Directors in Focus: Kim Sung-soo | The Flu (2013)

Director: Kim Sung-soo

Notable Cast: Jang Hyuk, Soo Ae, Park Min-ha, Yoo Hai-jin, Ma Dong-seok, Lee Hee-jun, Cha In-pyo

Ten years after Director Kim made Please Teach Me English, he emerged from the shadows to unleash his most commercial effort to date, the disaster blockbuster, The Flu. Admittedly, this was around the time I had become introduced to the director; even though I had seen Beat quite a few years prior, I just was unaware of who he was and hadn't made the connection at this point in time. In his decade of absence from film, Kim dedicated his time to teaching more extensively at university to aspiring young visionaries. Still, the world definitely hankering for a comeback, and while stylistically, this may not be what the diehard fans of the esteemed director were waiting for, The Flu came out swinging at the box office, and was smashing success for the team. Regardless of the popularity or the anticipation of one of Korea's film giants returning to directing, how does the quality of this piece hold up? Upon revisiting this one, which I liked before, and living in a post-COVID world, let's just say how this all unfolds onscreen, I found it all the more harrowing and challenging to watch this go around.

The Bravest (2019)

Director: Tony Chan

Notable Cast: Xiaoming Huang, Jiang Du, Zhuo Tan, Zi Yang, Hao Ou, Yong Hou, Xiaotian Yin, Jason Gu, Zhehan Zhang, Ge Gao

As the push in the Chinese industry draws closer and closer to that of Hollywood, so does their approach to film making. The latest big-budget blockbuster-style film to make it to the US is The Bravest, a large spectacle film that attempts to find that perfect balance between action and dramatic heft. For those more familiar with Hollywood style films, the best comparison for The Bravest is combining the mass destruction and disaster films of Roland Emmerich and the “true story” action films of Peter Berg. For better or worse, depending on the scene, the film sways heavily between the two and it makes for both a highly entertaining film – occasionally from unintentional humor – and one that is perplexing in how poorly developed it is.

Tunnel (2016)

Director: Kim Seung-hoon
Notable Cast: Ha Jeong-woo, Bae Doo-na, Oh Dal-soo

Lee Jung-soo (Ha Jeong-woo) is a salesman for Kia Motors, making his rounds and traveling about one day. He's got a cake for his daughter, topping the car off with fuel, and heading home. On his way, he calls his wife to let her know how things have been, when suddenly a tunnel he is passing through (newly opened and everything) decides to cave in and trap him inside his car with nowhere to go. With that set up out of the way, let's dive in to one of my favorite films of the year so far, Tunnel.

Given director Kim's previous film, A Hard Day, I went into this new film with high anticipation. Add to that the fact that the trio of leads in the film are some of my favorite performers in the region, and you have a recipe for a delicious slice of Korean film goodness, and it most certainly is just that.

Attack on Titan (2013) ep. 1-25

Oh I got this!

Welcome to another review from yours truly. This time around I embark on an impossible journey to the not so distant future where humanity has been all but destroyed. In a world where giant naked Titans run about devouring people like snacks for no apparent reason other than it's fun! So tighten up those boot laces and march along with me as I try to sum up this series in just a million words or less.

Synopsis:
 Centuries ago our world was destroyed by Titans so we the people decided what better way to protect ourselves then to build some very large walls to surround ourselves with and keep the Titans out. All well and good until a giant Titan suddenly appears one day to knock a hole through one of the walls. This of course was problematic for civilization as the Titans began to enter the city for a feeding frenzy. Enter our hero Eren Yeager. Eren always dreamed of going outside the walls, to explore the other world and maybe one day join the Recon Corp., which is a military type group that explores the outside world and studies Titans. Along with Eren is his "sister" Mikasa. Like Eren's parents she is not receptive to his adventurous ideas, but all this changed on that fateful day when the wall was opened up.  After watching his mother being devoured by a Titan, Eren vowes to destroy all Titans.  It is his anger fueled passion that drives his decision to join the military in hopes of one day joining The Survey Corp.  An elite military group hell bent on destroying these Titans. This is no easy task as one can imagine. The Survey Corp. is pretty much the front line for this war on Titans and joining such a team is all but certain death.

Wanna know where the rest of my sword is?

