Siegfried's Death (1924) Review

Director: Fritz Lang
Stars: Paul Richter, Hanna Ralph
Genre: Fantasy, Drama, German Expressionism

Directed by Fritz Lang (Metropolis, The Big Heat, M, Destiny) during his expressionist period in the silent era, Siegfried's Death is part one of Lang's two part fantasy epic known as Die Nibelungen (The Nibelungs), the second part being Kriemhild's Revenge.

It's a story about a great warrior Siegfried who travels far to marry a beautiful woman, the sister of King Gunther. After doing a few favors for King Gunther he marries his sister and becomes close friends with the King. But, as you may of guessed, things start to go wrong for just about everyone.

I'll start off by saying that if Fritz Lang's Metropolis was the 2001: A Space Odyssey of the silent era, then Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen is certainly The Lord of the Rings of it. It's quite the epic fantasy. The highlight of the action is definitely towards the beginning when Siegfried slays a fire-breathing dragon. May I remind you this was made in 1924? It's awesome though and the visual effects in this film are quite stunning, and captured by some great cinematography I may add. 

Unfortunately towards the middle the film slows down. And let me remind you that this is a two and a half hour film so the middle is pretty damn long. It gets a bit boring and slow-paced and it definitely drags at parts compared to its great opening. It's not so bad, it has its moments, but I think it could of definitely benefited from being shortened or by adding a bit more action to it. Because as it is now it's largely a medieval melodrama. Not a bad medieval melodrama mind you, but still, who wants melodrama when you can have fantasy action?

It's an impressive film technically and an enjoyable film sometimes. Of course Fritz Lang's directing is stellar, and its German Expressionist qualities certainly bring the film to life, but it is a very slow and tedious film that can put some to sleep if you're not prepared for it.

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Enter the Dragon (1973) Review

Director: Robert Clouse
Stars: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly
Genre: Kung Fu, Spy

Enter the Dragon is the film that solidified Bruce Lee's international fame and it is by far his most well-known film (at least outside of China). It also marks the first time that a Chinese film studio (Golden Harvest) and a Hollywood film studio (Warner Bros.) collaborated in making a film. A very important film in that in further drove the kung fu craze of the 70s...the craze which Lee had started in the first place.

The plot involves Bruce Lee's character entering an island tournament held by an evil Han as a spy to try and bring Han to justice. That's about all you need to know to figure out how the rest goes.

The plot is much more English than any Bruce Lee film before it. Which makes sense being that it is, after all, an American-English film. The story is reminiscent of many English spy thrillers. A sort of mix between James Bond and Fu Manchu.

Luckily Enter the Dragon isn't just a silly Hollywood cash-in on a kung fu fad. Bruce Lee wouldn't let that happen. Bruce Lee himself heavily revised the script and he even wrote and directed the opening sequence of the film. Lee said that he wanted to make it more than just another action film.

That being said, it's still not a product fully of Bruce Lee (like Way of the Dragon was or the unfinished Game of Death would have been). Bruce Lee manages to sneak his own philosophies and beliefs in there though to, like he said, make it more than just another action film. 

The opening sequence gives a great sense of Lee's own philosophy (which makes sense being that he wrote and directed the opening, and is probably my favorite scene of the film). And of course this great scene. Then there's little things like Lee's character's refusal to wear a uniform (reflecting Lee's own revolt against styles and traditions). The scene where Lee tells the man on the boat that his style is "Fighting without fighting" and then tricks him into a smaller boat is actually based on a famous anecdote involving 16th century samurai Tsukahara Bokuden. Bruce Lee was very much like a modern Bokuden in that they both preferred an adaptive style; Bokuden himself calling his sword-fighting style the Style of No-Sword.

The cast in Enter the Dragon is great. You got to love the super fly Jim Kelly and the high-roller John Saxon. Both did excellent jobs. Robert Wall returns from Way of the Dragon and plays a great unsporting goon. Many of the stuntmen were of the Seven Little Fortunes troupe, including Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan.

The film could of benefited from some more and some cooler fight scenes. There's not too much in the way of choreography that I'd call memorable. Of course everyone will remember the great mirror scene (taken from The Lady From Shanghai and later used in The Man With the Golden Gun).

Lalo Schifrin's score is also superb. 

Many people's favorite Bruce Lee film. I'd personally go with Way of the Dragon but this is a great one as well. Bruce certainly saved it from being another mindless action flick. 

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The Way of the Dragon (1972) Review

Director: Bruce Lee
Stars: Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Nora Miao, Bob Wall
Genre: Kung Fu, Comedy

Way of the Dragon, released as Return of the Dragon in the United States, is Bruce Lee's third film right after The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, and is the only film Lee has ever directed himself and is, in my opinion, some of his finest work of his career in film.

Unlike Bruce Lee's previous films Way of the Dragon takes place completely outside of China and instead is set in Rome. Tang Lung (Lee) is sent there to help a family friend and their restaurant which is being targeted by local thugs. The local gang will do anything they can to have the restaurant shut down, including hiring a martial arts master from America named Colt (Norris) to take out Tang Lung.

The plot is standard and conventional and follows little logic, but Bruce Lee never was known for his script writing abilities. Along with writing Lee tried his hand at directing this time around as well, and does a well enough job. He definitely gets the job done and captures all the film's awesomeness. What really counts is the fighting, but I'll get to that later.

Way of the Dragon definitely has much more comedic elements present than any other Lee film...especially towards the beginning. Sometimes the humor works really well and sometimes it fails completely. While seeing a Martial Arts master constantly having to go poop (along with funny music playing every time he asks where the toilet is) is amusing, it just doesn't feel right in here. And then there's the scene early on where Bruce Lee has a brief detour with a prostitute...but the scene wasn't at all funny and it served no purpose whatsoever...it was just there.

Some of the humor works really well though. A thug hitting himself in the head with nunchucks is hilarious, the gay mafia guy worked well, and even some of the dialogue is very funny. I'd say that all in all the humor worked well more than it worked bad, it's just a shame that they didn't know their limits. The humor though gives the film a sort of self-aware nature, but I will say that they made good use of their very small budget. 

The second half of the film is when things get real though. All jokes are set aside and the fists come out. Bruce Lee was at the top of his game in this film. His fighting was top notch and his body was incredibly toned (which he doesn't hesitate to show off). In the beginning of the film we're constantly teased; we think we're about to get to see Bruce Lee kick some ass but it is repeatedly delayed to the point where I was just dying to see Bruce Lee punch something, which made it all the more rewarding when he finally did. And boy does he!

Bruce Lee kicks so much goddamn ass in this film it is glorious. From street fights with a dozen thugs to intense duels with terrifying opponents. In Fist of Fury we got to see Bruce Lee go up against a katana, in this one we get to see how well he fares against guns (he fares well, obviously, and awesomely). All the fighting is choreographed very well, and the final fight scene against Chuck Norris is perhaps Bruce Lee's best ever (though I'd probably give that honor to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Game of Death).

Speaking of Chuck Norris, he's great in here as well and was definitely a worthy opponent for Bruce Lee. Any fans of Chuck Norris: you have this film to that for starting his acting career.

I must also compliment Lee's directing in many of the fight scenes, especially the last one. There's some great location shots and the Colosseum was a great spot to have the last fight. The creepy voice echoing in the empty arena and even the cat are nice touches. Bruce Lee is such a fast fighter, and part of the charm is watching his speed on camera, but the film made sparing though incredibly perfect use of slow-motion that's added at just the right parts to add to the intensity. 

I criticized the writing before but some things were handled very well. There's a twist that adds a bit more depth to the film. And perhaps what I thought was done best was how they made Bruce Lee's character someone with emotion, but they didn't achieve this through boring drama or misplaced romantic sub-plots, they did it just by the way he reacted to things. After he beats Chuck Norris you can tell just by his face and the way he walks away (and then further when he covers Norris' face) that he's not just a emotionless killing machine; he has morals and feelings and him displaying that in turn makes you question certain morals. And again, achieving all that without any boring drama, making a kung fu ass kicker have some depth to him, is very impressive.

The Way of the Dragon is my favorite Bruce Lee film by far. Despite a somewhat bumpy start the film manages to include some well-done humor, some interesting characters, and a final fight scene that is easily one of the best, most memorable fights of all-time.

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Mister Lonely (2007) Review

Director: Harmony Korine
Stars: Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant
Genre: Drama

Oddly enough this film about flying nuns and a commune of celebrity impersonators is director Harmony Korine's most conventional film to date. 

It's a film about a Marilyn Monroe impersonator who meets a Michael Jackson impersonator and invites him to come live at her commune for impersonators, among which are her abusive husband Charlie Chaplin, Abraham Lincoln, Little Red Riding Hood, James Dean, The Three Stooges, the Queen, the Pope, Madonna, and so on and so forth. 

The impersonations are done pretty well; charmingly well I'd even say. You do have to keep in mind here though that the actors are not playing celebrities, the actors are playing impersonators playing celebrities. Which makes any unfaithfulness forgivable. I'd like to say though that I think the performances in this film gave the celebrities even more depth and emotion than the real celebrities' public personas do. Nonetheless the performances were good. Especially Samantha Morton and Denis Lavant. 

