Notable Cast: Choi Min-sik, Ha Jung-woo, Kwak Do-won, Ma Dong-seok, Kim Sung-kyun, Kim Hye-eun, Cho Jin-woong, Kim Young-sun
During the sort of boom of Korean cinema in the early 2010s, many films came out that I consider to be absolute modern classics, some even masterful pieces of genre film. Among them, and there is a decent amount, would be one in the gangster genre. It has one stellar ensemble cast, including the likes of Choi Min-sik, Kwak Do-won, Ma Dong-seok, who was becoming increasingly popular at the time, and the same could be said for Cho Jin-woong. It is no surprise, but most certainly welcome that Yoon's muse and long-time collaborator, Ha Jung-woo, would also star alongside Choi, making for a fierce dynamic duo that lights up the screen from start to finish. Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time is a bona fide gangster film through and through, and it absolutely deserves to be placed among the best of the best from any period of time in cinema history.
It's the year 1990, and a massive war on crime has been declared by Busan police officials as corruption and criminal activity have soared to an all-time high. We bounce back and forth throughout the '80s and early '90s as we see the rise and fall of Choi Ik-hyun (Choi Min-sik), a customs officer who is near losing his job and completely down on his luck, until one fateful night when he finds himself upon a one-way ticket into the criminal underworld, in which he finds out that he just may be better at than he ever imagined. He teams up with a distant family member Choi Hyung-bae (Ha Jung-woo), who has been in the game for many years. The two hit it off, and Ik-hyun finds himself quickly rising to power, and the things it cost him along the way only seem to make him more powerful in the end. Things get twisty and turny, as you can imagine with any film in the genre, and lies and deceit come into play, and a lot of things are smashed into peoples' skulls as a result, and I mean a whole plethora of objects. I'll just say I can't imagine the amount of glass that a certain character gets embedded into his scalp and how long it must've taken to be dug out. Eesh.
Notable cast: Matthew McConaughey. Charlie Hunnam, Colin
Farrell, Henry Golding
Sometimes you can go home again. Guy Ritchie once again
drops a film in his signature genre, the British gangster film, with a lot of
his signature style and dialogue. Different now is the pace, no longer the
breakneck sprint of Snatch, The Gentlemen has the intentional pace of a
more tenured filmmaker, confidant enough in his story to let it breathe. Tying
into the story as well, there is the idea of growing older and balancing modernization
with maintaining what has worked until now. In its way, this is really good and
leads to a pretty enjoyable movie overall, though not everything in this
situation has aged especially well, unfortunately.
Notable cast: Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth
Moss, Domhnall Gleeson
What does one do hot off of a writing Oscar, especially after
writing something as instantly seminal as Straight Outta Compton? Writing
and directing a female-centric period mob drama based on a DC/Vertigo comic would
not have been my first guess, personally, but I do respect the unexpected move.
Bold in its casting, The Kitchen exists as a dramatic acting showcase
for both McCarthy and Haddish, typically better known for their comedic chops.
The setting is interesting, and the concept of the story is infinitely
engaging, potentially… with so much lined up in The Kitchen’s favor, it seems
strange that it just never quite comes together.
Director: Alan Mak, Fletcher Poon Notable Cast: Huang Xuan, Duan Yi-Hong, Zu Feng, Lang Yue-Ting, David Wang Yao-Qing, Xing Jia-Dong, Wang Yan-Hui
With a title like Extraordinary Mission, it was easy for me to assume that this film would be much more along the lines of a cheesy action film in the veins of Switch, The Adventurers, or even Kung Fu Yoga. However, that’s just based on the title. Cause, you know, it’s kind of a tongue-in-cheek title. While there are certainly elements of the cheesy film that Extraordinary Mission could have been through its plotting and occasionally 80s Hong Kong action inspired action, the film is much more serious and artistic than expected. It’s still entertaining and often dramatically effective, but it does occasionally struggle in balancing it all and comes off as uneven. For Chinese action fans, it’s still a film that hits a lot of the right buttons, but it’s also one that’s torn between two worlds.
Notable Cast: Donnie
Yen, Andy Lau, Kent Cheng, Wilfred Lau, Felix Wong, Philip Keung, Michelle Hu,
Raquel Xu, Chun Wong, Philip Ng, Kent Tong, Niki Chow, Bryan Larkin
There was a lot of hype around Chasing the Dragon. The ever-present director and producer Wong
Jing along with director Jason Kwan were going to take superstars Donnie Yen
and the everlasting Andy Lau and develop a remake of the award-winning Hong
Kong film, To Be Number One. It’s
enticing to say the least. This much talent wrapped into a Hong Kong dramatic
thriller was bound to generate this kind of buzz. Enough buzz and hype that it
was almost destined to disappoint on some level. Yet, Chasing the Dragon is an ambitious film nonetheless, utilizing its
immense onscreen talents to generate a film that is built on some insanely
effective moments of emotional power and striking imagery. It’s obvious though
that Wong Jing and company take the film too far into its ambitious realms to
be as strong as it might have, forgoing the ‘less is more’ mantra to create an
epic tone for the film. It’s attempts at being the next Scarface, Godfather, or Battles Without Honor and Humanity are
evident from the start and can ultimately be problematic for the film as a
whole, but Chasing the Dragon still
works as an entertaining and hefty piece of modern Hong Kong cinema.
Notable Cast: Peter
Ho, Huang Zitao, Guli Nazha, Wang Xueqi, Choo Ja-hyun, Jack Kao, Long Meizi
There is a cliché phrase used that says ‘there are two
sides to every coin.’ Often, this is in reference to two separate ‘sides’ that
are based on the same foundation or part of the same core. But I’m sure you
know that. It’s why it’s a cliché phrase. Yet, this was a phrase that
repeatedly slid through my head as The Game Changer played out in front of me.
It’s a film that’s one part gangster drama and one part outlandish homage to
John Woo action films, embedded in the same film. While both sides, the dramatic and the
action packed, are part of the same film, they definitely feel as though they
are on opposite ends of said same film. Both sides have their own fun details,
including some concepts and visuals, but they feel disconnected. For what it’s
worth, The Game Changer is still a lot of fun and has plenty of elements to
admire, but as a cinematic whole is stumbles in trying to rise above being a
silly action film leaving the results as two sides, enjoyable on their own, yet hardly connected.
Director: Masahiro Shinoda Notable Cast: Ryō Ikebe, Mariko Kaga, Takashi Fujiki, Chisako Hara
Muraki is a Yakuza member fresh out of prison after some years spent behind bars due to completing a hit for his boss. Once out, he returns to the city and settles back into his local gambling den, where he meets a young woman named Saeko, hard on betting all the cash she's got. He becomes infatuated with this alluring woman and the two form a very destructive relationship with one another, in this gangster film which is less about the action typically associated with the films of that time and rather a brilliant character study on the animalistic nature within us all.
The 70s were about as prime as it gets for Kinji Fukasaku
films. The man essentially could do no wrong. Whether it was his two stints of
the Battles Without Honor and Humanity
series (the second series called New
Battles Without Honor and Humanity is getting a Blu Ray release here in the
US in July and everyone and their dog should be very excited) or his various
other stand-alone features, pretty much anything he did from this era is gold.
This includes Cops Vs Thugs, a film
he did in-between entries on the previously noted New Battles series. It was hard not to get my hopes up for this
film going into it knowing that not only was it a Fukasaku film from this
period, but it starred some of his regulars and was written by Kazuo Kasahara
who penned the first four Battles
films, and even with those hopes Cops Vs
Thugs strikes out as another massively impressive film that dives into the
complex humanity of law and crime. It’s a film that is both highly entertaining in an action oriented cops and robbers manner, but it also strikes
a very effective chord about the gray areas of morality that being human straddles
in a world that’s not nearly as black and white as it is made out to be. The
results are another classic from an iconic director that needs a lot more love
and a lot more attention.
