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OriginalMadman
Reviews
Ghosts of Mars (2001)
Just plain and horrible crap...
Lets face it, carpenter lost the touch somewhere along the line. I mean, Im as big a fan of his good work (Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness, The Thing, Village of the Damned, Big Trouble in Little China, Escape from NY, Vampires) as anyone. All those films got good to great actors, great scripts and are fresh in direction and keeping the suspense. Ghosts of Mars on the other hand cannot be directed by the same guy, its just not possible. The cast is horrendous, I have seen better acting in porn. The direction is slow, inefficient and has dozens of cardinal mistakes and the cutting is equally sad. The actors move like actors and not professional cops, the streewise attitudes are sooo bad and the fighting is worse than my grandmas. Even the makeup sucks, the bodyparts look just like what they are, plastic. Its supposed to be 2179 or something, but they use 70's walkie talkies and "have to go fetch" each other all the time instead of having efficient comms. It just ruins ALL of the movie. Its not even B, its C or even worse.
I was actually squirming while watchin it repeating "no no no"... And finally just had to end its misery after the first hour. I just couldn't stand it. It just couldn't keep my interest up.
Me and my friends would have made a more interesting and compelling movie with a handcam in a week.
Carpenter must have gone senile, because his movies have traditionally been some of the best around. So dont pick this one up, go get one of his good works instead (like one of the above mentioned). And he actually made good movies pretty recent. But Ghosts of Mars only value would be to show to aspiring film makes as an example of all the mistakes you do not want to make in shooting a movie.
Bichunmoo (2000)
Wonderful and heroic tragedy
It was a long long time since I saw a tragedy this good. Shakespeare meets Wuxia martial arts movies ;). And while the result isn't Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon it's extremely unfair to compare the two (CTHD is a already a true classic). Bichunmoo stands very well on its own without comparisons. Being a sucker for epics and tragedies as well as wuxia etc I can only say this is a happy marriage of the two genres. Had I been in another mood when I saw it, some of the love scenes might have been too much for me, but I am not one to complain as they are well played. The whole thing about this movie is you know whats coming, the doom is just hanging there, but still you are in it for the ride and you love it nonetheless... But that is the lure of all great tragedies. The martial arts and swordplay are not the best I have seen, but still top notch, entertaining and kind of entrancing in "dancelike" way. Scenery, costumes and photo is spectacular. But still, the heart a movie is the story told and this one's got it! Wholeheartedly recommended.
Prince of Darkness (1987)
This is the best "horror" horror movie ever
Well it may be true that it suffers some from being made in the eighties (like all movies). Still, as a true horror movie fan, I have yet to find another movie capable of chilling me to the bone like this one did. The scientific explanations are a wonderful, the music is the scariest ever made (that I heard) and the plot is plain out evil. There is no help, no hope, no redemption. This is a huuuge step up from the cheap chockscare and gore we usually have to gobble down, the music and the plot slowly grinds down your defence until you are scared for real, which never ever happens to me ordinarly. I wish they made them more like this. Carpenter is capable, so is Clive Barker (Hellraiser, Candyman, Lord of Illusions) and a few others. More! (No other movie has meant more to me while playing the great role-playing game of Call of Cthulhu...)
Versus (2000)
This movie is INSANE (and bloody fun!)
Awesome action movie that takes off from square one and only gets worse. The zombie slaughtering is almost up to class with Peter Jackson's Braindead. If you are into animé, this is the real thing. You got the lone wolf "hero", striking poses, slow motion, really nice circular camera movements, extreme bullet ballet, streetfighter/tekken like martial arts, swordfights and gallons of blood. There are insane bad guys some which have plenty of "character" and are so much you cannot do but laugh. Admittedly it gets a little slow right before the end when its only the two main characters left battling it out, but still great fun. A fun thing with the movie is that normally in these kinds of supernatural movies its pretty clear who is good and who is evil, which is not the case in this one.
As this is a pretty extreme variant of an already narrow subgenre and the movie really excels at what it's supposed to do, I cannot but give this movie the full 10. Take note however, it is very very japanese and if you are not used to the type of movie you will be missing out on a lot, especially if you don't fancy the splatter and the adolescent "coolness" of the subgenre.
Replicant (2001)
Van Damme has fallen, and he has fallen far...
Well he was never any good to start with, the only viewable movie being his first (Bloodsport), although that got mangled in editing. Well I thought, not much to count with until I saw that Replicant is directed by Ringo Lam. Interesting, the only GOOD movie by Van Damme happens to be Hard Target (yeah, flame me, but it's one of the best US-made pure action movies) made by another Hong Kong action virtuoso; John Woo. Perhaps this could be something, but sadly not. Shame on you Ringo, I am very disappointed.
Don't waste your time on seeing this movie unless you are very very disturbed. Pick up one of Ringo's HK movies instead, like Prison on Fire (1987) or Twin Dragons (1992). Or even better, if you must see Van Damme, pick up Hard Target (1993) by John Woo. If you don't know John woo, pick up some of his HK movies (The killer, Hard boiled) for some true action.
Memento (2000)
The best movie coming out this year (and the one before)
Very very confusing at the beginning, but you soon get the hang of it as it's a film that goes backward in time. This actually makes sense when you understand that the main character has a brain damage preventing him to gain any long term memories. A few minutes, then its all new to him. Excellent story, awesome screenplay, very good acting, heaps of fun, evil plot and it is a true masterpiece of original cinema. 'nuff said, see it!
Fung wan: Hung ba tin ha (1998)
Thoroughly enjoyable
It is nice to see that, finally, Hong Kong movies can benefit from a lot of money and superb SFX. I just wish that they could make a few more like this one. The effects are great, the story is better than average and the martial arts are of the high standard you get used to from HK, although not up there with the best. Maybe they concentrated too much on the budget and SFX. Nonetheless you get all the treats and the movie stands up really well. It has perhaps the nicest magical effects I have ever seen in a movie and it is very very stylish. The computer animated fire beast is almost by itself worth seeing the movie for. The story itself is a fantasy straight out of Chinese mythology. There is plenty of fun swordsplay and martial arts, but it is the magic extraordinaire that captured me. All in all, a must see for the HK movie connoisseur.
3-4 x jûgatsu (1990)
Very hard to get, but wonderful
Simply an awesome movie. I have no idea whatsoever if I got the movie the way intended. But what I did get was a couple of things. It's one of the funniest and most bizarre films I have ever seen. No matter what happens, people crashing motorcycles, getting beaten etc, no one, ever, shows any emotion. Just the "classic" japanese stone-face. There is no soundtrack in this movie either, and tempo is kinda low, but explodes now and then with meaningless violence. This might sound like utter crap, but Kitano pulls it off, and does it very well. It works, it's fun and it's interesting.