Apocalypse Woo: Bullet in the Head.

I think it’s safe to say The Deer Hunter is a clear reference point for this film, it’s almost shameless but Woo uses that reference point to deliver his most ambitious and personal film.

John Woo grew up in the Hong Kong slums, his choices were limited, he could’ve easily ended up like two of his friends at the time and became a gangster or a drug addict, instead he pursued his passion for filmmaking and he opens the film with a montage set in 1967 outlining the environment which existed for Ben (Tony Leung), Frank (Jacky Cheung) and Paul (Waise Lee), a politically charged atmosphere, constant fights with a rival gang, each one trying to find his own way out of his environment. Ben is a romantic, engaged to a local girl, Jane (Fennie Yuen) and a fixation on Elvis, Frank is a loyal friend and a dreamer but always at odds with his parents, Paul’s father instills in him a sense of ambition which will later turn toxic but he’s generally a good guy.

In order to provide Ben with a good wedding celebration, Frank borrows money from a loanshark, on the way to the celebration with the money, Frank is attacked by Ringo, a rival gang member, he does his best to fend off Ringo but eventually he’s overwhelmed. Frank returns to the celebration pretending nothing’s wrong but Ben knows something is up, he finally get’s Frank to admit what happened and they both pay a visit to Ringo which results in a confrontation which leaves Ringo dead.

The Three Musketeers take a job as smugglers of contraband for a local smuggler, who sends them to Vietnam to deliver the contraband to a gangster there. Once there, a suicide bomber inadvertantly blows up their contraband, chaos ensues, a young man is shot in the head by the local militia and whatever innocence Ben, Frank and Paul is finally lost.

They arrive at the nightclub run by the gangster, Ben runs into a Hong Kong singer who asks Ben to meet her at a local bridge the following day and Paul tries to find out where Luke, their Eurasian contact is. Luke (Simon Yam, in a role intended for Chow Yun Fat) performs a hit in the men’s room while Ben is washing his face then meets Paul, Ben and Frank outside. They explain their situation to Luke, Paul’s ambition rises to the surface, he knows in order to wield power, he needs a gun and he asks Luke for one. Armed with a gun, Paul set’s out to prove his power by holding up a store while Frank helplessly watches. a military outfit shows up, thinking they’ll be arrested they throw down their guns and watch as the outfit annihilates the store with a machine gun with everyone in it, grab all the jewelry and take off, it makes Paul even more determined.

Ben sees Sally at a protest which turns violent, they both make their way to their meeting point, Sally explains she’s a hostage held against her will by the gangster, who turned her into a prostitute and heroin addict and holds her passport in his office. Luke tried saving her once but failed.

The gang decide to raid the nightclub and take the guns stashed there, which results in a violent gunfight, they take the gangster hostage, grab Sally’s passport and attempt to rescue Sally but she’s shot by the gangster, they flee to a local river where a boat is waiting for them, they’re ambushed, Sally dies and they’re forced to leave her behind and take off in the boat.

They’re ambushed again, this time their boat explodes and they’re forced to run into the forest where Ben, Frank and Paul are captured by the VC. Luke is captured by US soldiers. It’s here where the comparisons with Deer Hunter are most obvious as Woo tries to recreate the famous Russian Roulette scenes, Jacky slowly goes insane and they finally make an escape attempt, Paul damns his soul by silencing an increasingly hysterical Frank by shooting him in the head and fleeing in a local boat. Luke shows up with the US army in tow to destroy the camp.

Ben is seriously injured and is found by a group of Buddhist priests, he tracks down Luke and then goes on to find Frank, who is is living a waking nightmare as a mentally insane hitman who performs hits in return for drugs to kill the pain. Ben severs the last bonds of brotherhood by committing a mercy killing.

Ben finds Paul has achieved his ambitions as the CEO of a corporation using the gold he stole and killed for. Ben avenges Frank by walking into Paul’s office with Frank’s skull and kills Paul in the same fashion Paul shot Frank. The final bonds of brotherhood have been severed.

It’s unfortunate this film was sandwiched between Woo’s two masterpieces, The Killer and Hard Boiled, because I think this is the most personal film he ever made, it’s shaggy but there is an emotional core to the film, there’s a sense of romanticism to the scenes in Hong Kong, Woo knew those Hong Kong streets intimately, in the same way Scorsese knew those streets of NYC. The film was inspired by the Tiananmen Square protests and the resulting violent clashes, which was largely why the film failed to connect with local audiences, it was also an exorcism of the violence and chaos that Woo grew up with.

The Leopard: A Study in class, privilege and the changing of the guard.

Luchino Visconti was always a case of contradictions, born into a wealthy family with royal connections (he allegedly pawned some jewelry in order to finance his first film, Ossessione), he joined the communist party during World War 2 before finally committing to Marxism. He embraced the neo-realist movement, delivering drama’s about working class people. In 1954, he directed Senso, his first attempt at a grand, sweeping period picture, it was received favorably, he returned to neo-realism to make Rocco and his Brothers before adapting the novel ‘Ill Gattopardo’ by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa.

Set during the civil war of unification between the armies of Francis II and the two Sicilies and the rebel army of insurgents led by Garibaldi, the film focuses on the fading fortunes of Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina (Burt Lancaster)  who can see the future fast approaching as the middle class look to take the reigns. Fabrizio emits a regal status to his family and priest but he’s not above visiting a woman in Palermo in the seedier part of that town to satisfy his carnal lusts. Fabrizio looks to his nephew Don Tancredi (Alain Delon) to continue the legacy but he has no real money behind him, the middle class comes in the form of Don Calogero (Paolo Stoppa) the local mayor of Donnafugata where Fabrizio has a summer home, he also has Angelica (Claudia Cardinale) as a daughter, it’s here that Fabrizio secures the future for his nephew.

Tancredi began the film as a soldier for Garibaldi but switched to the King’s Army once it was clear Garibaldi wasn’t going to win, an opportunist of the highest order. Fabrizio contemplates the future a great deal, both in regards to Sicily and also his place in it, he places a grim view of where everything is headed, he’s offered a position in the newly constructed senate but declines, feeling his ties to a past that no longer exists and his status make him unfit for the duties that would be required of him. The scene during which he turns down the offer is some of Lancaster’s finest acting.

The last section of the film focuses on a ball held by a neighboring Prince and it’s a truly sumptuous affair, with glittering gowns, dances and the finest catering. It’s here that the weight of age and time finally hits Fabrizio as he shifts around the mansion struggling with the heat, mocking the young women who flitter around in excitement like birds (or monkeys as Fabrizio prefers to call them), contemplating his death and the manner in which it will happen before finally taking a long walk into the night to an uncertain future.

Looking at the world today, Fabrizio’s grim view of the future, it doesn’t seem that far off, it reminds me of an old Who song ‘Imagine a Man’ about the contemplation of death, the future will always rush towards us as we wonder about our ties to the past as we get older.

Ring of Fire: Champion & Raging Bull

At the heart of most boxing films is the struggle, the manly, athletic need to prove yourself against your opponent. It’s a savage ballet, it’s called the sweet science for a reason but the struggle is usually presented as a noble concept (The Rocky movies & the Creed spin-offs take this to heart) but the boxing picture which originated in the silent film era, really found it’s savage roots in film noir, films like The Set-Up were unsparing in it’s depiction of the fight game and the ultimate cost boxers had to pay in order to make into the big leagues. Kirk Douglas was already a well known player in the film noir genre, his angular, menacing face was cast as an ambitious boxer Michael “Midge” Kelly in the film Champion in the 1949 film Champion and he delivered a terrifying performance of a man so consumed with ambition that he will resort to any method to achieve it.

Midge doesn’t start out as a boxer, he and his brother Connie (Arthur Kelly) were basically hobo’s hitching their way to California, they come across a well known boxer Johnny Dunne (John Daheim) and his girlfriend Grace Diamond (Marilyn Maxwell). Midge decides to try his hand at boxing and is offered a fight on the undercard for $35, he’s mercilessly beaten and ripped off by the promoters, one promoter takes an interest in him, Tommy Haley (Paul Stewart) who offers Midge to come and see him in LA at his gym, Midge turns him down. Midge and Connie arrive at the restaurant they had bought a share in only to discover they’d been duped.

Midge and Connie grudgingly accept minimum wage jobs at the restaurant, to kill the boredom, Midge begins seducing the owner’s daughter, Emma (Ruth Roman),  Connie briefly attempts to compete with his brother for her affections but in the end, it’s Midge who emerges triumphant but it’s short-lived as Emma’s father discovers the liaison and demands that Midge marry his daughter, to mitigate their sin in a shotgun wedding. Midge has no desire to settle and decides to flee (he convinces Connie to go with him). Midge remembers the offer from Tommy Haley and decides to visit him at his gym, Tommy is initially resistant but is finally won over by Midge’s persistence.

Midge proves to be a capable fighter, it’s not long before Midge is approached by the mob and offered a shot at the champ, if he throws the fight against Dunne, he’ll get his turn next year. Midge initially agrees but decides he doesn’t want to wait and destroys Dunne in a single round. Grace, like a parasite, attaches herself to a new host and makes Midge her new project, she convinces Midge to throw over his manager Tommy and place himself in the hands of Jerome Harris (Luis Van Rooten), a wealthy fight promoter and fixer. Midge isn’t stupid, he can see what a fix he’s in and agrees, Tommy accepts the situation to an extent. Connie finally starts to wake up and see his brother as a genuinely not good person (he should’ve realized that when they ran out on Emma) and washes his hands of Midge. Connie reconnects with Emma and they relocated to Chicago to take care of Connie’s ailing, aged mother (I’d argue that’s an even worse fate but your mileage may vary).

Midge becomes champ and finds himself finally living the good life, when he comes across Palmer Harris (Lola Albright), a sculptor, he finds another woman to lay the Midge Kelly charm on, the only catch is, she’s married to his manager, that doesn’t stop Midge, she falls for it just the same, enough for her to ask her husband for a divorce, he offers a different proposal, a cash incentive to Midge to forget about Palmer, the only thing Midge cares more about than women, is money, Midge accepts, Palmer is another casualty of Midge’s greed. Dunne re-emerges as a contender to the title, Midge realizes he’s in no shape to fight Dunne and finds out he needs Tommy to whip him into shape, Midge also tries to make amends with Connie and Emma, the gang’s all back together, it’s short lived as Midge proves what a thorough bastard he really is, unable to accept losing Emma to Connie, he rapes her just to prove he can.

Midge goes the distance with Dunne, literally to his death, he wins the fight but dies after a relentless pummeling in the ring which results in a cerebral hemmorage, his refusal to lose cost him his life. Connie, proving to be the better man in the end, doesn’t slander his brother let’s his legacy remain intact as he and Emma are left to pick up the pieces.

Unlike other boxing movies, there’s absolutely no sentimentality, the fight game is presented as an environment which fosters corruption, Midge is a creature of pure venality but at the root of his soul is a desire to be seen as somebody, it’s the essential ingredient in the American dream, he wants to be seen, he wants to be a winner and not a loser, there’s an argument to be made that his final fight in the ring is basically an atonement for all the people he’s crossed on his way to the top, the last being Emma. This brings me to the film Raging Bull, which presents the audience with another awful human being, who uses the ring as a cathartic tool to cleanse himself and absorb punishment he feels he deserves.

Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro), like Midge Kelly, is a fighter who works his way up from his working class roots to become a champion but proves himself to be a man unable to separate his animal side in the ring with his personal life. In 1941, Jake is a well known and respected middle-weight fighter, with his brother Joey (Joe Pesci) as his manager in the Bronx.  While at a local swimming pool, Jake spots fifteen year old Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), the bestial part of his body takes over as he fixates on her, even though he’s married. Joey has learned there’s a potential shot at a middle-weight title fight against Sugar Ray Robinson from Salvy Batts (Frank Vincent) a local mobster. Jake get’s his shot and defeats Sugar Ray but a rematch is soon arranged three weeks later. Jake loses on points. Jake, like alot of men, has a fragile ego when it comes to women, he’s paranoid that Vickie is less than devoted towards him, she makes an innocent comment about his next opponent, Tony Janiro being handsome, Jake takes it personally and decides to make an example of Tony, beating him so he don’t look handsome no more. Joey spots Vickie entering at a club with Salvy Batts, Joey attempts to placate Vickie, who has had enough of Jake’s bullshit. Joey, unable to take it out on Vicky, decides to deliver a beating to Salvy instead.