Notable Cast: Sairi Itoh, Kenta Suga, Kaito Yoshimura, Hanae Kan, Ami Tomite, Antony, Hana Matsumoto, Nanami Kawakami, Katsuya Maiguma, Matthew Chozick, Taro Yabe, Yoshimasa Kando, Denden
Eiji Uchida has become a household name with indie distributor Third Window Films, leading the company to jump into the production world 100% on their own with Lowlife Love. With the surprise success of said project, Adam (TWF) and Eiji have teamed up once again for another crazy and wonderful production... Love and Other Cults.
Ai is a girl who is budding into a young woman, but the world she inhabits seems to vehemently reject her existence, and she finds herself hopping about various groups of living, seemingly absorbing herself in blend as a chameleon, only to shortly thereafter continue that hop. Along the way she meets some interesting characters, all nasty in a certain sense, but as the story unfolds, so do the reasons behind these characters brokenness.
Director: Takeshi Kitano Notable Cast: Yurei Yanagi, Yuriko Ishida, Takeshi Kitano, Gadarukanaru Taka, Dankan, Makoto Ashikawa
When I initially had watched Boiling Point about a decade ago, I did not like the film whatsoever... and admittedly my understanding of cinema and my growth as a person myself has greatly changed my outlook on what was my least favorite Kitano film back then. I truly believe that Kitano's sophomore effort is a very well made film that deserves to be more sought out by movie goers.
Director: Han Jae-rim Notable Cast: Jeong Woo-sung, Jo In-seong, Bae Seong-woo, Kim Ah-joong, Ryu Jeon-yeol, Kim Ee-seong
A masculine driven tale of rising to power and the corruption of law and justice, The King is a very entertaining and beautifully shot film that features a star studded ensemble that fires on all cylinders with powerhouse performances from its main players.
Jo In-seong is Park Tae-soo, a young man hungry for power and money, which he quickly achieves over a hustling study to pass the bar exam to become a prosecutor, after seeing his father slapped about and trembling in fear at the hands of a man with that very title one day.
Director: Takeshi Kitano Notable Cast: Takeshi Kitano, Maiko Kawakami, Makoto Ashikawa, Shiro Sano, Sei Hiraizumi
Kitano's debut comes out of the gate swinging with this fast-paced bloodbath of a gangster film. It doesn't really focus on the aspect of gang members, like his latter works, but he (Kitano) as the cop, is just as, if not more crazy than any gangster in the entire story. Mixing this violence with Kitano's trademark dark humor, you easily get one of Kitano's very best works to date.
Initially I thought the film was sort of lacking, despite the strong opening, as the scenes that unfold are pretty mundane and repetitive, but quickly realized we were just on the beat with Kitano's character, no pun intended. It's designed to show that even in the most simple situations, his handling of crime doers is far above and beyond the law, making his extremes later on very believable. How he hadn't been fired before is beyond me, but I just went with it.
Director: Toshiaki Toyoda Notable Cast: Koji Chihara, Onimaru, Akaji Maro, Tetta Sugimoto, Rin Ozawa, Kiyohiko Shibukawa
Rock 'n roll, slo-motion, passing Tokyo citizens, and one pissed off dude in a green coat walking towards the camera kick off Mr. Toyoda's debut (well technically he made Unchain 1st, but I digress) film, Pornostar, which no, porn has nothing at all to do with this film, but it will grab your attention, no?
Arano, the lad in the green coat, bumps into a few people, and eventually a Yakuza, in which he really, really hates... not that particular Yakuza, but them in general. So he begins to kill, and kills some more, and more, and so on. That is the plot. Not much to it, but there doesn't need to be, and no, that is not by any means spoiling anything. The premise is a dude in a green coat hates the Yakuza and begins to kill them.
Director: Oh Seung-wook Notable Cast: Jeon Do-yeon, Kim Nam-gil, Park Seung-woong, Kwak Do-won
I went into this film, excited, but not really knowing what to expect. I had heard some great things from one of my friends in Korea, who is a critic himself, so he had me sold on it, but even then his details and praise were pretty vague. All I know is that Jeon Do-yeon is my favorite actress, and so naturally, I am always down to see whatever film she stars in next. This fanboy loyalty (I worded that weird) led me to one of my favorite Korean films I've had the pleasure of seeing in quite some time.
