Reviews

I don't know what movie the reviewers are seeing, and the commentaries here border on moronic babble. RESIDENT EVIL represents one thing clearly, and that is the generation gap between lovers of good b-movies and horror films and the younger folks who don't have the background to dig what RE does. What the stupid slobbering gore-twits and the "film" snobs are missing is RE's true, uncompromising nature; no self-referential, humorous one-liners or pompous revision of the Zombie Attack genre. RE revels in understanding what is terrifying about the living dead.

That understanding? The impending attacks, the coming of the zombies, their craven need. Zombie movies prey psychologically: they are out there, they will not stop, they want us, they ARE us. That's the horror behind the Zombie, that's what makes the Zombie truly unstoppable--as long as we exist, the Zombies will exist.

The attack scenes are hardcore enough, coupled with any lifelong Zombie lover's imagination, to provide the truly impressive tension that drives RE. All credit for that should go to Anderson the director and writer: he manages a strong, kinetic movie devoid of the worst of horror cliches--in fact, Anderson manages to respect the audience enough to give them genuinely eerie imagery; I had no problem accepting the world of the Hive, of the Umbrella Co, and of the T-Virus.

And Milla Jovovich is superb; a fantastic actress entering her prime gig in RE. She manages to show human frailty even as she displays very cool martial abilities. Jovovich is simply perfect as a beautiful woman discovering that she is a high-level professional killer as unstoppable as the waves of zombies that descend on her.

Anyone who loves good, solid, uncompromising horror films should check this out (uncompromising up to a point, of course; at certain points, gore in grand quantities SHOULD have come, for the story dictates it; the gore is minimized, and you can thank the same board restrictions that have voided most realistic violence and sex from films and replaced it with cartoons--a Zombie movie is a gore movie, and at some point, as Romero knew, you have to show just how awful it is to be eaten alive). But let me say this: I'm willing to pass up on the hardcore viscera in order to get a full-bodied, enjoyable, and non-idiotic horror movie. I'll even accept the poor CGI on the inhuman monsters, the non-zombies, to get zombies back on the screen again.

Certainly RE is a step in the right direction. For everyone wishing for the return of the horror film to full popularity, RE's as good as it gets. As the 1950s science fiction movies led to the '60s psycho fests and then to '70s mind-blowing blood-letting, all gore-hounds should keep in mind that good Zombie movies without the intestines will only open the door to movies that DO contain those scenes, and for all other American films to loosen the restrictions. But RE proves it isn't necessary, and even if we don't see the flesh tearing and the brains blowing out of the back of the head, our minds perceive it, and our minds are where the zombies have always fed most heartily.

Excellent movie. Don't miss it.

In the film PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, there is an undeniable creeping dread, a very real sense of terror, in every scene. Despite the obvious lack of money, Bava wrung some eerie, disturbing imagery out of his sf schlock piece. Considering this is an Italian production of the mid-60s, director Bava infuses some real originality into his story, taking a 1950s crew of square-jawed astronauts and forcing them to confront the future of horror: a horde of gore-streaked zombies, an omnipresent supernatural force invading the crew's minds, and a nihilistic ending.

What is great about POTV stems from Bava, his dynamic camera, and his framing. The marooned spacecraft atop a craggy hillside, approached by rescuing astronauts, looks like a haunted house against the black-clouded sky of the planet. When the living dead begin stalking the pitted, fiery surface of the planet, intent on killing the astronauts, Bava effectively uses the new horror icons of fear: not of fear, but of zombiefication, of characters who could be us, once just human, but now horribly returned as mutilated living corpses set to kill friends and family.

PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES is exciting, arresting in places, and nuanced in small ways even by the actors involved, all of them physically fit with numerous fight scenes. Sullivan and Bengall aren't creating their

characters, but they react realistically as human beings in an increasingly hopeless situation. The final scenes, of the

astronauts attempt to escape the planet, set upon by the living dead, have a psychological edge to go along with the action, as these noble travelers overcome their fear of the planet, of the zombies, and the horrible prospect of becoming zombies themselves, in order to end the hungering menace all around them. These scenes predate the best of George Romero's DEAD films or any John Carpenter flick, where a group of survivors are whittled down to just a few, and then to one, by a wave of seemingly unstoppable supernatural force.

It should be noted that "vampires" refer to parasites, not classic monsters, and truly this is more of a "zombie" film than a "vampire" movie. The film Bava made is gory and violent for 1965 when it was released, and as interesting as it was then, it's just as interesting now to see how POTV influenced later horror-film greats, not only in theory but in execution. And it's still better than 95 percent of the recent Hollywood sf-horror films of the past decade, bar none.

This film is about a specific type of people, professional thieves, who are operating in a very rigid and single-minded world: they live to make what is yours, theirs. The men who make up the professional criminal's population are varied, with intelligence not required, but a brute determination to get a job done, get what you are after, and get away from the scene, a must for success and survival.

Percentages are against heist-men, and Hackman's pro trouble-shooter Moore is becoming unusable the older he gets: sooner or later, he's bound to be caught or killed. All the men in Moore's string, Lindo and Jay in particular, are muscle and legs for Moore's articulated plans, they carry it out in physical form while Moore plots his plan B for every conceivable occurrance. In this final blowout of his entire professional career, Moore uses all of his careful deceptions and manipulations as he attempts to rip off a Swedish gold shipment, avoid cops, and deceive the financing shark DeVito who won't let Moore quit the life.