The problem with Mister Lonely is that once the novelty of watching Abraham Lincoln curse at The Three Stooges or The Three Stooges shooting sheep with shotguns or Charlie Chaplin fingering Marilyn Monroe or Buckwheat giving the Pope a bath or hearing Little Red Riding Hood sing the incredibly dark "The Maid Freed from the Gallows" wears off there really isn't much more to this film. Imagine what this film would be if it had been regular people instead of celebrity impersonators. It's nearly complete novelty. Very early in the film we realize the film will probably go one of two ways: (spoilers) Either Marilyn Monroe will finally leave an abusive Charlie Chaplin and fall in love with Michael Jackson, or the Michael Jackson impersonator will realize he's not being true to himself and stop impersonating and live a "normal" life. Just because the film defies the former choice by having Marilyn Monroe hang herself doesn't mean it's defying convention because it still uses the equally stereotypical "Be Yourself" ending. It's telling an old story with an overused moral that has been done many times much better. But that's only the film's first plotline; it has but a second as well. 

The second, much more minor, plotline going on is about a nun who falls out of a plane (spoilers) and survives. Then more and more nuns begin jumping out of planes without parachutes, as they believe that if you truly believe in God you will not die. This actually works for them. Due to these miracles the nuns are invited to the Vatican. On their way to the Vatican the plane they are flying in crashes and all the nuns die. This plotline is just fantastic. The film is worth watching for these few scenes alone. I must say watching nuns fall out of planes is quite satisfying. It's unfortunate that this is the severely more minor plotline of the film (although I'm not sure that it would have been able to carry an entire film on its own had it been the main one). 

The film's soundtrack is also worth noting as exceptionally great, as should be expected from a film named after the fantastic Bobby Vinton song. 

It's an okay film, and if I didn't have a high standard for Korine's work it may have gotten a slightly higher rating. It's still better than most of the terrible films coming out, but still sadly a disappointment. Korine's directing and camerawork is impressive and the idea of pairing two plotlines, one very hopeful and the other incredibly bleak, was an interesting one but didn't really work out too fantastically. Not a bad film, but nothing special. 

Favorite line from the film: "Sometimes when I look at you, you seem more like Adolf Hitler than Charlie Chaplin."
also the whole Buckwheat part where he's talking about women and chickens is golden.

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Fist of Fury (1972) Review

Director: Lo Wei
Stars: Bruce Lee, Nora Miao
Genre: Kung Fu

There's a lot of confusion between the actual names of this film and Bruce Lee's previous film The Big Boss. Fist of Fury is also commonly referred to as The Chinese Connection or The Iron Hand. For information about the name confusion refer here and here. I often call it The Chinese Connection because that's the name I grew up using (and the name that all of America grew up using until about 2005) but it seems to be that more and more people are beginning to accept it as Fist of Fury so I intend to do the same.

The plot concerns Bruce Lee and some bad guys. I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

The plot of this film is perhaps a bit better than The Big Boss, or at least more original. But it's also a bit slower paced. There's really not much action for the majority of the film. The first 60 minutes or so are actually really boring. It isn't until the last 30 minutes that things start to get really good with lots of cool fights and stuff. Granted there is a pretty cool fight scene towards the beginning but for long periods it's actually very disappointing.

There's a lot of drama in this one, particularly between the martial arts schools, and there's even a bit more romance thrown in than usual.

The fighting though is great, both in choreography and in performance. Bruce Lee definitely feels more like a superstar in this one. I don't want to spoil anything but there's some pretty awesome kills in this one and every fight scene does something a bit different than the last. 

Hiroshi Suzuki and Petrov aren't really as intimidating opponents as the main villain in The Big Boss was, but they're still pretty solid (Petrov especially). Aside from that though you'll see a lot of the same faces from The Big Boss.

This film was perhaps even more influential than  Lee's previous, propelling him higher into fame and replacing Japan's Chambara films with Kung Fu. In some regards I feel that this is worse than The Big Boss but at the same time I feel it's better in a lot of ways. All in all I regard them of about equal quality.

One thing I'd like to comment on is the character of Chen Zhen (played here by Bruce Lee) and the sequels to this film. The four kings of Kung Fu are generally regarded to be Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Donnie Yen. Four kings. There also happen to be four Fist of Fury films. Each one of them star a different king of kung fu. Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury (1972), Jackie Chan in New Fist of Fury (1976), Jet Li in Fist of Legend (1994), and Donnie Yen in Legend of the Fist (2010); each one of them playing the character of Chen Zhen. There's really no point I'm trying to make here but isn't it interesting that all four of the great have played the same character? (Technically Jackie Chan played the successor to Chen Zhen but you get the point).

Bruce Lee kicks ass again! Essential viewing for fans of the genre and the man himself Bruce.

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