As far as original writer Kazuo Kasahara was concerned, the Battles Without Honor and Humanity
series was finished after the fourth film Police
Tactics. Truthfully, that film did feel like a solid ending to the story
that was being told. Many characters reached their logical conclusion and the
arrival of an agreement between smaller warring yakuza factions to create a
political coalition that essentially ended their yakuza focus worked. End of story, right? Wrong.
Popularity with the series led to there being at least one last film in the original
run (there is a spin off series that would come soon after too), but original
writer Kasahara did not come back. However, almost everyone else did including
director Kinji Fukasaku. The results are the aptly titled Final Episode, a solid and entertaining installment into the Battles series that too often gets
written off as an inferior and ‘tacked on’ ending to the series. Final Episode however fits the style and
tone even if it occasionally lacks the depth and subtlety of its predecessors
to make it a worthy sequel.
Director: Woo Min-ho Notable Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Jo Seung-woo, Baek Yoon-sik, Lee Kyeong-yeong, Kim Hong-pa, Bae Seong-woo, Lee El, Jeong Man-sik, Kim Byeong-ok, Kim Dae-myeong
I will say after seeing this film, my 1st thought was that it was one of the best Korean films I've seen in quite some time, and I stand by that. Inside Men: The Original a.k.a The Director's Cut, is a 3 hour long gangster film with a political bite to it and it's brilliant.
There is so much that happens over the course of this 180 minute film, that there is no way to remember every single detail, and I am glad, because already (minutes after just finishing it), I am quite excited to give it another visit. I feel it is a film that one can appreciate more after repeat viewings.
Notable Cast: Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Michelle Phillips,
Harry Dean Stanton, Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Dreyfuss, Steve Kanaly, John P.
Ryan, Frank McRae, Cloris Leachman
While there have been a handful of occasions where John
Dillinger has been the focus of a film, whether it’s a fictionalized tale,
documentary, TV movie, or the like, the 1973 film Dillinger from John Milius tends to be regarded as one of the best.
This is my first time seeing the film personally and I was very excited going
into it as I love the 1930s era gangster films. Tommy guns, fedoras, a general
lack of regard for anything, but yourself. This era makes for great dramatic
and action packed films. Dillinger does not disappoint in this regard. The film
is remarkably artful in many regards, crafting a character from the historical
bank robber that’s enigmatic and building a world around him that’s often as superfluous
as his own personality is, and yet the film never actually strays from the
formulaic main beats of the dramatic action film that the 70s really started to
embrace in the wake of Bonnie and Clyde.
Dillinger is an entertaining gangster,
but it has a heart to it that beats in some unique ways.
Takashi Miike remains one of the most ambitious, if not
insane, directors working today. The man puts out two movies a year (I think
that might be his minimum) and the sheer eclectic nature of his films, whether
it’s style, genre, or approach, makes each one a rather riveting experience no
matter if the quality is great or not. Going into Yakuza Apocalypse, I expected a rather serious mix of horror and
dramatic action with perhaps a bit of the exploitative elements that Miike used
on the yakuza films of his early career. However, Yakuza Apocalypse is not held back by genre as it goes for broke on
insane set pieces and awkward bits. It’s a very in-cohesive film that suffers
from its leaping genre bends and hanging plot threads, but I have to admit –
this still might be one of the most entertaining and vicious film experiences
that I’ve had with his material.
Notable Cast: Ti Lung,
Chow Yun Fat, Leslie Cheung, Waise Lee, Emily Chu, Kenneth Tsang, Tien Feng,
cameos by John Woo and Tsui Hark.
