Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Seika High School courted a reputation for its rowdy student body, due in no small part to its all-male admission. Even after going co-ed, the men still hold an 80% majority and live up to their feckless behaviour, kept in check only by the school’s first female student council president. Donning the reformist’s cap, Misaki Ayuzawa takes on the role with gusto, putting her hard graft and dedication into effect and ruling with an iron fist. Under her hardened façade is a home that’s falling steadily into ruin, a kooky, simple-minded sister and an over-cautious mother. To pay her tuition, Misaki works part time at a maid café the next town over, a fact she’s desperate to keep from her underlings.

When she’s found out by dreamy heartthrob Takumi Usui, Misaki expects her carefully constructed life to unravel, but far from the expected, Takumi lords the secret over her and becomes a regular at Maid Latte. Good-looking and with grades to match, Takumi is an object of worship for the guys, and adoration for the girls. In reality, he’s apathetic, roguish and harbouring pervy tendencies with more than a little affection for Misaki. It’s this set-up that keeps the central formula ticking over: he comes on strong while she fits neatly into the tsundere archetype, hitting, belittling and insulting him, but stopping every so often for a smooch and some affection. While this central gag is at the heart of every episode, there’s different ways of serving up the same scenario.

It’s a structure reminiscent of My Love Story!! with the initial dramatic hook quickly resolved, leaving the rest of the series up for grabs and difficult to pin down. In this instance, it’s Misaki going easier on the guys. The real surprises come in one in three episodes, with situations that go above and beyond what was expected, exploring, as it does, stalking, sexual harassment and abuse.

Quietly unusual, Maid Sama! frequently changes tact to keep from going stale, making for an easy to binge-watch 14-episode collection. There’s no overarching plot beyond the ebb and flow of Misaki and Takumi’s relationship, so episodes can be swapped and switched with little consequence. It plays up the notion “from the ridiculous to the sublime” with its jump to the hypno-nonsense of the collection closer, but fortunately, the sharp social commentary and pencil shaded backdrops just about make up for that.

MAID SAMA! PART 1 / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: HIROAKI SAKURAI / SCREENPLAY: HIRO FUJIWARA / STARRING: AYUMI FUJIMURA, KANA HANAZAWA, MUTSUHIRO ICHIKI, YU KOBAYASHI, NOBUHIKO OKAMOTO / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 16TH
 
 

Chenzhen (Bruce Lee) is a former student of the Jingwu School who returns when his Master dies of stomach flu. Chenzhen doesn’t believe the diagnosis and, when the school is challenged by a Japanese doju, starts to investigate exactly what happened. Unfortunately, his methods involve kicking the ass of anyone he feels may be involved, which starts a mini war between the two schools.

The police get involved and everyone is hunting Chenzhen for one reason or another. He then discovers that his Master was actually poisoned and so begins upping the ante by killing and hanging the perpetrators from a lamp post before he wades into the Japanese dojo to finish the job.

Fist of Fury is incredibly violent considering the amount of characters who die on screen, some via the eponymous appendage, and is all the better for it. There is very little of the impish side of Lee on show here as his character seeks revenge for the unlawful killing of his Master, stopping at nothing to avenge his death.

There are some cracking set pieces here, not least the first time Chenzhen wades into the Japanese dojo and defeats all comers by himself. The artistry and almost ballet-like choreography on show in the fight sequences provide a real insight into the professionalism of the cinema industry of the Far East during the early ‘70s. It’s interesting to see how the law worked, or didn’t work dependent on your point of view, there in the early 20th century, with the Japanese having a real grip on power and almost being above the law.

The romantic  sub-plot involving Chenzhen and Yuan Le-erh seems almost tacked on, but that doesn’t really matter that much as we all came to see some great fight scenes and we are not disappointed. Watching Lee face off against foes and their weapons is a sight to behold and it’s always fun to see that Lee did not consider fighting dirty to be below him – in real life, it’s not always perfectly landed kicks.

