Category: Journal Entry

Bruce and Shaolin Kung-Fu A Movie A Day Journal Entry

by chrisA Movie A Day / Journal EntryLeave a Comment on Bruce and Shaolin Kung-Fu A Movie A Day Journal Entry

Bruce and Shaolin Kung-Fu (1977) – A Movie A Day 2021 #57

My $1 Bruce and Shaolin Kung-Fu DVD

I’m back with another $1 kung fu DVD, and back with another Bruceploitation movie. If you’re wondering what Bruceploitation is, I wrote a little bit about it in my journal entry for Bruce vs. Bill, so go check that out. If you did read that entry, then you’ll already be little familiar with the star of today’s movie of the day, Bruce Le. Trying to track down the exact date of release for today’s movie, Bruce and Shaolin Kung-Fu, is a little tricky, because I’ve seen multiple dates listed across various sites, and there are at least two movies starring Bruce Le with this exact same title in various markets. It’s another instance of people naming kung fu movies whatever they wanted to in order to try to grab people’s attention.

If I’m looking at the correct information on the Hong King Movie Database, then the Google translation for the original Chinese title is Dharma Iron Finger Skill, but various English titles include Ching Wu & Shaolin Kung Fu, Fist of Fury Part 2, and the title on the DVD I have, Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu. To complicate matters, there’s another movie that is sometimes billed as a sequel to this with multiple similar titles, but some places have its year listed as being released prior to this movie. That’s not completely uncommon. The U.S. releases of Jackie Chan’s Operation Condor I and II were titled backwards from the original release order of the Armour of God movies which they were originally titled. But anyway, back to today’s movie.

Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu stars Bruce Le as Lee Ching Lung. So once again, the title is referencing the actor and not any character in the movie. Lee is a powerful martial artist and one of his master’s top students. One day, the Japanese military invades China and starts shutting down all of the martial arts schools and killing anyone who resists. Lee’s brother is killed, so Lee attempts to get revenge. Lee fights one of the Japanese military leaders and succeeds in defeating him, and the humiliation of defeat combined with his father’s disappointment causes the Japanese fighter to commit ritual suicide. The man’s father, the general of the Japanese troops, gathers a group of the best Japanese fighters to hunt and defeat Lee, so Lee escapes to South Korea where he begins to train with a friend of his master’s. Lee is quickly found though, and that leads to an increasingly dangerous series of battles. 

The story here is very similar to Young Hero which I wrote about yesterday, but I enjoyed today’s movie a little more. Part of that is because I like the main character Lee a whole lot more than I liked the main character of Young Hero. Also, the hero’s female counterpart in Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu doesn’t meet as much of a downer ending as the female lead did in yesterday’s movie. At least, I don’t think she did. The ending of Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu is bizarrely depressing, and it makes me think that the fates of certain characters might not be very good despite seeing them alive in their final on-screen moments.

The fights in Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu are fun mostly from a character perspective. As I’m writing this I can’t recall any specific scenes with neat set pieces of really amazing moves, but overall I enjoyed all the action. Bruce Le seemed to blatantly display lot more of Bruce Lee’s mannerisms in this movie than he did in Bruce vs. Bill, so that was fun. Also, one of the bad guys is Bolo Yeung, and I love that guy. Bolo Yeung is a huge body-builder looking guy, and he tends to play despicable bad guys. If you’ve seen Bloodsport, he’s the main bad guy, Chong Li. He doesn’t have a ton of screen time in Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu, but the time he has is memorable. 

Other than that, this is a pretty average kung fu movie. Fun for a late-watch, but nothing spectacular. It does make me want to check out more Bruce Le movies though. 

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

No Escape Room A Movie A Day Journal Entry

by chrisA Movie A Day / Journal EntryLeave a Comment on No Escape Room A Movie A Day Journal Entry

No Escape Room (2018) – A Movie A Day 2021 #56

No Escape Room poster

I had some extra time after watching the latest kung fu movie in my mini-marathon, so I turned on Netflix to see what was new. I don’t use Netflix as often as I probably should, so there were a lot of things added since the last time I browsed. I tend to spend way too long looking for something to watch when I begin browsing Netflix, so I decided to just take a look at the first thing that caught my eye. That movie ended up being No Escape Room, and I thought it was pretty good. 