Looking back, A
Better Tomorrow was one of the key films that drove a young teenage version
of myself towards cult cinema. It had some major impacts in my life, both as a
driver of the kind of films I would come to prefer and as a staple of
comparison for films to come. To this day, it still has a profound effect on
me. I tear up in the final act. I buy potted plants and scatter them throughout
my house in case I have to hide something in them. I even slam my leg on the
table at bars, toast it, and pour my drink all over my pant leg. Sure, that
last one might not be true, but I think about often when I am out socially. It
does not deter from the fact that A
Better Tomorrow was a game changer. Not only for my fifteen year old self,
but as a film too. It took John Woo and Tsui Hark’s careers to the next level
and it rocketed Chow Yun Fat onto a path of international stardom. It
essentially made the term ‘heroic bloodshed’ its own genre. While some of the
style might come off as cliché or even cheesy to audiences now, the film works
perfectly and remains a forerunner to what modern action cinema is today.
Ho (Ti Lung) and his partner Mark (Chow Yun Fat) have been
one of the leaders in running a black market scheme out of Hong Kong for quite
some time. They are training a new recruit Shing (Waise Lee) when a deal in
Taiwan goes horribly awry. This leaves Ho in prison for five years and when he
gets out, he wants to take his life straight. His police officer brother (Leslie
Cheung) doesn’t believe him, his partner Mark doesn’t understand, and a new crime
boss seems to want him dead. There is still a lot of work to do to rectify his
wrongs.
A Better Tomorrow
is the kind of action film where the action, no matter how good, takes a back
seat to the character work on display here. While Chow Yun Fat gets a lot of
credit for this movie, more on that in a minute, and there is essentially three
lead roles, the heart and soul of this movie rests with Ti Lung’s Ho. Shaking
off some of the more stand up heroics of his time with the Shaw Brothers
studio, he plays the perfect weathered and well-intentioned gangster here and
it’s his emotional journey that lifts this film up. He is surrounded by some
serious talent in the secondary cast and it’s easy to see why Chow Yun Fat
comes off as the face of this film when he steals so many sequences. His hot
headed and often desperate cool portrayal is the perfect balance to Ti Lung and
Chow Yun Fat destroys what could have been a throw away “best friend” role. The
chemistry on screen between the three leads is impeccable and it truly is the
biggest reason to see A Better Tomorrow.
With that being said, the rest of the film is also top notch
quality. John Woo takes his now patented “gun fu” style to dramatic heights
here with some massive melodramatic scores and an ability to capture movement
and depth like few of his Hong Kong action peers. As an action film, A Better Tomorrow is potent. It never
shies away from the violence, a sequence where Chow Yun Fat pulls a one man
assassination on a dinner party almost entirely in slow motion stands out, and
it uses its character work and dramatic tension as a build to explosive bursts - bursts of gun fire, explosions, and horrific hand to hand fights that punctuate
turning points in the plot. The style might be called ‘heroic bloodshed,’ but
rarely does any of the action pieces feel heroic as much as a needed break from
the building atmosphere. John Woo shoots them in such a way that they feel
artful and dance like (earning his movies the loving term ‘bullet ballets’) and
it’s this ability to balance the plot and character progressions in action
sequences that makes A Better Tomorrow
the game changer it remains.
Say what you want about the intense bro-mance you will
experience in A Better Tomorrow or
its almost overpowering emotional beats that shine brighter than the already
magnificent action set pieces, but this film is a classic – pure and simple. It
set up the international careers for almost all of its principal cast and crew
(outside of Ti Lung, who had already had a decade of being a Hong Kong A-lister
at this point) and it set the ground work principals for what modern action
films should be to this day. A Better
Tomorrow might not be what many people expect when it comes to classic
action, but it’s so much more.
Arrow Video Features:
* Limited Edition Blu-ray (3000 copies only)
* Restored High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation, on Blu-ray for the first time in the world!
