OLD STONE - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2016 - To be good, to be honest . . . to a fault.

Is there any actor alive who looks cooler than
Chen Gang when he's got a cigarette dangling from his lips?

Old Stone (2016)
Dir. Johnny Ma
Starring: Chen Gang

Review by Greg Klymkiw

In China, it is better to let someone die in the street. If you try to help someone, to save the person's life, Chinese law places the responsibility and burden upon you - you become little more than criminalized and in fact, become a victim; a victim, that is, if you let the system screw you over.

In Johnny Ma's extraordinary first feature film Old Stone, Lao Shi (Chen Gang) is a cab driver who accidentally hits a motorcyclist in the street and soon realizes he should not have bothered to stop and most certainly not bothered to help. Because of China's idiotic laws, his life becomes a nightmare: his job is in jeopardy, his finances are drained and his family, by extension, are placed in peril, financially and emotionally.

Even when Chen Gang does not have a smoke
dangling from his lips, he is still the coolest,
no matter what or how he is smoking a cigarette.

Still, it's not just the laws and bureaucracy that contribute to Lao Shi's woes. His need to help escalates to such obsessive degrees that he stands to lose much more than money. One begins to question his mental well-being as he madly, zealously and single-mindedly cares for the accident victim, who lies, deeply comatose in a hospital bed. The over-caring cabbie even begins to investigate the man's life and those who are closest to him.

Lao Shi's sense of responsibility becomes a flaw, a potentially fatal flaw (in more ways than in just the literary sense). Writer-Director Johnny Ma weaves a compulsive tale of a man caught up in a ludicrous bureaucracy which not only mounts, but does so well beyond the usual "through no fault of his own".

The film is framed via flashbacks and flash-forwards which eventually catch up to the central narrative. At first they involve the accident itself, but also several mysterious sequences wherein Lao Shi is following/stalking the motorcycle rider once the "victim" comes out of his coma and is released from hospital.

The movie is engorged with suspense and induces considerable anxiety in the viewer. That it slowly mounts to a chilling series of events which inspires a kind of horror and revulsion in us, not only speaks to the power of the picture, but Johnny Ma as a filmmaker with talent to burn.




One of the things I questioned in terms of the film's structure was the framing device that eventually meets up with the central narrative. I can't actually quarrel with its effectiveness, but at certain points while watching the movie and certainly in retrospect, I kept trying to imagine a movie that stripped this away and presented the whole thing in a straight-up linear fashion. Given the nature of the story and character, my feeling is that "straight-up" might actually have proven to be a lot more "unexpected" than its filmmaker might have imagined (if, in fact, the notion of a more linear approach was even considered, at either the script level or in the cutting room).

This, however, is not a quibble - not even a minor one - it's simply a question; one that only a genuinely intelligent and sophisticated work can inspire.

Even though Chen Gang is not smoking a cigarette
in this shot, we will not hold it against him and proclaim:
Chen Gang is ALWAYS cool!!!

One of the odd feelings the movie instills is sheer frustration - at first with the external forces affecting Lao Shi, but eventually with Lao Shi himself. You keep wanting to slap the guy on the side of the head and yell, "Jesus Christ, dude! Knock it off. Stop caring! Stop allowing yourself to be forcibly face-fucked! Stop obsessing! START being an uncaring prick and move on!"

Of course, if he did any of those things there wouldn't be much of a movie.

What keeps our eyeballs, hearts and minds glued to the screen is the exceptional performance of Chen Gang. He infuses the role with so much humanity, doing so to the point in which we're feeling frustration and anger because he makes us care about Lao Shi so goddamn much. Gang also has charisma to burn. The camera absolutely loves him. I have no idea why this guy isn't a huge star. As far as I can tell, he's only been in one previous feature film (though he's apparently prolific in Chinese TV).

This guy's the real thing. I'd watch him reciting the telephone book.

Plus man-oh-man, he looks so cool smoking cigarettes. This is not an easy thing for anyone to do these days and frankly, any actor who looks as cool as Chen Gang does when he sucks back on cancer sticks, absolutely deserves stardom.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

Old Stone is a Zeitgeist Films release playing in the TIFF 2016 Discovery program.

FROM VEGAS TO MACAU aka "Ao Men feng yun"/"The Man From Macau" - Review By Greg Klymkiw - He's bigger than Jesus, Cooler than Elvis: CHOW YUN FAT rocks 2014 FantAsia International Film Festival - JE ME SOUVIENS!

JESUS, ALLAH, BUDDHA:
MOVE THE FUCK OVER!
GOD is in the house!

FROM VEGAS TO MACAU (2014) ***
Dir. Wong Jing
Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Nicholas Tse, Chapman To, Philip Ng, Gao Hu

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Is there anyone alive cooler than Chow Yun-Fat? Uh, no. Bar none, the man rocks and he's back in the role that made him famous - Ken, the God of Gamblers. And what a God he proves to be! Jesus, Allah, Buddha: Move the fuck over, Ken is Lord and Master.

