Lavonardo

My last movie of the 2011 R&A festival was Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, Tsui Hark’s return to wuxia movies.

The film is uses the character created by Robert van Gulik, but the originally rather cerebral traveling judge is equipped with world-class martial arts chops in the movie.

The movie has lots of awesome scenery. The building of the huge Buddha statue gives an insider view on what the construction of a wonder looks like in Civilization games, the underground city of Phantom Bazaar is a brilliant creation as well. There’s plenty of CGI work, and most of the time it blends in well.

Sadly, the script doesn’t match perfectly. Despite the strength of the main plotline, there’s quite a lot of chaff around the edges. In addition to the plentiful (and appreciated) red herrings, there are a couple of fantasy elements that do not sit well in the story as a whole. And the martial arts combats (as masterfully directed by Sammo Hung) do get a bit boring towards the end, especially when most of the early ones end up providing no additional clues despite the hardships.

Casting-wise Tsui Hark has succeeded well. Andy Lau owns the screen as the eponymous detective, and Carina Lau excels as the cold, calculating empress-to-be.

Detective Dee is a good film, but remains a notch or two below the finest the director has to offer, and hence it misses out on a full star.

Red Nights begins without much explanations, and ends without proper closure.

Just another couple of days in the Hong Kong underworld.

A couple of days filled with cold people doing cold deeds. Amongst which the belt-strangulation murder and a protracted torture scene take top honors in “nastiest of 2011″.

Carrie Ng is great as the sadistic collector behind it all, the rest of the cast seem to be just filling character shaped holes in the plot.

Not great, not bad – par for the course in R&A.

13 Assassins was an unexpectedly great movie.

For a Takashi Miike movie the plot actually made sense most of the time and there was no prolonged episodes of cringe-inducing ultra-violence on screen.

But there’s plenty of violence. After all, the assassination of the entire Shogun’s brother’s entourage is not lightly accomplished.

Indeed, 13 Assassins is neatly divided into two. Gathering the crew (after assessing the gravity of the situation) took the first half, and the last forty-five minutes of the film consists of one of the most epic battles ever. The ambush in a rural town is well-crafted, intense and rarely boring (katana-fu does get a bit samey after a while).

The film is actually a remake, the original was done back in the sixties. Probably with not so impressive amounts of explosions and gore.

13 Assassins feels a homage to many films – seven samurai and dirty dozen are natural comparisons. But an even more apt one is Sam Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch – a group of men whose time is already long gone. In this tale it’s again sense of duty that draws them to a violent end.

13 Assassins is a rarity, a Takashi Miike film I enjoyed to watch. And heartily recommend it to any fans of good melees or classic Kurosawa combat films. And I certainly wasn’t alone in my high opinion – this was one of the very few films where the audience burst into applause as the credits rolled onto the screen.