Many commentors on this movie seem confused by David Mamet's writing of these characters, but Mamet does a fabulous job of pointing out the operating mind-set of pro thieves, the violence of hard men working together to obtain a very clear goal, money, while staying out of prison. Mamet states this mind-set most clearly when Hackman's Moore refuses to kill a bank clerk during a robbery, a witness who can identify him, and yet when faced with other professionals who understand the rules and are trying to steal his money, Moore kills them without hesititation. This is part of the understanding among these men, and they accept it in order to survive.

Outside of the Parker novels of Donald Westlake, this is one of the best views of the working relationship among heisters. The interactions are realistic; if Mamet fails, it's where he often fails, in the motivations and decisions of Moore's woman, Fran. Yet here Mamet does again show off a knowledge of a particular kind of woman in a particular kind of world. Fran comes across as a woman undergoing a conflict, based on her life up until now, her understanding of the rules in this world, that a woman is only as good as the criminal she's latched onto; caught in the situation with Moore, who is aging, and who must leave the country to avoid arrest, Fran is loyal up until the moment in which she doubts that Moore really loves her, that in fact he may only be using her as a tool...it's that conflict which makes Fran seem confused, a liability to the film itself. But Fran isn't a liability, and even though Moore trusts her, he makes sure he plans around the possibility of Fran betraying him. Always have a plan B, as Moore points out.

HEIST is a well-executed, uncompromising crime film that isn't being cute with the characterizations, nor does it attempt to imbue the men with sympathy. Like most people, the men outside of the profession have women, some family, a boat, things they care about. It's the one weakness in all of them, that they are human, that gets them taken down in one form or another. Not being machines, the criminals, even pros, make mistakes. Joe Moore turns out to have even more weaknesses than some, but he compensates for them by figuring a way out, or around, the problems of being too-attached, too-trusting. In the end, Moore is a professional, and does whatever he has to to get the final payoff and escape. It's an effort of will that borders on divine, and Hackman makes the divine seem effortless.

THE ONE contains everything any lover of b-movies or 70s exploitation can want, at least within the context of the genres at hand. As any writer worth his salt can take a tired type of story and imbue it with a new angle, or original treatment, Jet Li manages to elevate the too-brief material at hand. Delroy Lindo is making a career out of reinventing genre characters (his turns in THE ONE and HEIST are excellent, and understated).

Concerning the Multiverse Theory, my understanding of the alternate universes, and the impact of death (strength, speed, intelligence) on the surviving Others: it's suggested by many who've seen the movie that the Multiverse Theory doesn't stand up, that with EVERY death in an alternative world, this "energy" is dispersed until the last remaining Self would become the superhuman One, the culmination of all the energies. Meaning you'd have invalid old men, the last of the alternate Selves, in nursing homes with the strength of 100-plus men, ect.

However, Yulaw (ONE's villain) is creating an abnormal, UNNATURAL dispersal of this energy by murdering his alternative selves. He's initiating a break in the space-time continuium that is causing, for whatever b-movie reason, the immediate multiplication of strength. There's nothing in THE ONE which suggests that a natural dispersion of the Energy, from the natural flow of each relative timeline (how each version of Yulaw will die in each different world) will cause the Yulaw Effect, or the superhuman abilities. This is glitch in the Multiverse, not in the storyline, and even the Multiverse Agents don't know why it happens, or the eventual outcome, if and when what is not supposed to occur DOES occur, and Yulaw manages to become the last remaining being containing all those life forces. This is a CRIMINAL act, as well as scientific heresy, at least in b-movie terms.

Though THE ONE probably shouldn't be studied so closely, it seems that this faulty Multiverse logic is part of the reason some reviewers take the movie apart. Also, it's the fault of the moviemakers for not making it clear. Of course, they probably had no idea anyone would care, when you've got the spectacle of Jet Li fighting Jet Li, and motorcycle cop-swatting, and such.

These days, it seems every reviewer or would-be reviewer wishes to pigeon-hole the films they see, just as every would-be producer when they pitch their movie idea to the executives. Such is most reviews of THE ONE, in which the film is unfairly judged and summarized, as in "THE ONE is a combo of TERMINATOR plus MATRIX meets THE ELEPHANT MAN taking on JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR with a little PUMPKINHEAD and a dash of TICK TICK TICK!" Shut up already. It's a disgustingly pinheaded view of films, and not a review or comment on the film at hand, merely a summary of what it LOOKS like. Now to talk about THE ONE.

THE ONE is an impact film, meaning its nature is to physically overwhelm and inawe the viewer. Jet Li puts in some good work here, despite his difficulty with language barriers; Li does what many famous kung-fu movie stars are able to do, and that's to distinguish his emotions through his body, through physical ferocity or weakness. In that, Li is excellent here, showing at all times a human being behind the power of his techniques.

Most critics who do not respect the type of movie this is will completely miss Jet Li's presence behind the superhuman battles; that's why Yulaw, is the film's protagonist: It is Li's actor persona, Jet Li as a downright hero, that makes his turn as the villainous Yulaw so fascinating; there is not much difference between Yulaw and the good Li, Gabe, in our world, except Gabe is married and it is his love of his wife that fulfills him; without her, he would be Yulaw, a violent man hungering beyond time and space. Yulaw's desire to possibly become a god once he's accumulated all the life energies of his alternate selves is a realistic endeavor for a man such as he is: a special law-enforcement officer, a sublime martial artist, a physical man who spends every free moment practicing his wushu technique. A man obsessed with what he does not have: a center, a heart, a love.

This type of man WOULD be driven to assassinate his useless "other" selves, all wasted energy in a chaotic universe; Yulaw himself, once part of a superior police force to watch over not one but multitudes of universes, becomes a vicious, uncompromising killer...who also happens to be a martial artist, a life choice requiring vast degrees of self-control and regimented training...this kind of man would obviously see wasted energy as criminal, and his drive to accumulate and refocus that energy is not cardboard villainy but merely Yulaw's self-discipline taken to a cosmic scale. Yulaw doesn't want to be "God" in the classical sense, he just wants to elevate his internal and external fighter's prowess to the highest possible level imaginable...ultimately of course to feed his ego, which is Yulaw's fatal flaw.

There's a lot going on in this terse, lightning-fast plot, but it depends on what you're looking for. Jet Li's performance is typical of him and extraordinary as a human being: the man is simply a walking encyclopedia of fight technique. The non-superhuman roles, of his wife, or the pursuing Multiverse Agents Lindo and Statham, or the many many policemen (the film's major fault, too many police waving guns, all seeming buffoonish and crushable as roaches; too much of the movie has cops moving around with their pistols in front of them while we wait for the superhuman Yulaw to smash them, all of the viewers knowing the guns are useless against Yulaw and yet so much of the movie spent Wondering When rather than hoping anybody with a gun actually has a chance) all perform basic functions to the superhuman rumble between Yulaw and Gabe, bad and good Li.

Again, these characters have limited life-spans and short histories, and the fact remains that neither Yulaw nor Gabe has time to wonder who their friends are, or mourn for the dead. One man will die, another man will become The One, and that ascendancy is imminent and demanded by universal laws of space and time: theories, like objects, stay in motion...the obsessed Yulaw cannot halt his desired ascendancy to possible godhood (or destruction of all universes, since no one knows what will happen when he becomes The One), and neither can Gabe, who also grows more powerful as the life energy of 123 murdered alternate selves is divided equally between himself and Yulaw.

Last and not least, there's the final confrontation between Yulaw and Gabe. A very cool, very solid climactic fight that uses wire work but stays grounded in reality, albeit heightened superhuman reality; the fight never becomes a cartoon, thankfully, and as in the whole of the film, whatever cliches Roger Ebert mentions are few (all right, the whole cat-jumping-at-the-camera-to-startle-the-audience is downright unforgivable, but that's hackwork on the director/writer's part) and there is nothing cliche about Li's performance, and given how badly science fiction's been translated to the screen, this film is at least not a complete embarrassment and doesn't pretend to be Arthur Clarke.

This is good work by Li. And though not everything not-Li (plot, characters, emotional resonance) is as cool as it could have been, THE ONE manages to be solid and avoids being insultingly stupid, a genre movie made by smart people who want nothing more than to blow viewer's minds with a workmanlike science fiction premise and the awesome skill of Jet Li. For the true lover of genre film, THE ONE is a grand delight.

In BRUISER, evidence of a surreal paranormal event is almost perfectly captured on film by George Romero. The film's protagonist, Henry, weakly worms him way through life until the morning he awakens to find a blank, white mask where his real face once was. At one point, it's suggested the mask frees Henry to indulge in his rage fantasies, and then to logically murder those who have wronged him. Henry's innate goodness won't allow him to kill innocent people, but it's interesting to see that Romero never apologizes for Henry's murder fantasies. Henry is, like all of us, capable of brutal, heinous acts, if only in our heads.

As an idea, Henry's "Faceless" identity is fascinating, as it is believed that Henry has psychically formed the blank face from the material of his submerged rage. The problem becomes when Henry, and the film, decides to become parody, amused by the circumstance of the Faceless-ness. Henry's revenge, when he takes it on the vile cast of his wife, his boss, and his best friend/financer, does not reflect Henry's rage. The revenge is muted and lacking real anger, though much is made of what Henry will do when he goes after these people.

Romero made possibly his technically-finest film only to lose the incredible surreal event that changed his believable, solid main character into a vengeance machine, which weakens the story and its conclusion considerably. The instant Henry understands that the mask is truly HIS face is a great moment, and there are moments in BRUISER that stand up well with the best Romero has done.

It should also be pointed out that Romero comes from another time and mentality in filmmaking, when the idea of sex, sex by naked people, on-screen, in all it's almost-realism, was not ignored and disregarded...namely the 1970s, when there was something to be said for people getting it on that didn't require cutaways and soft lenses. It's almost refreshing in these puritanical days of zero-actual-sex in films, and talk talk talk of sex in every medium, and the threat of sex on "real TV" shows, to find Romero willing to show a little legs over the shoulders. Even if everyone who has sex in BRUISER is unrepentant scum, that still doesn't change the fact that we, the viewer, are witness to sex that isn't a slow-motion fantasia starring Jeremy Irons.

BRUISER is a fascinating film that suddenly unravels at the end, like an old baseball hit too hard. Still worth it, just for the great attempt at something original by an original, in Romero.

A man who cannot create new memories cannot move forward in time. For Leonard Shelby, time stopped the instant he suffered head trauma while trying to save his wife during a robbery-rape. Unable to retain any new memories, Leonard will never move past that horrific event in which he lost his wife, his home, and everything else except an all-consuming drive for revenge on those responsible.

There's reason for enthusiasm and hyperbole from folks who see MEMENTO: it's a film that harkens back to the 1970s, a time of well-written, mind-blowing experiences that become part of the viewer, like an actual event, a memory. MEMENTO is that modern rarity, a character-driven story that refuses to flinch, and viewers appreciate it. After all, in this decade of putrid, talentless filmmaking, where would movies (American anyway) be without Tarantino's Jules Winnfield, or Mr. White? Or the Coens' Dude? Soderbergh's limey Wilson? Or Keyser Soze? Characters with force of will, who follow their natures and dominate space and time, as real people met, inawed-by, or feared.

