Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Nominated for two Oscars, the winner of a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film and China’s only winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Farewell My Concubine gets an about time too release on crisp Blu-ray from the BFI this month. Nearly a quarter of a century since its release, is it worthy of its honours? 

Set against a turbulent 50-year history of the political and social upheaval in China from the mid 1920s to the 1970s, (so that’s the Warlord era, the Japanese invasion of China, the Communist victory and the horrors of the Cultural Revolution), a series of love affairs plays out with increasingly tragic results.

Unable to care for her son in the brothel where she works, a young mother goes to drastic measures to get her boy inside a terrifying but prestigious school, where pupils are taught the ways of acting and the Peking Opera. Or, more accurately, beaten, stretched, deprived and even sexually abused into the ways of the acting profession. Little Douzi, stoic but effeminate, is befriended immediately by the exuberant, strong and confident Shitou, and the first section of the film deals with their training and the bond that grows between the two children. It’s a beautiful, compelling first act.

Cut to the point where the two inseparable friends are China’s greatest stars of the Peking Opera, renowned and worshipped for their performances of classics of the form, including the most majestic opera of all, Farewell My Concubine. Douzi plays the female roles, and their companionship is solid until Shitou takes a wife. The rest of the film sees the characters tested as their worlds change around them and loyalty becomes a matter of life and death. 

With all of the high drama, exaggerated emotion and archetypal characters of an opera itself, this film is a magnificent piece of work, triumphantly balancing the personal and political, resulting in a work as moving as it is enlightening.

In the three central roles, the cast is incredible. Zhang Fengyi is the solid, reliable backbone of the triangle, whilst Gong Li shines as the woman who comes between the two friends. But it’s the late Leslie Cheung, who astonishes as the feminine star who never stops performing, on and off stage, carrying the weight of a lifelong, deeply felt love, unrequited outside of the boundaries of friendship. And therein lies the true drama of the piece. Shitou knows that Douzi has always been in love with him, and so does his wife, but this can be neither acted upon nor spoken of. As the cultural norms within which these characters have lived their lives, become the cultural enemies of the people, betrayal of those you love becomes a means to survive. 

It’s heartbreaking, more so because you know you’re watching events the like of which would really have happened. 

But there’s another love affair brilliantly portrayed in the film, and it’s that between China and its beloved Peking Opera, a strange art form, which you find yourself falling for as the film progresses. 

Revolutions come and go, but heritage this powerful will always find a voice. 

FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE (1993) / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: CHEN KAIGE / SCREENPLAY: LILIAN LEE, LU WEI / STARRING: LESLIE CHEUNG, ZHANG FENGYI, GONG LI / RELEASE DATE: 21ST MARCH

Both interesting and flawed, The Hallow is the latest independent horror movie directed and co-written by Corin Hardy, who makes his feature debut here. The film takes place at a remote house within an Irish woodland settlement, which is homed to a couple with a young baby, and the father is surveying the forest for a development project. Despite warnings from the local residents, he finds a mysterious black oily substance, which turns out to be a cordyceps-like parasite, and from that, hordes of demonic creatures that prey upon the lost arise. Alone and deep within the darkness, the couple must now fight back to protect their son against the relentless attacks by these ancient forces.

For a debut feature, what Hardy has ended up with is an uneven eco-themed horror flick. One of the aspects where the film succeeds is in its realisation of the monsters; the effects are well executed, and the design and mannerisms are creepily eerie and unnerving. However, the film is at its strongest when it doesn’t have to deal with creatures, but instead deals more with its brooding sense of menace and despair. That is also embodied well in the performances, with Joseph Mawle buying into the ordeal that his character goes through, while Bojana Novakovic buys into the danger of their situation.

The rest of the small cast don’t get that much to do, with Michael Smiley included only to spout Basil-exposition in a thankless cameo. The film falters when it attempts to reconcile its fantasy narrative of bad fairies with the edgy, home invasion sequences, which obviously owes a debt to Straw Dogs. At one point it reaches a level of shrieking hysteria during the film’s middle section, but the film finds a hard job in maintaining that momentum towards the end.

