U.X.

Good acting, but long long long and homo-tension gave me heebie jeebies. I'd rather see hardcore gay than tension, because actual sex is funny but tension is just tension. Minghella strikes me as trying to be modern-day Hitchcock, maybe. Not quite, but okay movie.

Well, at the theatre, seeing the gaggle of flare-jeaned, ill-fitting shirt-sporting kiddos of assorted social castes lined up outside the door to see this movie called Drop Dead Gorgeous.. I don't know, I was kinda put off. I thought, "Oh Christ, ANOTHER kid's movie," and truth be told, I probably wouldn't have seen it had it not been for my friend convincing me that the film wasn't completely meritless, on the grounds that a young girl is bashed in the face with a beer can by her overbearing mother. That's reason enough to see any movie. But, I digress. Anyhow, this movie was not at all bad! Yes, it was actually one of the best movies to come out this year. It does a fine job at offending every sensibility. Exploitation in its finest form, and funny as hell. The movie lags in some parts, but its high points are zeniths.

I was VERY suprised to see this sort of movie in a mainstream atmosphere! Maybe this is the start of something big.

Wires and flying and swastika-wielding Shaolin monks and crude humor and bad subtitling and really really good kung fu and amateur acupuncture and more flying and water worshippers and some more of those in-jokes that "none of me and my friends got" and Batman and Jesus and one of the craziest movies, kung fu or otherwise, ever made. WOW WOW WOW!!! You must see this movie!!!

It sounds about right. I picked it up at a small music store for about 3 dollars, the copy I got was very crappy and had bad, bad tracking, but was watchable once. If you're looking for a thorough review, than.. no. Sorry. But, if you're into no effort reviews, then read on. Bloody Fists is one of those kung fu films set in that indeterminate kung fu era, the one that mixes old style costumes with things like soldiers and big guns.. you're never quite sure just when it's happening, but I guess it really doesn't matter. Looks like some guy who likes to comb his hair and grin wicked is on the run from some troops, he did something bad. I don't know. Then there's this other guy, his girlfriend is Norma Miao (I think?) from Fists of Fury, he's knocking around wooden dummies on the beach. Chen Seng shows that his Japanese martial arts is the best, to the dismay of the Chinese fighters. Always with the Japanese.. and somehow, a dragon herb gets thrown in there, it's apparently valuable like marijuana, but just how it's used is never clearly established. There's a tournament, some baddie with long hair and a black surgical mask is running the show, even though the big, big guy with the huge, sexy eyebrows really should have been running things. Some guys fight in these wooden rings that look pretty neat.. Chen Seng and long-hair bad guy kidnaps some guys and ties them to stakes on the beach. Chen has some of them decapitated, because they won't tell him where the dragon herb is. Then the guy from the beginning, the guy with the wooden dummies, he comes around and kills all the bad guys, I forget how. Maybe by breaking their necks. That's usually how it works. You know, maybe I should watch it again.

Well, at least I got the satisfaction of knowing I ruined some spoiled kids' good time, through consistent socially destructive behavior and all-around asinine activity. The only bit of fun I could get from this movie. Attractive youngsters engaging in promiscuous sex and (GASP!) double-crossing each other, oh my. And the acting.. superb. To hell with that. Screw watching the film, just grab a handful of junior mints and chuck 'em at the screen, or at the hordes of babyfat pre-teeny boppers with milk-hormone enhanced physiques, butterfly tees and flare jeans. String together some sentences with just a few random, unrelated words, and yell those sentences as loudly as you can. Then, be escorted from the premises, and go home happy. Well.. $4.00 poorer, but content with the knowledge that you made an absolute ass of yourself, and that you were talked about, albeit briefly, by all the "mature" kids. Who's more mature, the 13 and 14 year olds who shell out mommy and daddy's cash to see trite filth like this, and are thoroughly ENTERTAINED! Or me, the grown man, who throws stuff at them, sure, but knows better than to be tricked into thinking that such malodorous, pustulent cinema slime counts for anything more than what it is. In my admittedly distorted opinion, I come out on top. Ha ha.

"Oh, Jackie Chan's not in the movie enough.. All these in-jokes no one could POSSIBLY appreciate.. And it doesn't make any sense! Yikes, I'd better come to the conclusion that it's a bad film, and real quick like, lest my hipster friends think me a FUN-ster." Go away. You, who knows nothing of the beautiful Brigette Lin, or Jimmy Wang Yu, star of countless "one-arm" kung fu films, or Jackie Chan for that matter. Go listen to your Radiohead, and read your Spin. Ignorance is truly bliss. To the true fu fans out there, and to the ones that can appreciate original, unusual films like this, I offer props. Mad ones, even. It's World War II.. sort of. From a heavy drug-user's perspective, I suppose. The Japanese (always the Japanese), in a desperate attempt for world conquest, kidnap 4 generals, and one of them is Abraham Lincoln. Various miscreants and misfits from all walks of life are assimilated into an elite military unit, by one super-tough and, this time villainous Mr. "Jimmy" Wang Yu. It's their job to rescue the generals, in four days. This plot may seem contrived, aside from the Abraham Lincoln part maybe.. but it's the way it's carried out, the way this film takes so many different, weird directions at once. Plot twists, you might call 'em. But these are REAL plot TWISTS! None of that, "Ohh.. so HE was on the bad side. Okay." Who's expecting these guys to be fighting flying, color-rope wielding amazons one minute, then playing Mah Johng with ghosts in a haunted mansion the next?? I didn't. I don't suspect anyone else saw it coming either. And this film is so FILLED with such inexplicable and genuinely funny goings-on.. with KUNG FU to boot! And good KUNG FU at that! "But what about the ending, oh it sucked.." Again, WRONG. The way this film ends, and I daren't give it away, NEVER: suffice it to say, it is one of the most nihilistic and insane conclusions to any film ever made. It's as though the film makers, not content to have merely warped your mind with a whole 90-or-so minutes of brilliant, unheard-of plot developments and VERY competent action (especially from Brigette Lin, Jackie Chan too, natch.), they go the WHOLE nine yards by slapping on an ending that could not have taken more than 2 minutes to conceive, but it stands now and forever as the cinematic pinnacle of "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT??" You won't be disappointed in this film, not one bit. Well.. no, there are SOME people that don't like it. There's a good chance that these same folks find the musings of Alanis Morisette to be "thoughtful," "energetic," "liberating," and maybe even "scathing." Egad..