Leonard Shelby's story is ingrained in truth, and believability. A two-dimensional creation lives and breathes. He becomes part of the viewer.

There is nothing worse than the Hell of Leonard Shelby, a man cursed to a single moment in time, his wife's rape-murder, and his inability to even remember whatever revenge he may take. The concept alone guarantees this film is unforgettable, but it is also the writing, the direction of Nolan, and the performance of Pierce.

I'd like to correct the misconception of the intrinsic fault in this film, pointed out by many critics, that Leonard would be unable to remember he has a "condition" of complete short-term memory loss, since he should not remember anything after his injury and does not have a tattoo on his body, say, that states the fact of it, so he'd understand where, what and how he is where he is.

Leonard does indeed have this "trigger" for his understanding of his "condition". It is on his hand, SAMMY JANKIS. Sammy's story, part of Leonard's pre-injury life, is an automatic symbol for everything Leonard is going through, as the two men share almost the same condition, and more. Leonard sees the name and remembers, and that's the answer to that.

MEMENTO is a complete puzzle, a sequence of nightmare that is inescapable, a world in which a man who stops moving in time becomes the anchor for corrupt cops and lost women, where answers tear up bodies and minds like bullets. Leonard is a living weapon of revenge, and

lives in a perpetual state of recoil, that stunned silence between the just-fired and the impact. An incredible film.

There's nothing quite like a 1970s professional hitman, usually played by an emotionless hunk in a suit and tie, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, carrying a briefcase from which he will coldly assemble a sniper rifle. Not only do you get one snap-together rifle scene in ASSIGNMENT: KOWLOON, but you get two, as Sonny Chiba portrays the professional assassin who cannot be stopped and will not cease until his job is done. Or, until he has his revenge against those who've wronged him. Both is the case in this movie.

The plot of this film is incidental, as Golgo 13 is hired to kill a renegade drug trafficker posing as an important businessman; Golgo 13 is beaten to the kill by another faction, but is nonetheless blamed for the assassination by a strong-willed Hong Kong detective named Smithy who is determined to stop Golgo 13.

This is a gritty film, with a seething, rock-hard performance by Chiba as Golgo 13, presenting a character who is a professional killer, and worse. Chiba's barely-controlled rage is palpable; Golgo 13, when not coldly sighting down his rifle, emerges as a dangerous, paranoid man expecting at any moment to be attacked. And as is the case, Golgo 13 finds violence wherever he goes, whether or not he is involved directly or not. A young woman, a mere stranger on the street arguing with a man, suddenly murders this man in a blind rage right in front of Golgo 13. Golgo 13 not only saves her from the police, but from the murdered man's roving gang, who are seeking the girl, for revenge. This puts the girl in debt to the assassin, and later he will use her when he is wounded and nearly captured by police. Golgo 13 affords himself a way to stay alive by taking advantage of any situation, even if it is a poor girl who made a mistake; that mistake is the assassin's edge, and Chiba revels in it.

The Crash Cinema video is great, though the sub-titles are some of the worst I've ever seen. But the movie very much retains its 1970s grindhouse purity, to be viewed in a run-down theatre smelling of piss and cigarettes. GOLGO 13 is a tough, well-made movie, and Chiba is just a wicked physical performer who makes his kills, with hands or weapons, look especially painful. The character of Golgo 13 is what James Bond might have become, if he ever left the BSS and turned into a for-hire killer. He'd be unstoppable, and that's what Golgo 13 is: Unstoppable, and very, very cool.

A great film from the tough 70s when movies reached their creative nadyr, simple story of ex-con pushed by his record, his obnoxious parole

officer, and his lack of adaptability into more heists.

The point of Hoffman's Dembo character succumbing quickly to crime again isn't supposed to be drawn out over the entire movie, as if this character, this professional thief, had a choice in his instincts. The movie never suggests Dembo is trying to become part of society; he's not, and never will be. He's known that since he was in the joint. This isn't the story of a great man put-upon by society, attempting to rise above his station. This is a pro heist man who does one thing really well, and that's steal. Dembo's self-destruction is assured only because he's seen the end results of outside life, or any life when you're not connected, in prison or out.

Dembo's not disilliusioned, he's just not going to be crushed. He didn't go to jail, instead Dembo became a jail, a walking prison; even the long moustache he wears looks like prison bar shadows clamping his face shut. Dembo's not going to escape prison, not ever, nobody ever really does. And he's known that long before the film starts, and by the time he gets to stealing again, he's made sure he's running his prison his way. Fabulous film.

This movie is, bar none, the most fantastic kung-fu film ever made, all centered around the main performers, particularly Gordon Liu and Kara Hui, and specifically the star-director, Lo Lieh. Lieh is probably the grandmaster of kung-fu films, and his ability to take even the most mundane sneering thug character and give it life is a credit to his acting. Lieh plays Priest White Lotus here, a white-haired super-villain whose fighting technique consists of essentially becoming as untouchable as a ghost. Priest White Lotus cannot even be touched, much less struck, and the displays of power combined with his eerie abilities make him visually stunning.

But it's more than simple physicality. Lo Lieh gives this supernatural force so much humor, vitality, and humanity, that Priest White Lotus is elevated into one of the great onscreen villains ever, in any genre of film. The scene where Priest White Lotus fights the vengeful hero Liu, who has attacked Lieh during his bath, forcing the Priest to block vicious blows while naked and pulling on his houseclothes, is simply one of the unbelievable joys of watching this movie. You'll laugh, not because the scene is played for laughs, but because the scene is GREAT, and the two actors are dead-on incredible, and you can't believe what you're seeing.