In From Vegas to Macau (aka Ao Men fang yun and The Man From Macau), this man among men, this God amongst Gods, can read cards like no other. He's sly as a fox, sexier than the devil himself and cooler than Elvis!

Ken teams up with a tripartite army of law enforcement officials and the burgeoning master hustler Cool (Nicholas Tse, no slouch in the "cool" department). His Robin Hood-like team of daring young men rob from the syndicate to give to the poor.

When Cool's Dad is kidnapped by the organized crime scumbags, our heroes must do battle with the revoltingly nasty Mr. Ko (Gao Hu). In addition to Ken's kung-fu-like prowess at flinging poker cards like deadly blades, he's got more than a few tricks up his sleeve.

Luckily for us (and our young hero), Ken also has a babe-o-licious daughter Rainbow (Kimmy Tong). What's a great HK action comedy without a babe? (There's more than a few wandering about here.)

Directed by the legendary Wong Jing (so prolific, he's directed enough films to rival the population of Hong Kong) and with superb fight choreography by Nicky Li, this is a frothy delight that happily brings us back to the pre-1997 glory days of HK cinema.

So ante up, varmint.

God awaits!

RED CLIFF (North American Theatrical Version) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Truncated Woo

Red Cliff (2009)
dir. John Woo
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen and Zhao Wei

***1/2

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I know absolutely nothing about Chinese history. Well, not absolutely nothing. I have a vague notion that there was a period during the first few centuries of the previous millennium where the country was carved up among a variety of warlords. For what feels like eons, these despots fought each other incessantly for wealth and power until further battles shifted focus towards the centralization of power within this huge nation rather than letting things exist in a carved-up rag-tag fashion. That's it. That's all I know. I grant you it ain't much and it's most certainly a far cry from the knowledge I've gleaned on the subject of American history - a knowledge I garnered mostly from American cinema.

But I feel no shame on this front - especially not within the context of John Woo's new picture Red Cliff which might actually be the first movie to present a piece of Chinese history in a manner that makes some sense to me. Part of this, I believe, is rooted in Woo's consumate skill and artistry as a filmmaker. Woo's stylistic virtuosity not only presents the historical events of the picture with the kind of airtight adherence to narrative that made his best pre-Hollywood work like The Killer and Hard Boiled such fine movies, but he does so with a clear love of Hollywood cinema. He is clearly influenced and in the same league as such American Masters as John Ford and Sam Peckinpah - expertly blending the sentiment and manly honour with action and violence that borders on ballet (here we also see Woo's love of the American musical).

Red Cliff holds the distinction of being the most expensive film ever made in China and it has broken boxoffice records all over Asia in a two-part 280-minute epic. Alas, on its first-run in North America, we received not two parts, but a version that clocks in about an hour shorter. Some of the action of the narrative feels rushed and truncated, but luckily, what Woo does best, is gloriously intact.

Set around 300 CE (instead of the proper Christian "A.D."), Red Cliff tells the story of an epic battle between an alliance of southern warlords against the much larger and more powerful northern force. It's a classic right versus might tale and I'm grateful that Woo directs with such style, verve and storytelling savvy that I feel substantially enriched in at least one small part of Chinese history.

Most of all, it's one hell of a good show. Woo paints a gorgeous series of pictures with the kind of epic sweep that only a master can bring to the table. Replete with gorgeous compositions, plenty of intrigue and romance, healthy dollops of male honour and camaraderie and truly ferocious and thrilling battle scenes, Red Cliff, even in truncated form, does not disappoint. Woo's mastery of cinema allows for the kind of action set-pieces that feel unlike anything we have seen in recent years. Even though he maintains, like Peckinpah, a cutty style of movement, his sense of geography is so first-rate that we always know where we are in any given field of battle. Like Peckinpah, as opposed to virtually every other hack working in movies today, Woo infuses his action with emotional weight. Every edit is a story edit - moving the narrative ever-forward. And every act of violence is a skilfully choreographed ballet that not only looks great, but carries considerable dramatic impact. His sense of composition, like Ford, is painterly. I cannot think of a single frame that isn't wrought with the care and love of a true artist.

Though things move a tad slowly in the first hour, the final ninety minutes leave you wanting more. In fact, I had such a good time that I immediately wanted to watch it again. This is a rare occurence in contemporary cinema.

Red Cliff is a big screen must-see event, but even still, I would prefer additional helpings of this picture to come replete with the whole damn thing. As such, I am hoping and praying that my next encounter is the full 280-minute version. I suspect that when this happens, it'll be very easy to knock my rating up to a full four stars, maybe even five.

Some have referred to this as a comback film for Woo. I don't think Woo really went anywhere. He patiently delivered expertly crafted Hollywood genre pictures. Some were good and others not so good. And now, he's simply and happily back where he belongs - with a story that inspires him and talent in front and behind the camera that delivers 110% to make sure his vision is everything it has, can and will be.

Red Cliff is an E1 Entertainment release.

THE VANISHING SPRING LIGHT: TALES OF WEST STREET - Review By Greg Klymkiw

The Vanishing Spring Light: Tales of West Street (2011) dir. Xun Yu "Fish" Starring: "Grandma" Jiang Su-Ha, Xiao Da Wan-Bi, Xiang Qian-Hong

****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

“How far we all come. How far we all come away from ourselves. So far, so much between, you can never go home again . . . it's good to go home, but you never really get all the way home again in your life . . . and once in a while, once in a long time, you remembered, and knew how far you were away, and it hit you hard enough, that little while it lasted, to break your heart.” - James Agee, A Death in the Family

Grandma Jiang is dying.

Wracked with pain after suffering a massive stroke, she lies in her bed, physically unable to assume her usual perch in front of the family home on her beloved West Street. This World Cultural Heritage Site in Dujiangyan (Southwest China) in the Sichuan Province near the site of an irrigation system that was a massive feat of ancient engineering, has housed generations upon generations of families who lived a simple, traditional life.

This is where Grandma Jiang lived for 50 of her 75 years.

In the time of her life, Grandma Jiang loved nothing more than passing endless days on the porch - smoking cigarettes, taking in the sights and sounds passing by this historic street that once served as the gateway to the Silk Road and sharing conversations with friends, neighbours and occasional visiting relatives. Her loyal daughter-in-law Xiao Da manages the mahjong parlour in the living room while her bumblingly good-natured son Xiang Qian drives cab, when not blind drunk, but often hung-over.

Though petty squabbles erupt amongst her daughters who live their own lives and almost grudgingly make efforts to visit and care for her, Grandma Jiang has, in the words of the Armenian-American writer William Saroyan, striven to "discover in all things, that which shines and is beyond corruption and encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world".

But now, wrapped in blankets, looking like a living mummy (and still puffing on cigarettes), she is alone save for Xun Yu, the filmmaker who spent two years living with this family before taking an additional two years shooting the first of four documentaries about West Street and its gentrification (and by extension, the modernization of China).

"All I can hope for is a quick death," Grandma Joang tells Yu. "And after death? I guess I'm headed for the Afterlife. Where else can I go?"

In spite of the fact that it's about death, The Vanishing Spring Light: Tales of West Street is a celebration of life. Through the changing of the seasons, the increasing metamorphoses of West Street and the diminishing health of Grandma Jiang, Yu trains his eye upon the passage of existence. Simple, often beautifully composed shots in very long takes create a rhythm that is hypnotic and compelling.

This is a document in its purest and most poetic form. Yes, it is slow, but it is never boring. Yu allows his camera to capture all the pleasures, sorrows and intricacies of lives that are well, and in some cases, not-so-well lived. Through his caring and carefully placed lens we come to know and care for Grandma Jiang and those around her as if we were there ourselves.

This is one of the most staggering and profoundly moving documentaries I have seen in many years. In its own way, the film is as challenging as Pirjo Honkasalo's stunning exploration of the effects of the Chechen War The Three Rooms of Melancholia or Ulrich Seidl's almost unclassifiable, yet forceful Jesus, You Know or most profoundly, the late Frank Cole's masterwork of artful observation, A Life. Like those films, and even to an extent the works of Frederick Wiseman (though without his traditional lack or preparation), Yu lets life unfold as it most naturally does.

And just prior to her final death rattles, Grandma Jiang's eyes - forced by her position on the bed to look upwards, her gaze seeming to hug the infinite - she openly and alternately fears and welcomes death. She laments that she "didn't follow the teachings well", feeling now, more than ever. like "a would-be Buddhist". Though even as we hear her say this, we have clearly witnessed an individual who has lived life to its fullest and Yu's film shares this extraordinarily humanist event with us, as its subjects have shared their lives with him.

"I can only die the way I have lived," Grandma Jiang says before death.

And so it is, so it has been and so it will be for all of us.

Xan Yu's beautiful, elegiac and sometimes heart-breaking film is a testament to Grandma Jiang and all those who lived their lives as she did. As William Saroyan wrote: "In the time of your life, live — so that in that wondrous time, you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”

"The Vanishing Spring Light: Tales of West Street" is currently in release via Kinosmith and in Toronto is playing at the Bloor Hot Docs Conema where the film's visionary Canadian producer and filmmaker Daniel Cross will be present for the screenings to discuss the making of the film. For showtimes and tickets, visit the website HERE.

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