Sha ji chong chong
Wang Tian-lin - 1960
Panorama Entertainment Region 3 DVD

Death Traps is the Hong Kong version of one of those dames in distress movies that came out of Hollywood that were produced in the early to mid-Fifties, and usually starred Joan Crawford. The film might be as good an introduction as any to Helen Li Mei, one of the top Hong Kong stars of the mid Fifties through early Sixties. Unlike fellow Cathay Studios star Grace Chang, Li was just a few years older, and by Hong Kong standards, more openly sexual. The film isn't quite Hong Kong noir, but has some stylish touches by veteran Wang Tian-lin, with a screenplay by future martial arts auteur Chang Cheh.

Li plays the part of Jieyun, a woman of apparently independent means, and an alcoholic. Her boyfriend, Shouli, played by the stalwart Roy Chiao reminds her that he plans to marry of woman with good habits, and certainly not one who gets drunk every night. A date at a nightclub turns out badly when Shouli is seen sitting with the ditsy Meigui. Drunk and jealous, Li steps out with the gangster, Fatso Cai. Knowing Cai's underworld connections, Jieyun requests that Cai set up a hit on the woman that Shouli will marry, going so far as to write a check for Cai's services. Waking up the next day, resolved to stay sober, Jieyun finds herself engaged to Shouli, and unable to contact Cai.

There are amusing scenes of accidents and encounters with strangers strike Jieyun as evidence that someone is after Meigui, and then herself, with a flower pot nearly falling on the chatty friend, and Jieyun panicked when fireworks explode while she exits the church following her wedding. There's a mysterious young punk, one of Cai's crew who is seen earlier, who coincidentally is on the same ferry when Jieyun and Shouli go on their honeymoon in Macau. Even stranger is that this man, with his ever present cocked hat and sunglasses, is also staying at the same hotel.

Among the echos of Hollywood films is the opening shot with Helen Li driving wildly drunk on a dark road, a nod to The Bad and the Beautiful. Wang's occasional use of overhead shots recalls a favored touch of Robert Aldrich. Within the context of a thriller, Li's (dubbed) singing to Chiao might recall Doris Day in The Man who Knew too Much. Wang makes nice use of dolly shots moving in on close ups of Li as well as utilizing framing devices within some of the shots. There is also one shot of Li's cheongsam dress rip on top that is relatively innocent by current standards, but no doubt inflamed many of Li's admirers fifty years ago. While one of the weaker aspects of the film was addressed by Chang Cheh in an interview, regarding the unrealistic treatment of alcoholism, it's the kind of flaw that doesn't get in the way of this very entertaining film.

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Hilary Swank in Amelia (Mira Nair - 2009)

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Lee Daniels - 2009
Lionsgate Region 1 DVD

I will say this for Lee Daniels - he has the courage of his convictions. Unfortunately his convictions are sometimes as outsized and as wrong headed as his title character. I shied away from seeing Precious due the arguments regarding the film's merits. Also, I had seen Daniels' debut film, Shadowboxer. That first film was about a hit man and hit woman doing one last job. Aside from the quasi-incestuous relationship between the older woman and the younger man, there was a mobster who seemed unable to collect too many large, ornate, crucifixes, and a shady doctor with a crack head nurse named Precious. Cuba Gooding, Jr. will appear in just about anything, but how Helen Mirren was convinced to star might better remain a mystery. By the end of Shadowboxer I was convinced that Lee Daniels had watched early Tarantino, and a Guy Ritchie film or two, and said to himself, "I can top that!". Unlike his proclaimed sources of inspiration, John Waters and Pedro Almodovar, Lee Daniels has trouble realizing when he needs to reign in the excess.

Part of my problem with Precious is that Daniels seems to love using technique for no apparent reason. Maybe using an overlapping dissolve shot of Gabourey Sidibe walking down a class room hallway looks arty, but it seemed like a very random choice. The characters have some intense conversations and the camera tentatively zooms in and out as if simply framing the characters and holding the camera still for a few seconds was not an option. There is a pretty shot of the city reflected in a puddle. The scene of Precious and her mother, Mary, watching Vittorio De Sica's Two Women, subtitled on television, was unbelievable, especially as Mary's television diet seemed to consist solely of game shows. The De Sica film Precious reminded me of was After the Fox which includes a film within the film, a parody of neo-realism. Precious frequently seemed like a parody of someone's idea of an art film.

Just like a poet is hidden inside the inarticulate Precious Jones, there was a potentially better film that could have been made from Geoffrey Fletcher's screenplay. The best parts of the film seem like the least forced, especially in the alternative classroom, and the exchanges between the teacher with the unlikely name of Blu Rain, and the other students. Perhaps one reason why the scenes in the classroom work is because Paula Patton's performance as the teacher who coaxes Precious out of her shell is not the stunt casting as is the case for Mariah Carey, Lennie Kravitz or Mo'Nique. Of the young women in Patton's class, Xosha Roquemore as the overly self confident Joann and Amina Robinson as the sexually ambiguous Jermaine might be the ones to watch in the future.