Mob Boss Tommy Como (Nicolas Colasanto) organises a meeting between Joey and Salvy to kiss and make up and to let Jake know that if he wants another title shot, he’ll have to take a dive. Jake doesn’t even bother putting up the pretense of a fight against his opponent, Billy Cox, so much so that he’s suspended on the suspicion on having thrown the fight. Jake is eventually re-instated and get’s his shot against the champion, Marcel Cerdan, he wins. A year later, Jake’s insecurities emerge as he questions Joey about the nature of the fight between him and Salvy, he assumes it was because Joey was having an affair with Vickie. Unable to get the answer he wants from Joey (who left in disgust) he interrogates Vickie instead, she attempts to evade his questioning in the bathroom but Jake will not be denied, finally she tells him exactly what he wants to hear, she’s been screwing everyone but him. Jake takes out his violent rage on Joey, while his wife and kids watch. Jake attempts to call Joey following his fight with Laurent Dauthuille but Joey, assuming it’s Salvy let’s fly with a torrent of verbal abuse. Jake faces off against Sugar Ray once again, the ring becomes a battle of personal guilt and shame, Jake loses the fight in the end but it was never truly about the fight, it was more about Jake’s desire to punish himself in true catholic fashion.

Jake retires, Vickie divorces him and takes the kids, his slide into a pathetic existence, getting arrested for prostitution of under-age girls, he attempts to make amends with Joey but it’s clear there’s no resolution there, all that he’s left with are faded dreams and a wasted life, at least Midge Kelly went out fighting.

I have no doubt Scorsese was probably influenced by Champion to some extent, they’re two portraits of toxic masculinity at it’s most primal. There’s one scene in Champion where Midge is confronted by Grace, after she discover’s Midge is stepping out with Palmer, after direct confrontation fails, she pleads and cajoles before finally threatening to raise a stink, throughout it all Kelly calmly dismisses her with contempt before finally settling on the subtle threat of violence, he’ll put her in hospital before she can do any real damage, outside of the rape it’s the one moment where he reveals what a thoroughly callous bastard he really is.  I’d say Midge Kelly is arguably worse because there’s a certain amount of cunning he has that Jake lacks, Jake wields his masculinity like a violent hammer, both in the ring and in his personal life but he’s not a bright guy, he has no self awareness at all and he’s motivated solely by primordial base needs, that doesn’t make him a better person but it makes him a more tragic figure than Midge.

Fritz Lang’s Fury and the power of the angry mob.

In 1933, Fritz Lang was at the height of his cinematic powers following his film ‘Metropolis’, his latest film ‘Testament of Dr Mabuse’, although banned by the new regime had interested Hitler’s Propaganda minister and master of evil Joseph Goebbels offered Lang a chance to make films for UFA under Nazi guidance. Lang decided fuck that, divorced his frequent collaborator and wife, Thea Von Harbou (who had voiced her allegiance with the Nazi party but ended up marrying an Indian man) and fled to Paris a few months later.

Lang soon arrived in Hollywood where he was offered by MGM a chance to direct the film ‘Fury’ about an innocent man almost burned alive in a jail cell by an angry mob of men and women. Norman Krasna took the real life kidnapping and murder of a young man, Brooke Hart and turned it into a book, Mob Rule. Krasna originally pitched it Joseph Mankiewicz & Samuel Marx, who then gave it to Bartlett Cormack to adapt, with input from Lang. Fritz initially pitched a take where the protagonist was a black man but this being the 1930’s, it was decided that was a horrific idea and never to be discussed again. Spencer Tracy was cast as the protagonist Joe Wilson, who can be seen walking his girlfriend Katherine (Sylvia Sydney) to the train in the film’s opening, they want to get married and start a family but Joe wants to make sure they’re solid financially before getting hitched, he sees her off at the station, picks up a stray dog whom he christens Rainbow, then goes back to his apartment where his brothers Charlie (Frank Albertson) and Tom (George Walcott) stumble into the apartment after a night on the town with the youngest being drunk. Joe chastises his brothers about the company they keep.

A year later, Joe is running a gas station with his brothers and life is pretty swell, he has a car and he set’s off to meet his sweetheart in a neighbouring town, along the way, he’s stopped by a Deputy “Bugs” Meyers (Walter Brennan) at gunpoint and brought in for questioning by a local Sheriff (Edward Ellis), Joe, initially thrown off guard demands to know why he’s being interrogated, he’s informed there’s been a kidnapping of a young girl, he fit’s the description for one of the suspects, also peanuts were found at the scene of the crime and a five dollar note on Joe’s person also throws more suspicion on Joe, he’s held in Jail while the matter is investigated further. He’s joined by Rainbow.

While Joe sits in Jail, Meyer is coaxed into giving up information that a suspect in the kidnapping has been found, Milton Jackson (George Chandler) demands justice from the Sheriff but he’s refused because the Sheriff can see past his bullshit. The townspeople build themselves into a collective fervor (started naturally by the local gossipy women), Milton leads an angry mob to the steps of the jailhouse where they find the Sheriff waiting for them, he attempts to calm them down and make them see reason but they’re so keyed up all it takes is a spark and the mob go wild, the National Guard the Sheriff called for are held back because a scheming politician doesn’t like the optics. While all this is going on, Katherine waits at a nearby diner until she hears a news report and rushes to his rescue (Joe didn’t want to involve her or his brothers). The mob manage to get inside the police station but they can’t seem to get inside the jail so they opt for plan B, they put a load of stuff up against the jail wall and light a match, Katherine arrives just in time to see Joe behind a wall of flames before fainting.

After the cloud of anger has passed among the townsfolk, they emerge from the mist with a somewhat arrogant attitude that what occurred, occurred and they should just move past it. Joe has no such feelings, he’s royally pissed after escaping getting burned alive and Rainbow getting killed. Joe arrives to greet his brothers with a decidedly darker outlook on humanity than the one he began the film with, it didn’t help that he went to a cinema to watch a newsreel about the incident and all he heard were the patrons laughing at his demise. Joe has a plan, though, he’ll pretend to be dead and he’ll pin his murder on the mob that tried to kill him, conceptually, it’s kind of brilliant, there’s only one snag, there’s no body.  Joe has a plan for that, he placed his ring at the scene of the crime.

