The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945) Review

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Stars: Denjiro Okochi, Susumu Fujita, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura
Genre: Jidaigeki

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, sometimes referred to as They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail, is an early film by Akira Kurosawa. Completed in 1945 but didn't see release until 1952 due to the war that was going on at the time.

A group of seven men and their porter, disguised as Buddhist monks, must swindle their way past an enemy checkpoint which has been set up to stop them from escaping.

The film is adapted from the kabuki play Kanjincho, and the older Noh play Ataka. The film's stage-play origins definitely show in the film. There's not very many locations in the film and many scenes are very long and focused. Kurosawa's signature wipe transition seems more like a curtain closing in here.

Should be noted that the film is on the short side at about an hour long. This prevents the film from ever dragging or feeling boring, because it is a little on the slower side. But it's a good film. From its opening scenery shots that remind one of Rashomon, to the middle long scene of the fake monks trying to trick dozens of enemies (definitely the scene that steals the show here), to the end boozing and dancing and somewhat ambiguous ending (an ambiguity that was never before present in previous versions of the story); it's all really great and enjoyable. 

The dialogue and general writing is very well also, as one may expect it must be in a film without much action. There's even some heavy suspense at times. There's also a dimension of comedy present in the form of the porter, played by then-famous Japanese comedian Enoken. It all works well and Kurosawa's directing makes the film especially shine. 

The cast is pretty great too, kind of like an assembly of Kurosawa regulars (though, of course, the loved Toshiro Mifune was yet to star in a Kurosawa film). There's Denjiro Okochi playing a very large role, a face Kurosawa fans may recognize from Judo Saga and No Regrets for Our Youth. Susumu Fujita plays an equally important role, known for starring also in Judo Saga and No Regrets for Our Youth, and would become a Kurosawa regular when he'd appear in minor roles in many later films such as The Hidden Fortress, The Bad Sleep Well, Yojimbo, and High and Low. Masayuki Mori, the man who would go on to play a the samurai in Rashomon and star in The Idiot, makes an appearance. And of course, last but certainly not least, there is Toho regular (and in turn Kurosawa regular) Takashi Shimura, who has appeared in even more Kurosawa films than Mifune has. So it's definitely an interesting cast for big Kurosawa fans. 

All in all it's a very impressive film from an early Kurosawa and probably his best film hitherto. Highly recommended for Kurosawa fans and worth a watch even for those who aren't. 

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The Most Beautiful (1944) Review

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Stars: Yoko Yaguchi, Takashi Shimura, Takako Irie
Genre: Drama, Propaganda

The Most Beautiful is Akira Kurosawa's second film. It was made during WWII and is pretty blatantly nationalist propaganda. That's not to say that the film is without merit though. After all, what Kurosawa picture is?

The film is about a factory of women workers who make things like lenses and optics for the Japanese military. They are given a quota and a deadline that they must meet. They face very tough work and numerous hardships as the film follows them towards their goal.

Despite a clear objective being presented in the film (meeting a quota) the film's plot doesn't really "progress" in the traditional sense. The film really only tells a story secondly. Firstly it encapsulates its environment; it places the viewer into the universe of a wartime factory worker. Its intentional documentary-esque style further supports this. Almost none of the actresses were big names, and none of them looked like stars. They looked like typical Japanese girls. They wore no make-up, they bore no extravagance. And through their amateurishness realism was achieved.

It really is some very impressive acting. Every girl in the film, despite having little or no acting experience, did a wonderful job. Takashi Shimura also has a small role in the film but unfortunately its such a minor role that one can't help but to feel that his talents were a bit wasted.

There's a lot of emotion in this, and the actors do a great job to convey it all on screen. The problem I had was that I just really didn't care. It's a very slow moving, drama-heavy film and by the second half the girls just become annoying. They're constantly whining and complaining, most of the time over such petty things. I understand that the characters are immature because, well, because they were very immature and young girls. It just gets old real fast and sympathy for the characters is slowly lost. At least for me it was.

You also have the factor that these girls are directly aiding an imperialist government and equipping its military. Not to mention that the film itself, as per the nature of a propaganda film, is meant to manipulate a nation's public into feeling patriotic. It's the problem all propaganda films suffer from, Japanese or not. However, Kurosawa does a fine job at giving the film much more depth than your average propaganda film.

Kurosawa himself has said that while he was making The Most Beautiful it was already clear that Japan would lose the war. I find this a bit funny in a twisted sort of way. The film deals with a factory of girls struggling through great hardships just so they can help their country kill the other countries. And they're really passionate about it and, in their minds, they are completely righteous and justified in their actions. In the end they make their lenses and optics and they served their part. Yet, watching the film now, we know that the Japanese lost the war quite terribly. Which adds a large sense of dread to the film as we now watch the film knowing how it ultimately ends.

It's a great film to watch for its historical context. Kurosawa's directing certainly makes it watchable. All in all though it just had too much annoying drama for my tastes and the characters, though well played, became annoying and their actions seemed trivial and petty. The great sense of realism the film had going for it is much negated by the fact that it is indeed a propaganda film (which, of course, by definition, is manipulatively glorified). Really only for Kurosawa completionists and those interested in the historical context.

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The Cameraman (1928) Review

Director: Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton (uncredited)
Stars: Buster Keaton, Marceline Day
Genre: Slapstick, Romantic Comedy

The Cameraman was Keaton's first film after moving to MGM--a move he would later consider to be the worst decision of his life--and it also happens to be one of the last silent films he did. More importantly though it is widely considered the last "true" Keaton film; the last picture he would make with passion and in his signature Keaton style. 

I have very mixed feelings about The Cameraman. If I could compare it to one other silent Keaton film it'd probably be The General, since both feel very well-paced and more slow, making it feel more like a typical film rather than a mere laugh fest. There are laughs to be had no doubt, it just feels more like a Romantic Comedy than any other Keaton film before it. In fact, I'd say that this film feels more like a Charlie Chaplin picture than a Buster Keaton one. Which, of course, isn't necessarily a bad thing. 

There's not much in the way of stunts here, which is a tad disappointing but also not surprising. When MGM signed Keaton they forced him to use a stunt double for some of the more dangerous stunts as they were keen on protecting their investment (it's just a shame they killed it at the same time). There are plenty of, what shall I call them...visual jokes, though. Watching Keaton talk to a monkey or play pretend baseball or break a window over and over is all well and good and funny, it's just not nearly as impressive as some of his earlier work. 

Whereas The General felt more like a proper Action Adventure than a Slapstick, The Cameraman feels more like a proper Romantic Comedy. Keaton films have always involved a boy trying to win a girl, and his films have always had a very basic level of emotion to them, but in The Cameraman much of it is Keaton's character actually spending time with the girl (played by the very beautiful Marceline Day I may add) rather than just overcoming obstacles and spending the final frame of the film with her in his arms. So, in that respect, I suppose it is natural to say that The Cameraman has some of the best character development we've ever seen in a Keaton picture (though that's hardly the point of a Keaton picture).

It's a pleasant little film with lots of emotion and some real good laughs. A must-see for Keaton fans as it both marks the end of one part of his career and the beginning of another (or the beginning of the end would perhaps be more accurate--or perhaps just the end).

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The Punisher (1989) Review

Director: Mark Goldblatt
Stars: Dolph Lundgren, Louis Gossett Jr.
Genre: Action, Exploitation

One of the earliest film adaptations of a Marvel comic book character (lest us not forget the Howard the Duck movie), though perhaps not the finest example of how to do a comic book movie right.

So the mob kills Frank Castle's, an ex-cop's, wife and children. So he decides to kill every criminal there is, especially the mob. Thus he becomes The Punisher. However, when the yakuza come over from Japan and try to take over the mob by kidnapping all the dons' young children, The Punisher must step in and save the children.

The plot doesn't really have much to do with The Punisher comics at all. Sure there's Frank Castle's backstory (a very loose backstory, mind you) but there's no classic Punisher enemies, take for example Jigsaw, instead there's all new enemies and a new story. I know that when this film came out The Punisher was still a fairly new series (started in 1986) but they still had plenty to work with. This is essentially The Punisher thrown into the plot of a typical 80s action film. The yakuza? Seriously? A bunch of young kids serving a major plot in the film? The kids in the film mostly ruined it for me. It made the film seem like it was undecided whether it wanted to be family-friendly or not. With the yakuza and ninjas and the kids it almost feels like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie at times.

The main problem is that this film is just some damned conventional and boring. Everything about it follows the formula of an 80s action film: from the enemies to the stereotypical black 80s cop to the involvement of children to the soundtrack to the camerawork to everything else. If you've seen any other action film from the 80s you've essentially seen this one. 

