is the Gipsy Danger manned by brothers Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) and Yancy Beckett (Diego Klattenhoff). These guys are hot shots who don't necessarily listen to their commander. In their last mission, their Jaeger is decapitated and Yancy is killed. Raleigh is able to make it back to Alaska, but retires. The year is 2020.
Even in the realm of science, the Pacific Rim countries didn't produce much research on the kaiju. The leading kaiju scientists are these colorful comedians: Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) and Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman). They work alone because they must be underfunded and the script writers know little to nothing about how a science lab works--they don't know that lead scientists have their own drones--slaves working for the betterment of science or a chance at getting their own lab or at an academic level, poor grad students who might not be getting paid. So we have these two white guys on the wrong side of eccentric.
By 2025, the Pacific Rim governments have decided to scrap the Jaeger program in favor of building the Great Wall of the Pacific Rim. How that will work for Japan, Hawaii, the Philippines and New Zealand is never adequate explained, but perhaps those island nations have just been written off as casualties of war. What would be Great about a Great Wall is imagine the future tourists. Raleigh is one of the men working on the Great Wall of Alaska and he's contacted by the commander of the remaining Jaegers, Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba).
There just happen to be four Jaegers left, including the seriously outdated Gipsy Danger. Just the number should have given the Chinese and Japanese reason to pray for good luck. If you are replacing your cellphone every two years or trying to keep your computer up-to-date, you know that five years of technology in means that the Gipsy Danger is almost an antique. So the Gipsy Danger is going to be a support team for the much newer Jaegers.
The primo Jaeger, Striker Eureka, is piloted by a father-son team from Australia: Herc Hansen (Max Martini) and Chuck Hansen (Robert Kazinsky). The father respected Raleigh. The son thinks Raleigh is a danger to them all. Raleigh must also search for a new co-pilot who must be able to drift--share minds in a non-Vulcan mind-meld--together way.
Instead of using something scientific like the Mensan favorite--the Keirsey Temperament personality sorter (ENTJ or INTJ), the Jaeger program uses individual combat which incorporates sticks like kendo and rolling around on matts like some East Asian martial arts. A handful of East Asian guys are easily beaten by our construction worker Raleigh, but the East Asian woman, Mako is his true match.
On a real life level, this might be a product of white male anxiety. Consider the Olympic record of the white American male at the Olympics in judo and the more recent addition of taekwando.
Judo was first included in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Japan leads the world in gold medals with 36 (18 silver and 18 bronze); France has 12 gold (8 silver and 24 bronze). South Korea has 11 (8, 24) and China has 8 (3, 9). The U.S. isn't in the top ten with only one gold medal (3, 7). The American gold medalist was Kayla Harrison at the London Games. The men winning silver were Kevin Asano (1988) , Jason Morris (1992) and Robert Berland (1984). West German and the United Kingdom have one gold medalist each. Canada has none.
Taekwando has been an Olympic event since 2000. South Korea has 10 golds, China has five and the U.S. has two (like Taipei, Mexico and Iran) won by Steven López in 2000 and 2004 (bronze in 2008).
So maybe, white guys are either delusional or have that Olympic inferiority complex to contend with. In either case, considering how the Jaegers move, the whole combat style test makes no sense.
While the kaiju in the water have fluid movement and zip around like a seal after a sashimi dinner, the vehicles of kaiju destruction Jaegers trudge around like Godzilla on land and are even more plodding in the water. For the drivers of these machines to enter, the head must come off and the crew must screw it back on after the head is lowered in place. Nothing about these machines is quick or efficient which is why the kaiju should win.
Now if your two drivers are essentially meant to jog in place in synchronization while pushing buttons, the ideal training would be synchronized jogging or synchronized marathon running.
If your machine works on the concept of the rock-em sock-em robots than maybe studying Muhammed
Ali and learning the fundamentals of boxing would be more practical and logical. Logic is definitely not a problem for this film...after all, the script writers have already posited that scientists are brilliant idiots who can explain but not do.