A final scene of Chenzhen refusing to go quietly as he is double crossed is a punch in the gut after he offers to take the fall to protect his school and is a moment of melancholy gravitas in a film otherwise powered by brutal machismo.

Regardless, Fist of Fury is a classic in its genre, and rightly so.

FIST OF FURY / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: WEI LO / STARRING: BRUCE LEE, NORA MIAO, JAMES TIEN, MARIA YI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

When is a film not a film? Just ask the creators of Game of Death. Billy Lo is a martial arts movie star who realises that his life is in danger and so decides to fake his own death to find out exactly who is trying to kill him.

That’s the basic premise of Game of Death and for the uninitiated, although this is billed as a Bruce Lee film, do not be fooled. There are a number of versions of Game of Death out there with various running times, but the great man himself only appears via stock footage.

Released five years after his untimely death, Game of Death has a combination of at least three other actors filling the role of Lo unless the filmmakers could fit in a close up of Lee’s face. As a result, it’s pretty jarring and noticeable that the main character is not being played by Lee but by wannabes who can’t hold a candle to the memory of the inimitable martial arts superstar.

Being nearly forty years old, the film has been seen by most fans of Asian cinema and action films in general and it gets another re-release alongside the movies that matter of The Way of the Dragon, Fist of Fury and The Big Boss.

The fact is that when Lee is not on screen, you miss his charisma and presence, and as it’s for the majority of the running time here, you can really tell that this is merely a cash in on Lee’s memory. The final twenty minutes, when Lo has to battle his way upstairs to Dr Land, who is the main bad guy, is where Lee finally shows up and the action ramps up. Every level is like a new boss battle in a computer game and Lee mugs it up for the camera, exuding all the star power that was snuffed out.

It’s all there in those final scenes, the stuff we came to see. The iconic yellow and black jumpsuit; Lee’s playfulness visually coming through as he prepares for each battle, including perhaps the strangest fight ever put on celluloid as he comes up against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the real life basketball player who was over seven feet tall. The problem is that everything that came before is but a pale imitation.

Game of Death could have been a great movie, but they should have left the legend of Lee alone.

GAME OF DEATH / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: ROBERT CLOUSE, BRUCE LEE / SCREENPLAY: ROBERT CLOUSE / STARRING: BRUCE LEE, GIG YOUNG, COLLEN CAMP, ROBERT WALL, KAREEM ADBUL-JABBAR / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

Claudio Torres’ quirky, inventive Brazilian time-paradox sci-fi drama (don’t worry, it’s sub-titled….wait, why are you still running?) released in 2011 finally gets a UK DVD release (other formats are undoubtedly available) and it’s great fun. Wagner Moura plays brilliant scientist Joao (known as ‘Zero’ following a cruel, confidence-sapping incident during his student years) whose experiments with a particle accelerator send him back in time to 1991 – and the very moment when he is very publicly humiliated and betrayed by his beautiful girlfriend Helena (Moraes) at a college party. Zero quickly seizes the opportunity to change history but in doing so alters his own timeline; he discovers that in the future he’s now become an obscenely-wealthy but horribly-corrupt businessman who has still managed to lose the girl of his dreams. He still has the ability to travel back in time to change things; but can Zero and, indeed, history, cope with the prospect of three versions of the same person existing in the same time and place, each of them with different agendas?

The Man from the Future is a fast-paced, occasionally over-played time travel romp which treats its time paradox storyline with great intelligence and sensitivity, taking time to consider the ramifications of a man travelling back to tamper with his own history and the dangers inherent in someone choosing to keep on doing so until he gets the desired result – and how disastrous the consequences can be. This isn’t a film powered by flashy visuals – there are some decent FX sequences when Zero travels through time and the camera trickery to create three Zeros is deft and convincing. But it’s quietly comedic too; Zero is a genius but he’s a bit bumbling and manic and, in his earliest incarnation, utterly lacking in self-confidence and Ricardo, his rival for Maria’s affections, in a louche, stereotypical sleazeball. But the film nimbly keeps its central time travel conceit rolling and, despite the potential for the story to lose its coherence and clarity, it actually becomes more intriguing and impressively adept at keeping it various balls in the air without fumbling any of them.