There's a memorable smash cut in Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls where the shot of a screaming woman about to have an abortion is followed by the close up of an egg dropping into a frying pan. It's a simultaneously gross and funny moment. Lee Daniels, unlike Meyer, doesn't know when to let up, and is like a child furiously writing in big block letters with lots of underlining to make sure we don't miss his point. We get lots of big close ups of eyes, of pots of some awful stew on a stove, and assorted flotsam and jetsam and body parts that must have looked pleasing to Daniel's eye, but don't add up to anything meaningful either in the narrative or in anything resembling a coherent or cohesive visual style. It's not a good sign when I watch a movie about life in Harlem and start to wish it had been directed by white liberals Martin Ritt or Ralph Nelson. This was not the intention of anyone involved with the film, yet the ultimate effect is a work that can be interpreted as supporting the worst stereotypes of urban African-Americans. Especially after an Academy Award nomination, I doubt that Lee Daniels will restrict himself to the role of producer. But I also believe, Precious could have been a better film had the direction been handed over to someone like Julie Dash or even Angela Robinson. A good filmmaker knows that sometimes a stationary camera and confidence in your material and players is all you really need.

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Japan's Longest Day/Nihon no ichiban nagai hi
Kihachi Okamoto - 1967

Battle of Okinawa/Gekido no showashi: Okinawa kessen
Kihachi Okamoto - 1971

Father of the Kamikaze/A kessen kokutai
Kosaku Yamashita - 1974

Black Rain/Kuroi Ame
Shohei Imamura - 1989
AnimEigo Region 1 DVD

AnimEigo has taken four older titles and repackaged them collectively. The idea is to give viewers more of an idea of World War II from a Japanese perspective. Two of the films though aren't war films in the traditional sense of being about men in battle, but about the events that took place at the close of the war, and the aftermath for one civilian family. While not an exact comparison, it would be as if a set Hollywood films about World War II included Mrs. Miniver and The Best Years of Our Lives.

Japan's Longest Day is comparable to The Longest Day only in the casting of what must have been every male star on the Toho Studios lot. The most famous name of course is Toshiro Mifune, but there's also Tadashi Shimura and Chishu Ryu, as well as Tatsuya Nakadai providing the narration. Although the history regarding the debates that proceeded the surrender is fascinating, as film it gets a bit talky for the the first hour.

Where things really kick in is when a group of young officers decide that they would not only not surrender, but they would persuade the military staff to back their plan to extend the war. Whether or not these rebellious officers were the wild eyed fanatics that are presented in the film, it is amazing to learn that their obsession with continuing the war included burning down the home of the Prime Minister for being a traitor, and ransacking the offices of the Emperor in order to keep the recording of his surrender speech from being broadcast.

Most of the people are introduced with their titles, and some notes that are part of the supplement give added context to some of the references to other historical events or persons. On a purely cinematic level, what I liked best about Kihachi Okamoto's film was his use of close ups, whether of a pragmatic Mifune, a tearful Shimura, or several of the lesser known actors. Some of the more earnest pronouncements, such as Ryu's declaration that younger people should replace the aging government cabinet, or Mifune's exhortation to his junior officers to live to rebuild Japan bear the hallmark of screenplay writer Shinobu Hashimoto.

Battle of Okinawa is a more traditional type of war epic, alternating primarily between the officers' headquarters and fields of battle. The film is more interesting for its content than any cinematic concerns. What may be most alarming is learning about how the military forces and the civilian population were virtually placed in a position to be defeated by the numerically superior Allied forces, and the extent of suicide among both populations. Used as a symbol of innocence in time of war, there is small girl, perhaps no more than five years old, who is seen wandering from place to place, the lone survivor amidst the ruins, mud and corpses.

A streak of very dark humor also runs through the film, with such characters as a nurse's introduction to battle field surgery, which usually consists of sawing off injured legs, and the army barber, who provides comic relief. Tatsuya Nakadai and Tetsuro Tamba are the two officers who provide the main advice to Keiju Kobayashi. Nakadai portrays Hiromichi Yahara, who survived to write a book about the battle, and served as an advisor on the film.

There is a curious footnote to the film: Tamba and Nakadai nostalgically mention seeing a movie together, the American silent, The Blue Danube, by forgotten writer-director Paul Sloane. In doing some research, Sloane's last listed film, Feng ye qing was a Japanese production made in 1952, about an American soldier and a Japanese woman.

While it appears that Tora! Tora! Tora! has been used as a template, Father of the Kamekazi also seems to have been inspired by Patton. There are not one, but two scenes of soldiers being slapped. I had only scene one previous film by Kousaku Yamashita, the fast moving yakuza adventure, Red Peony Gambler starring the then very popular Junko Fuji. Clocking in at over three hours, Father of the Kamikaze is probably of greater interest for its presentation of historical events.

The idea of using suicide pilots apparently came from several sources, buy it was the naval officer, Onishi, who created the official group. Originally seen as a last ditch attempt to turn the tide of was back into Japan's favor, it became the chosen tactic, even after it became less effective. More so than Japan's Longest Night, the film helps explain the psychological trap that the military found itself in with the inability to accept surrender, as well as the general psychology of Japan of that time.

What worked best for me were some of the quieter moments, primarily Onishi with his wife examining a flower that only blossoms at night, and their reunion in bombed out Tokyo - the wife waiting at the ruins of their house with a pot of tea. There is also one remarkable scene with Onishi defiantly standing outside an air base while others hide from the strafing of U.S. planes.

I have written about Black Rain previously to coincide with that film's initial DVD release. Not only is Imamara's film the best in this set, Black Rain is still the best DVD release of a classic film in 2009, equal if not better than anything stamped with the label "Criterion Collection".

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