However, even though the film as a whole doesn’t quite hang together, there are still individual elements and set pieces that are genuinely arresting, including the night-time sequence set by a creepy lake, which has an atmosphere that is altogether impressive, spine-chilling and weird all at the same time. The film’s concepts and locales pay homage to past horror movies and thrillers, such as Deliverance, with its eco themes and the devils of the woodland obviously inspired by The Evil Dead.

So in the end, The Hallow is a flawed, yet interesting, film that benefits from solid performances, impressive creature effects and moments of genuine intrigue and atmosphere. Not everything in the film comes together and it is ultimately rough around the edges, but because of how strong some the individual elements are, this film does promise big things for Corin Hardy’s future.

THE HALLOW / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: CORIN HARDY / SCREENPLAY: CORIN HARDY, FELIPE MARINO / STARRING: JOSEPH MAWLE, BOJANA NOVAKOVIC, MICHAEL MCELHATTON, MICHAEL SMILEY / RELEASE DATE: 21ST MARCH

What do you get if you mix a tragic tale of young love in a fantasy setting, with all the tricks and trades of your average anime? You get a sure-fire hit, if the fandom of Kyoto Animation’s Beyond the Boundary is anything to go by.

Blending high school romance with Potter-esque fantasy, Beyond the Boundary follows the awkward monster-battling shenanigans of semi-perverted Akihito and the terminally bumbling Mirai Kuriyama. Given the fact that Akihito is a half-human half-youmu and Mirai is a warrior who can summon a gigantic sword from her own blood, it’s no wonder Beyond the Boundary has such a devoted fanbase. The duo cross paths when Mirai attempts to kill Akihito, but the pair soon bond over the deadly fate the world is plunged into, thanks to the oncoming storm of youmu monsters.

What sounds like a promising, if not entirely original, set-up becomes rapidly hampered by the fact that Beyond the Boundary is littered with instances, where a plot appears to have been completely forgotten about. The overall story starts off with enough interest, but then slugs in the middle, becoming a far more episodic affair, whilst the motives of the various heroes and villains quickly descend into vagueness after their introductions. However, it can be argued (and boy, if you try to talk smack about Beyond the Boundary, you’ll certainly have a hell of a fandom to argue with!) that such things are deliberately vague, and that it all works as a platform to demonstrate the evolving, inevitable romance between Mirai and Akihito.

It’s a sweet enough thing to watch develop episode after episode, but those going into Beyond the Boundary hoping for a fresh, riveting story will have to search elsewhere in Kyoto’s portfolio. There’s nothing wrong with the story as such, overall it’s perfectly enjoyable fantasy fodder. However, there’s just not enough grip on proceedings to make it an emotionally convincing ride for the viewer, and the finale is a confusing, lacklustre affair.

Still, Beyond the Boundary just about hooks the viewer till the end with its entertainment value, and has other strong elements going for it. The muscularity of its diverse cast strengthens the show enormously, and its offbeat humour strikes at the right moments. But where Beyond the Boundary really comes into its own is the animation. Gorgeously rich in colour and vivid detail, it has a spring in its step that compliments the action, the fantasy and the drama to the point where it masks the misfires of the plot.

Beyond the Boundary is a bit beyond comprehension in the story-telling department, and the whole thing may just be little more than an excuse to show us how Akihito and Mirai slowly but surely fall for each other. Despite all the show’s failures, it still has a bit of flair and kick to it. A shame then that it doesn’t have much else.

BEYOND THE BOUNDARY: COMPLETE SEASON COLLECTION / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: TAICHI ISHIDATE / SCREENPLAY: JUKKI HANADA / STARRING: TANEDA RISA, CHIHARA MINORI, YAMAOKA YURI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Writer / director Neil Jordan has had something of a rollercoaster career, scoring enormous critical, influential and even financial successes, with films made at home in the UK and Ireland (including The Company of Wolves), but generally running adrift when he’s tried to replicate that success Stateside. Michael Collins was his first film after the lukewarm Interview with the Vampire; itself following Jordan’s surprise hit The Crying Game. Coming three years after Jim Sheridan’s highly acclaimed In the Name of the Father, Jordan was able to bag the budget he required to properly tell the story of the birth of the IRA as we know it (there are something like 4,000 extras involved in this) – and Michael Collins is easily his most impassioned and best film.

Liam Neeson is Collins, a freedom fighter in Northern Ireland who first comes to our attention during the Easter Rising of 1916. The film then charts the course of the next six years, essentially following three relationships of Collins’; with his second-in-command Harry Boland (Aidan Quinn), and the woman who shares their affections, Kitty Kiernan (Julia Roberts, attempting to redefine her career in the wake of Pretty Woman). Most importantly, Jordan draws the distinctions between the aims and methods of Collins and his president Eamon de Valera (Alan Rickman), the relationship that is basically responsible for the tragedy inherent in the story.

Neeson, in his forties portraying a man who died before his thirtieth birthday, nonetheless brings a youthful, cocky charm to the de facto Irish leader, and while Collins’ keen intelligence isn’t as clear, the actor does demonstrate why so many were so willing to follow Collins into battle. The supporting cast are excellent, but for the occasional dodgy Irish accent, although the concentration on Collins’ and Boland’s relationship with Kitty does detract from the main story, suggesting Jordan was keen to court a mainstream audience to a film that didn’t need a “Hollywood romance”. In fact, in this improved transfer (the 20th anniversary edition finally replaces Warners’ early flipper disc release), both the film’s strengths and weaknesses are emphasised; the intercutting between Collins and Kitty’s developing bond during Collins’ “night of the long knives” is almost a distraction too far, and Jordan’s problems with pacing and narrative consistency are as apparent here as elsewhere. 

Nevertheless, Michael Collins is a significant achievement, a project imbued with a righteous anger that surfaced two years before the Good Friday Agreement was reached. While history might have been condensed and occasionally subject to supposition (the facts surrounding Collins’ death have never been fully established), this is a powerful story and one that has been told about as well as it might have been. A very welcome reissue.

Special Features: trailer / deleted scenes / director’s commentary / Neil Jordan interview / South Bank Show

MICHAEL COLLINS (20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: NEIL JORDAN / SCREENPLAY: NEIL JORDAN / STARRING: LIAM NEESON, JULIA ROBERTS, AIDAN QUINN, ALAN RICKMAN, IAN HART, STEPHEN REA, CHARLES DANCE / RELEASE DATE: 7TH MARCH

Any attempt to bring obscure and unfamiliar films to a new audience is to be admired, and with this new box set, Arrow are proving themselves once again. In this collection, titled as the American Horror Project Volume 1, they have grouped together three films that you may well have heard of, but have likely never seen.

The Witch Who Came In From The Sea is one release made infamous for having been initially banned in the video nasties cull of the early 1980’s. Although an attempted prosecution failed, Matt Cimber’s film still became embroiled in the witch hunt (apologies) brought by the Department Of Public Prosecutions. In truth, The Witch is less a horror film and more of a tragically dark drama focussing on the consequences of child sex abuse, and featuring a woman whose grasp on reality fails, as she slips into madness. Whatever it’s fraught history, The Witch is one of the more interesting films of that tortuous period, and features an engaging performance from Millie Perkins; better known for lead role in The Diary Of Anne Frank.

The next film in the collection, The Premonition is also more psychological thriller than true horror, but it does tap into a parent’s inherent fear of child abduction. When a child’s mentally unbalanced mother kidnaps her, it falls on the foster parents to track her down with the help of a parapsychologist. What follows is an examination of the slide into an irresistible insanity. The inclusion of a malevolent clown only adds to the fearful imagery but The Premonition becomes a little too confused in the latter stages, by its own premise, to truly frighten or intrigue.

The final film is Maletesta’s Carnival Of Blood and this is a different beast altogether. Ignoring traditional narrative and plotting for surreal imagery supplemented by callous, random acts of violence, this is a film that bewitches you with its occasionally misguided sense of gory adventure. The central concept revolves around the Norris family taking jobs at a rundown and unloved fairground that is presciently skeletal in appearance. Quickly they discover there is something sinister going on behind the scenes, and that this could turn into a very short employment period indeed. Wonderfully random and unavoidably enjoyable, Maletesta’s Carnival Of Blood is the real macabre treat in this collection.