The Man From the Future is a treat for fans of thought-provoking, serpentine time travel stories. It’s refreshing to see a world cinema genre movie handling the sort of material Hollywood churns out from its conveyor belt with a lot more passion, enthusiasm and intelligence than many budget-bloated mainstream efforts which repeatedly put the emphasise on bang and bluster over brains.  The Man From the Future is, to coin an apt phrase, worth your time. Grande filme, recommenda!

THE MAN FROM THE FUTURE / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: CLAUDIO TORRES / STARRING: WAGNER MOURA, ALINNE MORAES, MARIA LUISA MENDONCA, FERNANDO CEYLAO / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 9TH

 

Based on the acclaimed novel by Alison Uttley, BBC’s A Traveller in Time, a 1978 five-part serial for children, is a textbook example of the Corporation’s famous Reithian mission statement: “inform, educate, entertain.” The serial, the dry, starchy story of a spectacularly-untypical late 1970s teenager apparently swept back to the 16th century where she becomes involved in a plot to rescue the long-imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots scores highly as an educational piece but the jury’s out as to whether a modern audience will find much real entertainment in its glacially-paced story and mannered performances.

Sickly teen Penelope Tavener-Cameron (you can see the audience this was pitched at) – dumpy, frumpy, pudding-basin hair – is recovering from a bout of pneumonia and is dispatched to the countryside to recouperate at Thackers, her aunt and uncle’s Derbyshire country home. During the visit she becomes intrigued by the area’s connection with the Babbington family who resided at Thackers when it was a grander establishment and who had been instrumental in a failed plan to free Queen Mary, imprisoned in the nearby Wingfield Manor. Suddenly – and with no explanation –Penelope finds herself back in the 16th century and involved in the hustle and bustle of the kitchen staff and ultimately with the frills-and-ruffs Babbingtons themselves. Penelope is quickly accepted by the kitchen crew but them upstairs are a bit more suspicious of her motives in appearing from nowhere and ingratiating herself with a family of strangers…

This is a time travel story in more ways than one as it is in itself a product of an era in television production now long gone. Certainly few modern teenagers would have the patience to tolerate its slow-paced narrative and slightly lecturing tone. It can’t help but come across like a history lesson brought to life – not necessarily a bad thing in today’s five-second attention span  culture where anything that happened in even the recent past is “before my time” and therefore not worth consideration. But for those who may have enjoyed the serial in 1978 or who hanker for slightly less manic entertainment there’s genuinely much to enjoy here from atmospheric location filming to gorgeous costumes and sets and enthusiastic, if wordy, performances from a cast led by Sophie (sister of Emma) Thompson, who would go on to bigger and better things. Action fans won’t find much here though; Penelope is never in any danger and the closest we come to any excitement is a ninety-second sequence where she’s briefly looked up on suspicion of being a spy.

A period piece in every sense, A Traveller in Time is guaranteed not to pound your pulse but it’s sweet and inoffensive and in its own way rather enjoyable, if only as a reminder of less frantic TV times. You might even learn something too…

A TRAVELLER IN TIME / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: DOROTHEA BROOKING / SCREENPLAY: DIANE DEVERE COLE / STARRING: SOPHIE THOMSPON, ELIZABETH BRADLEY, GERALD JAMES, SIMON GIPPS-KENT, MARY MAUDE / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 9TH

 

Chaplin moves up the social ladder from being The Tramp to A King. He plays the part of a European monarch, King Shadov, who is booted out of his kingdom and has to live in exile in New York City. He trusts his Prime Minister Voudel (Jerry Desmonde) to move the money from the national treasury, but Voudel double-crosses him and runs off to South America with it.

Given his exile and bankrupt status, the King remains very cheerful and lively, although on exploring New York he is appalled by the noise, the screaming fans of pop music and the trailers for the latest films, which include Man or Woman?, a reference to Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda transgender movie.