The DA is initially sceptical but agrees to take on the case and goes about the business of prosecuting the 22 men and women who became an angry mob. The DA’s final masterstroke is to show images of those men and women in the throws of a violent frenzy, taken by various photographers. It’s a damning indictment.

Lang reportedly hated the ending to this film, which ended on an optimistic note for Joe Wilson but that doesn’t diminish the film’s journey into the darker parts of the human soul, especially where Joe is concerned, it’s interesting that this film shows the townsfolk as yokels mainly (there’s even a scene of the gossipy women being intercut with clucking chickens), they seemingly have the luxury of pretending what happened was an anomaly whereas Joe is dealing with a far darker battle, it’s not enough to hate what was done to him, he has to go further, even after his brothers and Katherine become appalled at what he’s become, he becomes even more entrenched in his single mindedness. During the trial one of the women faints at the image of what she had become, it’s unclear whether they would fully reconcile themselves with the events of that night but if they hadn’t been exposed to the images in the courtroom they would’ve most likely brushed it under the carpet, those images will forever tarnish the image they had of themselves being upstanding decent citizens, the damage had been done, to both Joe and the angry mob.

In the line of duty: A New Hope

After Royal Warriors, Michelle Khan made one more film, Magnificent Warriors, before retiring and sailing off into the sunset with Dickson Poon (which lasted until ’92, there also seemed to be a trend with actresses marrying wealthy businessmen and retiring back then). D & B went on the hunt for a replacement and found one in Yang Li Tsing, a former dancer and actress, she was given the name Cynthia Khan (a combination of Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Khan) which might’ve been insulting at the time and placing Yang in the shadow of Michelle Khan which was kind of unfair but Yang took the name and made her first film with D & B called In the line of duty 3.

The film opens with Cynthia playing a beat cop called Madam Yeung patrolling the beat with her superior officer, she attempts to give a ticket to someone and get’s soundly mocked for her trouble, it’s not until she foils a mugging with her fighting skills that turns into a life or death situation that she get’s promoted to the serious crime squad (the chief of police just happened to be in the area) much to be dismay of her Uncle, Captain Chuen (Paul Chun-Pui). In Japan, a daring heist of jewels at a fashion parade is pulled off by Genji Nakamura (Stuart Ong) and his lover, Michiko Nishiwaki. Detective Fujioka and his partner give chase as the lovers flee with Fujioka’s partner getting killed in the process. Genji and Michiko flee to HK. Fujioka believes the wealthy Yamamoto (Yueh Hua) who hosted the event was in league with the two thieves but has no evidence, he seeks permission to go to HK and bring back Genji and Michiko, he initially quits, telling his boss he would investigate Yamamoto on his own but his boss persuades him to stay on the force but to go to HK where anything he does there won’t reflect on Fujioka’s boss.

Genji and Michiko attempt to buy some guns but ends in the death of the dealers, Yeung is given the task of looking after Fujioka, who immediately get’s into an altercation with Yamamoto’s security advisor, Michael Wong (Melvin Wong). Michiko takes the jewels to a fence, Dick Wei who proclaims them as fake, meanwhile Genji is slowly dying of cancer. Genji swears revenge against Yamamoto. At a local nightclub, Fujioka and Yeung are having a drink when he spots Michiko responding to Wong’s obvious attempts at seducing ladies, he confronts Michiko and it all goes to hell, he pulls off her wig, she pulls out a gun and fires at Fujioka then takes off with Fujioka in pursuit. Genji meanwhile, had been delivering an ultimatum to Yamamoto, pay $5 million or else. Genji and Michiko flee in a truck with Yeung and Fujioka in pursuit.

Fujioka is eventually arrested for possession of an illegal weapon and taken to the police station, he escapes and pays a visit to Yamamoto, Fujioka is arrested again, they’re not far down the road when they hear gunfire and go back to investigate. Fujioka is handcuffed to the front of the car while Yeung and another officer go inside, Genji and Michiko flee the scene with Yeung and co in pursuit, Genji and Michiko engage Yeung in fisticuffs until they manage to escape again, Fujioka follows Genji to a boating shed and engages Genji in a brutal fight to death. Genji is taken to the hospital but Michiko attempts a rescue and Genji is shot eventually run over in the process. Michiko swears revenge leading to a series of attempts on Yeung’s life before finally settling the matter with Yeung fighting for her life against both Michiko and Dick Wei.

The one thing that strikes me about this film is how brutal the fight scenes get as the film goes along, there’s a brief altercation at the beginning with Yeung taking on a mugger (she tears her skirt open for better flexibility) and it’s a given that the villain’s show a wanton disregard for human life but the moment the film get’s to that fight scene in the boat shed, all bets are off, two men engage in a brutal struggle that seems less like a fight and more like a savage struggle, they use boat hooks, harpoons to tear at each other’s flesh, brutally pound each other until neither can physically stand. That same intensity is applied to the cat and mouse game between Yeung and Michiko, which is kind of refreshing to see it played out between two women, the final battle is no less brutal. Cynthia proved she was a more than capable successor to Michelle Khan, her background as a dancer gave her a certain balletic grace in the fight scenes and the film’s box office success proved it.

Cynthia was immediately cast in the series fourth installment, In the line of duty 4: Witness, this time helmed by Yuen Woo-Ping and her co-star this time being Donnie Yen (who was a favourite protege of Ping’s at the time). The plot this time focuses on a dock worker, Luk Wan-Ting (Yuen Yat-Chor) in Seattle, who happens to catch Madam Yeung (Cynthia Khan) hiding behind one of the crates while shadowing a group of Chinese cocaine dealers with Donnie and her caucasian partner, she gives him a story about her being an immigrant from HK. He brings her back to his place before she causes him any more trouble. Yeung attempts to make contact with her partner through a walkie talkie but again, is caught by Luk, who demands an answer about who she really is. Luk’s brother Ming (Liu Kai-Chi) crashes through the skylight and a gang of men appear demanding $20,000 that Ming owes as a gambling debt, Luk initially attempts to talk things out but it ends in a huge fight.

Donnie attempts to follow one of the dealers but his partner, Captain Wong (Michael Wong) just happens to be having breakfast with someone and walks over to say hello, inadvertently letting the dealer escape Donnie’s view, they immediately chase the dealer outside but instead find two goons, who have already made short work of Michael and focus on Donnie next, Donnie proves his mad kung fu skills. Yeung’s partner attempts to foil a transaction between the Chinese cocaine dealers and foreigners and get’s shot for his trouble but not before he runs into Luk and hands him the film instructing him to go to the police, in the ensuing chaos, Luk drops the film into the ocean, Luk is arrested by Donnie and taken into custody where he is grilled by his Donnie about his involvement in the crime, when they leave him alone, Luk is again interrogated by an assassin in a police uniform, this time Luk knocks the assassin out and steals his uniform to escape. Luk is now on the run.

Luk finds his brother, who hands him a bunch of cash and tells him to go back to Hong Kong, two assassins show up and kill Ming, who sacrifices himself so that Luk can escape. Luk arrives in Hong Kong and again finds himself being pursued by Donnie, Yeung and Michael, Donnie corners Luk at a nearby port and continues beating him until Yeung shows up and fires her gun after Donnie refuses to listen to her, he knocks her gun into the sea, Luk is again taken into custody, Michael convinces the police chief to let him extradite Luk to the US and he agrees, Luk is taken back to the police station, en route, the van is attacked by a group of men, Luk and Michael are knocked out via gas but Yeung evades their attempt and fights back, eventually having to abandon the van. Luk and Michael are held hostage inside a freezer, while Luk is interrogated for info about the negative that was taken. Michael helps them both escape, all the while trying to find out what happened to the negative, eventually revealing himself as the villain.

This is probably considered the best entry out of all the films in the series, it has Woo-Ping’s action, a decent enough plot and Donnie Yen proving why he became such a huge star. It’s disappointing that they felt the need to sideline Cynthia, it also doesn’t help that Donnie’s attempt at being the hothead cop really just makes him look like an asshole for most of the film, Donnie spends the majority of the film just being an asshole to Luk while Cynthia at least treats him with a certain amount of decency. Cynthia proves, once again, her action chops with that moving van sequence, it’s an astonishing action sequence, at one point Cynthia clings to the front of the van while it’s still moving, it feels like Woo Ping paying homage to Raiders. Donnie also get’s his moment in the sun, with his fight against John Salvitti (he has the weirdest fighting style, I’d say it’s monkey style) and Michael Woods are both great displays of Yen’s talent, although he his Bruce Lee affectations are still present. From here on the series would noticeably decline in quality but Cynthia Khan never wavered in her ability to deliver in her action scenes.

In the line of duty: The rise of Michelle Yeoh

Sometime in 1984, Sammo Hung and John Sham formed a movie production company with the backing of a wealthy businessman Dickson Poon and called it D & B films. One of their first projects was a typical action movie about two cops, Sammo held a wide audition for talent to star in the film, Michelle Yeoh had previously worked with Sammo and was finally cast in the role as one of the cops (She was billed as Michelle Khan), the other role (at this stage the character was still male) had not been cast until a young woman called Cynthia Rothrock performed a demonstration of her skills in front of Sammo, he was impressed enough to change the gender of the character and cast her in the film. Corey Yuen was brought on as the director and action director. Like most HK productions, it was a tough, chaotic shoot, Michelle opted to do her own stunts and trained herself by attending the gym eight hours a day, Cynthia had the more difficult task of shooting fight scenes with Dick Wei, who was not known for holding back, Cynthia has told stories of Dick kicking her so hard in the head, blood began pouring out of her ear, but she soldiered on. John Sham, Mang Hoi & Tsui Hark provided comic relief.

The film opens with Inspector Ng (Michelle Khan) arresting a public flasher and foiling a bank robbery in the most Dirty Harry-esque way, she even quips about not knowing how many shells are left in her shotgun. Later that evening Dick Wei meets a Westerner in a hotel room to get a microfilm with incriminating evidence against his boss, )Dick kills the westerner but he’s disturbed by a small time criminal Aspirin (Mang Hoi) posing as a hotel employee who steals money from the man’s wallet and unwittingly takes the evidence with him, Ng also arrives for her dinner date with the westerner but immediately concludes he’s dead and goes looking for the hotel employee that was in his room. He grabs his companion , Strepsil (John Sham) and they elude her. Dick reports to his boss Mr Tin (James Tien, who does his best Bond villain laugh) about what went wrong and promises to retrieve the microfilm. The third member of the trio Panadol (Tsui Hark) is attacked by a disgruntled client (Eddie Maher RIP), Panadol promises to get him a passport to leave the country and uses the passport that was taken off the westerner, with the microfilm attached to the back of the photo that’s taken off and replaced by a photo of Eddie Maher.

Aspirin, Strepsil and Panadol discover just how much trouble they’re in and attempt to recover the passport by tipping off Ng that Eddie is about to leave the country with the microfilm which results in Eddie taking on a dozen HK officers and seemingly nigh unstoppable until he takes a hostage in the form of a blonde white lady, who proves she’s more than capable of taking care of herself by kicking Eddie’s ass and not even breaking a sweat, Carrie Morris from Scotland Yard has arrived in HK. She promptly butt’s heads with the more pragmatic Ng. Ng and Morris team up to find the microfilm, Dick Wei kills Panadol, Aspirin and Strepsil attempt to arrange a deal with Mr. Tin which ends badly for Aspirin, who is taken hostage and Ng and Morris (their hands tied by the powers that be) gatecrash the deal and fight their way out of Tin’s mansion in an epic finale (probably the saving grace of the film).

This film launched Michelle Khan and Cynthia Rothrock into the spotlight, although Khan would become the bigger star, I think Rothrock did something equally remarkable, she went to a country where she didn’t speak the language, impressed Sammo enough to change the character from male to female, went through hell fighting Dick Wei one on one and came out the other end as a caucasian star who headlined with other action stars such as Yuen Biao and Andy Lau as well as her own films, she rode the wave until it died down but no-one has done what she did before or since. Most caucasian martial artists were cast as henchmen in HK films, so for her to somehow transcend that role (as well as being a woman) is a truly incredible achievement to me, even if it only lasted a short while, she was well and truly ahead of her time.

The In the Line of Duty title was not officially associated with Yes Madam, it would not really begin until the followup Royal Warriors began production, the success of Yes Madam demanded a followup and Michelle Khan was cast again in the leading role, this time she would be joined by Hiroyuki Sanada (A protege of Sonny Chiba) and Michael Wong. Michelle was again cast as a police officer Michelle Yip, who foils an attempt at a hijacking by a gang of men led by Tiger (Chan Wai-Man), they assassinate a prisoner and the officer he’s handcuffed to in cold blood, on the plane is Peter Yamamoto (Hiroyuki Sanada) and flight security officer Michael Wong, it ends with the death of a number of passengers and the hijackers. Yamamoto spends time with his immediately family, a wife and daughter while Wong romantically pursues Yip. In flashback’s it’s revealed the hijackers were part of an army unit in Vietnam, the remaining members of the unit swear revenge. Yamamoto’s wife and daughter are the first casualties, they die as a result of a car bomb intended for Yamamoto, he chases the suspect in a revenge fuelled fury while Yip and Wong follow, he finally corners the suspect in a construction site and nearly get’s buried alive until Yip shows up to save him and the assailant get’s away.

Yamamoto and Yip track down the assailant to a bar, where an Elvis styled man Pai Ying drunkenly flirts with Yip, then the assailant shows up and all hell breaks loose, about a dozen people get killed via machine gun while Yamamoto and Yip try to take him down, in the end Yamamoto finally guns the assailant down. Wong tracks down the identity of the man in the bar and he reveals himself as the last member of the unit but he’s too late and Wong is killed by getting thrown off a rooftop in front of Yip’s eyes. Yip is reprimanded by her superiors, Pai Ying taunts Yip and Yamamoto by digging up the body of Wong’s coffin and telling Yip and Yamamoto where they can find it. Yamamoto takes on Pai Ying and get’s seriously injured, Yip shows up in a battle armored truck that she must’ve been working on in her spare time (Mr. T would’ve been proud) before engaging Pai Ying in fisticuffs while he attacks her with a chainsaw.

The sequel is a far grimmer affair but doesn’t mean there isn’t levity here and there but it comes in the form of Wong’s romantic pursuit of Yip which borders on creepy, the action is hard hitting, Yeoh broke her shoulder during filming which put her out of action for several days. The amount of innocent bystanders that get killed in this film borders on disbelief, it gives the film a certain grittiness, that truly no-one is safe, this would be Yeoh’s last film in the ITLOD series, she would be replaced by Yang Li-Tsing, an ex-dancer and actress who would go by the name of Cynthia Khan, a combination of the two names of Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Khan, she would have to forge her own identity in the films going forward in order to step outside the shadows of those two women.

John Carpenter and the unmaking of reality.

The eighties were a golden era for John Carpenter, he began it with The Fog and ended it with They Live, in between he delivered gem after gem of genre films, but his output also showed he was also interested in more than just delivering movie thrills, you could say it started with Prince of Darkness, a smart take on the Satan returns storyline.

The film begins simply enough, with a Professor being called in to investigate the emergence of a giant tube with a mysterious green mass inside it, he brings also his students to help him, it’s also guarded by a priest who believes it’s the incarnation of Satan. The green mass starts exerting it’s will on the homeless nearby as they form an army to protect and serve this malevolent force. Once the students are exposed to the green mass, it becomes a race to prevent the green mass from unleashing an even greater evil, the anti-god.

At the time he made this Carpenter was heavily into theoretical physics and he wanted to apply it to the horror genre, so we get a scientific take on the concept of Satan. The idea of Satan has always been that of pure malevolence, an eternal evil for humanity to struggle against, he’s our most base impulses writ large. The conceit here is that Satan has no form but his influence is still felt through a recurring dream of a figure emerging from a church, the dream feels like a VHS recording, it’s a transmission, with each recurrence of the dream, more detail emerges until it’s revealed it’s a message from a possible future of apocalyptic destruction if the anti-god is released.  The film’s final image remains haunting because, although good technically triumphed over evil, it’s still there lingering in the mind, casting doubt over what’s real and what isn’t.

The idea of a transmission being beamed into the subconscious took another form with They Live, a film best described as a satirical action-thriller. The film’s protagonist, John Nada, has drifted from nowhere in particular looking for work and finds a job on a construction site and a small, homeless community of men and women. He stumbles across a box of sunglasses after a raid on a church being investigated for terrorist activities and finds out the world isn’t what he thought it was as he discovers that aliens have infiltrated earth and cloaked themselves in a veil of consumerism to enslave humanity.

The idea of alien invasions is nothing new, our paranoia has always manifested itself in various forms. Where this film differs is the method of invasion, there’s no attack, no war, the method is a simple of form of infiltration and the aliens have already won, to a certain extent, following on from Prince of Darkness, the then current state of consumerism is the perfect smokescreen for aliens to take over, giant billboards and signs hide a message of consume and obey, which is basically our daily routine, it also comes from the media, the messages of consume and obey are delivered from a television station, which the resistance fighters try to disrupt with their own equipment. Nada’s discovery this alternate reality completely shakes his faith of what’s real and what isn’t, even he attempts to convince a colleague that it’s really happening, it leads to an epic fight between the two because he refuses to believe it’s real.

John Carpenter would return to this concept of reality and unreality one last time with In The Mouth of Madness, a pure Lovecraftian Horror film which sees the protagonist John Trent see reality completely unfold before his very eyes and cause a mental collapse.

John Trent, a freelance Insurance Investigator, is a sceptic, he doesn’t believe in anything which can’t be solved via science so when he’s asked to locate an author who has gone missing on a promotional tour, his bullshit detector immediately goes off, the missing author just happens to be Sutter Cane, whose books have caused violent outbreaks in his readers, with Cane’s editor, Julia Styles, he tracks down Cane to a place called Hobbs End and then the nightmare really begins.

There’s something clearly off in the reality Trent inhabits, the feeling that something isn’t right, even as Trent has lunch with a colleague, a man wielding an axe attacks them asking if he’s read Sutter Cane, the man turns out to be Cane’s agent. We find the same thing in Hobbs End, as we get closer and closer to Cane, we see that reality is shifting and changing at whim, Trent is unable to leave, he simply get’s transported back to the centre of town when he tries to escape. Cane finally emerges to inform them that he is author of this reality and whatever he writes creates that reality but he also serves a higher evil in the form of old gods. When Trent finally escapes back into his reality, he finds the director of publishing only to be told Styles never went with him to find Cane and the manuscript he thought he’d destroyed was delivered months earlier, has been published and sold. Trent’s reality finally collapses in on itself after he enters a cinema to witness the events that he went through with Styles being projected onscreen.

All three films present the viewer with a form of reality that gradually falls apart to reveal something else entirely, you could argue Madness is the grimmest of all but that’s in line with the Lovecraft mythos, no-one get’s out alive, especially not from the reality of your own mind or what you perceive as your own mind and reality is always a slippery slope when the moorings loosen.

His Girl Friday & the ethics of Journalism

Before he became an established screenwriter, Ben Hecht was a reporter, first as a war correspondent then as a reporter in the city of Chicago and he used his experiences as the basis for the play he conceived along with Charles MacArthur called The Front Page. By the time His Girl Friday went into production, it had already been filmed once, so this is basically a remake, it would be subsequently adapted in the future. The original play had an all-male cast but Hawks decided to give his adaptation a feminine touch (this works for and against the film) by making the protagonist a woman, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell).  The character of Hildy is a classic example of the type of female character that existed in screwball comedies back then, she worked in a largely male environment, she dressed like a woman but thought like a man.

Being a reporter isn’t an easy gig at the best of times, and the character of Hildy makes it clear that you have to pursue the story at the expense of everything else going on at the time, when we first meet Hildy she has arrived at The Morning Post to deliver the news to her ex-husband, Editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant), that she is getting married again. Hildy knows exactly who she’s dealing with, as she attempts to explain to Walter why their marriage failed and what she wants in her life, a life of domestic bliss with an insurance agent. Walter is arrogant enough to believe the flame is still in there flickering for the next great story, despite Hildy’s assurances that she craves a life of domesticity and children so Walter does what any self-respecting ex-husband would do and manipulates her into covering one last story, the execution of convicted murderer Earl Williams (John Qualen).

Hildy joins a motley crew of other reporters killing time waiting for Earl to be hanged as they play poker and take bet’s on how long Hildy’s marriage will last. Into this den of mice and men comes Mollie Malloy, a supposed paramour of Earl, at least that’s what was published in order to sell more copies, the reporter all crack jokes at her expense until she finally let’s her emotions get the better of her and delivers a tirade against the reporters, Hildy watches the scene unfold with a certain detachment until she finally escorts her from the room as she sobs, all that’s left is a silence of guilty men just doing their jobs.

It’s not long before that silence is broken as Earl performs a jailbreak and it’s every man (and woman) for themselves as they attempt to break the story, it’s Hildy who get’s the advantage by tackling the Warden in the ensuing chaos and getting the straight story on just how Earl escaped. Walter is alternately thrilled that the old fire is reignited in Hildy again and that she has the inside scoop already. Hildy is all set to do her write-up when Earl appears holding a gun, she calms him down and convinces Earl to hide in the room while she figures out what to do, just as she’s about to close the door, in walks Mollie, who hears Earl and Hildy is forced to drag Mollie inside. Hildy hides Earl inside a rolltop desk and opens the door to the other reporters, who immediately start to get suspicious of Earl’s whereabouts, Hildy does her best to drive them off the scent but it’s not until Mollie provides the ultimate distraction and jumps out the window but not before chastising the reporters about not listening to her. As soon as they see she’s breathing, they take off after her, Hildy is the only one who shared any compassion for her, Walter, when he arrives, just wants to know where Earl is.

It’s eventually revealed that the Mayor and the Sheriff were trying to conceal a pardon for Earl in order to win the next election. Through all of this, Hildy’s husband to be, Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy) endures being arrested twice, having his wallet stolen and his mother kidnapped, finally realizing that Hildy really isn’t ready for the kind of domesticity she proclaims she wants, in a sense, Walter wins, he get’s his ace reporter back, she sends Bruce back to Albany and follows Walter out of the room, hoping things will be different this time.

Wong Kar Wai’s portraits of loneliness

In Days of Being Wild, a young man, York, strides to a cafe where a young woman works, opens a bottle of soda and proceeds to try and seduce her, it’s an act that’s performed by him over a period of time until she finally relents. Li-Zhen initially resists York’s attempts at seducing her but deep down, she welcomes the company, it doesn’t hurt he’s an attractive looking young man, and a relationship is formed but it’s framed on his terms. The moment Li-Zhen begins attaching herself to him by suggesting she move in with him, he immediately shuts down, when she asks him if he’ll marry her, he bluntly responds with no, Li-Zhen leaves and claims she’ll never come back.

This will be a pattern for York as he meets another young woman, Lulu at a local club where he’s beating another man for taking advantage of his mother, who is a courtesan. Lulu is loud and brash and she plays coy with the seduction attempts by York but like Li-Zhen, she still craves the affection or disaffection that York gives her. York’s friend Zeb is another of one of York’s devotees as he craves the attention that York receives from women but he has neither York’s attractiveness or his wealth. York was raised by a courtesan, Rebecca, who confided that he was adopted by her, yet refused to tell him who his real mother was out of a desire to keep him from leaving her.

Li-Zhen finds that letting go of York is tougher than she thought as she keeps returning to his apartment building where she is found by a Police Officer, Tide who brings York out to where Li-Zhen is waiting, she claims she has returned to get her things but that’s just an excuse. Lulu is in York’s apartment listening to the drama unfold and when Li-Zhen finally leaves, confronts York about his commitment to her but York doesn’t care, he’s distilled his entire life into not caring about anything except finding out who his real mother is. Lulu put’s up a front but she’s just as enthralled by York’s disaffection and aloofness, which is preferable to being alone.

