Cinema is Dope

In perhaps a really bad secret, I’m out at the Berlinale/European Film Market this year. Todd Brown at Twitch (trailer) posted the incredible trailer for the Thai film Chocolate. I was perhaps incredibly skeptical and hesitant if the film could out due its trailer. Some films just are great trailers and lousy films.

I can confirm with 100% certainty that Chocolate kicks unbelievable ass. At this point if this is the only film that comes out this year I’ll be happy. I haven’t gotten to see a movie that got me on such an euphoric wave in a good while. As far as females kicking ass movies, it’s the best one I’ve ever seen. I think my previous favorite female kicking ass movie was Yes, Madam with Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock.

The lead female actress forms some kind of hybrid between Tony Jaa and Bruce Lee (in spots). Mostly they play to her own strengths (which you have to see to believe) and really never tries to rival either Tony or Bruce. The story is slight, but the broad spectrum of characters and scenarios more than complete the film into an absolute marvel and one of the absolute treats of 2008 cinema.

The last action sequence of the film, which is only oh so slightly shown in the trailer is staggering and had me on the edge of my seat. I lost track I was only watching a movie as bad guys fall with next to no safety several stories to a hard pavement. It really reminds me of some ways of the earlier 80’s Jackie Chan films where pulling off cool fights and fight sequences trumped any form of safety. Even more so than anything in Ong Bak, this film puts action firmly in its sights and seeks to raise the bar and leave every damn action film in recent memory in the dust.

Luckily the trailer doesn’t give too much away, be prepared for Chocolate. I will rejoice and bask in this film again and again and again. Which is a welcome change with so many action films of late I forget the moment I walk out the door or instantly buy on DVD, to never watch again.

As a side note I was absolutely stunned at the amount of full on contact fighting that takes place in the film and the amount of real weapons and objects (like real locker doors) that are used throughout the film. I’m so used to films play fighting and having fake props, that it takes a film like this to wake me up to what an action film can be when all bets are off and everything is set within real fighting, places and objects.

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*** NON-SPOILER QUICK TAKE ***

Gushonure hitozuma kyôshi - Seifuku de idaite” aka “Despite All That” is an earlier “pink” film from director Shinji IMAOKA’s (Uncle’s Paradise). At the core you can tell this is a Imaoka film as it displays his knack for cutting black humor (there are some really funny moments in it) and his very direct way of exploring relationships. In Despite we have a couple that have grown apart with growing inimical behavior that threatens to undermine everything. They have reached that perilous relationship crossroad where two might feel they are on a highway in a car that is slowly creaking forward, out of gas and this in fact just might be as good as it will ever be. Which is to say the point of a relationship where all the sparks have died and both parties internally start to wonder, “what else is there? is this how the rest of my life will be with chirping crickets outside the most exciting part of my day?”

Imaoka cleverly plays off this premise in only ways that he alone could pull off. He balances an extremely tough juggling act between delivering the required sex and nudity, providing fruitful bushels his roaring black humor and delivering several moments of searing drama. Instead of using the outrageous elements he used so well in Paradise, here he instead offers several touching human moments of longing and love. These human moments just like the outrageous moments did in Paradise really help transcend this movie well above the run of the mill.

The couple starts off trying to rekindle sparks by pushing their boundaries by opening up to their inner perversions. Once this is unleashed it instead has the opposite effect and spirals everything out of control and puts their relationship completely on the brink of failure. Ultimately Imaoka shows that no amount of perversion or opening of our fantasy selfs will save a relationship that can’t even get love right. If your not loving each other right, then nothing else is going to work. In the end its not the dark recesses of their eroticism that saves them but their dramatic turn to try and love again first… and then turn out the lights and get kinky.

Imaoka continues to shape a solid filmography that hopefully will start getting more deserved attention and word of mouth. The implicit directness and quirks he realizes onscreen of the human mind and spirit continue to dazzle well beyond what one might think the confines of making a “pink film” might allow.

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Austin audiences will be able to catch Shinji IMAOKA’s “Uncle’s Paradise” at this years Fantastic Fest (September 20-27).

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