Undeterred by his circumstances, the King pins his hopes on selling his dream of using atomic power to create a utopian future for humanity, rather than use it for warfare. As his futuristic ideas are rejected, the King is unwittingly embroiled in starring in a TV show and is offered vast amounts of money to appear in more commercials. More importantly, he comes into contact with a 10-year-old boy, Rupert (Michael Chaplin), who preaches Marxism and by association the King is accused of being a communist by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC).

Like his earlier film The Kid (1921), Chaplin’s character seems most at home interacting with young children. From our modern-day perspective, it is uncomfortable to see the Tramp share a bed with the kid when they go to a flophouse, and later on in a dream sequence a 12-year-girl (Lita Grey) flirts with him.

In this film, the King and his Prime Minister peep through a keyhole to watch a young woman in her bath.  They fight over viewing her, and when she calls for help the King quickly goes to her rescue. It’s not good watching him stroking her naked foot – perhaps it’s just us?

We must, of course, remember Laurel and Hardy always slept together without the slightest hint they are more than just friends, so we have to be aware of how we view and ‘read’ older films. Though, the charge of opportunistic voyeurism does still stand against the King, it is slightly mitigated by the fact that she engineers this situation to get him to attend a dinner party. This tends to reflect Chaplin’s own life experiences when he was easily seduced by young women and felt used and exploited after the initial flirtation.

As an exile from the US in real-life, this film gives Chaplin the opportunity to poke fun at its culture, commercialism and condemnation of ‘commies’. There are some very funny scenes in it, for example when his face-lift goes wrong, but it lacks the combination of charm and humour of his best silent-era productions.

A KING IN NEW YORK / CERT: U / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: CHARLES CHAPLIN / STARRING: CHARLES CHAPLIN, MAXINE AUDLEY, JERRY DESMONDE, MICHAEL CHAPLIN, OLIVER JOHNSTON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

Alien Strain is a sharp, succinct and yet ultimately frustratingly-unsatisfying psychological thriller which initially presents itself as a fairly straightforward alien abduction fantasy before turning itself inside out into something entirely different. As such it’s a film which demands the audience to ask questions which it isn’t always able or willing to answer and it’s hard not to walk away feeling ambivalent about the whole thing, despite its commendable desire to stay one step ahead of its viewers and avoid becoming just another conspiracy theory thriller or, worse, a silly, showy alien abduction cheapie with laughable grey aliens lurking in the background.

Matthew’s girlfriend Rachel disappears at night on a camping trip. He sees a huge glowing UFO out in the desert. In the year since her disappearance he’s become a patient at Briarview Mental Institution where he recounts the troubling experience again and again with Dr Stewart. But strange new conflicting memories are triggered; was Rachel really abducted by extraterrestrials and if so did she return infected by some horrific alien virus which led to Matthew helping to release her from her misery? Or was her illness something else entirely, something Matthew has chosen to escape from under a veil of alien abduction paranoia? Alien Strain doesn’t really seem to know quite how to tell its story or, indeed, which story it’s actually trying to tell. The narrative veers off into several different directions but in doing so it just becomes even more confusing and fragmented, suggesting that the writers have created a story even they’re not entirely sure how to resolve.

Despite its schizophrenic structure Alien Strain is a commendably solid low-budget effort with some decent make-up FX, the odd gross-out moment, above-average performances and competent direction from relative newcomers Benavides Jnr and Palmer (although we could have done with the persistent dramatic background music being dialled down a bit). It’s an inoffensive effort which makes the mistake of asking the audience to do a bit too much work to try and get the dots to join although the ending itself may just about justify your investment in the movie. In the scheme of things, it’s not really much of a strain to suggest that this is really little more than a slightly raised temperature.

ALIEN STRAIN / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: ROBERT BENAVIDES JNR., ANDY PALMER / STARRING: MICHAEL PALMER, LAURA GARDEN, MICHAEL PHENICIE, ROLF SAXON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW