Science Fiction, 2000, Japan
Director: Katsuyuki Motohiro
Starring: Takeshi Kaneshiro, Ken Watanabe, Eri Fukatsu

Three men Nishiyama (Kaneshiro), Takamura and Fujimoto walk into a bank to rob, planning to use the money to retire in some paradise island. Things go wrong and they end up with no money but hostages. When the police force surrounds the bank, Fujimoto notices that they and hostages correspond to characters on an intergalactic anime series called “Space Travelers”. He assigns each person an anime persona and they develop a sense of empowerment through their new personalities, when they begin to take active role in the hostage negotiations. They call themselves the Space Travelers and confuse the police force outside.

Unlike all those recent comic book/anime to film adaptations (X-Men, Blade, Azumi), Space Travelers did something interesting here. It’s not a live action version of the series. Instead, they made an action packed comedy with characters that are inspired by the series Space Travelers.  It is highly enjoyable and sometimes stylish film especially when the film starts possessing this infectious sense of fun by having the entire hostage role-playing the alter egos that they all graciously take on. It is difficult not to be swept away because after all, it is everyone’s fantasy to role-play in real life. 90% of the action takes place inside the bank but the colorful characters and fancy camera movements help to create a visual style that is almost like an anime. The only problem I had is that it feels like the director didn’t know how to end the film. You spend all these time with characters and all the sudden they leave without saying goodbye.

Still, Space Travelers manages to be entertaining with good mixture of humor and action.  And oh yeah Watanabe (Last Samurai) plays the man of a few words.

Shogo is an award-award winning filmmaker currently hard at work on a new project. Asian Fever is his weekly column devoted to Asian cinema and related topics.

Drama, 2003
Director: Clint Eastwood
Screenwriter: Brian Helgeland
Cast: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon
Score: *****

Eastwood’s finest film since Unforgiven and Honkytonk Man tells the effects on the lives of three childhood pals after one of them is sexually abused and kept in a cellar for a period of almost a week.  The key is that it could have happened to any one of them. 

As grown ups, Tim Robbins plays the walking zombie never fully recovered from the incident while Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon barely survive trying to forget what has transpired.  Not only are all three actors magnificent in their roles but Marcia Gay Harden stands out as Robbins’ long suffering wife who is never sure of her husband who returns home drunk and with blood on his hands one very early morning.  Is he really the murderer of Penn’s teenage daughter? 

One flaw of Mystic River is the many coincidences that happen the very night of the murder.  But all is forgiven as Eastwood and scriptwriter Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential and the last Eastwood vehicle Blood Work) weave a mesmerizing tale of mood, regret and hopelessness in a town that is just as lost as its characters. There are no winners but only survivors in a film that is guaranteed to numb you by the last reel. One of the year’s 10 best!

GILBERT SEAH was born in Singapore and moved to Toronto in 1982. He is an engineer by profession, with a passion for the cinema. Since the age of 10, he has been to the movies almost daily. Having been brought up in the Asian, British and Canadian cultures, he is able to bring a distinct perspective to film.    

Drama, 2003
Director: Mike Newell
Score: ***

Mike Newell’s (Four Weddings and a Funeral) Christmas offering, Mona Lisa Smile, has the best of what he has offered in his past films – a dark horse making it good in a feel good melodrama filled with elaborate sets.  In Mona Lisa Smile the time is 1953 and the setting is the prestigious all-female Wellesley College in the States, when and where women’s roles were rigidly defined by how well they marry.  Enter novice art history professor Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) who challengies the administration and inspires her students to do more with their lives.

The trouble with the script is the depiction of Watson as the almighty know-it-all with everyone else being imperfect or silly sods.  This is no Prime of Miss Jean Brodie where sacrifice comes with a price for both teacher and student and where the period of the era affects the story.  Mona Lisa Smile is all good-goody Christmassy and though the script should be credited for some nice touches (Watson’s star student turns the tables and her initial failure makes good) and a few subtleties (Stephenson as the renegade lesbian) with neat performances particularly from the young cast (Kirsten Dunst and Julia Styles), the film ultimately gets bogged down by its good intentions.  Fantastic 50’s soundtrack though.

GILBERT SEAH was born in Singapore and moved to Toronto in 1982. He is an engineer by profession, with a passion for the cinema. Since the age of 10, he has been to the movies almost daily. Having been brought up in the Asian, British and Canadian cultures, he is able to bring a distinct perspective to film.    

Drama, 2003
Director: Ron Howard
Writers: Ken Kauffman, Thomas Edison
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Tommy Lee Jones, Evan Rachel Wood

After winning the Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind, Ron Howard’s latest film is expectedly more ambitious.  The Missing (based on the book The Last Ride) is a strange mix of a western action thriller coupled a few supernatural touches and drama about redemption.  Tommy Lee Jones (Oscar winner from The Fugitive) plays a stubborn and conflicted man, also called Jones, who appears unannounced to his daughter, Maggie (Cate Blanchett) trying to make amends for abandoning her when she was a child to spend 20 years with the Apache people.  Maggie, now settled with two daughters and her lover (Aaron Eckhart), is unforgiving and throws Jones out.  But it is not until her lover is brutally killed (though not graphically shown) and Lilly (Evan Rachel Wood) kidnapped by a psychopathic Indian (Canada’s own Eric Schweig) that she desperately accepts his help.

The success of The Missing relies heavily on the dynamics of the relationship between Maggie and Jones – both highly different yet flawed characters. The idea works best during the action scenes when their courage pours forth and least whenever the script calls for confrontational banter. The overly long dialogue between the two near the film’s end is clearly indicative that the viewer has got the point already.  Though the story is supposedly told from the point of the younger daughter Dot’s (Jenna Boyd), the film ultimately hinges on adult territory, especially when the plot calls for many gruesome and violent scenes.

Fortunately the action sequences give the film a welcome boost whenever the pace staggers from the dramatic narrative.  The two best of these, Lilly’s attempted escape and Dot’s near drowning from the storm waters contrast not only the differences of the girls’ natures but ironically how fate could destroy their lives in different waves – the brave boyish one by an act of nature and the fragile one from a daring act.

Howard’s film is noticeably politically correct – the film pokes equal fun on both the white man and Apaches’ ignorances.  The script stresses, though once too often, the lack of modern devices as if to constantly remind the viewer of either the reliance of the film’s principals on each other.  (The camera and telegram were praised as wonders of technology.) To meet with Hollywood standards for a festive epic watchable by the whole family, most of the horrors committed by the Apaches are implied off-screen.

One complaint about Howard’s films is their forgettablilty. Can anyone really remember what either Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind or Parenthood were all about? The Missing will possible be best remembered of all the Howard films – primarily for the strength of the performances of the two leads - Blanchett and Jones.  Jones, reportedly spent quite some time with actual Apaches to learn their language and mores.  But the greatest star of the film is Salvatore Totino’s stunning photography of New Mexico, where the film is set.  From the sandy dunes to the icy peaks on the mountains, nature’s beauty is effectively captured on film.  And this is what makes The Missing so astonishing.

GILBERT SEAH was born in Singapore and moved to Toronto in 1982. He is an engineer by profession, with a passion for the cinema. Since the age of 10, he has been to the movies almost daily. Having been brought up in the Asian, British and Canadian cultures, he is able to bring a distinct perspective to film.    

Drama, Rated R. 
Director: Vadim Perelman. 
Writer: Vadim Perelman. 
Cast: Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Ron Eldard.

House of Sand and Fog is a dark tale about a self-destructive woman, Kathy Nicolo, who is evicted from her quiet and scenic San Francisco home one day due to unpaid business taxes.  Though Kathy blames this all on clerical error, she is nevertheless removed from the premises, with kid gloves, by Deputy Sheriff Lester Burdon and the house is put up for auction.  A down on his luck Iranian family man, Amir Behrahi, buys Kathy’s home hoping it will provide a second chance to restore the honor and dignity he once held in his native country.

Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) portrays the depressed, recovering addict Kathy who has nowhere to go, no money to live off of, and wants beyond desperation to reclaim the house she inherited from her deceased father.  Kathy futilely attempts to convince the bull-headed Behrani, Ben Kingsley (Schindler’s List), to give back what is rightfully hers as he strongly reminds Kathy that the house is now legally his.  Deputy Sheriff Burdon, Ron Eldard (When Trumpets Fade), who was moved by Kathy’s story, and her beauty, decides to help her reclaim the house by any means possible so that the two of them can live happily ever after.  The movie becomes a tangled triangle between Kathy, Burdon, and Behrani, as all three struggles to do what they each feel is right, causing catastrophic effects for all of them and everyone around. 

Kingsley and Connelly are top-notch actors and add a lot of emotional depth and dimension to the somewhat melodramatic story.  Eldard does a decent job as the lust-driven deputy, but his character lacks due more to the script than his overall performance.  Shohreh Aghdashloo and Jonathan Ahdout nicely compliment the cast as Kingsley’s loyal wife and teenage son who are torn between their respect for Behrani and the pity they feel for Kathy.

First-time director Vadim Perelman, who also wrote the screenplay (based on Andre Dubus III’s novel), certainly uses his cast effectively and provides the audience with some strong character studies.  However, the overall story is slow and most audience members will probably find that “depressing” doesn’t quite capture how one will feel once the movie is over.  It’s a heavy-hearted drama to be enjoyed only by people who love such.  For House of Sand and Fog seems to take its notes from a Shakespearean tragedy with every character flawed, and all falling from grace, in a sad world with lots of remorse and very little redemption. 

Bottom line.  Should you see House of Sand and Fog?  Yes.

Review by Chad Goldich