Review:
 From the opening gut wrenching scenes all the way through out, this anime series will punch you in the face with non stop action. Its a revenge driven story for sure with a ton of story to tell. From our lead characters to lesser characters that still stand out among the masses, we get to see many views. There is more than adequate twists and turns to keep the viewers interested. This series came to me full of excitement. From  message boards across the internet to every anime and manga magazine hyping it up. The first time I saw the poster I was intrigued. After watching episode one I was hooked, I mean addicted.
Waiting for each new episode to hit Crunchyroll was painful. Often times I felt like a child a week before Christmas and a tree full of gifts just waiting to be opened. Could it be that "Attack on Titan" is the best anime of 2013?  Let me break it down for ya. You want action? Done and done. You want a hero that is slightly weaker than the rest with a tendacy to whine too much. Okay so Eren isn't your typical anime hero and that's just fine by me. How about stunning visual appeal? Yes! The action scenes are terrific. While the character design isn't glowing with greatness, it is certainly better than the source material. It has a unique feel to it, which really grew on me.

What would you say to a bit of drama and comedy mixed in with your action? Can I get a collective HECK YES PLEASE! It seemed like each episode ended with a punch to the gut cliffhanger that left me holding my breathe and begging for Saturday to arrive. Finally, how do you feel about strong story and great characters? All of these things are the reason I believe "Attack on Titan" is the top anime series of 2013. Here's to holding my breathe til season 2 arrives!

Sweet! Party at the wall. Bring a friend.

To wrap up this review I will say "Attack on Titan" is one of the finest series out there right now. It has such a great feel to it both in story and in animation. The music score is pretty great as well, it fits the show.  With that I say buy yourself a copy as soon as it streets or watch it on Funimation or Crunchyroll . I give "Attack on Titan":

Written By John Price

Cave In! (1979/83) - 1.5/5

Producer Irwin Allan gave the disaster film genre the blue-print it needed with his big budget, all star releases "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" in the early 70s. By the late 70s, Allen was still riding the disaster film craze that he helped create long after it puttered out by regurgitating the same ideas for television films with low budgets and second rate casts. Films like "Flood!" and "Fire!" were minor television successes with "Cave In!" being the third of the three that is the most forgotten as it was made in 1979 but not aired until 1983. This my friend, is NEVER a good sign.

The title says it all as a cave in traps a group of tourists and guides get trapped in a cave after a few collapses. In order to get out they have to predictably beat numerous obstacles including a madman with a pistol hell bent on getting out.

"Cave In!" is as predictable as television disaster films come. Cookie cutter characters, including a down-and-out cop (Leslie Nielsen), an overbearing father (Ray Milland in a tamer version of the sadistic character he portrayed in "The Attic") and two old flames who cross paths again. All these characters are given back story with dreadful flashback sequences complete with the film going out of focus before and after they kick in.

The overall look of the film is nothing better than a television episode at the time and the cave obstacles look no more dangerous than cheap funhouse gags. Rickety bridges, swimming under rock walls, and other dull threats.

This is strictly cheap, dull television material here with boring characters and predictable plot points. Everything you've seen in other disaster films is thrown in with only the stereotypical pregnant women missing from the mix. It's not surprising the televised release of this was postponed and it never got a VHS release. I picked this up used as part of Warner Brothers made-on-demand DVD-R program and it's hard to believe people would actually pay $20+ brand new for such a forgettable, blah film. Only for the most hardcore disaster film collectors.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Cyclone (1978) - 2.5/5

To be completely honest I solely bought this movie for the stunning DVD artwork alone. This amazing piece of art is by the talented Wes Benscotter (an artist known for Heavy Metal album covers) brought back good memories of VHS covers of the past and I couldn't pass it up. Though I wasn't expecting much from the movie itself as it is written and directed by Rene Cardona Jr., son of the exploitation director that gave us the synthetic survival flick "Survive!", it still managed to be marginally better then what I was expecting from a low budget Mexican disaster film.

A sudden hurricane, though it's called a cyclone, hit's the coast of Mexico downing a plane, sinking a fishing barge and blowing a tourist boat deep out into the ocean. The survivors of all three patently wait to be rescued and with water and food running out, they have to resort to killing dogs and eating the dead to survive.