No Escape Room is a supernatural horror movie about a father and daughter who get stranded in a small town and pass the time waiting for their car to be repaired by trying out a local escape room. If you’re unfamiliar with an escape room, it’s basically a game where people are locked in a room together and have to solve riddles and puzzles to unlock a door and escape. The father, Michael, and daughter, Karen, seem to have something of a strained relationship, and the weekend was supposed to be a bonding trip for the two of them. So, Michael tends to try too hard, and Karen tends to barely try at all when it comes to forming a good relationship. The activity of doing an escape room might be good for them though.

Michael and Karen are joined by three strangers, Andrew, Melanie, and Tyler, who are also there to participate in the escape room. Melanie is the escape room expert, her boyfriend Tyler doesn’t want to be there, and Andrew is something of a mystery. With all of the necessary character types included to help explain the game and create tension among themselves, the movie moves along well with only the necessary amount of exposition and explanation. Things seem off about the escape room right away though, and the escape room ends up being an escape house with some eerily realistic dangers lurking about. Mysteries are built and unraveled, people are separated, and scariness ensues. 

No Escape Room is a TV movie so there are clear spots where commercial breaks would be inserted, but if those weren’t there I wouldn’t have expected it to be made for TV. It’s kind of scary at times, there a bit of blood and violence, and overall I really enjoyed the mystery and the tone. As the movie goes on, the mystery of the house does feel like it begins to get a bit too convoluted to the point where it barely makes much sense anymore, but it was still fun enough to watch. By that point I was invested enough in Karen’s story that the parts of the movie that felt out of place didn’t bother me too much. The movie has a very campy ending, but again, I though it was fine. 

For me, the best bits were towards the middle of the movie where we were still learning things and the house still felt like a big puzzle. After a while it becomes more psychological and supernatural, and that wasn’t quite as fun for me. I still enjoyed it though. I’d recommend No Escape Room for a light horror movie with more mystery than scare, but don’t expect many satisfying conclusions for the characters. Some of them come to very abrupt ends once their usefulness to the plot has been exhausted. 

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Young Hero (1981) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

by chrisA Movie A Day / Journal EntryLeave a Comment on Young Hero (1981) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

Young Hero (1981) – A Movie A Day 2021 #55

Young Hero poster

After a brief break, I have rejoined my kung fu marathon. Today’s movie is another of the $1 DVDs I bought over the weekend, and it is titled Young Hero. The movie was distributed by the same company that put out the previous two kung fu movies I’ve written about so I don’t think there’s really a need to discuss the gloriously bad quality of the dubbed VHS they used as their source material. Nor do I really need to say anything about the DVD’s front cover containing images from some movie other than what is actually on the disc. With all of that left unsaid I can get right to the movie itself, and the movie itself is fun for what it is. 

In Young Hero, a group of Japanese fighters are beating up all the local kung fu masters and wrecking their schools. The Japanese fighters think Chinese kung fu is weak, and in the first part of the movie, none of the Chinese fighters have been able to prove otherwise. Master Fok and his family/students take a beating like everyone else, but they’re also determined to train harder so they can get revenge. Master Fok has multiple sons, most of whom are diligent in their training. One of his sons, the “young hero” of the movie, is a troublemaker. He tends to make poor decisions that reflect badly on himself and his family, and he’s really kind of a jerk. Master Fok forbids the troublemaking son from continuing his kung fu practices since he always gets into fights with random people, but as the trouble between Fok and the Japanese fighters worsens, the young hero must grow up and stand up for his family (and really, for Chinese kung fu as a whole). 

Young Hero DVD, not featuring the young hero on the cover.

As with most of these movies, the plot is an excuse to string together multiple fight scenes. It felt like there was an awful lot of fighting in this movie with very little downtime in-between. I’m not complaining though. The fights were mostly quite fun. There were some neat sequences especially towards the end of the movie that I enjoyed a lot. There’s a training sequence with the young hero and a young woman who has been adopted into the Fok family that takes place on a raft, and that’s pretty cool. There were also a good amount of two-on-one fights towards the end of the movie that were some of the best. A lot of the fights early tended to be of groups of people fighting all over that place, and they were fine, but the action was more unique and structured when it was down to just a few people. 

If I have a problem with Young Hero, it’s the young hero himself. He’s a real butt-hole for the first two-thirds of the movie, and even when he started to do the right thing, I still didn’t like him very much. My favorite character was the young woman, but even though it felt like she was being built up for an important role, in the end she was just used for motivation for the young hero and Master Fok. I thought her ending was undeserved, and it bummed me out.

Other than that though, if just for the near-constant action, I enjoyed Young Hero fine. Out of the kung fu movies I’ve watched this week, this one is my least favorite, but I’m sure I’ll watch again sometime.

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Night Vision (1987) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

by chrisA Movie A Day / Journal EntryLeave a Comment on Night Vision (1987) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

Night Vision (1987) – A Movie A Day 2021 #54

Night Vision poster, in Spanish because, why not?

I thought I’d take a short break from my kung fu marathon to finish a movie I started watching the other night but fell asleep about halfway through. That’s not a good sign, is it? I did start the movie pretty late at night so falling asleep isn’t a great predictor about how I feel about the movie, but falling asleep during a movie I’ve never seen before isn’t a resounding endorsement either. The movie in question in Night Vision, a 1987 psychological thriller labelled as “horror” on Tubi and IMDB. I don not consider Night Vision a horror movie, and I don’t consider it a very good movie either. Even though the ideas are pretty good, the execution feels like it’s stretched out with not much happening for long periods of time.

Night Vision is about Andy, a naïve young man from Kansas who travels to the big city of Denver, Colorado to try to gain some life experience to help inspire his fledgling writing career. Andy meets a cast of colorful characters including a thief/street hustler named Vinnie and a video store clerk named Jill who is fed up with big city life. Vinnie and Andy become fast friends, and Vinnie gifts Andy a TV and VCR that he stole and is attracting unwanted attention from dangerous guys in black robes. There was a tape in the VCR that mostly shows static to begin with, but eventually begins to show Andy frightening images of violence and satanic rituals that may or may not be real. Meanwhile, Andy is forming a relationship with Jill, but Andy’s mental state is degenerating and causes problems between the two of them. Is the big city wearing Andy down like its worn down Jill, or is there something more sinister going on?

I enjoy the idea of a horror movie based on some sort of mystical/psychological influence of TV and videos, but it’s not like the idea was original even in 1987. The first movie that springs to mind like this is the great Videodrome from 1983, but as I’ve said before, I don’t mind a good rip-off. The issue I have with Night Vision is that it just drags too much for my taste.

There is a whole lot of character building in Night Vision which is fine, but at some point I’d like to have something happen to begin to ramp up the tension. Over an hour into the movie I still felt like the movie was just building Andy’s character, and the images on his TV barely seemed to play a part in the story. That changes in the final 40 minutes (the movie is 1 hour 40 minutes long), but nothing really happens until the final fifteen minutes or so. By that point I was kind of checked out, even watching it in two pieces since I fell asleep on the first try.

Maybe if I hadn’t expected a horror movie I would feel differently, but I couldn’t really get into Night Vision. If kind of just made me want to watch Videodrome.

I couldn’t find an official trailer, so here’s a poor copy of the full movie on YouTube.

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / /

Bruce vs. Bill A Movie A Day Journal Entry

by chrisA Movie A Day / Journal EntryLeave a Comment on Bruce vs. Bill A Movie A Day Journal Entry

Bruce vs. Bill (1981) – A Movie A Day 2021 #53

The DVD I have featuring cover art of a scene not in the movie.

Continuing my multi-day kung fu movie marathon, today’s movie is Bruce vs. Bill. This is another of the movies I found for $1 at my local used DVD store, and like Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards, it’s a cheaply produced, dubbed, full frame, bad VHS rip onto a bare-bones DVD. This version of Bruce vs. Bill even has a fair amount of distortion on the top of the screen for about three-quarters of the movie from the VHS that was used as the source material. Just the way I like it. The cover art on the front of the DVD box and screen grab on the back aren’t even from Bruce vs. Bill, and I’m pretty sure the people pictured aren’t in the film either. But, there’s a guy wearing a yellow and black tracksuit like the one Bruce Lee wore in Game of Death on the front cover, and that’s 100% why they used the image. Though it’s late in the cycle, Bruce vs. Bill is still considered a Bruceploitation movie.

 If you’re unfamiliar with Bruceploitation, the word itself is a portmanteau of “Bruce” (as in Bruce Lee) and “exploitation.” It’s a sub-genre of martial arts movies that emerged in East and Southeast Asia after the death of Bruce Lee in 1973. Bruce Lee was (and still is) an icon, and his impact on the worlds of martial arts, film, and martial arts films cannot be understated. After his tragic death, many filmmakers began to capitalize on Bruce Lee’s worldwide popularity by making movies using actors who looked more or less like Bruce Lee (Lee-alikes), many of whom adopted some variation of Bruce Lee in part or in whole as their stage name. There are a wide variety of Bruceploitation movies out there, some blatant rip-offs of Lee’s movies, some adapting parts of his life whether real or completely fictional, and even movies that have nothing to do with Bruce Lee other than having a guy that looks vaguely like him in one of the starring roles. Bruce vs Bill falls into that last category. 

Bruce vs. Bill stars Bruce Le (not his real name, of course) as Chang, and Bill Louie (which I believe might be his real name) as Wang Chiao. Wang Chiao is a dishwasher at a restaurant, and he is highly skilled in martial arts. One night he stumbles across a man getting attacked by multiple thugs, so, being a good guy, he intervenes. The old man gets killed, but before he breathes his last breathe, the old man hands Wang Chiao a set of keys and asks him to deliver them to a man named Sung Kung. See, the keys open a safe containing one million dollars raised to help the citizens of the country, and the old man was going to pass the keys off to Sung Kung (who I think is in the government) the very next morning. Being a good guy (again), Wang Chiao promises to honor the dying man’s final request, but there are dangerous men who want the money for themselves. That makes Wang Chiao a target.

During one of many scenes featuring Wang Chiao fighting off groups of thugs trying to get the keys, Chang mistakes Wang Chiao for the aggressor. Just like in pretty much every superhero crossover story ever, misunderstanding leads to our two heroes battling over and over until they finally realize they’re actually on the same side. Sort of. Wang Chiao wants to do the right thing and get the money to the people it belongs to, but Chang doesn’t want any part of it. It’s too late though. Now Chang is also a target, and he and Wang Chiao must work together if they want to survive. 

Bruce vs Bill poster

I think it’s funny that the movie is titled Bruce vs. Bill even though neither actor is named Bruce or Bill in the movie itself, not even in the English translation. I Google translated the original Chinese title, and it came out as Fight for Hegemony which makes a lot more sense. But Bruceploitation is all about getting people to pay up to see the movie, and Bruce vs. Bill with a Bruce-Lee-alike on the cover probably worked well on English-speaking audiences. I mean, it worked on me. For $1 and about an hour and a half it worked. 

I thought the movie was pretty good. The two leads are charismatic, and the fight scenes are a lot of fun. The main villain is an ambiguous “foreigner” (as they refer to him in the movie), and he has a wonderfully terrible fake moustache. Like, it’s real bad. I love it. 

All the double and triple-crossing throughout the movie was fun as well. With one million dollars up for grabs to whomever can get their hands on the keys, it seems like almost every character could potentially double-cross anyone at any moment. Many of them do, but some of them don’t. I enjoyed trying to guess who would and wouldn’t turn, and who would live long enough to enjoy the fruits of all their punching, kicking, and some stabbing. 

I also quite enjoyed the villain’s henchman using small axes as their weapons at times. I’m sure the axes were inspired by the real like Axe Gang from Shanghai, but here it reminded me more of movies like the great Kung Fu Hustle. Bruce vs. Bill wasn’t the first movie to have an axe gang in it, and it certainly wasn’t the last, but I always enjoy a good fight scene with an axe gang versus one or two weaponless fighters. 

Overall I give the title of the movie and the artwork for the DVD I bought a good fist shake with a head shake that says “you got me this time,” and for the movie I give it a solid recommendation for fans of cheap and generic kung fu movies. Bruce vs. Bill isn’t a great movie and it breaks no new ground, but I enjoyed it for the whole hour and a half I watched. Oh yeah, the Bruce Lee guy, Chang, also has a pet bird that will occasionally narrate what’s happening with a word or two. So if you were on the fence about checking out the movie, that surely pushed you one way or the other.

I couldn’t find a trailer, but this is the full movie streaming (apparently) legally on YouTube. I’m pretty sure this is the exact same version of the movie I just watched. It even has the same distortion at the top of the screen.

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / /

Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards A Movie A Day Journal Entry

by chrisA Movie A Day / Journal EntryLeave a Comment on Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards A Movie A Day Journal Entry

Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards (1980) – A Movie A Day 2021 #52

A copy of the DVD I now own for $1.

After being forced to stay indoors for the better part of a week because of terrible weather, I got out over the weekend and visited one of my favorite places: a used DVD store. I browsed for a while as usual, but I ended up mostly just raiding the $1 table. Apparently someone off-loaded a bunch of cheap kung fu DVDs recently, and some of them ended up on the dollar table. So, of course, I grabbed them, and the first one I chose to watch is titled Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards. The title immediately brought to mind Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master from 1978, and even though Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards isn’t as polished as Jackie Chan’s film, I quite enjoyed it.

Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards follows a young man named Chang Fung who works with his cousin and uncle at a noodle shop. Chang Fung goes away for a month to learn drunken kung fu from a master, Wu Sing, but when Chang Fung returns home, he discovers that his teacher has many dangerous enemies. When Chang Fung uses his newly-learned skills in public, his style is recognized, and he becomes a target for the many people who want to kill Wu Sing. Chang Fung’s life and family are in danger, and he has to fight his way through a series of deadly encounters before he can find peace.

The movie isn’t necessarily a comedy, but it is a fairly silly and funny movie. I think the nature of drunken kung fu makes it nearly impossible to make a movie featuring it without being at least partially a comedy. Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards may not be especially noteworthy when compared to countless other kung fu movies that came out around the same time, but it’s a lot of fun. The story meanders from scene to scene with the plot lurching in different direction just to get to the next action sequence or comedy bit, but that’s one of the reasons I love these kinds of movies. The characters and fights are fun, and that’s all I really need.

I started watching lots of cheap kung fu movies in my teens, and I definitely have a certain aesthetic I enjoy which is based on some of those movies I saw during that time. This was back in the days of VHS, and tons of kung fu movies were available on poorly produced tapes. That’s what I love. Poorly dubbed, full frame, grainy pictures and all. If I can get the movie on VHS now, that’s even better, but the handful of movies I picked up the other day are clearly just dumped onto a DVD from a bad VHS copy. You can even see a few tracking problems when the movie is starting up. I love it.

Of course I’ll watch kung fu movies in full widescreen with nice picture clarity and subtitles, and I prefer that for a lot of the better kung fu movies out there, but for late-night movie to relax to, cheesy and poorly distributed kung fu movies are a go-to choice for me. I have four more movies I picked up, so don’t be surprised if you see them pop up in some future write-ups sooner rather than later.

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Psycho (1960) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

by chrisA Movie A Day / Journal EntryLeave a Comment on Psycho (1960) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

Psycho (1960) – A Movie A Day 2021 #51

Psycho (1960) poster

I’m doing a little catch-up today after getting behind in posting (and watching) my movies of the day, so this entry might be shorter than most. But really, what is there to say about Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho that hasn’t already been said? Not much. Even so, I’ll take you through a little bit of my experience watching it again for the first time in quite a while.

If you’re unfamiliar, Psycho stars Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, a woman who steals a great deal of money in a spur-of-the-moment decision. Marion drives out of town to surprise her lover with the money that could free them both from the debts keeping them apart, but a rain storm causes Marion to stop for the night at a secluded motel. Psycho also stars Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, the quiet and rather nervous young man who runs the motel. Norman seems nice, and he takes a liking to Marion, but when Marion overhears Norman’s elderly and overbearing mother yelling at Norman, it begins to become clear that there is something dark within the Bates family. If you’ve really never seen the movie and don’t know what happens after that, I certainly won’t spoil it here. Psycho is a must-watch for all people who love movies.

I’ve seen Psycho a fair number of times, and even though I hadn’t seen it in a while, many of the scenes came back to me right away. It had been long enough where I didn’t remember the specifics of the dialogue and performances though, and that’s what really struck me during this watch.

Anthony Perkins is amazing as Norman Bates. The complexity of emotions he displays in pretty much every scene is astounding. The character of Norman Bates would certainly typecast Perkins for much of his career, but what a role to be remembered for. Two scenes in particular stood out to me this time with regards to Perkins’ performance. The first is when he has a conversation with Marion in the lounge of the motel. Janet Leigh is fantastic as well, and both Marion and Norman leave the conversation as different people than we thought they were when they entered it. Then, later in the film, Norman has to speak to a private detective, and the mounting tension hidden just beneath Norman’s words and voice is incredible.

Norman has a way of unintentionally drawing people in with his quiet charm and slight naivete, and Perkins’ performance does the same to the audience. We start to feel for Norman, and that makes the twists and turns more effective when the darkness in the Bates family is revealed. Even if you know how the movie ends, and I’m sure you probably do, the characters are so well developed that the tension still works greatly.

I’ve never seen the sequels to Psycho, nor have I seen the 1998 remake. I kind of don’t want to watch any of them for different reasons, but with a movie a day to watch, I might try them out at some point.

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

The Grudge 2 (2006) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

by chrisA Movie A Day / Journal EntryLeave a Comment on The Grudge 2 (2006) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

The Grudge 2 (2006) – A Movie A Day 2021 #50

The Grudge 2 poster

Today’s movie was an easy choice. As a follow-up to The Grudge (2004) yesterday, today’s movie of the day is The Grudge 2 (2006). Director Takashi Shimizu is back for the sequel to his American remake of his own movie, and even though The Grudge 2 isn’t as good as The Grudge (2004), it’s still quite effective in a lot of ways. Unlike The Grudge (2004) being a fairly close remake of Ju-On: The Grudge, The Grudge 2 is not a remake of Ju-On: The Grudge 2 despite bringing over some elements from previous Ju-On movies. Not being a remake helps The Grudge 2 feel a bit like a fresh start, and a bigger focus on Kayako’s curse venturing out of the house and over to America helps it feel different than a lot of what came before it.

Like The Grudge (2004) and other Ju-On movies, The Grudge 2 tells multiple stories that begin to converge as the movie goes on. One story follows Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn) as she travels to Japan to make an attempt to bring her sister Karen home. Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is still in the hospital after the events of the first movie, and Aubrey becomes overwhelmed with family baggage, her sister’s condition, and the mystery behind what happened to Karen and her boyfriend. Aubrey tries to find out what happened to Karen which leads her to the cursed Saeki house.

Another story follows three young women who attend an international school in Japan together. One of the girls, Allison, is tricked into entering the Saeki house by two bullies, Vanessa and Miyuki. The prank obviously goes bad, and the curse begins to follow them.

The third story takes place in Chicago, and it follows a young boy named Jake who is dealing with his father re-marrying after Jake’s mother passed away. As Jake is processing his feelings, something strange begins happening to the people around him, and the strangeness seems to be centered around a nearby apartment.

Each story is told linearly, and the intercutting between all three makes it feel like they’re all happening at the same time. If you’re paying attention to some early dialogue you can figure out when two of the stories are happening in relation to each other, but the third story’s time is left a mystery until the end. At first it’s not entirely clear how the stories are connected, but connections are made in a fun though not always unpredictable way. One of the reveals at the end is quite good, but another one isn’t so much of a reveal since it seemed pretty obvious what the connection was about halfway through the movie. It was still enjoyable watching the characters figure it out though. This movie feels a lot more linear than other Ju-On/Grudge movies I’ve seen, and despite the opening scene and a few overlaps, the three main stories never skip back and forth in time. That definitely makes the movie easier to follow than some of the Ju-On movies, though following the timeline was never a big deal in my opinion. As long as the narrative delivers tension ad scares, I’m fine with a bit of time and space ambiguity.

There are a good number of effective scares in The Grudge 2. One of my favorites is one that caught me a little off guard. I won’t spoil it, but it happens when Allison is talking to a counselor at her school. I thought the scare was going to be one thing, but then something else happened and it got me good. I also enjoyed some of the riffs Takashi Shimizu did on some familiar scares from the series. For example, there’s a shower scene, and one of the most iconic scares from the Ju-On/Grudge franchise involves a scare in the shower. Shimizu doesn’t do what you might expect though, and I enjoyed that very much. There’s also a reference to the scene he’d already done twice where a ghost creeps up on a person in their bedsheets, but again, Shimizu changes it up.

Watching some of the featurettes on the DVD helped give a little insight on Shimizu’s mindset and probably explains why he chose to change things up a bit with this movie. The Grudge 2 was Shimizu’s sixth feature length installment of the franchise in six years. Including the two short films that came before the features, Shimizu had been writing and directing the series for eight years. In come of Shimizu’s comments on the DVD, he talks about wanting to do something different if he was going to take the job to direct this second American installment. The Grudge 2 does feel different than what came before, but maybe not always for the best.

I enjoy The Grudge 2 quite a lot, but apparently it was quite a struggle to get the movie written. The Japanese writers (including Shimizu) and the American writers had very different ideas about what the movie should be and how they should approach it. Japanese and American storytelling can be quite different in a lot of ways, and Shimizu apparently had to make a lot of concessions with regards to how he wanted to tell the story. What I saw didn’t go into specifics about what Shimizu may have wanted versus what was actually shot and edited, but The Grudge 2 doesn’t feel quite as genuine as The Grudge (2004), if that makes any sense. The sequel feels a little too clean and easy to digest while there was some ambiguity to The Grudge (2004). The Grudge 2 dives into Kayako’s backstory a lot more, and the curse feels less mysterious because of it. The atmosphere is still often very good, but I suppose it felt like the movie was holding my hand a bit too much.

That said, I still think The Grudge 2 is a very good sequel. I like the story picks up pretty much where the first movie ended, and it continues to move Kayako’s curse forward. There are a bunch of creepy moments and nice scares, and that’s about as much as I can ask for from a sequel to a remake. Now I suppose I need to watch the third American Grudge, because I know I’ve never seen that one. Takashi Shimizu would not return to direct that, and in fact, The Grudge 2 was his last time directing any movie in the franchise. That’s a shame, but I can imagine wanting to move on to other things after spending so much time in the same mindset.

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

The Grudge (2004) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

by chrisA Movie A Day / Journal EntryLeave a Comment on The Grudge (2004) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

The Grudge (2004) – A Movie A Day 2021 #49

The Grudge (2004) poster

Cherry blossom season is coming up in about a month, and I’m making tentative plans to doing something during that time for my horror podcast The Last Theater. Thinking about what I want to do has made me want to watch certain Japanese horror movies, but I kind of want to wait until I figure out exactly what I’ll be doing before I dive into what will surely be a J-horror binge. So I did the next best thing to watching a Japanese horror movie and watched an American remake of a Japanese horror movie. Now, you might be thinking that watching an American remake of, well, anything is a bad idea, but there are good J-horror remakes out there. Today’s movie of the day is one of those good remakes, The Grudge (2004).

I did a podcast episode about my distaste for The Grudge (2020) about a year ago, but The Grudge from 2004 is a genuinely good movie, remake or not. First of all, Sarah Michelle Gellar is the star, and that already gives the film a bunch of points. Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert are among the producers of The Grudge (2004), and that adds a few more points. And the smartest thing the filmmakers did was to hire Takashi Shuimizu, the director of Ju-On: The Grudge which The Grudge (2004) is based on and the creator of the entire Ju-On franchise. Rather than hiring an American director to localize the movie for American audiences, Takashi Shimizu was basically allowed to recreate his original movie while trying to improve on things he thought could be better. The Grudge (2004) is basically a do-over for Shimizu. I don’t know if The Grudge (2004) is necessarily better that Ju-On: The Grudge, but it might be. I’ll need to watch the original again to really begin to make that assessment. What I do know is that The Grudge (2004) is a great horror movie that manages to deliver real Japanese horror from the perspective of a foreigner in Japan.

The Grudge (2004) stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as Karen, an American student living in Japan with her American boyfriend Doug. Karen volunteers as a care worker for school credit, and one day she is asked to go care for an elderly woman named Emma when the usual care worker doesn’t show up for work. Karen finds Emma incommunicative and living in filth, and after cleaning her up, Karen also discovers that there is something wrong with the house Emma lives in. Karen and Emma encounter a frightening presence, and from there the movie branches out to tell the stories of multiple people who have come into contact with the presence in the house.

Like most movies in The Grudge/Ju-On franchise, The Grudge (2004) is told in multiple vignettes that move forward and backward in time. Eventually the stories begin to come together and even overlap in a few ways. Karen seems to be the thread that connects everything, though a lot of that just has to do with the fact that Karen is the first character we really get to meet (after a brief, tone-setting intro sequence), and Karen is the last character we follow. Within the story, the connection for everyone is the house itself and its former residents. I know this is all kind of vague, but I don’t want to spoil anything if you’ve never seen any of these movies before. These early Grudge and Ju-On movies are quite good and well worth watching. I haven’t seen many of the later Japanese movies in the franchise, and I think there are two American releases I haven’t seen either, though I’ll be taking care of that very soon.

The Grudge (2004) is a very good and scary haunted house movie that emphasizes tone and tension over cheap scares or, really, even plot. Sometimes the weaving of the different times feels disconcerting, and some of the overlaps make you wonder what is actually happening, but it all comes together well to heighten the creepiness of the movie. There is some blood and gore in The Grudge (2004), but not nearly as much as in The Grudge (2020) which I complained about. The Grudge (2004) is rated PG-13, and it’s a great example of the fact that you don’t need a gory R rating to make a great haunted house movie.