And the final conflict between Liu and Lieh cannot be described. There is a frightening majesty to Lieh's Priest, and Liu's hero the perfect culmination of the kung-fu revenge-hero, that the viewer is inawed by them. They become god-like in their techniques, and yet more human as their familiarity through repeated battles reveals just how much alike the two men have become. The two, evil and good, are seperated not by their skill or philosophy, but by the need for one to nullify the other. They have become so close that it is impossible for them both to exist.

FISTS OF THE WHITE LOTUS is a great film, and unforgettable.

Barker creates a supernatural detective, D'Amour, and allows the viewer to trail along as Bakula's character does his everyday job; it's established that this movie did not create D'Amour, that D'Amour has existed and lived a surreal lifestyle as a private detective who finds himself often in the Beyond: a detective with a primal magnetism to things bizarre. D'Amour seems cool and detached because, well, when you fight demon-possessed children and cannibals for a living, you aren't going to be surprised by much.

That's what this movie's about. The detective's journey. D'Amour

encounters rabid cultists seeking to ressurect their messiah, while following the back-story of his client Swan, the showman magician and his wife, played by knock-out Famke Janssen. Everything D'Amour sees, and the lure of Janssen, fuses with D'Amour's obssessive desire to KNOW, to witness, what he is drawn to witness: pure evil, and the forms it takes. By the time the movie's showdown in the desert begins, D'Amour has learned of the rebirth of a god of evil, once dead and now returned after years of burial. And this Dark God wants vengeance on those who imprisoned him, including the lovely Janssen and frightened Swan. D'Amour's loyalty to his client and the woman he's fallen for, implicit or not, keeps him in there slugging it out with forces he cannot overcome. This isn't your ordinary movie hero here. The fact is, D'Amour knows that someday he will be swallowed by the evil things he meets--it is a biological destiny that D'Amour will be destroyed eventually, and this knowledge makes him fearless.

Barker never got a chance to explore more with this character. And that's a shame. A cool concept, so simple, and elevated by Barker's twist on genre, and Scott Bakula's delivery, a man haunted by what he's seen and has yet to witness, from the dark. Great movie.

It should be expected that KISS OF THE DRAGON, an 'action' film as it's called, would be reviewed by mostly dolts disappointed in Jet Li's lack of beautiful balletic killing. There's no attempt in this movie to make anything Jet Li does seem pretty, or picturesque. Slow-motion is a cliche of the genre, and the fact is that real martial artists move at accelerated paces; quickness and precision is everything, and even with

Li's blinding speed, I didn't have trouble following his fights' progressions, with Li's obvious skill revealing, REALISTICALLY (as possible for a movie), what is involved when there is hand-to-hand. Li doesn't even use a gun, a feat that says something about Li's personal philosophy on violence.

Li isn't a superhuman, though he does perform acts that may appear inhuman. His well-publicized sequence with the roomful of karate cats with batons and Li's wiping floor of said, is not so absolutely impossible. If Li is so much more superior in his reflexes and skill, and these guys are just a bunch of training dummies of the French police, then it isn't out of the question that Li could do what he does. Many hardcore kung-fu movie fans, or critics, always point out that the single hero fighter takes on armies of enemies, and yet each of these attackers will advance one-by-one, getting their teeth and bones shattered in the process. This does not necessarily happen in Li's film, and again, there is a realism to the scene lent by Li's expertise. He knows it takes mere seconds for the skilled fighter, with technique, to oust some clumsy thug. Obviously it's a given that Li couldn't walk out of the room in one piece, but this isn't reality all the way. Just a facsimile.

I'd also like to point out that Bridget Fonda is playing a tough role here, but she plays it like I think she meant to: it's the film's disgust, coming from Fonda, the screenwriter Besson, or the director, with Hollywood as it is obsessed with hookers with hearts of gold; young actresses have been winning Oscars because frankly hookers are the only parts being written for them. With

Hollywood's frantic avoidance of actual SEX in their movies, it's interesting that there are so many hooker stories which devalue the power of

beautiful women while supposedly making them "more real".

Fonda isn't attractive in the role, but you know she's beautiful. Somewhere under the oily mess of her make-up and hair is the woman whom Li's character is pulled in by. He's not attracted to her, but he knows what she is, truly, as a woman, a young mother. There's a lot happening between Li and Fonda, because he's a professional Chinese agent and she's supposed to be sympathized with as a junkie hooker-slave; the two don't fall into the melodramatic tiger trap however, and whatever sensuality between them is redirected: Li has seen enough brutality and gore, and he wants to stop what is happening to Fonda, her lifestyle that has buried the beautiful woman and the child she loves so much that she agrees to hook on the streets for the odious corrupt Inspector Richard in order to keep the child safe.

This is an idea that gives power to everything that happens in the film. If one goes in not understanding that saving a beautiful woman and her child is not worth dying for, then one will not perceive the theme and miss out on the whys of Li's character. He's the consummate professional, outstanding in his dedication, emotionally detached, and then when his professional world crashes in, and he encounters this woman, things change. That's what Li's face says, in the very last scene, when the camera lingers on his bruised, cut visage, and he's simply stopped, thinking that everything he's known is changed. It's this one scene, barely noticed, which tells everything about Li that we don't learn in the film itself. Whatever he was, to that point, is gone. And the movie is over.

Best film I've seen in 2001, by far.

This is a movie weighted with the planet-sized immensity of the original series of Ape films, which I grew up on. All part of an education in a time, the '70s, where men could be reflected in evolved apes, their penchant for cruelty and misunderstanding, horror and revolt, subjugation, was still poignant. In Tim Burton's film, there's no deeper meaning to the situation, not many today under the age of thirty and living in America have any true idea of the danger of being human, of being the superior creature on the planet, whose drive for self-destruction might just give birth to a new world order, run by man's genetic ancestor, the ape.

