Mongol

Director: Sergei Bodrov

If one were to conduct a public opinion poll on Genghis Kahn today, chances are the most frequent descriptions of the man would consist of terrifying leader, murderer, pillager and barbarian. Yet, after viewing Russian director Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol, the first work of a planned trilogy about the controversial leader born with the name Temudgin, my initial reaction was that perhaps all Kahn needed was a good public relations team to turn worldwide frowns upside down. In showing us the softer side of Kahn as a predominant lover who occasionally fights rather than a horrifying fighter who sometimes loves, one encounters a Kahn who wouldn’t be out of place as the lead hero in Gladiator or Braveheart, and even far more surprisingly, incidentally a man one wouldn’t hesitate to bring home to mom.

Kazakhstan’s official selection for the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 2008 Academy Awards where it made the international cut to become one of five prestigious nominees, Bodrov’s film has drawn countless parallels to old fashioned epics with its grandiose scope and wonderful usage of a vast, overwhelming landscape (painstakingly accurate in its cinematography of Kahn’s old stomping grounds in the countries of China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan). While one is instantly aware of the influences of Ridley Scott especially in some of the expressionistic, alternatively fast and slow motion new aged battle scenes wherein the audience is shown the action from the point-of-view of weaponry as though we’re complicit in the attack, I was also struck by Bodrov’s homage to other foreign masters including Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s work with Toshiro Mifune and especially fellow Russian director Sergei Eisenstien’s much imitated classic Alexander Nevsky.

While admittedly I’m probably the ideal viewer of Mongol with relatively zero knowledge about Genghis Kahn other than his oft-cited reign of terror and it’s obvious that liberties were taken with the facts for the benefit of the cinematic narrative, Bodrov’s aim is undoubtedly true in capturing the spirit of his source material, which is not only based on “leading scholarly accounts” according to the press release but as cited in a Wikipedia referenced interview, was additionally inspired from an ancient Chinese poem which chronicled-- similar to Mongol-- Kahn’s upbringing and marriage.

Opening in the Tangut Kingdom in 1192’s Year of the Black Rat, the nine year old Kahn, then named Temudgin (played by the charismatic young Odnyam Odsuren) accompanies his father to visit the Merkits with the intention of choosing a bride. Immediately thunderstruck by Borte, a bold ten year old girl who initially chides her new acquaintance with the adage that all “smart people choose us for brides,” later, liking his face and similarly in-tune with the lad, she adds the fortuitous afterthought, “you should choose me.” Ignoring his father’s advice to ensure he find a wife with the right description of facial features and one with what his dad repeatedly states has strong legs to keep a man happiest, Temudgin settles on Borte with the intention to marry her in five years. However, his future becomes dangerously uncertain after the death of his father finds him fighting to stay alive verses his people’s arch enemy Targutai (Amadu Mamadakov) who is not only hell bent on taking over as Kahn but promises that-- while he won’t break Mongol tradition and murder a child-- as soon as Temudgin comes of age, he will kill the rightful heir to the leadership.

With plenty of perilous adventures, near misses, abductions and escapes, Temudgin grows into the beginning of the quick thinking legend he would become as—and now played by the impressive Japanese star of Zatoichi, Tadanobu Asano—he finds he can finally marry his equally rebellious tomboy beloved Borte (likable newcomer Khulan Chuluun). However, unfortunately for the newlyweds, their relationship is continually tried with repeated captures and obstacles, none greater than Temudgin’s battles with his blood brother turned rival Jamukha (Road Home star and Mongol scene-stealer Hanglei Sun).

Although the film stumbles considerably in its second half with plodding pacing and a lack of the same take-no-prisoners emotional investment it slayed us with in its first opening sequences, Bodrov more than redeems himself with his expertly staged Eisenstein inspired battle sequences and the stunning photography from two distinctly different cameramen including Russian cinematographer Sergei Trofimov and Quills and Disturbia Dutch veteran lens-man Rogier Stoffers.

Above all Mongol is surprisingly romantic and thankfully intimate for a large scale epic where oftentimes the individual characters get sidestepped in preference for the impact of the bigger picture and emphasis on carnage and casualties. And while it’s a far more sensitive and charismatic Kahn to which history enthusiasts are accustomed, it’s a terrific achievement by Bodrov and one where, given the impressive footing he found right out of the gate, he’ll undoubtedly be able to build off of like a Kahn worthy war strategist in the next two installments to cross the trilogy's finish line with unsurpassed style.

Legend of the Black Scorpion

Alternate Title:
The Banquet
Director:
Xiaogang Feng

“Something is rotten in the state of…” China? Over the years, the timeless plays of William Shakespeare have been transferred to the screen in countless adaptations both classical and radical from Akira Kurosawa’s versions of Macbeth (Throne of Blood) and King Lear (Ran) to Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’s Oscar winning interpretation of Romeo and Juliet (West Side Story). The overwhelming influence of the Bard’s comedies and tragedies on not only cinema but popular culture in general is incalculable as his lines echo in the mouths of Quentin Tarantino characters, themes dance throughout our big budget period epics and there have been so many incarnations of legendary villains and heroes such as Lady Macbeth, Iago, and Hamlet that it could cause a graduate student meltdown.

And perhaps even more remarkably every once in awhile a filmmaker is bold enough to admit right from the start that they’re interpreting not just any Shakespeare play but his greatest tragedy Hamlet and bolder still is when the filmmaker’s last name isn’t Branagh. In 1996, Kenneth Branagh, my favorite Shakespearean professor, released what would become to academics the ultimate version of Hamlet in his dazzling masterwork clocking in at 242 riveting minutes that never cease to amaze audiences so much that some film critics have even named it one of the greatest achievements in filmmaking of the entire 1990’s. Needless to say, following in Branagh’s footsteps where Hamlet is concerned took considerable moxie and it was a move best made by a filmmaker willing to take a large departure from the text to offer audiences something remarkably different.

With this in mind, I transport you dear readers to China where master martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo-ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Matrix, Kill Bill) teamed up with director Xiaogang Feng for their very own adaptation of the Danish prince’s quest for revenge, named the Legend of the Black Scorpion. While admittedly it takes awhile to gain our interest as it annoyingly begins to go into exposition twice orally instead of illustrating things visually, we become quickly aware of the Shakespearean similarities only moments into this visually spectacular award winning film festival favorite, which features the largest set ever constructed in China (IMDb) and was chosen as the official Hong Kong entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category of the Academy Awards.

Obviously inspired by Hamlet, although some critics such as Derek Elley of Variety also drew comparisons to Macbeth, Feng’s film is set during the tumultuous crumbling of the Tang Dynasty in 907 AD as we’re introduced to the film’s version of Hamlet, named Prince Wu Luan (Daniel Wu) in an embarrassingly earnest and awkward opening ballad that’s both as reminiscent and effective of Woody Allen’s usage of a Greek chorus in Mighty Aphrodite. Lovesick and desperately heartbroken, Wu Luan has retreated to study the arts including his love for singing and dancing while still upset that his teacher and emperor father had married his classmate and sweetheart Wan (Memoirs of a Geisha star Ziyi Zhang). When he learns that his father has been killed, all hands seem to point to his power hungry, lustful Uncle Li (You Ge) who soon enough confirms that suspicion by ordering a band of soldiers to execute Wu Luan and planning to first bed and then wed Empress Wan (Ziyi Zhang) to rule by his side. After he predictably escapes the deadly attack, Wu Luan returns to the palace where he’s torn between his affection for his sensuous stepmother who’s even younger than he is, his devoted betrothed the Ophelia like Qing Nu (Xun Zhou) and of course, exact lethal revenge on his murderous uncle, the Emperor Li.