Our brilliant idiots want to mind-meld or "drift" with the brain of a kaiju and in order to do so more than once, they need to deal with a man in charge of the black market of kaiju parts in Hong Kong. Even in Hong Kong, even after the return of Hong Kong to the mainland Chinese from British rule, the Hong Kong black market is ruled by a white guy, Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman) who has a bunch of East Asian flunkies to help him sell kaiju parts. I guess the tongs have been rendered powerless in China.
Hannibal Chau gets his name from his favorite historical figure and his favorite Szechuan restaurant. Woo-hoo. Chinese food keeps up its rep, but Chinese aren't clever enough to do more than cook, even in China. Chau helps our mad scientists and the scientists get intelligence from the kaiju which helps our Jaeger team.
There is a Jaeger manned by Chinese Wei triplets (Charles Luu, Lance Luu and Mark Luu ) but they are just like politically correct filler. The Russian team of Aleksis and Sasha Kaidanovsky (Robert Maillet and Heather Doerksen) get more screen time but both the Chinese and the Russian Jaegers are soon eliminated which brings up the TOS Star Trek red-shirt debate. The Aussie Jaeger will have a good go at it (with an injured Herc replaced by Stacker) but you know that Raleigh with the help of Mako and Mako helped by Raleigh will triumph.
The solution involves detonating a nuclear weapon at the underwater portal. Did the writers forget that is how the most famous kaiju was created? This is perhaps the most striking consideration for kaiju fans. The original Godzilla movie was seen as a protest against nuclear testing in the Bikini islands, coming out the same year that the crew members of the tuna fishing ship Lucky Dragon 5 were exposed to radiation. Daigo Fukuryū Maru (第五福竜丸) was not in the zone where the U.S. have designated as a test zone. The Castle Bravo thermonuclear device was twice as powerful as the scientific data had predicted. On March 1, 1954, the wind carried ash and radiation to where the ship was stationed and of the 23 fishermen, 11 died of radiation poisoning. The Daigo Fukuryū Maru is currently on display in Tokyo. The 1954 incident was a catalyst for the Japanese anti-nuclear movement.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster has brought renewed public interest in the trawler and Fukushima brings up another concern--tsunami. Would a nuclear detonation cause a tsunami that would effect those insignificant islands such as Japan, New Zealand and the Philippines who were likely not protected by a wall? I don't believe that the Latin American countries on the Pacific Rim are represented at all.
No commentary on the whitewashing would be complete without mentioning that the Chinese American technician who is supposed to be the brain behind the Jaegers is played by Clifton Collins Jr. The Los Angeles-born Collins who plays Tendo Choi is of German and Mexican descent. Does he pass for you as Chinese?
I suppose that the Japanese were probably battling their own kaiju such as Godzilla and couldn't take a time out for these new kaiju. The absence of Japan and Honda's ASIMO technology might explain why the Jaeger are as heavy-footed as the 1905s Godzilla and not as quiet as ASIMO. I suppose every Godzilla film needs a Raymond Burr to explain things and help save the Japanese. I suppose a lot of things haven't changed since the 1950s when Godzilla first came out.
I do wonder if the kaiju are too busy monologuing to have a full force attack on the people above ground. But I also wonder who fabulous a Chow Yun-Fat or Tony Leung might have been as Hannibal Chau. So many actors could have been Tendo Choi. You think there must be some actors in the Pacific Rim that could have made the time and been up to the relatively undemanding acting levels required here.
Even if you forgive the white man saves the world theme and the whitewashing, the Jaegers are too slow and clunky (but make a great action figure toy) to claim victory over the kaiju. "Pacific Rim" lacks logic within its own universe and the acting is as plodding as the rock-em sock-em robots. Will the kaiju mutate and come back as Godzilla's lesser known irradiated cousins? Only time will tell since this movie has been highly successful worldwide. I'm waiting for Mattel to produce the rock-em sock-em robots Pacific Rim Jaeger edition. A good idea that someone should jump on before Christmas (although "Pacific Rim" hasn't been doing well in Japan).
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.
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