What really makes this set worthwhile, as you would expect with an Arrow release, are the extras. With a multitude of interviews, booklets, scripts and commentaries, this is a box set worthy of any horror fan’s collection. Even if you, by chance, own any of the included films, you still won’t regret spending a few pounds here.

AMERICAN HORROR PROJECT VOLUME 1 / CERT: 18 / DIRECTORS: MATT CIMBER, CHRISTOPHER SPEETH, ROBERT ALLAN SCHNITZER / SCREENPLAY: WERNER LIEPOLT, ROBERT THOM, ANTHONY MAHON, LOUIS PASTORE, ROBERT ALLAN SCHNITZER / STARRING: LONNY CHAPMAN, MILLIE PERKINS, JANINE CARAZO, HERVE VILLECHAIZE, SHARON FARRELL / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Opinion on the most recent seasons of Doctor Who is subjective to say the least. For every fan that thinks that the series, under showrunner Steven Moffat, has become a string of woolly, lumbering, navel-gazing, repetitive, one-note stories devoid of thrill, excitement or incident, there’s one who thinks he’s elevated it to a higher form of art. Regardless of opinion, though, what’s inarguable is that this most recent season is where the show’s casual audience finally started losing interest in the latest incarnation of TV’s most enduring Time Lord’s adventures in Space and Time.

It’s frustrating because the ingredients are all here and, as ever with Doctor Who, there’s potential for something very special if only the alchemy can be made to work. In Peter Capaldi we have an astonishingly versatile and enthusiastic actor – and long-time fan – gifted the role of his dreams but often given half-hearted material to work with and an inconsistent characterisation, thanks to whoever’s tasked with piecing together the latest underwhelming adventure. He’s not helped this season by the terrible desperation of a production team who refashioned his first year’s grumpy, snappy but generally unpopular persona into a vaguely-embarrassing Rock God, much given to brandishing an electric guitar, sporting sonic shades (a temporary replacement for the much-abused sonic screwdriver) and wearing hoodies, in the mistaken belief that kids will identify with him because he looks and behaves like them. It demeans both Capaldi and the Doctor. But the actor sometimes rises magnificently above the mediocrity of the material; he’s been rightly applauded for his bravura delivery of the ‘anti-war’ speech in The Zygon Inversion and he carries Moffat’s pompous single-hander Heaven Sent, with a zest and verve it doesn’t really deserve.

Other regulars in the series make little impact. Jenna Coleman’s Clara remains a blank page (her ‘death’ in Face the Raven is uncomfortably unemotional and, when it’s reversed a couple of episodes later, utterly pointless), Michelle Gomez’s Missy returns too soon in the dreadful two-part season opener and has already worn out her welcome, now recrafted into a typical Moffat quip-machine and, despite enthusiasm from the dustier corners of fandom, it’s hard to get worked up about the reappearances of new UNIT stalwarts Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Redgrave) and Osgood (Ingrid Oliver) – the latter killed in season eight but, predictably, resurrected here and with a twin sister to boot – because despite a number of appearances in the last few years, no attempt has been made to put flesh on their bones or make them seem like real, believable people in a real, believable world.

But of course Steven Moffat isn’t interested in real, believable worlds. His vision for the series remains pure fairytale and in series nine we’re treated to stories about ghosts, sleep-monsters, comedy Vikings and an immortal teenagers drifting through Time. Fortunately there’s nothing as insultingly appalling here as season eight’s twee In The Forest of the Night (although 2015’s Christmas special The Husbands of River Song, included here along 2014’s tiresome Last Christmas, comes dangerously close) but neither is there anything to match the wit, invention and pure joy of much of the work of Moffat’s predecessor Russell T Davies. The structure of the series relies largely on two-part episodes but there’s really little enough story for one episode and even the gimmick of shifting the tone and even the location of the second episode of some of these extended stories, can’t disguise the thinness of the narratives. The best episodes are those not written by Moffat – the showrunner’s efforts now constantly revisit old themes, and he just can’t leave the show’s history and chronology alone – but even those episodes can’t escape the sense of ennui and stagnation, which now permeates a show which has, temporarily we hope, run right out of steam. Change is in the air, of course, for the 2018 season but for now season nine may be a must-buy for completists but casual viewers are likely to give this one a miss, just as most of them did when it was screened on TV.

In fairness, the box set does boast a generous four hours of special features. Most of them are BBC puff-pieces; the online ‘Doctor Who Extra’ making-of snippets for each episode, some DVD-exclusive pieces on Clara’s ‘journey’, the Daleks and an interesting but brief segment on how new writer Sarah Dollard came to contribute her first script Face the Raven. Add the 2015 ComiCon panel, Star Trek’s Will Wheaton interviewing Capaldi, three breezy commentaries (including Mark Gatiss and Reece Sheersmith on Gatiss’ Sleep No More), trailers and deleted scenes and you’ve got plenty of Who bang for your buck – but you might want to take a pass on ‘The Fan Show’ compilation, hosted by an irredeembably smug fan, who really has far too much access to the Doctor Who Team than is really healthy, and has far too high an opinion of herself, clearly thinking she is a comic genius. Word to the wary; she isn’t.

DOCTOR WHO – THE COMPLETE NINTH SERIES / CERT: 12 / DIRECTORS: VARIOUS / SCREENPLAY: STEVEN MOFFATT, TOBY WHITHOUSE, JAMIE MATHIESON, PETER HARNESS, CATHERINE TREGENNA, MARK GATISS, SARAH DOLLAR / STARRING: PETER CAPALDI, JENNA COLEMAN, MAISIE WILLIAMS, MICHELLE GOMEZ, JEMMA REDGRAVE / RELEASE DATE: 7TH MARCH

A curious forerunner to Irwin Allen’s better-known 1961 feature Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (which spawned a long-running 1960s TV series), The Atomic Submarine rises above its cheesy acting, bargain basement special effects (even for the 1950s) and silly one-eyed monster – it’ll remind you of Kang and Kodos from the Halloween Simpsons episodes – and is actually a decent, heartily-entertaining wander down the less-travelled back roads of black-and-white monster movies.

The supersub SS Tigershark is sent on an exploratory mission, but when shipping in the busy Arctic Circle trading routes comes under mysterious attack. Despite personality clashes – there’s a pesky pacifist scientist on board, which leads to some unexpectedly sophisticated discussions about the horror of war and the benefits of peace – the crew rub along well enough, until they arrive at their destination and find that the attacks are the work of a flying saucer (quite literally) lurking underwater. Conventional missiles have no effect on the UFO, so the ship’s Captain Dick Wendover (Foran) has no choice but to ram the sub straight into the alien craft. A boarding party enters the extra-terrestrial vessel and stumbles upon a malevolent – and only slightly silly – alien presence, which explains that its purpose on Earth is to take human specimens back to its home planet for examination, to allow its race to return to take over the Earth. Crikey!

The Atomic Submarine is brisk, no-nonsense stuff, a cheap independent movie whose ambition is clearly way beyond its meagre budget. In amongst the stock footage, there’s some laudable if unconvincing model work (and a couple of surprisingly-graphic death sequences), and the cast generally consists of slightly over-the-hill, paunchy, middle-aged actors who mercifully don’t spend too much time mooning over much younger girls, often the case in 1950s B-Movies whose financial resources couldn’t stretch to hiring more appropriate younger up-and-coming talent. Running to just 73 minutes, there’s no time for the pace to flag and whilst The Atomic Submarine is hardly a classic of its era or its genre, it’s an engagingly-naïve yarn, which is unlikely to tax your patience and will, if nothing else, provide a few laughs at its low-rent production and over-earnest performances.

THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE (1959) / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: SPENCER GORDON BENNET / SCREENPLAY: ORVILLE H HAMPTON / STARRING: ARTHUR FRANZ, DICK FORAN, BRETT HALSEY, PAUL DOBOV, BOB STEELE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Written, directed and produced by Jeremy Berg, The Device is a horror/sci-fi hybrid about two sisters, Abby and Rebecca, returning home after a long time away and deciding to revisit a place from their childhood with a husband, Calvin. As they walk through the woods to an open lake, they notice and discover a small, black, spherical object lying on the ground. The three, tentatively, take the sphere home, but when terrifying things begin to happen to them, including severe nightmares, they soon start to regret having ever found it.

The film appears to be in the mould of the traditional alien abduction movies like 2009’s The Fourth Kind, with elements of Under the Skin and Rosemary’s Baby thrown in for good measure. At one point Rebecca says this is like an X-Files story, but it’s not, mainly because The X-Files was great and had stories that were coherent and cut to the chase. This is a three-hander with perfectly adequate performances and the whole thing is well shot with strong atmosphere, but it is ultimately quite boring. This feels way too slow, which would be okay if it had pace, but it doesn’t. It plods along, and while there are glimpses of a good idea in there, you wish that the film would just get to the point.

To be fair, it’s admirable that Berg decided to make an alien movie that focused very little on the aliens and much more on the people who were being affected by the unfortunate and coincidental events as we watched everything unfold before us. But yet you get the sense that you have some of these ideas done before and done so much better. There are no big sci-fi questions posed or presented here, and there’s no horror to go with that either. Plus, it has one of the worst alien makeups of all time as you can clearly tell it’s a bloke in a suit.

In the end, The Device does have three decent performances and solid cinematography, but the positives easily get lost in a sea of problems. The pacing is far too slow and meandering, it’s unfortunately clichéd, and it does feel like the old case of being all build-up but no payoff. Frankly, The Fourth Kind is a coherent success in comparison with this.

Special Features: TBC
 

 THE DEVICE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: JEREMY BERG / SCREENPLAY: JEREMY BERG, JOHN PORTANOVA / STARRING: ANGELA DI MARCO, DAVID S. HOGAN, KATE ALDEN, GABRIEL CONGDON / RELEASE DATE: MARCH 23RD

The Adventures of Hercules II, also known as Hercules II, is the sequel to the 1983 film Hercules. It was released in 1985 and starred Lou Ferrigno, who appears again as the titular character of Hercules. It has now been given a Blu-ray release by 101 films under its Cult Movie Collection and after the commercial and critical failure of the first film; this second attempt could have been a new start to the franchise. Alas, the filmmakers instead made the exact same mistakes as the first.

The plot focuses on Zeus’ Seven Mighty Thunderbolts, which kept peace and harmony. However, these have now been stolen by evil gods. Zeus is left with no choice but to send Hercules back to earth to aid the humans and as the moon is launched into a direct course with earth, Hercules must retrieve the thunderbolts from within evil monsters. And so the story is set, as Hercules must go and collect each thunderbolt.

There are many problems here. Firstly, the story is just a case of Hercules battling monsters to receive thunderbolts. As the movie follows Hercules, as he collects all the thunderbolts, things can start to get repetitive. There is no development in any of the characters. Instead it’s a mixture of badly choreographed fight scenes mixed with some awkward dialogue. If you have seen the first one in the series, you will be aware of the awkward performance that Lou Ferrigno gives as Hercules. This is repeated in this sequel, with little emotion being shown. It also contradicts the first flick in a few ways, which disturbs the continuity of the series.

All high fantasy features need to be full of intriguing characters, which are developed throughout. Unfortunately, this does not happen. The plot is marginally better than the first, however, there are just no surprises and it just seems the characters are too bland. We did enjoy watching it for the nostalgia, but it adds little to the fantasy genre. One redeeming factor that The Adventures of Hercules does have is the special effects, which for the time were actually quite good.

This Blu-ray release comes with just the standard version, with no real special features or directors cut. Instead you get the original trailer, which is still a nice addition, however this makes the investment slightly less attractive. Nevertheless, despite all the aforementioned faults, collectors of cult movies may be able to find a place in their collection for The Adventures of Hercules. Maybe.

THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULES II / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: LUIGI COZZI / STARRING: LOU FERRIGNO, MILLY CARLUCCI, SONIA VIVIANI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW