Samurai Fiction - 1998

Director: Hiroyuki Nakano

Cast: Morio Kazama, Mitsuro Fukikoshi

Genre: Foreign-Japanese, Samurai, Martial Arts

Rating: ** = "Didn't Like It"

I had read and heard good things about Samurai Fiction and was excited to see this movie. I was to be disappointed. The movie is well made, but once again I got sucked into a movie with a plodding pace and weak story that was just plain...well...boring.

Samurai Fiction is shot in black and white and is a throwback to the samurai movies of old. However, they have updated the movie with some modern themes and a strange, out of place, hard rock/metal soundtrack. The plot is pretty basic. A noble samurai is given custody of his clan's sword, which is then stolen by a renegade samurai who is a master swordsman. The samurai's naive and brash son decides to pursue the thief, vowing vengeance and to return the sword to his father's clan. The boy is beaten by the renegade, but not killed, and is rescued by a an old recluse and his daughter. Turns out the old man is a master samurai in hiding, having given up the trade a long time ago. He takes the young man under his wing who soon falls in love with his daughter. Meanwhile the renegade takes refuge under the wing of a local crime mistress and seeks to challenge the old samurai to a duel. You can guess the rest of the movie from there.

There is some decent swordplay action in the movie, but it's not great, and what little martial arts there are look slow and practiced. The movie is interjected with many moments of light humor and odd characters, and the acting is actually quite good. However, the pace is simply too slow and at times the movie just drags. The story is a bit too simplistic for my taste, which isn't a problem if this were a roaring, popcorn, action-flick, but it's not. I also didn't like the contrived and abrupt ending.

What Parents Need to Know:
Common Sense Media has not reviewed this movie. I would rate it a hard PG-13 in the U.S. for violence and some adult situations. There are scenes of violent swordplay and sexual situations, but it's a movie that does not take itself too seriously. I would be comfortable showing this to mature kids 14+, but doubt they would like it much.

Rotten Tomatoes has not rated this movie.

Deja Vu - 2006

Director: Tony Scott

Cast: Denzel Washington, Val Kilmer, James Caviezel, Adam Goldberg

Genre: Action, Thriller, Crime, SciFi

Rating: *** = "Liked It"

Denzel Washington is one of my favorite actors, he always seems to do a fine job and I can think of only a very few of his movies that I didn't like. Since his Oscar success with Training Day he has churned out a number of quality and enjoyable roles: Antwone Fisher, Inside Man, Man on Fire, and Out of Time (notice I didn't include Manchurian Candidate or John Q in there! - he still did a good job, but man, what awful movies.) So I was pretty excited to see Deja Vu, where Denzel and Tony Scott got to work together again (they previously worked together on Man on Fire, an excellent movie).

I must admit that I was a bit wary with Scott as director. After the shaky, stylized, hard to follow camera shots of Domino and Man on Fire, I was dreading another spectacle of trying to see what was actually happening in the movie through the frenetic, jerky camera movements of a style-obssessed Tony Scott. Someone must have had a strong sit-down with Scott and explained that his goofy style just made for annoyed movie-goers. The movie was cleanly shot with few of the herky-jerky stylized images of Scott's more recent movies, making for a nice, pleasurable viewing experience.

Denzel was quite good in a familiar role, playing a savvy federal investigator working with the FBI to determine what happened in a ferry explosion that killed hundreds. Through the investigation, he falls in love with the images of one of the victims, whom he views through a very hi-tech video surveillance system with the FBI. I won't spoil the movie for you, but Denzel finds out the FBI's surveillance system is more than it seems, and begins to wonder if there is a way he can change the past and prevent not only the ferry bombing but save the girl's wife as well.

James Caviezel, a totally underrated actor who deserves more credit, plays a good bad guy, who turns out to be an ultra-patriotic right wing nut job (of course, it wouldn't be politically correct to actually cast an Arab or muslim as a terrorist who blows up a ferry, killing hundreds. we might offend them.). His motives for doing the job are shaky at best and never really explained except that he somehow believes that he is a patriot for spilling so much blood. Val Kilmer is wooden as the FBI agent who cooperates with Denzel's character.

I gave this movie three stars, I liked it, but it wasn't fast paced enough for a thriller or action movie. There are some tense moments and some solid action sequences, but nothing we haven't seen before and far too little of it. Let's face it - people go to a movie like this to sit down, enjoy the popcorn, and see some tense action on screen. You can't go too far or it becomes laughable, but not enough and it's merely good, but not great.

What Parents Need to Know:
Common Sense Media rates this movie as:
14+ = for intense sequences of violence and terror, disturbing images and some sensuality.