One thing that really struck upon this latest viewing of The Grudge (2004) is the fear associated with being a foreigner in an unfamiliar country. Most of the people we follow in the movie are American, and they each have some degree of apprehension about living in a foreign country where communication can often be difficult. Maybe it’s because I haven’t watched The Grudge (2004) since before I lived in Japan for two years myself, but I totally understand the uneasiness a lot of the characters are feeling. It’s not that they dislike where they are, it’s just that it can be easy to feel isolated and alone even in everyday situations. These fears are made clear in the movie, and I feel like Takashi Shimizu was able to use those normal, understandable fears to heighten the supernatural fears that are a part of the American characters’ adopted country. I might not be explaining this very well because I haven’t taken the time to really iron out the ideas the movie presented to me this time, but I am impressed with how Shimizu was able to integrate those feelings of isolation into his movie. I think it’s something that he couldn’t have done in the same way with his original movie. It’s a great example of adding complexity in a remake rather than diluting it for a different audience.

I want to think more on that. But for now, I think I might move on to The Grudge 2 because I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. I’m also going to start planning out what I want to do for Sakura season, but that’s still a little ways away. Until then, I have a lot more movies to watch.

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Dead Space (2016) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

by chrisA Movie A Day / Journal EntryLeave a Comment on Dead Space (2016) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

Dead Space (2016) – A Movie A Day 2021 #48

Dead Space artwork

So, I was browsing through Tubi as I find myself doing quite often these days, and I came across a Chinese movie titled Dead Space with the following plot synopsis.

“One by one, a group of friends die in their nightmares. The last two decided to figure out why but they must not fall asleep until they do.”

Sounds familiar, right? Well, the movie art looked looked kind of neat, and I enjoy a good rip-off, so I decided to give Dead Space a watch. What I discovered was absolutely a rip-off. Specifically, it’s a remake of the 2010 A Nightmare on Elm Street remake but with a much lower budget. A much, much lower budget. But is Dead Space any good? Well, if you’ve listened to the review my buddy Joey and I did for the Nightmare (2010) remake over at The Last Theater (here’s the episode!) then you know how I didn’t much care for that movie. Now, imagine taking the script for A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), running it through Google Translate to convert it to Chinese, and making a movie off that Chinese script for about $150. Do you think the result will be better? No, probably not. But as a curiosity, I enjoyed the movie fine.

I won’t bother explaining the plot here, because it’s almost exactly the same as A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) down to the way people die and some of the aggravating plot twists. The problem is, something seems to be lost in translation. Dead Space is about twenty minutes shorter than Nightmare (2010), and even though I couldn’t tell you exactly what was left out since it’s been a while since I watched Nightmare (2010), Dead Space definitely felt like it was lacking a lot of connective tissue that was holding the just-okay scenes of Nightmare (2010) together. Dead Space feels like it just meanders from scene to scene in order to get to the next image it wants to try to recreate.

I mean, I guess I can commend the filmmakers on making a movie, but it feels more like a project put together by a fan who wants to learn how to make movies, not something to be taken seriously. I suppose it might have been localized for a certain market, but just like any movie, why not just watch a subtitled version of the original (or the original remake in this case)? I’m only speculating about the reasons for how and why Dead Space got made though, because I can’t find any information about its background. All that said, I guess the movie did what it was a supposed to. It got published online and nerds like me have seen it, so good job filmmakers!

There’s not really much else to talk about with Dead Space without just nitpicking the choices made by the filmmakers. I’m sure a lot of the differences between this and Nightmare (2010) were just due to budget constraints. The acting, directing, editing, and everything else are fine in a b-movie way, but none of its bad enough to be super cheesy and fun. It’s just alright. Oh, and why the title Dead Space? I know I complained about the title to another movie called Dead Space recently, but it makes even less sense here. Yes, there are dead people, but what space are they referring to? Maybe the title is another unfortunate causality of Google Translate. 

I do need to mention one more thing before I go. The killer. The characters in the movie talk about the killer’s burned face, but what the filmmakers decided to go with instead of burn makeup is a knockoff version of Heath Ledger’s Joker makeup. It’s a bizarre choice that makes absolutely no sense. I’m sure the real reason was, again, the budget, but there’s not even a line in the movie that gives a reason for his white face, wide red smile, and black eyes. It’s so strange. At least his Freddy glove looked good.

So would I recommend Dead Space to anyone? No, I wouldn’t. I thought it was interesting just as a curiosity, watching to see how close they would follow the Nightmare (2010) script and how they would handle some of the scenes I knew would be difficult to pull off. I can’t see myself ever watching it again though.

Tagged : / / / / / / / / /