Tim Burton doesn't concern himself with reflecting the human race. He just sets out, along with Tim Roth and Helena Carter, to show just how awesome an intelligent, weapons-using, armored gorilla is. Also, there's an entire Ape psychology to go along with the advancements, the 'human' qualities. Apes explode in frenzies of blurred animal movment when startled, they smell at one another to perceive lies or fear, they use touch as a constant reminder of their closeness, just as they did when they didn't use tongues or swords as weapons.

So for your money, you get a bunch of stiff, annoying 'humans', all of whom speak perfect English (a plotless point, since in the original film humans were animals, speechless--here, despite being subjugated for thousands of years, humans talk but don't say anything at all, no different than they do today, when the fact is these humans living as squalid jungle rats should have devolved over time to about idiot level, about the same as your average high schooler, say) and its obvious that Burton could give a hoot about any of the human characters outside the hero Davison, an astronaut who falls from the sky and becomes a messiah. All the rest of the humans squeak protest and get crushed by Apes. And good riddance, because it's the Apes that the movie is about. How cool is it to be able to jump twelve feet in the air, use your feet as hands, and be stronger than three or four big strong men, with the fighting ferocity of a primal beast? That's why Burton made this flick.

Tim Roth also gives probably his best performance, as zealous military commander Thade trying to hide the truth of the Ape Planet's origin. Helena Carter's Ari simply is the sexiest woman with facial hair and chimp hands you will ever see. And there is the fantastic ending.

For me, the ending 'shock' works like I wouldn't have thought it would. Fact is, the story behind the ending, the implications, the actual love and appreciation shown for Rod Serling's 1968 script, is what makes it work. And sequels can be made, just like in the 70s, because it is the APES' story, just like it always was.

If I'd seen this movie when I was a kid, I'd be loping on all fours like a charging gorilla or jumping out of trees and off furniture for weeks, all while emulating Thade's savage up-from-under glare. What Burton does is make me remember how great I thought Cornelius and Dr. Zeus was when I was an ankle-biter. Apes ruled then, and they rule now.

This is a movie made during a time when writers, novelists, like Clavell and Crichton, were allowed to make their own films. What you have are literate, probing plots and stories, sometimes failed by low budgets or

lack of experience. With LAST VALLEY, there's an otherworldly quality to Clavell's work, steepled in strict historical fact; Clavell postulates a fantasy valley where humans live hidden from the brutality and horror of war; they are genetic angels, of a sort, but those in control are wise to the ways of a world ruled by knife. A band of soldiers, lacking a country or

home to call their home, caught in the hurricane of this war, stumble into a seeming Elysian Fields and begin to infect it with pragmatic survival and certain doom. The ways of human beings as a mass descend on the slight-populated community.

People criticize the film as dark, equating realism. Fact is, Clavell shows a contrast between the world Michael Caine, as the Captain, knows and is scarred by, and the hidden land in which beautiful women and children are protected, fed and safe. Caine's Captain has been a wanton butcher in the war, the murderer of women and children. Yet he only understands the quality of this paradise after he has nearly destroyed it.

The most telling sequences are those in which these men from outside the hidden land, knowing the damage they are causing to this one place where beautiful women can live unraped and men as equals, are forced to leave. The women in love with them wish to accompany them into the horror the men know. Caine, in particular, leaves his lover under a false sense of security, believing she will be safe. His heart-breaking understanding of this woman's loyalty to him, bred in her by a hidden land where love can be expressed devoid of force and tragedy, comes only in the end; his last touch with this lover is with a glove made of armor, outfitted for the killing he will do once he leaves the valley and rejoins the war.

There is probably the great performance of Caine's career up on screen in this film. Outside of GET CARTER, you'll never see Caine inhabit a role more fully. Even if the scope of the story gets away from Clavell at the end, and could have benefitted from the expanded format of SHOGUN say, this is a big-time view of a great actor in Caine and a literate script from Clavell that will, without doubt, remain fixed in the mind.

This is a superb kung-fu film, complete with some of the most incredible fight scenes ever filmed, with everything that makes a movie fun, illogical, and mind-blowing. Kung-fu lepers, a great Lo Lieh villain who can impersonate anyone using secret agent disguises, Gordon Liu as a good-natured hero with the wickedest moves you ever will see, a plot so wild and convoluted but infused with so much energy and enthusiasm that you couldn't care less. The comedy is genuinely funny, the fights harrowing, and all the actors dynamic.

The story involves a stranger, Liu, searching for a treasure stolen from him by Lo Lieh, a master of disguise. Liu meets two hard-headed criminal-types who agree to help Liu recover his treasure, in order to become wealthy men. Thus begins the three adventurers quest to find the invisible thief Lieh and the treasure. What ensues is a series of fantastic one-on-one conflicts between this thief and Liu, who turn out to be more than mere men, but representatives in a duel that has gone on hundreds of years before they were born.

Highlights abound, and in one of the many fabulous kung-fu conflicts, Liu and a masked assassin battle in a locked-room in which neither can make a noise without risking instant death. The scene is so well-edited and remarkably choreographed that it becomes otherworldly, with every savage blow and flawless technique, down to the stifling of pained exhalations, creating an unforgettable moment that makes you smile whenever you think about it.

This movie is undeniable, heartfelt enjoyment. A top-ten choice for any kung-fu movie fan trying to point out the best in the genre. Pure greatness.

EAGLE'S FIST is a big story, with a complex plan launched by a dying kung-fu teacher to stop an awesome white-haired super-villain trying to destroy the teacher's Eagle's Claw school. Cha Ma-Wu, the super-villain, is a master of Eagle's Claw, and Mantis Fist, and his thugs are out-fitted with his cruel pragmatism. In a way the kung-fu technique on-screen is secondary to the emotional and intellectual battles going on, as students betray their teachers, become outcasts and then enemies of their one-time allies. There are so many twisting, turning motivations that

are required in order to combat the evil Cha Ma-Wu, due to the super-villain's brainy approach to destruction: I've read elsewhere that Cha Ma-Wu is above all a James Bond villain, vastly superior and egotistical, using genius to subvert others to his will. That's what's going on for most of this movie.

It will be noted also that Chang Yi, the actor playing Cha Ma-Wu, looks a lot like John Hurt (ALIEN, ROB ROY), slightly reptilian, definitely

radiating a higher class of murderous butcher.

This is a very top-level kung-fu film, longer and meatier, with some interesting character development and a superb final battle with Cha Ma-Wu. There's flying bodies and enough animal kung-fu and spurting wounds to match every plot point. Solid.

Despite the superhero analogies, DARKMAN is grandson to classic monsters of the 40s and 50s, Gill Man, Frankenstein (what difference does it make to call him 'Frankenstein's MONSTER'? We know he's a monster, and since he is a wholly new being created by the Doc then, technically, the Monster is the Doc's child, and a Frankenstein).

Darkman is a monster, a man caught in an explosion, his nerves

deadened by surgeons to prevent him from feeling the awful pain of his horrifying burns. Dr. Westlake, the victim, gains psychotic strength and cunning in his now-dead body; he goes to exact revenge against the thugs who 'murdered' him and gave birth to Westlake's Incredible Hulk, a raging man in a Shadow overcoat and hat, with Mummy bandages on face and hands.

What connects Darkman to his monster lineage is his loyal and passionate love for a beautiful woman, Westlake's girlfriend McDormand, a woman he can never be with because of the physiological destruction of his body and face: he isn't even human any longer, using his brilliant scientific mind to 'mimic' human beings, and his own unscarred visage, and finding failure because his creation, synthetic skin, lasts only an hour before the cells break apart and the skin dissolves.

Westlake has lost his one true love, who is in grave danger from the same thugs, and even though he wants to protect her from the killers, he also stubbornly tries to protect his last fragile connection to McDormand; she cannot be allowed to see the monster he has become, the night avenger gleefully dispatching his enemies in Phantom of the Opera-style attacks, all the while longing for his lover from the shadows.

This is a Raimi movie with Raimi camera and dialogue, b-movie iconography, and honest love for monsters who, in the end, are really not monsters but all-too-human under the fur, stitches, or bandages; it's the human part that gets to the monsters: the love of the woman, the gentleness that shows the monster's one weak spot and allows it to be killed. Again, in DARKMAN, Westlake

falters like every movie monster, trying to not be a monster. Stepping into the light, his horrific face is a gory death's mask; yet it is the eyes that betray what Westlake believes he has lost: his humanity. An excellent character in a kinetic, fast-paced movie. A joy.

No doubt designed to make a fast buck in the 50s, you still get the Gill Man, one of the coolest of all monster designs ever, and a woman to throw cars for and swim thousands of miles for in beautiful Lori Nelson.

Even in a production without much life, the Gill Man still seems

powerful and mysterious, and his biological drive to mate with Ms. Nelson is interesting considering the long lineage of sympathetic monsters in love with knock-out blondes and brunettes. Sadly, the idea of the monster, the tragic beast longing for what is impossible to him (Wolf Man, King Kong, the Mummy) is a distant memory in filmdom. There was the recent DARK MAN, and Nicholson's WOLF, but these are obvious throw-backs to a time when monsters were more than scurrying guerrillas attacking from the shadows or machine-like mass murderers who cannot be killed. I won't count fluffy-haired vampires, whose allure as suave parasites is not "monstrous". A monster, in classic terms, in love with a beautiful woman, is denied her by the facts of their existence. Either because of grotesqueness or species-differences,

the monster endures pain, capture, and often death in his attempt to carry a Lori Nelson in his arms through a moonlit swamp.

In REVENGE the Gill Man is probed, prodded, and stared at by tourists, definitely the worst fate, though this allows the Creature to establish a magnetic attraction to Lori Nelson. You get a great escape, more Lori Nelson in bathing suits, a big bohunk who has an unhealthy fetish with wrestling the Gill Man hand-to-hand, and lots more Lori Nelson in a bathing suit. What you don't do is watch this movie for any reason but to see the Gill Man thrash in the water and smack

bohunks...and if you're a fan of the Creature and classic monsters, you'll understand the tragic consequences when you're a walking fish-man who's half-man enough to love a human woman, and whose tears probably would never show, in the depths of the deepest lagoons.

Ignore the dreck comments about this movie, and especially anything

which connects LULU to JACOB'S LADDER, a film whose ending so completely and utterly sucked that you could feel the wind for miles. Talk about pretentious, mechanical drivel (JACOB'S ending will forever be a cheap out, even to the most lame-brained b-movie hack writers who'd have sniffed such a metaphysical cop-out coming for half the movie). But enough about JACOB'S LADDER.

LULU is written by a writer, directed by a writer, and features a male character, a directionless Jazz sax player whose life is scum-slathered, gray rest-rooms beneath dungeon-like clubs in NY; one night he sees the photograph of a beautiful woman he does not know taped to a wall while taking a leak. Harvey Keitel is nearly assassinated onstage by a demented shooter in the audience. After that, his entire life changes, he meets the beautiful girl, and he worships her.

Here's the thing: Keitel WORSHIPS her, this woman, her beauty, the preternatural immenseness. This young woman captures the hard face of Keitel in her hands and is fulfilled by him, a man like him with nothing to equal what she is, not even his music; in fact, his music means nothing, it is merely how he is able to elevate himself out of the thick dirty rest-room so that this woman can see him and (through a transcendental mutual encounter with a glowing rock, about the only way a man like Keitel might have a chance to be with her: by pure coincidence) love him for his kindness and total devotion and loyalty.

Auster's a novelist; he writes damn fine movies. He's not trying to mimic or reproduce "real life". He's a writer who understands the power of a two-dimensional character or situation hit by a 3D meteor from beyond their understanding, and the character's emergence as a human being from that instant of understanding. LULU ON THE BRIDGE is a poignant, believable, and wrenching story of adoration for a woman who seems to drop down like a UFO, all mystery and the unknown (as the connection is made to Louise Brook's dark mistress from PANDORA'S BOX) to abduct Keitel and show him things he'd never know, in his lonely night world. It's pointed out that only once before did the man Keitel plays encounter glowing beauty, and desire it as a child,

trying to catch fireflies and put them in a jar, to look at. He was never able to catch his own fireflies, and it is that haunting symbol of loss, that empty jar, that is the grown man who is filled by the beautiful woman from nowhere. And then the jar shatters.

A great movie.

Kitano cripples the senses and jars the nerves in his films. This is a movie about a two-fisted cop whose blunt face and cliff's edge personality drive every scene, even the ones Kitano is not in. Kitano's character is not reacting to a violent world, but infecting it with his own brand of violence. The "violent cop" has lost his hope, therefore he fears nothing.

Kitano as director gives us a real world of humor and interaction. Events happen, there's no plot. Every scene has this pulse that is raging, the characters even when still seem kinetic as sprinters. Punches, kicks, and bullets explode bodies. Kitano's character clashes with a psychotic hit man, but it is Kitano's cop who is out of control, unstoppable in his desire to inflict justice as he sees it.

There's scenes which cannot be forgotten: Kitano's cop

interrogates a punk drug dealer in a club rest room. These two actors go through a scene in which Kitano slaps this man over and over until he talks. The difference is that Kitano is really slapping this actor, and slapping living hell out of him. Cringe-worthy, and up there with one of the other scenes that illustrates what a hard man Kitano is: stabbed with a knife, Kitano grips the blade as it comes out of him, clinching his fist down on it so he cannot be stabbed again. Blood pours out from between his fingers, he cannot let it go because his fist and knife are one; Kitano understands the brutality of the fight, the reality of two men trying to kill each other, no quips, no words, no yells or curses, just blood and rage; cut to the bone, it's the way the whole film makes you feel.

As far as the recent BROTHER is concerned, it makes perfect sense for Kitano to use similar themes seen in his earlier films. BROTHER is Kitano's first real attack on American audiences. They, en mass, haven't seen his stuff, and if Kitano's going over old ground, he's doing it in HIS style. Better a retread Kitano than most of Hollywood's slobbering star-cramped idiocy.

The story here is revenge, more real-life based, a 1950's version of the crime of passion. A teenager's good-hearted father is beaten to a pulp by a gangster, so the kid invades the streets to get some payback. The father's not worried about the floor-wiping, which leads to a mystery behind the teen's mother, who skipped out on the family long ago, and a woman the father knows who has committed suicide.

Seeing this film, there's not much in terms of plot, but there are some notable scenes, particularly when the kid hears a beautiful night-club singer, becomes entranced, gets a chance to meet her on the street, and tells her how beautiful she is. Even though she's, you know,

black. The pain in the singer's face rends the poor kid, who was transported by her voice, but can't get beyond her skin color.

This film also has one of THE great lines ever in any film noir or any movie period, at least concerning the tragedy between a man and a woman, when there is love involved. There are no words more powerful or poignant, especially for a man who loves a woman beyond reason, who knows he has lost the love of his life. Unable to move on, to love or marry another woman after that one woman has destroyed him, and in fact still very much in love with his destroyer,

Preston Foster tells his son, "Sometimes a man loves one woman in the whole world. If she turns out to be the wrong one, well...that's just tough." Truly, the heart of noir is not blackness, but the white-hot scars of passion.

Here's an icon of horror film, from another time in movies altogether, today sneered at and ridiculed for not being a slime-producing blood-letter created by CGI effects or whatever tedious animation is used to create monsters these days.

This is a tragedy involving a 1940s brute played simply and eagerly by Lon Chaney. He encounters a supernatural creature, a werewolf

committing a gruesome murder, and in attempting to stop it is himself bitten and cursed.

The Wolf Man is Chaney unleashed, and that is frightening in itself. Chaney is a huge man, suddenly a raving blood-thirsty psychotic. With claws. But in direct contrast to his size, Chaney is gentle, soft-spoken, and horrified at what he becomes. He loves a girl, but he is a monster even in human form: he cannot die, and when he is the Wolf Man he will try to hunt and kill the girl. Chaney's soul has been stolen, his life, and any chance for being a man, a father, or a lover.

Chaney is heart-broken, and that is the most powerful image in this movie. This is all about Chaney, a story built around his size, the

imposing violence of a lunatic who cannot be killed by normal means, a man who just wants to put his arm around a girl while strolling on a foggy night, to protect her. What if the worst thing in that fog is himself? Knowing that, Chaney's performance is THE performance to witness the true horror of an ordinary man turned into an undying monster, and how much an immortal can suffer.