Li-Zhen still hasn’t really got over York as she tries to stifle crying outside his apartment while Tide stands nearby trying not to look uncomfortable, Li-Zhen is forced to confess her emotional distress to Tide, her infatuation with York wasn’t so much about him but a way of stemming the tides of loneliness that swept over her since moving to HK from Macau, it was a connection that she needed, even if it resulted in pain for her, it was still a connection. It would take some more effort to finally move on from York but she found a better confidant in Tide in the process, even though their connection was brief, it was enough to allow her to accept her loneliness.

Rebecca announces to York that she’s leaving for the U.S. with her much younger lover, York finally get’s her to confess who his real mother is and leaves for the Phillipines, leaving his car with Zeb, who has become fixated with Zeb, even though she doesn’t love him. York left without saying goodbye to Lulu, which has left her bereft as she goes searching for him, even confronting Li-Zhen who tells her to get over it, after all, Li-Zhen did. Zeb’s attempts at seducing Lulu become increasingly pathetic bordering on abusive as he finally follows her in the rain, where she confronts him about his pathetic need to become York 2.0 which results in him physically assaulting her. Zeb finally realized he’ll never be like York the way he wants to be like him, sells the car and tells Lulu that if she can’t find York to come back to him.

York finally tracks down his mother but she refuses to see him which leaves him more adrift than ever, Tide, now a Sailor, discovers him lying in a gutter, drunk, and takes York back to his room to sober up. York and Tide hang out in a local hall where York is getting a passport from a local hoodlum and instead of paying, stabs the hoodlum instead forcing a confrontation between York, Tide & the hoodlum’s friends, this results in Tide shooting three men and getting slashed with a switchblade. While on the train, Tide confronts York about aloof attitude to everything, he calls him on his bullshit but York still doesn’t care. York is shot by assailant and as he dies, he realizes that he was never going to fly because he was dead from the moment he was born.

In a way this film reminds me of the Neil Young song ‘Out on the Weekend’ about disaffected young men hustling on the weekends. The film actually ends with a scene of a man preparing himself in a small room, for a night out, he could easily be someone like York but we’ll never know.

 

 

 

On Dangerous Ground

Three men are shown as they prepare for an evening shift, two of them are married, one is single, all three are policeman. As they shuffle into the precinct, their commander relays the urgency of finding the men who shot and killed one of their own, to pound the beat and shake their sources for info. Their first stop is a bar, the people inside show open contempt to the policemen, Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan) is visibly upset by his treatment and they leave the premises. Pops Daly (Charles Kemper) is suffering from a sore shoulder so Joe and the third policeman, Pete Santos (Anthony Ross) visit a local doctor to treat it. Santos comments that Wilson is a tough man to get along with, Pops makes the observation that being a cop is a tough occupation, he just takes it harder than most. While Pops is being treated, Wilson get’s a lead on a suspect involved in the murder of the policeman, he and Santos visit the apartment of a woman Myrna Bowers (Cleo Moore) who is romantically linked to their suspect.

Myrna plays coy about her relationship with the suspect, Bernie Tucker (Richard Irving) until they find a photo of them together, Jim grills her for Bernie’s whereabouts using physical intimidation, Myrna responds by asking Jim if he’ll use his big arms to squeeze the info out of her, and he does. Jim and Pete find Bernie and it’s clear he’s not going to give up info on others involved in the crime. It’s in this scene that we finally witness the coiled rage that bubbles underneath Wilson’s surface, he beats the info out of Bernie while screaming ‘Why do you make me do it? You know you’re gonna talk! I’m gonna make you talk! I always make you punks talk! Why do you do it? Why?”, Wilson’s violent methods prove successful but he’s reprimanded by his superior Capt. Brawley (Ed Begley), the man he beat is being defended by a lawyer, who accuse Wilson of police brutality.

Myrna is brutally attacked, Wilson, Santos & Pops arrive on the scene to find the attacker fleeing the scene, Wilson is enraged and brutally beats him, Pops accosts Wilson who defends his actions by stating a police officer is nothing but a garbage collector, he asks how Pops get’s through it, Pops is pragmatic about it, he leaves it all behind when he goes home, he doesn’t let it infect his home life. Wilson is upbraided again but this time, he is sent away to a small town to help with the local murder of a girl. Wilson arrives to find the police unable to cope with a crime of this magnitude. Wilson attempts to interview the sister of the murdered girl but finds her mother & father, Walter Brent (Ward Bond) unwilling to co-operate, the father is too enraged to hand over the murderer to the police, he wants vengeance.

The murderer is soon sighted and a car chase begins, Wilson & Walter chase the killer to a remote house where they find a woman, Mary Malden (Ida Lupino) living there, they interrogate her about whether she’s seen the killer, it slowly becomes evident that she couldn’t have seen anything, she’s blind. Mary is clearly hiding something though and it becomes evident she knows more than she’s letting on.

What I find interesting is how this film approaches the idea of Toxic Masculinity, 40 years before the term had been coined. Jim Wilson is a man who is unable to separate himself from the pressures of his job, the daily exposure to acts of cruelty, the contempt that’s thrown in his face, he becomes detached until he meets Mary, who appreciates Wilson’s lack of pity for her when he discovers she is blind. It’s a familiar type of love story, the wounded male healed with the love of a good woman and it’s a credit to both Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino that this love story works. Ryan has always excelled at playing characters with a seething anger at their core but maintain a stable facade and he does some of his best acting in this film. There’s a scene early in the film where he interacts with a young boy outside his apartment building, it’s a reminder that he’s capable of human interaction but it’s fleeting.

Walter Brent is a father who is willing to go to any lengths necessary to kill the man who murdered his daughter, he’s operating on blind rage, when he finally catches up with the murderer it ends in a fashion where he get’s what he wanted but not in the way he wanted it, it’s a like a fog lifts and he realises that the murderer he was chasing was a young boy, as a result that rage subsides, it’s replaced by a kind of empathy for the murderer’s sister, Mary.

The murderer in question is revealed to be a young man who is neither evil nor saintly, he’s driven by impulses that he cannot understand. Wilson begins the film with a belief that violence is the only natural weapon at his disposal but his scene with the murderer finds him attempting to solve the situation through means of communication and he very nearly succeeds until Brent bursts in still operating on blind rage and events reach their natural conclusion.

Nicholas Ray has explored the psyche of wounded men in other films such as In a Lonely Place and Rebel Without a Cause but here, he also finds the humanity within those wounded men.