Casino Royale (2006)
Starring Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen
Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis
Directed by Martin Campbell


I saw Casino Royale several days ago, but am only now writing about it. I enjoyed this film so much it scared me. You know that saying, “Words cannot express...”? Well, it was definitely true with Casino Royale and the new and improved James Bond. Being a big James Bond fan and having high expectations for the 21st installment in the franchise -- I simply didn’t know what to expect. All the critics were bashing Daniel Craig, the females in my family thought he looked ugly, my dad ranted about how Sean Connery could never be replaced... and here I was saying -- “Just give him a chance”! I am proud to say the new Bond and Casino Royale did not make a fool of me or themselves.

Casino Royale takes us back in many ways to the beginning. It was Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel and probably had the truest definition of who James Bond really was, before all the trips to space and invisible cars. Sean Connery captured it first on the big screen and Daniel Craig is probably the closest actor to capture it again since Timothy Dalton (nice try Timothy, but I think you were in the wrong decade for grit and depth). Sean Connery was good, but Daniel Craig is bad -- and that is so much more enjoyable to watch. I don’t want to say that he is better than Connery (like comparing later lovers to a first love, just too hard to beat), but Craig is definitely second on my list of best Bonds ever. He can actually act and is surprisingly funny, which all the haters seemed to have forgotten when they were too busy bashing his looks.

Casino Royale features Bond before he became a double-O agent for His Majesty’s Secret Service. A time when he was less skilled and more naive if you will with the world of espionage and killing for country and queen. Oh, what a beautiful time it was. James Bond was cocky, still believed in love, and made lots of mistakes. Kind of sounds like the people who watch his films. Fantastic. The more I feel like Bond, the more I can relate to him, and the more I can relate to him, the more money I will spend at the box office. His first mission is actually quite simple: Bond needs to win a card game against terrorist banker, Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) and do so with the help of MI6 accountant, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green). As the first evil villain, Le Chiffre is absolutely wonderful with his one sinister bleeding eye and asthma inhaler. As the first official Bond Girl, Vesper Lynd is smart both psychologically and physically -- matching Bond’s wit and sex appeal equally.

Casino Royale also marks the return of Goldeneye director Martin Campbell, aka the director who saved James Bond. Back in the mid 90’s when MGM was thinking about rebooting the Bond series after almost a seven year absence -- they went with Martin Campbell and boy did it pay off. He took a TV star in Pierce Brosnan and made him a movie star and he took a stale James Bond and made him part of the social conscience again (I know you have a copy of Goldeneye on N64 in your house, don’t try to deny it). Goldeneye was a huge success. It reminded the audience why we loved James Bond and it hit all the right notes without playing the old song that was 007. And after almost a decade later, Martin Campbell helps us remember that tune again and does so again with such originality and bravado. He knows how to make Bond look good and he does so without all the gadgets and cheap jokes. Bond is a killer, a womanizer, and not a very nice man. These are things the last three Bond films (Die Another Day, The World is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies) forgot. We like that he is a killer, we like that he is a womanizer, we like that he is not very nice -- believe it or not, we like these things when we go to the theater to see Bond, James Bond. If we didn’t, we would go see Superman and clearly nobody when to see Superman.

Casino Royale is raw, gritty, and full of attitude and having seen the box office returns for its first weekend -- a huge success as well. From the black and white pre-title sequence to the rocking Chris Cornell title theme, to Bond learning the spy game ropes the hard way, to the extremely satisfying final scene -- Casino Royale is a winning hand and money in the bank for the James Bond franchise. Welcome back James, nice to see you again!


THE RUNDOWN:

The Good: Full of grit, raw emotion, and attitude.

The Bad: No appearance by Q.

The Law: One of the best James Bond films ever made.

Catwoman
Starring Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Sharon Stone
Written by John D. Brancato, Michael Ferris, John Rogers
Directed by Pitof


There is a lesson to be learned from watching Catwoman and the lesson is: Batman should be the only character from Gotham City to be allowed to have their own feature length film. Catwoman stinks. Plain and simple. Even with a handful of screenwriters and story consultants and a visual effects friendly director at the helm -- nothing. Which proves once again that Hollywood should recognize that less is always more when it comes to good filmmaking.

Catwoman is only a strong character when she is put next to Batman. What we get with the Catwoman film is a new interpretation of the character (she is not Selina Kyle, the name of the real Catwoman) where Catwoman is suppose to be a timid graphic designer named Patience Phillips at an ad agency in charge of promoting a new line of woman’s facial cream. Working late one night she finds out that the new cream they are launching has deathly side effects and she in turn suffers a deathly fate for discovering it. But hold on folks -- here come the cats! After she dies, Patience Philips is resurrected by some ancient and mystical Egyptian feline (Egyptians loved their cats, look it up) and then basically loses her inhibitions and gains a lot of catlike powers. She decides to take revenge on all those responsible for her death and while on the way to doing that she helps herself to some expensive jewels. Oh and she also plays sexy with a detective (Benjamin Bratt) that she has a thing for.

Watching Halle Berry and Sharon Stone wrestle each other in any other film I am sure would be an entertaining sight, but this film can’t even get that right. This film is so messed. Pitof’s idea of direction is to put everything in close-up and have Catwoman jump around like Spider-Man. That is basically the whole film. It made a decent video game, but a decent film it is not. The story and characters lack complete focus (I now have a headache from trying to explain the plot in the previous paragraph) and the visual effects are not even that great to make up for it. Catwoman is like one of those stray cats you find in a dingy back alley -- it is full of disease and you should stay as far away from it as possible.


THE RUNDOWN:

The Good: There is nothing good about this film.

The Bad: Where do I start...

The Law: Stay far, far, far, far away from this film!

10th Annual Vancouver Asian Film Festival


Being an Asian who loves films and lives in Vancouver -- I attended the 10th Annual Vancouver Asian Film Festival this past weekend. I watched a series of short films which followed some unlikely heroes and confused villains as they found their way in life. Here is what I thought about each of them:



ASTHMA TECH
Directed by Jonathan Ng
Canada / 2006 / 5 mins


This was an extremely cute and adorable animation about a kid named Winston who has asthma. He wants to be just like everybody else, but because of his asthma, he can’t. In a day and age where Spider-Man and Superman rule the box office -- we know that this is not a problem. Winston copes with his predicament through his vivid imagination and creates a comic book starring his alter ego, Asthma Tech and when the other kids find out, they want to be “different” too. So Winston draws them into his world and becomes the hero of the classroom.

Being someone who did have mild asthma as a child and being someone who is a bit “different” -- I totally related with this short. The animation is very appealing and innocent in nature and the story is one you can’t help but be touched by.



BUNNY AND CLYDO
Directed by Rocky Jo
USA / 2005 / 18 mins


In this story of a wild Asian couple who find themselves robbing convenience stores of frozen popsicles and manga comics while battling a jealous rookie detective -- it is obvious right from the upbeat and kitschy starting credits where this film came from. Tarantino. Quentin Tarantino.

Here we go again with another indie film based around “cool” dialogue and eccentrically violent behavior. No more please! If you are going to do a short -- DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL! Stop trying to be Tarantino! Trying to be Tarantino is just plain tacky! Stop. The only thing to watch for in this film is actor, James Kyson Lee, who plays Clydo and who you might recognize from NBC’s new smash series, Heroes.



DRY CLEAN ONLY
Directed by J.P. Chan
USA / 2006 / 5 mins

In this extremely uneven and amateur short, an Asian clerk at a dry cleaner is visited by a mysterious East Indian couple one late evening. This film starts off with a lot of charm, but soon drifts into a senseless story that leads nowhere. It basically looks like an exercise in editing and dialogue. Think back to early high school filmmaking exercises and this film is what you will get.



INCONVENIENCE
Director John Penhall
Canada / 2005 / 16 mins


The highlight of this film is definitely actor, Chang Tseng. This man rocks. He has appeared in numerous big budget productions and has been honoured in Hong Kong and Canada, but yet still appears in indie productions such as this one. I really respect that.

In InConvenience, Chang plays a down-on-his-luck owner of a convenience store who discovers one day that a winning lottery ticket has been left behind by one of his customers. What happens next when he decides to keep it and out wait the actual owner of the ticket is comedic brilliance. From having conversations with his dead wife about reasons for keeping the ticket to trying to survive and live in the convenience store with a Cantonese speaking rat -- Chang and the storytelling is right on target. Good work. I am also very proud to say that this film originated from British Columbia (New Westminster). Good job.



WONTON
Directed by Wenhwa Tsao
USA / 2005 / 12 mins


Wonton is one of those typical short films that tries to say something political. If done well, that can be entertaining, but if done incorrectly -- you get Wonton.

Wonton offers a glimpse into the life of illegal immigrants who work in a Chinese restaurant and their struggles as seen through the eyes of a young Chinese woman who works closely with them. The film lacks a consistent tone and basically falls flat on its face because of it. At 12 mins in length, it really couldn’t afford to have no tone. The best part of this film is the fighting Chinese cooks in the kitchen. I laugh, but I also cry -- and not in a good way.



SUPER POWER BLUES
Directed by Grek Pak
USA / 2005 / 7 mins


Being a huge fan of Superman and comic book heroes in general -- I am extremely critical when it comes to comic book hero films and this film probably suffers because of that.

Super Power Blues is the story of a Japanese superheroine living in New York who has to deal with saving the world day after day, when all she really wants to do is sleep with her boyfriend. Been there, done that. A tired story never helps a film, but bad lighting just kills it. This film looks awful and has nothing new to say.



FAST MONEY
Directed by Jerry Chan
USA / 2005 / 14 mins


This film came to us courtesy of the USC film program and that can only mean one thing... Hollywood! This film looks great. It has a pumping soundtrack, slick cinematography, great editing, great style -- but then again, so does Fast and the Furious, Miami Vice, videos on MTV...