Parents need to know that this violent thriller has been targeted more at adults than kids, but some teens will be interested. With the movie's terrorism storyline, it's not surprising that there are explosions, car crashes, fights, and shootings -- which result in burned, bloody, beaten, and drowned bodies. Weapons include knives, guns, bombs, and vehicles. In one scene, scientists and authorities watch voyeuristically as a woman undresses and showers in her apartment. Characters argue loudly and discuss motivations for terrorism alongside religious faith, and in one sad scene, a father grieves his daughter's murder. The language is very tame for a PG-13 film.

The only thing about the film that would give me caution as a parent is the underlying terrorist theme, but the language is indeed very tame and as I said there is less action than you would think. I would be comfortable showing this to mature kids 12+.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 57% (Rotten)

Harsh Times

Director: David Ayer

Cast: Christian Bale, Freddy Rodriguez, Eva Longoria

Genre: Independent, Drama, Crime

Rating: ** = "Didn't Like It"

I like Christian Bale and the premise of the movie sounded interesting - returned soldier carouses around town with his best friend before heading off to a job with the DEA in Colombia and they get into trouble. But it turned out to be a pretty boring movie with some very unlikeable characters - if I can't like the characters, then I can't get into the movie.

Christian Bale plays Jim David, a gung-ho ex-soldier who has failed in his numerous attempts to join the LAPD. His best friend is pal Mike Alvarez, who lives with (and off) his beautiful lawyer girlfriend, played by Eva Longoria. Jim just wants to get a badge and be "the man" and volunteers to drive Mike around job hunting, as his girlfriend is not happy living with a jobless boyfriend. Instead of helping Mike look for a job, Jim convinces him to blow it off and the two of them spend most of their cursing, drinking, smoking pot, robbing street hoods, and generally being complete idiots. Christian Bale's talent is wasted in this role, a completely one dimensional psycho hot-head who seems more concerned with screwing up his life even more then it already is and scaring his friends with his violent, psychotic outbursts. He is completely unbelievable as a street thug, spouting the same lame street/gang slang over and over again spliced with numerous expletives.

The movie drags at a tedious pace with Jim and Mike getting into and out of one mess after another. Throughout the whole movie all I could think about was what losers these two guys were and looking at my watch wondering when it was going to end.

The end of the movie finally got interesting and it was obvious that first-time director David Ayer was trying to tie up everything that had happened to Jim and Mike into a tidy little ending. The last 15 minutes of the movie were actually quite interesting and Bale and Rodriguez finally got to do some decent acting. A very sad, dark movie that made little sense, the only reason this movie gets two stars is the ending somewhat redeemed the boring mess the movie was up til then.

What Parents Need to Know:
Common Sense Media rates this movie as:
17+ = For strong language, violence, and drug use. (Common Sense Media claims there are over 200 utterances of f--k - who has time to count all that?? Good grief.)

Parents need to know that this movie isn't for kids in any way, shape, or form. Full of bloody violence, drug use, lawlessness, and physical abuse, it follows the experiences of a traumatized Afghanistan war veteran and draws connections between what happened to him during combat and his behavior back home in Los Angeles. Weapons include guns of all kind, knives, and grenades; the brutal violence results in gaping wounds and lots of blood.

Definitely not for kids, but there wasn't nearly as much violence as Common Sense Media portrays. It's not so much the violence that should convince parents to keep this away from kids but the mature themes and the sometimes glorification of a criminal, violent lifestyle.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 48% (Rotten)

Curse of the Golden Flower - 2007

Director: Zhang Yi Mou

Cast: Chow Yun Fat, Gong Li,

Genre: Foreign-Chinese, Martial Arts, Tragic Drama

Rating: ** - "Didn't Like It"

I have been watching and following Chinese movies since the time I lived in Hong Kong some 15 years ago. I always liked Zhang Yi Mou, and Gong Li as well, but recently his movies have been, well, rather boring. I expected big things out of Hero, which was a well shot but ultimately boring movie. House of Flying Daggers had outstanding martial arts direction and superb editing, but a laughable story - the ending was so over-the-top and cheesy the audience was laughing in the theater I saw it in.

Well, I guess I still haven't learned my lesson as I sat through yet another gorgeously shot, visually stunning movie with sumptuous sets and costumes and incredible art direction that was, simply put, a boring, sad spectacle. Like so many Chinese movies this one features a lot of tragic drama and family member vs family member conspiracy and evil plots. At the end of the movie pretty much everyone dies a horribly sad and tragic death. There are no good guys in this movie, only a corrupt family plotting against one another for the emperor's throne. The emperor is played by the always great Chow Yun Fat who is the supreme a-hole of the universe, for reasons that are never totally explained although it's obvious he treats most of his family with disdain.