As you can tell this is a carbon copy of "Survive!", a film also co-written by Rene Cardona Jr., only with the setting changed from the snow capped Andes to the ocean. Hell there is even a reference to the events of that film mentioned by one of the characters! Yet despite this film not having the luxury of being "based on a true story", I still came out liking it MUCH more perhaps for the fact it didn't have to linger between the lines of truth that fact based stories handcuff the filmmakers too.

The characters are all typical stereo types including the religious nut, the crotchety old bastard, the psychotic and even the pregnant woman. Seriously, we even had to throw in a pregnant woman about to give birth in to the plot, which is equivalent to the preverbal kitchen sink?! In the mix we get some great cult actors including Arthur Kennedy ("Rome Armed to the Teeth", "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie") and Olga Karlatos ("Zombie"). Oh yes we also get Hugo Stiglitz ("Nightmare City") too but I've made my opinion be known about this non-actor in other reviews.

Exploitation director René Cardona Jr. seems to actually have a handle on this film and is able to craft some interesting scenes of human conflict as well as atmosphere, especially during a shot of our sunken' airplane with the dead floating within it's cold, dark fuselage. His underwater photography is also impressive with great shots of swimming sharks. Typical with Cardona he has to inject plenty of exploitation elements to make it worthwhile, including the killing of a dog and rather graphic shark attacks.

The major problems with this film is the dire dialogue and long running time, which clocks in just shy of two hours. Since the film almost entirely takes place on a single boat, the two hour running time gets to feel like forever with this one setting. The despicable dialogue, some of which sounds like bland narration, can induce a few unintentional laughs also.

With better dialogue, a tighter pace with proper editing, "Cyclone" would have been a cult film fanatics dream. As is it's still worth a look for fans of 70's disaster films that don't mind a little gory exploitation to spice things up a bit. The film has been released in multiple versions and editions all over the world, under various lengths and titles (including "Terror Storm" among others), but by far the best edition is the Synapse release with the kick-ass cover artwork I talked about in the opening paragraph.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Survive! (1976) - 1.5/5

The media world was rocked in 1972 when the story leaked about the South American rugby team that crash-landed in the Andes and to resort to cannibalism of the dead in order to survive. The story inspired the film "Alive" 20 years later but few know today that a film version of their astonishing story was actually made 15 years before... by the Mexicans! What a minute... a Mexican film.... directed by an exploitation director ... starring Hugo Stiglitz... yea this is going to be real 'respectable' adaption.

The story is well known already with multiple books and a movie.. wait... two movie adaptions. A plane containing 45 passengers, mostly a rugby team and their families, crash-landed in the Andes on their way to a game in Chile. Due to various errors a rescue team was unable to find the crash site and the survivors were stuck in the mountains for 72 days resulting in them resorting to cannibalism to stay alive.

With disaster films ruling the cinemas in the 70s this tremendous chronicle of survival would be ripe picking for a film adaption... just who would of thunk the Mexicans would have beat the American's to the punch? Being familiar with a few works of cult director René Cardona I wasn't expecting much with this film adaption and surprise, I didn't like it!

A plot of this nature can't be made on the cheap and that is the main problem is that the production values are too damn low for the story potential. The effects of the plane crashing in the beginning is rather poor not to mention the mountains of fake snow.

The acting is as stiff and fake as the snow piled on the ground. Hugo Stiglitz, one of Mexico's most popular actors, is as unwatchable as ever. Seriously why the hell is this guy so popular down there? The American cut of the film even offers pain enduing dubbing that spouts off the plot elements like going down the list.

Director René Cardona is a popular exploitation director and it comes to no surprise that he focuses in on the cannibalism of the plot, exploiting the hell out of it. The cannibalism segments, though tame compared to films to come later in the decade, are graphic for the time but it just seems at odds with the rest of the plot which focuses on 'being based on a true story'.

"Survive!" is a cheap, shoddy adaption of a chilling real life disaster. If it were just a trashy bargain basement disaster film from South of the border then it would have been an exploitative good time but as is the exploitation elements clash with the filmmakers trying to tell a proper 'true story'. The film is slightly better in its uncut Mexican version which does away with the annoying narrator but beware, the uncut version on the VCI DVD release doesn't have English subtitles so unless you speak Spanish then you're shit out of luck.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Unstoppable (2010) - 2/5

With the 1985 film "Runaway Train" being one of my all time favorite films I took notice of the new Denzel Washington thriller "Unstoppable" as from the trailer it 'borrowed' many ideas from that award winning and criminally underrated gem. Curiosity on how much plot this film stole and for the fact my wife lives and breathes Denzel Washington got me to actually sit down and watch this typically pretentious, over produced Tony Scott film when normally I wouldn't even give it second glance. Well I can be honestly say it met my lowered expectations.

Well the plot is simple enough as we have an aging train engineer training a cocky rookie when their day becomes more exciting when an idiot loses control of a train and they have to run the bastard down and stop it before it rolls taking a tight and rolls exploding thousands of gallons of lethal chemicals.

Typical with Tony Scott films he makes any profession seem like it is the most pivotal and important job on the plant. It worked in "Crimson Tide" as a commander of a nuclear submarine IS one of the most stressful jobs on the planet. A train engineer.... not so much. Thanks to Tony Scott he makes it seem that being a train engineer is fucking rocket science. Now many people are going "what the fuck to you know, you're not a train engineer." Well I do know people that are train engineers and they say it's one of the most laid back, easy going jobs you can imagine. Thanks to Tony Scott he can now convince people that that you need to a NASA certified scientist to handle the stress. I would hate to see a Tony Scott film about being a busboy... fuck I would have no self esteem to think I could make it working in the adult world.

Denzel Washington has always been a fantastic actor and I respect him for that but as of late he has been teaming up with Tony Scott far too much and in turn playing the same damn characters over, and over again. Since Denzel is getting up there in age the filmmakers decide to throw in a young 'sidekick' in the form of nu-Kirk... errr.... I mean Chris Pine. Pine plays the typical arrogant fuck-up who has a problem with spying on his family and needs to redeem himself thus gaining his family back. Oh... this also stars Ethan Suplee in a supporting role. Considering he usually plays dumbasses, guess what role he plays? Yea the dumbass that loses control of the train. Type casting anyone? The rest of the charcters are all typical cliche crap including the red neck, the career driven woman and the overbearing boss who won't listen to suggestions.

Like expected the film does 'borrow' a few elements from "Runaway Train." Of course the basic plot of a train going amok but also a scene where authorities attempt to land someone on the train from helicopter that predictably turns bad when he takes a dive into a windshield. Oh the sharp curve... yea that's also stolen. Mix all that with Tony Scott's over-direction, flash editing, crass dialogue and forced drama and you have the typical Hollywood disaster puke for the post-MTV generation.

Unlike "Runaway Train", "Unstoppable" lacks soul and artistic merit. It's nothing more than an overproduced, pretentious Hollywood sludge from the Tony Scott film factory that is really nothing more than a highly glossed TV movie with a strong leading man. Denzel Washington fans are the only ones to board this train as it is destined for derailment around the bend.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure - 2/5

Some films should not have sequels. That's not saying I'm against sequels, in fact I feel the complete opposite. You might call me a 'sequel whore' as I love watching sequels of all sorts. However some films, such as "The Poseidon Adventure" , have a plot that could go nowhere with a follow-up. The people are rescued, wrap up, game over. There is nothing more you can do with it unless you approach the subject matter like the "Airport" franchise and have each film about a different group of characters and disaster event. Not here! Despite knowing how ridiculous the plot is producer Irwin Allen forges on adapting author Paul Gallico's absurd novel into one of the biggest sequel bombs of all time.

Taking place a mere hour after the events of "The Poseidon Adventure", we are introduced to a tug boat crew lead by Michael Caine who arrive at the overturned Poseidon to claim salvage on valuables. They meet a boat load of "doctors" at the same time (lead by Telly Savalas, so you know he's up to no good) and both crews enter the ship only to find another hand full of survivors. Now all hell breaks out as Savalas' crew is after plutonium on board and make it their goal to kill all witnesses.

This plot is absolutely ridiculous but how else could you make an interesting follow-up to a film that really had nowhere to go? Terrorists after plutonium? Really? I can imagine Gene Hackman flipping off the screen at that very plot device pissing himself with anger on how such a ridiculous concept is tarnishing the original film he did so well in. Also how hard up does your crew have to be to enter a capsized sinking ship (with random explosions going off no less!) to claim salvage. All that money is going to do you real good when you're dead fuckers!

