Pigeon Army
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From: Pixar HQ, George Lucas' Office.
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94. Enter the Dragon (1973, Clouse, HKG/USA) - 3/5
While on the phone with my father today, I asked him why he neglected to show me this film when I was a child. He seemed baffled by the question, and asked if I was referring to the Bruce Lee film. On verification of that, he proceeded to say he didn't know and recommend Blind Fury as if that was somehow compensation for the discrepancies in the cinematic education he offered me. Enter the Dragon is a film that I feel, had I seen it when I was ten or eleven, I would have fallen in love with to this day, but as it stands, I only first experienced it in a class on East Asian cinema and, thus, I could not capture the lightning in a bottle childhood would have offered. This reimagination of Dr. No by way of a very Americanised 'Hong Kong' is enjoyable in its silliness, all the more enjoyable because it seems so unaware of how silly it is. Bruce Lee cuts through proceedings with a steely gaze and silly animal noises whenever he fights, and he's ably assisted in perpetuating the film's cheesiness by a leery John Saxon and Jim Kelly's swarthy afro-sporting Williams. The plot moves along with an usual lack of logic, and there are moments aplenty that seem to have been lost in some time-warp of 1970s kitschy silliness - the New Zealander who speaks with a rough Irish-American accent; Bruce Lee's philosophical teachings of a young student at the start; the inexplicable cages of nondescript drunks Han keeps under his island; the symbolism-heavy mirror fight that sports some impractical leaps of logic; "We, Mr. Braithwaite?"; etc. etc. Of course, when the film matters, it matters like a motherfucker - Bruce Lee's fighting skills are insane, ignoring that they're tempered by him calling his moves like he was a rooster, and Saxon, Kelly and Bolo Yeung are pretty excellent in support. It's a piece of stupid pulp fun, and while it's by no means high art, it is enjoyable while it lasts.
95. Hyeongsa (Duelist) (2005, Lee, SKR) - 3/5
It's practically impossible (unless the back of the DVD tells you) to work out what's going on in Duelist in the first ten-fifteen minutes. It opens with a sexy anecdote from a liver-spotted old drunk, but that anecdote goes nowhere and is quickly replaced by a blistering battle for what appear to be counterfeit coins, the three racers being a gang led by the eyepatch-sporting Eel, the Korean police, and an enigmatic masked swordsman. That battle soon gives way to a silly rugby game with bags of the coins in an out-of-left-field reference to Le million. Following that, we have a slow-motion sword fight and a breathtaking hunt for the swordsman through a back-alley filled with colourful sheets, then a Three Stooges-esque physical comedy routine as the police track Eel and his gang. Basically, Duelist is a film that demands you leave all preconceptions at the door, because there's a 99% chance they're wrong. It moves from beautifully-choreographed violence and high-charged emotions typical of a wuxia film to an odd brand of broad physical and verbal comedy about as often as its characters blink. It's a heady blend of serious sobbing-and-swordplay action and mugging humour that endears itself to the audience as often as it ingratiates itself. Of course, it's helped by veteran South Korean actor Ahn Sung-kee's brilliant turn as the jovial police partner of heroine Namsoon (Ha Ji-Won, who strikes an uneasy middle-ground between nuanced hysterics and brazen hawking for laughs) - Ahn is a delight to watch whenever he's on screen, his comedy timing and delivery perfect and his serious moments compelling. Kang Dong-won is convincing as assassin Sad-eyes, and Song Young-chang is perfectly slippery as the Minister of Defence, but it's Ahn who steals scene after scene, eclipsing all with his skill and talent. Lee Myung-se's direction is also stellar, and pushes the film into 'amazing' territory a lot of the time - it's the kind of visual direction that really deserves a better film than this, as it's hard not to look at the duels between Namsoon and Sad-eyes, or the big twenty-minute finale, or Namsoon's and Detective Ahn's scoping out of the Minister of Defence's house, and not be impressed by what's on display. However, Lee doesn't have a better film than this, and that's his own damned fault. The narrative is excessively convoluted and makes bizarre, unexplained leaps at regular intervals (how does Namsoon attach Sad-eyes to the Minister of Defence? What happened to Eel? What the hell is the Police Chief doing?). Furthermore, the 'romance' between the two leads is half-baked and badly developed, and any scene involving those two experiencing romantic 'strife' borders on intolerable. Furthermore, by descending into a grand wuxia opera in the final twenty minutes, Duelist sort of peters out, its delightfully unpredictable schizophrenia replaced with a rote swordplay film we've seen a hundred times before. Duelist is worth seeing for when it's good, because when it is, it's nothing short of amazing. It's just a pity that it can't maintain that consistency of quality.
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RE: Top 100 Films I've Watched This Year: 2010 - 
) about the coping of a man with the loss of his beloved. It's fantastic all way round, and very touching. 
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