Then we have The Punisher himself, played by Dolph Lundgren (whom also did many of his own stunts in here). Lundgren does a decent job portraying The Punisher/Frank Castle, for the most part. He certainly fits the look (except for that painted on 5 o'clock shadow. Seriously, what the hell?). He has such a dumb face though that sometimes the sight of him makes you want to laugh. If anyone has a dumb-looking face it's Dolph. He's not a terribly good actor either, but that sort of works for The Punisher. He does a decent enough job as the title character, I can't really complain. What I can complain about, however, is the design of the character. Where the hell is the skull? Why would you design The Punisher without a skull on his torso? That's like making a Superman movie and not giving him the 'S' on his chest. Were they trying to make it less comic-booky and feel more realistic?

This is an action film. In fact, I'd probably even call it an exploitation film (or, more accurately, an Ozploitation film). The only problem is the action scenes are lame. They're boring. The action is dull, unimaginative, and often gratuitous (not that I have much of a problem with gratuitous violence, so long as it's in good fun). And when an Action Film's action fails then there's not much else you're left with.

I watched this movie a lot when I was a kid. I wasn't born yet when it was released (not that it was released into U.S. theaters anyway), but I remember having a VHS or possibly even DVD release. There was probably even a time when I would have called The Punisher my favorite comic book character largely because of this film (my favorite pretty much changed every other week back then). But even with nostalgia working for it I couldn't call this a good film or even a largely enjoyable one.

There's many better Action films from the 80s that you can watch. I'd avoid this one unless you really love The Punisher and want to see what early Marvel films were like.

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Game of Death (1978) Review

Director: Robert Clouse
Stars: Bruce Lee (footage), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (footage), Robert Wall
Genre: Kung Fu, Bruceploitation

This is not a true Bruce Lee film. It's shameless Bruceploitation that used the footage of a dead Bruce Lee to make some money on his name. It's actually kind of disgusting.

Before I get to the story in the movie let me comment on the story behind the movie. Before Bruce Lee died he had been working on a new film called Game of Death and he had already shot some footage. It was to be the film that truly captured his philosophy and display his fighting as he would want it to be displayed. He had to put the project on hold though to go and make Enter the Dragon which, unfortunately, would prove to be his last film; dying before he could finish what would surely of had been his masterpiece.

So, with the Bruceploitation genre already up and running and such "Bruce Lee" films being released like The Legend of Bruce Lee or Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave or The Clones of Bruce Lee, it apparently occurred to someone that they could not only exploit Bruce's name but his unused footage from his uncompleted Game of Death also.

The result was a stitched together film with some scenes using footage from other Bruce Lee films, some scenes utilizing the unused Game of Death footage, some scenes using Bruce Lee stand-ins (who look nothing like Bruce), and some scenes of stand-ins actually using cardboard cut-outs of Bruce Lee's face. Oh, and they use actual footage from Bruce Lee's funeral as a plot device in here. The stitched together film which shamefully bares the name of Bruce Lee's unfinished film comes nowhere near matching Lee's vision and instead is just an awful film. 

The plot resembles nothing of Lee's original script and the film only makes use of about 11 minutes of the unused footage instead of the more than 30 that was available. The new story is about some mafia who harasses Billy Lo...who is supposed to be Bruce Lee since the film shows us Billy Lo working on Fist of Fury...so I dunno. It's a stupid fucking plot. It's a stupid fucking movie.

The only good thing about this film is the 11 minutes of actual Bruce Lee footage, which wasn't even used to the best of its potential. How can you take a film seriously when it actually tries to trick its audience into thinking some stand-in that looks nothing like Bruce Lee is actually Bruce Lee by use of false beards, sunglasses, and Bruce Lee cut-outs? It's silly, ridiculous, and quite insulting to audiences and to Bruce Lee's legacy. Also, I should add, they had to use a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar stand-in as well, being that he refused to partake in this "new" Game of Death.

The non-Bruce Lee fighting is decent. It's nowhere near the level of Bruce Lee fighting and choreography but for what it is it's alright. The Robert Wall locker-room fight was pretty good. The motorcycle fight was kind of cool. Overall though it's just a pretty pathetic film. 

There's really no necessity to watch this film. If you want to see the full 35 minutes of Lee's original footage for Game of Death check out the excellent documentary titled Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey. Also check out my review for the Unfinished Game of Death.

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