Fast Money tells the tale of a young man who enlists the help of a violent gang buddy to exact revenge on a Chinatown shop owner who recently fired him, but in the process learns that his decisions have greater consequences than he originally intended.

Again, kids, please note that when you are making a short film -- please, please, please... MAKE SOMETHING ORIGINAL! Yes, you can do all these neat tricks and be just like your favorite Hollywood filmmaker -- but the key is you want to be yourself. Especially at this level, you want to start carving out your own voice and by making material like Fast Money, you are only insuring a lifetime of directing for TV and MTV. Unless that is what you want to achieve -- please make something more fresh for the audience.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Starring Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber
Written by James Gunn and Directed by Zack Snyder


Continuing with my theme of watching Halloween related films around Halloween -- next up is Dawn of the Dead. Not the George A. Romero one from 1978, but the 2004 one from Zack Snyder. Who in the blue hell is Zack Snyder -?! My thoughts exactly. All I know is he directed the Michael Jordan video, Playground, and he actually did quite a nice job remaking Romero’s zombie classic, Dawn of the Dead.

Judging by a title such as, Dawn of the Dead -- one can pretty much guess what the film will be about. If you guessed it was a romantic comedy, there could be a slight chance that you didn’t quite finish grade 3, but if you guessed it was about a bunch of zombies who go around killing humans because they have a bad case of the “I’m the living dead and I need to eat humans” -- I would say you are pretty close and at least finished high school.

Dawn of the Dead wastes no time in getting to the blood and violence. We meet Sarah Polley, a nurse (you have to have at least one nurse character in a horror flick) and within less than ten minutes her family is zombified and she finds herself teaming up with a team of cliche characters (the tough cop, the criminal, the pregnant woman, the shady guy). And where do you head when you are being chased by a million zombies? Why the shopping mall of course! There the characters get to know each other and even start to love each other a little (don’t ask me why hanging out in a mall while being attacked by killer zombies is romantic, but it strangely just is). Oh, and they also find a lot of weapons and shoot a lot of zombies. Good times, indeed.

Like I mentioned, Dawn of the Dead starts with a bang. The opening credits are way, way cool and the violence and gore is fast and flowing -- but somehow in the middle to last half of the film, things get really slow. There is just too much talking and character development for this kind of film. I want blood and I want violence! That being said, Dawn of the Dead is a decent remake and still a lot of fun, but maybe it resembles Michael Jordan’s career a little too much; fast and fun at the start, but slow and a little too mushy towards the end.


THE RUNDOWN:

The Good: Zombies. Zombies getting shot. Zombies.

The Bad: Too much emotion for a zombie flick.

The Law: Watch the film either late at night or after eating lots of candy.

Saw
Starring Cary Elwes, Monica Potter, Danny Glover
Written and Directed by James Wan


Way back in 2004, I picked up a promo copy of Saw at Future Shop. It was free, I am Chinese -- so I picked one up. Simple as that. Then when I got home and played it... not so simple. I felt like vomiting and as I watched the trailer I could have sworn an evil presence was taking over my house. Within minutes, the promo copy of Saw went from my DVD player to the garbage can in my backyard (I didn’t want the disc to be anywhere inside the house). I truly and honestly believed the Saw disc I took was evil...

Flash forward a year or so later. I am walking out of the movie theater with my friend SJ, laughing and chatting -- having just watched, Saw II. I loved it. It was great. It was thought-provoking, gory, scary, violent -- it was awesome! That night when I lay in bed, I began to wonder... What was Saw part one like if Saw II was this good. Maybe I should see it. Nah. Saw part one was still classified EVIL in my house. I am happy with Saw II, I will stop there.

Flash forward to Christmas. My friend N tells me to come over to pick up my Christmas present. It is a copy of the Special Edition of Saw with flowing artificial blood in the cover. Great... I just received evil for Christmas. Then on one rainy night (yeah, I know, how cliche) -- I watched it. Much to my surprise -- it was awesome! I loved it more than Saw II.

Saw is one of the most intelligent horror/thriller films since Scream and ten times more engaging. I loved every frame of it. It was filled with plenty of twists, scares, humour, and used a great flashback narrative style that really helps the viewer invest in the characters (watch ABC’s Lost, it has the same style and you will also recognize actor Michael Emerson as the Others head leader). The story is simple: a psychotic killer named Jigsaw (although technically he doesn’t kill anybody) captures people who seem to be abusing the gift of life and then places them in devices which require them to do something grisly to escape out of or die -- helping them realize something about themselves and life in the process. Brilliant.

So yesterday being Halloween, I decided to rediscover the magic and so called evil of Saw again. I am thankful to say it is just as good as the first time, actually, I think I liked it even more this time. Now how many things in life can we say that about?


THE RUNDOWN:

The Good: A fantastic psychological horror/thriller.

The Bad: Danny Glover is kind of goofy.

The Law: Watch Saw and gain a whole new appreciation for life and good horror.