Those expecting martial arts action along the lines of House of Flying Daggers, Hero, or the outstanding Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon will be sorely disappointed. Nearly the entire movie takes place in the royal palace where we are treated to scene after scene of extravagantly dressed royal family members walking swiftly from one room to another as they all connive with and against each other. How exciting! What little action there is takes place in the last 20 minutes of the movie and is sadly reminiscent of some low-budget Hong Kong spectacle from the 80's.

The only reason this movie gets 2 stars is because, like almost all Zhang Yi Mou movies, it is beautifully shot with unbelievably gorgeous sets.

What Parents Need to Know:
Common Sense Media rates this movie as:
16+ = Violent, operatic saga of cruelty and revenge:

Parents need to know that kids who liked Hero or House of Flying Daggers will want to see this movie. But while Zhang Yimou directed all of them, this new film is very different -- it's less focused on the martial arts action than on adult themes like betrayal and revenge. Violence includes poisoning, swordfights, knifings, and armies of assassins mustered for combat on palace. There are plenty of bloody results all around.

Personally, I think it would be fine for mature kids ages 12+, although it would more likely bore them to sleep.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 65% (Fresh)

Unbreakable - 2000

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright Penn

Genre: Thriller, Supernatural, Comic Books

Rating: **** - "Really Liked it"

M. Night Shyamalan's follow up to the rounding success of the creepy but entertaining The Sixth Sense failed to excite audiences and was considered a disappointment compared to big box office numbers of The Sixth Sense. I'm not sure what audiences were thinking, but obviously many were expecting another Sixth Sense type of movie, which Unbreakable certainly was not. Personally, I enjoyed Unbreakable almost as much as I enjoyed The Sixth Sense, and would have liked it even more except for the way they ended the movie.

Unbreakable is the story of a husband in the middle of a broken marriage with a growing distance to his son. On the train back to Philadelphia from a job interview in NYC, there is an accident and Bruce Willis' character, David Dunn, emerges as the sole survivor - without a scratch on him - hence the title "Unbreakable". This amazing circumstance leads the strange and comic book obsessed Elijah Price, played by Samuel L. Jackson, to seek out Bruce Willis. Elijah Price is the polar opposite of David Dunn; whereas David Dunn is "unbreakable", Elijah Wood has a rare bone disease that makes his body incredibly fragile and subject to constant fractures. The two characters develop a growing, at times strained, relationship as Elijah Wood, using Comic Book analogies, attempts to convince David Dunn of his "unbreakableness" and suggests that perhaps Mr. Dunn should be doing something with his life that he hasn't. In the middle of all this is David Dunn's most broken family. He's been looking for work in NYC and plans to move away from his wife and son. He and his wife sleep in separate rooms and he has at best a distant relationship with his son. All that slowly changes - for the better - as David Dunn begins to question his role in life and the possibility that he may indeed be unbreakable.

Bruce Willis does a fine job as David Dunn and Samuel L. Jackson, as always, is excellent. But this is not a creepy, at times hair-tingling, ghost thriller like The Sixth Sense. The heart of the movie is about comic books and the heroes and villains that lie therein, and one man's obsession to finding a link in the real world to the imaginary world of his comics. It's also about a man finding his way in life and with his broken family and wondering if he is indeed something special, as Elijah Price believes. Where Sixth Sense fans were looking for something to spook them in their seats or some kind of shock ending, they instead found a well dialogued, lengthy movie about broken relationships and the search for something more in this life. This film is more about story then stunning scenes and that is probably why it turned off Sixth Sense fans. The movie also moves at a rather deliberate pace which makes it appear longer than it is, but I felt it was necessary to tell the story. Overall I enjoyed it and highly recommend it, just don't go in expecting another Sixth Sense or Signs.

What Parents Need to Know:
Common Sense Media rates this movie as:
15+ = For violence and sexual references:

This movie has a lot of violence. Although most of it is offscreen, its themes, including sexual assault, murder of the parents of two children, and genocide, may be especially disturbing. A child uses a gun. There is a brief vulgar reference and an implication of date rape.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 67% (fresh)

Versus: Director's Cut - 2000

Director: Ryuhei Kitamura

Cast: Tak Sakaguchi, Hideo Sakaki, Chieko Masaki

Genre: Martial Arts Action, Horror, Zombies, Gore, Sci-Fi, Crime

Rating: *** = "Liked it"

This ridiculously over-the-top Japanese martial arts/samurai blood-fest is a mix of Army of Darkness meets Evil Dead meets Resident Evil. It has everything a B-movie blood-and-gore horror fan would want: zombies? check. low-budget gore effects? check. weapons galore? check. blood spraying decapitation and dismemberment? check. hilariously over-the-top acting? check. barely understandable-but-who-cares plot? big check.