* Original uncompressed mono PCM audio
* Newly translated English subtitles
* Interview with renowned critic and historian Tony Rayns
* Original theatrical trailer
* Gallery featuring rare promotional images
* Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ian MacEwan
*
Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Japanese cinema expert
Jasper Sharp, newly illustrated by Ian MacEwan and featuring original
archive stills
It’s movies like Retaliation
that make me sad about the state of appreciation for the yakuza genre of the
past. I’m not saying that Retaliation
is a poor film that’s poorly appreciated. In fact, I’m saying quite the
opposite. It’s powerful. What I am saying is that there are so many great
Japanese gangster films that exist that will probably never see the light of
day in many western countries. Thanks to Arrow Video though, we get at least
one of the many overlooked classics. Hasebe’s Retaliation is an impactful, cut-throat, and efficient tale about
both the dark and bright sides of life as a moral yakuza gangster and this
restored and packed limited release of the film does it as much justice as the
film does for the underground brilliance of the genre.
Jiro (Kobayashi) is fresh out of the slammer. Eight years
away from his life as a yakuza has allowed him some introspection, but the
collapse of his adopted family by a much larger yakuza gang seems to have left
him with little choice for his future. He’s tasked with his new bosses to take
a handful of men and manipulate two smaller clans against one another so that
they can move in and purchase some land for a massive corporate deal. Things
might get bloody, but how far can he sacrifice his own morals before he has to
retaliate?
The darkness of its subject leaks into a lot of aspects of this movie.
Almost ten years before John Woo would popularize the
‘heroic bloodshed’ concept of gangster movies in A Better Tomorrow, Hasebe uses almost the exact same formula for Retaliation to deliver a heartfelt film
full of colorful characters, loyalty, and brotherhood. While his previous film Massacre Gun utilized an atmospheric and
noir-inspired touch, Retaliation
makes no such attempts or spins on its story about men trapped in a vicious
cycle of death and power…and their eventual rebellion against it. Retaliation is fairly cut and dry,
taking its plot heavy devices and injecting the deep character reactions and
artistic touches into a somewhat formulaic approach. There are twists and turns
in the plot (manipulation is key to much of the tension and character beats of
the film), but the film never aims to ‘surprise’ the audience with them.
Instead, it takes each corner as a point to ‘surprise’ the characters and it makes
each moment much more impactful. It’s decently predictable about what
characters might perish or who might betray who, but the audience is still
undeniably hooked in how Jiro or his team might respond to each challenge. This
is impressive execution through and through to pull it off.
Since the script itself tends to be fairly straightforward
in its delivery, it’s up to Hasebe and his own team to make Retaliation as impactful as it is. While
the cult director would eventually see more success in films of more extreme
nature later in his career, in this film it’s all about the small aspects of
his visuals and sound. Fight sequences with creative lighting (a chase sequence
through a house with a flashlight highlighting the prey, for example) or a
breathless death duel that’s punctuated in slow motion with the ringing of
dripping water makes many of these predictable twists in the plot so damn
effective. This, of course, is partnered with some phenomenal performances that
resonate with these artistic flourishes. Our anti-heroic trio of Akira,
Kobayashi, Hideaki Nitani, and Jo Shishido carry even the most limited of
screen time, but even most of the extensive secondary cast impress. If
anything, I desperately wanted the film to have 30 or 40 minutes more to deepen
the character chemistry for much of Jiro’s team. Not that it stops Jo Shishido
and Akira Kobayashi from having one of the most fascinating on screen bromances
I have ever seen on film, but it’s one of the few setbacks of the film as it
feels like it rushes many of the enthralling relationships to keep the plot
moving.
Jo Shishido needed way more screen time...outside of eating.
Needless to say, if you are a fan of gangster films or just
insanely well executed action thrillers, then you need to immediately purchase
the limited print of this Retaliation
release. The film could have used a bit more time to enhance some of the more specific
secondary characters, but it does some very impressive things with its
formulaic plot. It’s populated with captivating performances, artistic
flourishes, and some brutally effective violence that resonates long after the
film has ended. To bring it back full circle, it’s impressive films like Retaliation that make me wonder just
what other classic yakuza films are floating out there that most western
audiences will never see…and never appreciate for their underground brilliance.
Let’s just hope that Arrow Video digs up more of these undiscovered gems.
Written By Matt Reifschneider
If you're one that wants to enjoy Retaliation, feel free to order your limited copy at the link below.
