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Fantasia has 16 candles on its birthday cake; but, rather than being blown out, the candles have caught the cake on fire and everyone gets a blazing slice. Say what you will about these mewing hordes, but Montreal might possibly boast the most appreciative audiences in the world, perhaps because—as was suggested to me—the city's so uptight and Fantasia is everyone's chance to let off steam? Such a pleasure to be seated in the Théâtre Hall Concordia watching packs of buffed up fan boys, girls wearing hardly anything but hectic ink, clowns and glee maidens, nerdy geeks and hornrimmed girls who prefer their boys genre-obsessed. It's a birthday party that has seized the university district, made all the more enjoyable into the wee hours of the night and the weary hours of the morning by luxurious spring-like weather!
At Entertainment Maven, Matt Hodgson likewise faults the script, considering it nearly parasitic that Saxton relies on "a sure-fire way to make an uninspired movie by having one of their central characters tied to [a] chair and tortured for about 30 minutes. Maybe it worked for some earlier filmmakers, but this has to be one of the most annoying clichés to permeate horror and crime films." Hodgson reduces Sushi Girl to "not much more than a wasted opportunity, an opportunity that most filmmakers won't get in their entire careers." At Horror 101 With Dr. AC, Aaron Christensen agrees that "the ultimate equation is less than the sum of its parts" whose subsequent result "is a well-produced film with lofty ambitions, full of sound and fury ... that ultimately feels like much ado about nothing."
A magisterial and truly magnificent history lesson on the indigenous resistance of the Seediq people to Japanese occupation after the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki ceded Taiwan to the imperial Japanese, Warriors proved to be anthropologically thrilling for clearly discerning the shamanic substratum informing all pan-Pacific indigenous people, let alone the Seediq. The film could have as easily been redressing the plight of North American Amerindians, and quite specifically reminded me again and again of the Maya people during their own protracted Spanish occupation. The Seediq love and defense of the forest, their ancestral hunting grounds, and their ingenious use of familiar territory to pursue guerilla-type tactics (down to disturbing hornet nests to vex their Japanese opponents) reveals their brilliance as military strategists. How else could 300 tribesmen endure and ward off thousands of Japanese invaders over decades of occupation?
The film's intermission arrived on the heels of the infamous Wushe incident of 1930 when the Seediq—conceding that they have lost their hunting grounds—opt to defend the ancestral hunting grounds of their own souls through blood sacrifice in battle in hopes of achieving passage on the rainbow bridge of victorious manhood. Perhaps nothing new by way of an occupation and resistance narrative, Warriors nonetheless succeeds in surpassing audience expectation with lavish vistas, elegantly choreographed battle sequences that convert brutality into breathless beauty, and solid performances by an ensemble of Taiwan's best actors guided by Wei Te-Sheng, achieving one of the most cinematic events this reviewer has seen all year.
A perfect mix of high production values and heartfelt narrative, Warriors is a must for any moviegoer and is—trust me—amazingly effortless. Five hours sped by in spectatorial rapture. I'm so glad to have watched this one with colleague Kurt Halfyard, who shared my sentiments wholly. Warriors does have its faults, namely the heavy-handed use of rainbows as metaphors throughout the film; but, this is a minor complaint by contrast to the film's epic pleasures.
I'm so glad I was part of the film's enthused audience who appreciated its sweet geeky ensemble: Evan Williams, as the conquering Lloyd, is a doll; Teagan Moss's Cassandra kicks ass; Mike Smith is the dastardly villain; and a hoary host of supporting turns makes Lloyd the Conqueror ridiculously entertaining. Rendered visually beautiful with its golden autumnal setting, Lloyd allowed a glimpse into a playfully competitive world I never knew existed. The battle between the forces of light and darkness has rarely been so enjoyable. Attended by a few LARPers in full regalia, I was advised that more had not attended because a weekend battle was raging in the hills outside Montreal!
Against a backdrop of grieving mourners, the McManus Brothers (Kevin and Matthew) launch their randy irreverent humor in Funeral Kings [official site], which saw its International Premiere at Fantasia. These foul-mouthed teens, thinly guised as altar boys, pilfer the communion wine, smoke cigarettes, and hunger to get to first base with girls way more mature than themselves. Funeral Kings' "wonderful vulgarity" (Scott Weinberg) shifts into poignance when the boys experience the grief of becoming young men sooner than they intend. Funeral Kings is a top-notch coming-of-age film with recognizable scenes of initiation for young men, reminiscent of Stand By Me. At Twitch, Kurt Halfyard posts both a review and his interview with the McManus Brothers.
I was an easy convert to Pen-Ek Ratanaruang after 6ixtynin9 and Last Life in the Universe splashed on American shores as part of the new wave of Thai cinema; but, after Invisible Waves and Ploy, I decided soporific wasn't so terrific and gave up on the Thai auteur. Advance praise for Headshot, however, warmed me up to take one more look and I'm glad I did. An instant case of elevated genre if ever I've seen one, Ratanaruang retains his glacial rhythms and visually striking compositions but melds them with generic gangster tropes to create—not so much an action thriller, no, not at all—but, instead, an atmospheric nod to Thai neo-noir with a Buddhist riff about reincarnated identities within one lifetime. His audience is still arthouse but the touch of genre is refreshing and is keeping his fans awake.
On the hunt for monsters among the fare offered at Fantasia, I treated myself to my first horror cocktail—a ghost with a twist—in Nicholas McCarthy's The Pact. I jumped once or twice during this more-than-adequate thriller that features Casper Van Dien in one of two appearances at the festival (the other in his capacity as producer for Starship Troopers: Invasion).
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