In the mountainous country of Iranian Kurdistan , a group of itinerant teachers wend their way through a treacherous area in search of pupils. They carry their blackboards on their backs and use them as shields when they need to hide from army helicopters. One teacher Said comes across a huge group of nomads making their way back over the border into Iraq though they have lost their way. He offers to lead them in exchange for food. The other teacher , Reeboir meets a group of children laborers ,each with a heavy load strapped to his back. Reeboir learns that they're smugglers . The screenplay was co-written by Makhmalbaf with her father, Mohsen Makhmalbaf . Like her father, Samira has learned a respectful, intelligent way of storytelling. But this film really pushes the slow-and-obtuse envelope. Its hard to have any feelings for the characters : there is extremely little known about them, no development, they show no willingness to accomplish anything except trek across the next mountain and hide from unseen helicopters and soldiers.
Bong Joon-ho's 2006 monster tale, The Host, brings a level of sophistication to the monster film genre with a combination of several genres all working to develop the narrative and its characters. It's about a family that becomes torn through this huge fish-monster crawling out of the water and killing/taking people back to his short of sewer-lair. The story follows a snack car employee Park Gang-Du , his father Hee-Bong , daughter Hyun-Seo ,sister Naam-joo ,who's an archer , and Gang-du's brother Nam-il , an alcoholic who has not done much since graduating. The monster takes his daughter Hyun-seo seemingly killing her until Gang-du recieves a call from Hyuen-seo informing him that she was in fact still alive but trapped in the monster's sewer-lair. Gang-du and his family set out to save his daughter but they face strong opposition from the government. The leads are good, particularly the young girl, Park Hyun-Seo played by Ah-Sung ko, who is very convincing and strong in character. The other characters continually walk that fine line between comedic and serious performances. That raises another interesting aspect, instead of following a standard route with the characters, their development follows the unusual turns of the film itself and we're treated to surprises and failures when we don't really expect them. The monster is really well-designed and doesn't look like any other screen monster that i have seen. The animation of it is excellent too , and the creature does almost feel like it's alive! The strongest aspect of this film has to be it's cinematography. The audience gets to visually see a dark world created in Korea as a result of a Foreign monster who creates a domestic threat to Korean life.
The Embryo Hunts in Secret , is the first film made by Japanese director Koji Wakamatsu independently of any film studio. A pioneer of pinku cinema, his work is subversive and universally applicable but without the tastelessness of the genre's worst contributors.
The entire film takes place in the protagonist's claustrophobic apartment ; the reclusivity of the protagonist's plight is now to be shared with the audience. A man keeps his girlfriend tied up in his small apartment and tortures her. As the story goes we are subjected to watching this man degrade and abuse the woman -he relentlessly flogs her with a bull whip, makes her crawl around on all fours and beg for food like an animal , repeatedly holds her head under water and slices her up with a straight-razor , all the while laughing with sadistic glee. All the while still recounting his family relationship , his oedipal relationship with his mother , and his estranged relationship with his wife , all at the cost of his utter rejection of a child. He cannot live without controlling every aspect of his own life as well- including the lives of others he's in contact with. Throughout the film, there are images superimposed over scenes happening in reality. Wakamatsu refuses to refashion the man into a monster, providing instead a purely pathological portrait of rank misogyny's desperate efforts to contain what taunts it.
Boetticher's Seven Men From Now has long been considered a mere B-western , especially due to the presence of its laconic star , Randolph Scott . This film was written by Burt Kennedy and produced by John Wayne's productions. Ben Stride (Scott) plays a former sheriff whose wife has been killed and he's going to get out and seek revenge. Along the way, he helps a married couple who are stuck in the mud ; who persuade Stride to ride west with them in case of further problems. Along the trail they meet up with Bill Masters (Lee Marvin) and his pal Clete ( Donald Barry) . Stride only talks when its complete necessary or very important. This film gave Scott a chance to show just what a fine actor he was. His Ben Stride could so easily have been played as corny and grumpy , but Scott gives it the emotional depth that the script demanded. The outstanding performance, without qualification is Lee Marvin's. He makes for an engaging villain , who makes his sinister and untrustworthy character as likable as possible. For a western, the economical script is impressively intelligent , witty and psychologically involving.
At the time of its release, Brother was hyped as Kitano's vehicle for breaking into the United States film market. Mostly , the film is a successful transposition of his trademark melancholic violence, playful humour and brutal editing, and in this respect Kitano maintains an artistic and thematic continuity with his earlier films. Kitano plays a Yakuza gangster who is exiled to the United States. He has his half brother living there so he has a place to live in. Soon he starts to have new friends and become a leader of their new gang. Kitano gives full shrift to examining the Yakuza sub-culture with its codes of chivalry, obligation, loyalty, obedience and brotherhood. Members of a Yakuza clan maintain a fanatical loyalty to their anikis within the gang with a willingness to put one's life on the line. The violence is very brutal and challenging but definitely not gratuitous or exploitative. His violence is always very symbolic and sudden, and not necessarily realistic. This film contains all the element which we have seen in his other films-flashbacks of events, long shots without editing, characters faces which say so many things more than words.
Walsh shoots the rise to the top and equally quick descent gangster film in a fast-paced semi-documentary style ( using newsreel clips , popular music from the period and a reporter's voice-over) ,keeping it true only to a certain point and fictionalizing it to keep it exciting as an entertaining film. Three soldiers meet on the ww1 battlefield in 1918. One is the all good lawyer Lloyd Hart (Jeffrey Lynn) , one the thoroughly bad George Hally (Humphrey Bogart) , and the third , an everyman named Eddie Bartlett (James Cagney) . Eddie is smitten with a girl , Jean Sherman (Priscilla Lane) who has been corresponding with him from home. When the war ends Eddie returns to New York and hooks up with buddy Danny who is a Gabie. Unable to find work, Eddie is forced to share the driving of Danny's cab. In the meantime, prohibition takes effect and Eddie discovers that bootlegging is the way to get rich. At the onset he meets Panama ( Gladys George) who turns out to be his only friend. Cagney as usual dominates the picture. He is his usual cocky Irish tough guy but with character flaws. Although Cagney dominates every scene he is in , the more ominous gangster in the film is played by Humphrey Bogart in one of his best performances prior to assuming character roles in the late 40s. However the best turn of The Roaring Twenties is by alternate female lead Gladys George , billed lower but with comparable screen time and oodles more screen presence. A well-crafted screenplay with memorable scenes, newsreels , well-crafted gun-play, authentic costumes and hairstyles reflecting the Roaring Twenties are an added plus here.
Based on a novel by Masuji Ibuse who gathered information from interviews and the diaries of real-life bomb victims , the film depicts how an entire family is affected psychologically as well as physically by the bomb years after the original explosion. The film begins in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 as soldiers and civilians go about their normal daily activities. Suddenly a blinding light flashes and a thunderous blast is heard. The story centers around Yasuko (Yoshiko Tanaka) , a young woman who is caught in the radioactive rain as her boat head backs to the city to search for friends and relatives. When the family returns to their home, her life is forever changed. When her aunt and uncle try to find her a husband, the eligible men refuses to marry her because of suspicions about her health, even though her uncle has copied her diary to prove that she wasn't directly exposed to the bomb. She only feels comfortable with another damaged man Yuichi , who has a panic attack every time he hears the roar of an engine. The film is clearly designed as a memorial to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for a world too quick to forget. Perceiving the need to remind his country of the truth of the atomic horror, the normally confrontational director shows notable restraint here. This is one of the reasons why this film, despite being brilliant , is not among my favourites.