Erroneously advertised as an action picture especially given the martial arts friendly name change from The Banquet as well as Woo-ping’s involvement which finds his jaw-dropping talent given very little opportunity to shine, this gorgeously photographed tragedy shot by award winning cinematographer Li Zhang never manages to draw us in on a level that goes beyond sheer aesthetic appreciation. Partially due to the otherwise excellent Ziyi Zhang who’s far too young for the role that was originally slated for Gong Li or Maggie Cheung (IMDb), even with the part rewritten expressly with this age change in mind, but it’s greatest tragedy isn’t in the film’s scope or in tackling source material from the daunting Shakespeare but in slowing it all to a scorpion’s pace where at roughly half the length of Branagh’s Hamlet, it still feels a good 30 minutes too long. While the Bard’s brainiacs are sure to check it out regardless, honestly it’s time well spent for artists who will undoubtedly find themselves inspired less by the forced, clunky conversation that no doubt suffers in translation and more by the film’s visual poetry in terms of the production design and costuming (both courtesy of Oscar winner Timmy Yip) that’s worthy of Shakespeare himself.

The Fall

Director:
Tarsem Singh
(aka Tarsem)

Those who have spent any significant amount of time convalescing will tell you that nothing speeds recovery along like a worthwhile diversion in the form of an epic tale. When you add thrills, romance, and laughter to the narrative, you create a powerful, side effect free unparalleled prescription for health without the need of co-pays, waiting rooms or HMO red tape where there aren’t any deductions for preexisting conditions and you never have to deal with a clipboard full of paperwork. Imagine your doctors in residence weren’t the test-happy first year medical students still trying to master the right way to hook up a catheter or IV most of us face at our local hospitals but rather Being John Malkovich filmmaker Spike Joze, Zodiac helmer David Fincher and the innovative fellow music video director turned feature filmmaker Tarsem Singh and you’ll begin to get a better sense of their cinematically experimental procedure where reels of film and not dangerous drugs replace mood altering anesthesia. And comparable to the wonderful program Doctors Without Borders, imagine sending this cinematic dream team of Filmmakers Without Borders to expertly stitch together twenty-six locations over four years in more than eighteen countries (IMDb) in Tarsem Singh’s highly anticipated sophomore follow up to his critically acclaimed first feature, The Cell.

Already, the work, entitled The Fall has divided the critics into largely two factions of those who feel his film is a masterpiece and those who call the mad-scientist’s resulting epic an infuriatingly self-important vanity project. However, for my money, Tarsem succeeds where others like Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly failed with his atrocious second feature Southland Tales, in admirably taking risks but like a good doctor, Tarsem contemplates each move with stealth like precision, making sure that the benefits outweigh the negatives for his unforgettably dark, brilliant grown up fairy tale, The Fall.

From the breathtakingly bizarre black and white opening montage set to music and staged as though it were a silent film to its overwhelming eye candy that seems to pour off the screen in each daring frame as it continues, Tarsem’s Fall combines the scope and ambition of a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster with the artistic risk taking of experimental cinema. Admittedly as one who has never been overly keen on fantasy, I worried that it was going to be as bloated and pretentious as some of the critics described but I was quickly taken in by the riveting tale, which was inspired by the 1981 Bulgarian film Yo Ho Ho.

Set in a Los Angeles hospital, we first meet our precocious five year old heroine Alexandria (Romanian newcomer Catinca Untaru) who, still recovering from a broken arm after picking oranges in a grove along with her impoverished family, forms an unlikely attachment with Roy Walker (Lee Pace) a heartbroken, suicidal film stuntman whose legs were damaged after he attempted a ridiculous sequence jumping from a train bridge onto a horse.

Unable to move on with his life because he’s lost the woman he loved, Roy distracts himself along with Alexandria by first sharing with her a story of her namesake Alexander the Great and afterwards, telling her a fictitious epic tale of five heroic men (including Charles Darwin) who aspire to kill the horrible Governor Odious. As the story continually builds from one exciting adventure to the next, Roy begins to subtly blackmail his young friend into procuring enough medicine for himself so that he may end his life, only to have some of his plans backfire in unexpected ways.

Although the bleak nature of Roy’s outlook on life might have been unbearably sad in another’s hands, Singh fills his film with surprising amounts of black comedy, near-misses as the story Roy begins to tell suspiciously morphs into a catharsis when reality and fantasy are blurred as Roy, Alexandria and others they know in the hospital and in their lives begin to make appearances in the emotionally intoxicating and artistically dazzling saga. However, I must warn that it becomes extraordinarily brutal near the end causing us to shift uncomfortably in our seats in trying to anticipate just how Tarsem will conclude the film.

Despite this, admirably The Fall rises from the obvious label of a spectacle picture due to the sheer amazement to be found in the magical sequences that will haunt your dreams after the viewing, by providing a satisfying emotional payoff as well for both of the characters we’ve come to know and love, and both of whom we realize could not have healed without each other nor the unforgettable tale.

And that’s better than an allergic reaction to a prescription medication your insurance won’t cover but the doctor insists you need any day of the week. In other words, go to the cinema and call me in the morning.

The Forbidden Kingdom

Director: Rob Minkoff

In Michael Mann’s Heat, audiences felt their breaths catch waiting for Al Pacino and Robert De Niro to converse together onscreen in the diner, each sizing the other man up in a way that feels nearly Shakespearean. In the movies of Nora Ephron, we felt a similar thrill when Tom Hanks fell in love with Meg Ryan and the two began their happily ever after in the sunny, flower-filled Central Park conclusion of You’ve Got Mail. And in the first onscreen pairing of legendary action stars Jet Li and Jackie Chan for director Rob Minkoff’s The Forbidden Kingdom, as soon as Chan stumbles into the same scene as Li and utters, “Do you come here often?” the last thing I wanted for the men was the two to chat or fall in love. Instead, like nearly every other audience member and undoubtedly Chan and Li themselves, I wanted to see them fight. And fight they do in this uneven but gorgeous spectacle before their characters end up on the same side in helping a modern day South Boston teen who, via a pawnshop and a magical Bo Staff that’s propelled him back in time to ancient China, return the staff to its rightful owner, the Monkey King (Li in a second role).

Beginning as a near homage to Back to the Future, the movie opens with Kung Fu movie obsessed Jason (Shia LaBeouf look-alike Michael Angarano) being forced to aid in a robbery by a band of dangerous bullies that goes wrong and hurls him into the past where he soon meets Chan’s Drunken Master inspired Lu Yan, a perpetually wine-chugging fighter specializing in Drunken Fist which he explains is the “secret Kung Fu of the south.” To restore the order of the land, Jason and Yan decide to bring the Bo Staff back to the Monkey King, who the evil Jade War Lord (Collin Chou) has frozen in stone for roughly five hundred years “give or take a few decades,” and on their peril filled journey to the Five Elements Mountain, they find their team increasing with the addition of a beautiful vengeance seeking orphan Golden Sparrow (Yifei Liu) along with the monk Lan Cai He (Jet Li). The characters and indeed plot from Young Guns screenwriter John Fusco (who is currently writing the questionable new version of Seven Samurai), were derived mostly from “Chinese mythology and adventure pulps” as well from the “Chinese epic story Journey to the West [which is] one of the four great classic novels of Chinese literature,” according to IMDb.

When the battles with an evil witch with stark white hair and other dangerous allies of the War Lord become far more treacherous, Back to the Future morphs into The Karate Kid as Yan takes it upon himself to teach Jason how to fight. The introduction of this element not only provides the characters with more plot from scripter Fusco who went through, as IMDb reports five rewrites (some during the film’s shoot) but also gives the film’s producer and fight choreographer the legendary Yuen Woo-Ping (Crouching Tiger, The Matrix trilogy, Kill Bill 1 & 2) a chance to style some of the most thrilling and high flying fight scenes we’ve seen in years which, even when the film becomes self-consciously cheesy, are worth the price of admission alone.

Although it’s hard to fault a film with this much sheer entertainment value for its inability to sit side by side with works like House of Flying Daggers or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to which, I believe most of the audience was hoping the first collaboration of Li and Chan would compare, for fans of the actors, especially my personal favorite-- the hilarious and charismatic Chan, it’s definitely a treat. And hopefully it’s also one that will lead to even more pairings and possibly a grander cinematic approach, aside from the film's major standout that comes in the form of the jaw-dropping, majestic cinematography by Oscar winning Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger). However, until we get there, The Forbidden Kingdom is a great place to start.