Tak Sakaguchi plays prisoner KSC 2-303. He escapes from a maximum security prison and meets up with some gangsters in a remote forest. For no real reason, he picks a fight with the gangsters, who have kidnapped some girl, shooting one of them dead, who, within minutes, immediately comes back to life. The rest of the movie has the gangsters, led by a mysterious figure who can not die, hunting down prisoner KSC 2-303 through the Forest of Resurrection, where they find out that anyone they kill comes back as murderous zombies. There's a whole good vs evil, eternal struggle sub-plot to the whole mess, but the weak plot simply serves as an excuse for a massive blood battle between the good guy and bad guys with intermittent zombies and living dead getting into the fray.

The film does have some pretty cool fast-camera martial arts action, which at times was fun to watch, but at 2 hours long the film drags and eventually you find yourself looking for the end. I liked it, but it's not something I would want to see again, hence the 3 stars.

What Parents Need to Know:
Common Sense Media has not rated this movie, but I would rate it as ok for teens above 16 years of age. The movie contains massive amounts of blood and gore but of the B-movie, laughable variety. The gore and effects are so low budget, the action so over-the-top, that it is hard to take this cartoonish movie seriously.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 60% (Fresh)

The Last King of Scotland - 2006

Director: Kevin MacDonald

Cast: Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy

Genre: Drama, Political, Thriller, Based on True Events

Rating: **** = "Really Liked it"

Forest Whitaker won the Oscar and Golden Globe for his outstanding portrayal of brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. James McAvoy also turned in a solid performance as the young Scottish doctor who becomes Idi Amin's naive personal physician.

I gave the movie 4 stars instead of 5 because, despite McAvoy's performance, I never liked his character, Dr. Garrigan, very much. Dr. Garrigan was portrayed as a stupid, naive young man who happily ignores the reality of the brutal world he has entered until it has become too late. And by that time the decisions he has made up til then and the people he had turned his back on make him a rather unsympathetic character.

Forest Whitaker's performance was a tour de force, one moment a happy, laughing, charismatic figure and turning into a raging monster in the next. I don't know if they used special angles or editing when filming him, but he seemed larger than life and just filled the screen whenever he was in a scene. The movie covers the time Dr. Garrigan first arrives in Uganda, as Idi Amin has just taken over the country, and chronicles the time he spent as Amin's personal physician. The movie focuses on the evolving relationship between the two men and the growing realization on Dr. Garrigan's part that he is part of something awful and must get out. The film moves well and keeps the audience's attention throughout. It is a gripping drama of one of history's most infamous dictators.

What Parents Need to Know:
Common Sense Media rates this movie as:
17+ = For strong violence, gruesome images, sexual content and nudity, and language:

Parents need to know that this movie is based on the real life of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and includes references to massacres, revenge killings, torture, and abuse. Some scenes depict such violence explicitly, including bloody bodies, shooting, knifing, and grisly torture.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 89% (Fresh)

Wake of Death - 2004

Director: Philippe Martinez

Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Simon Yam

Genre: Action

Rating: * = "Hated It"

Boring. Formulaic. Drivel. The film is only 90 minutes long, but the pace is so slow it feels more like 3 hours. I found myself playing the DVD at 1.5x speed (where you can still hear and understand what they are saying) just to get through the slow parts (which are many). Van Damme is wooden and one dimensional at best and his age is showing as he no longer leaps and kicks bad guys asses - I can't remember a single leg kick above the waist. Simon Yam, a Hong Kong actor I normally enjoy, plays a cold blooded father who, for reasons never known, kills his daughter's mother and then hunts down the daughter in LA. The girl ends up with Van Damme's family and his wife is killed for her trouble, which of course sets off the angry husband's revenge spree. The action and chase scenes are slow and boring and nothing we haven't seen before. A painful movie to sit through. Avoid it.


What Parents Need to Know: No info on this movie from Common Sense Media, but I would rate it as:
16+ : Vigorous usage of the f-word, a graphic torture scene involving a drill, some mild nudity and sexual contact, and of course let's not forget lots of criminal activity involving drugs, prostitution, and human trafficking. Ok for mature teenagers.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: none