Like the original Irwin again ensemble an amazing cast but don't let the all star cast fool you into thinking this is a going to be a good film. All these 70s disaster films had an all star casts but only a very few were actually good, and this lamentable sequel is definitely not one of them. Most of the cast phones in their performances to collect their paychecks and Sally Field has to give her most annoying performance to date spouting out awful diarrhea dialogue out of her cute little mouth ("I don't like being called a monkey!"). Her only purpose is to show off here great little behind in her water soaked pants. Michael Caine appearing in this film should be enough to wean audiences away. Nothing against the man as he is a terrific actor but he was cinematic poison in the late 70s and throughout the 80s. I swear he had more big budget box office bombs than any other actor just for the simple fact he took jobs based on how big the paycheck was, resulting in much of his output being the caliber of "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure."

In praise for the film it again has great production design and matches the original sets from the first film rather well considering they the original sets were dismantled seven years before. Sadly the special effects don't match the original as the few model effects are extremely lame (the ending explosion) or the filmmakers just opt to use shots from the original as stock footage. The worst effect has to be a lame sequence of Caine manning his tug boat at the beginning when it's obviously a make shift model in front of an awful blue screen with buckets of water thrown on to simulate a storm. Just pitiful.

I never thought I would see a machine gun firefight on the sinking Poseidon but here it is in all it's ridiculous glory! "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" is the perfect sequel to go with the comment 'what were they thinking'. For that alone I recommend watching this sequel as it will make you hit your head one more than one occasion. Thankfully this would be the one only sequel as the Poseidon finally sank, just one film too damn late.

Written By Eric Reifschneider

Poseidon Adventure, The (1972) - 4.5/5

Though "Airport" started the disaster film craze in the 1970's, Irwin Allen's big budget 1972 disaster epic "The Poseidon Adventure" perfected the formula that every disaster flick would follow throughout the decade. Though they would follow the mold none would touch the near perfection of this water logged thriller.

Thanks to the recent remake, the plot is again well known to the movie going public and to make it simple it's about a luxury cruise liner getting capsized by a tidal wave that was caused by a nearby earthquake. Now a handful of survivors are in a race against time to get to the bow of the ship before explosions and slowly rising water extinguish their lives.

Though the plot is simple, the grand part of this epic is the cast of seasoned veterans. This cast is terrific and they give the film their all! Gene Hackman proved to me yet again why he deserved multiple academy awards with this strong and commanding portrayal of a preacher leading a group of people to safety. All these great actors play a wide array of characters with different personalities which ensures plenty of emotional turmoil and scuffles along the way.

Director Ronald Neame masterfully crafts dramatic tragedy sequences without going over-the-top and making them unintentionally cheesy like most of the disaster epics later would succumb to. He also balances out the tragedy with some well-placed humor to break up the high tension (the suppository dialogue had me rolling). I also have to praise him for his camera work. Do you suffer from sea sickness? If you do then you might want to skip this film (or make sure to take your suppositories!) as he constantly has the camera swaying back and forth almost constantly give the motion of the ship. His camera work really gets the audience feeling like they are in the film themselves.

Along with great acting and directing we are also graced with wonderful special effects. These are truly some of the best model effects I have ever seen. Model effects in water are the hardest to portray realistically due to water being hard to make look to scale but they pull it off here effectively. The production design is also massive with wonderfully upside down built sets that our survivors have to meander through.

When it comes to 70's disaster films, for my money, "The Poseidon Adventure" is king of the pack. It's near perfect with amazing directing, strong acting, colorful cast (look for Leslie Neilsen in a serious role as the ship's captain), great effects and mesmerizing production design. A true epic of its time and surprisingly still holds up well today not being near as dated as one would expect (unlike "Airport").

Irwin Allen would follow-up with another big budget disaster production two years later with "The Towering Inferno" before directing a lamentable sequel in 1979 with "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure." Later remade as a 2005 miniseries with the same title and then again as a big budget box office disappointment in 2006 with the title shortened to "Poseidon".

Written By Eric Reifschneider