Beat and bones
After the Giant Robot softball team beat down Privileged & Confidential 18-13 last night, I was wired and feeling good. Perfect time to go home and watch a long movie. The one I had been saving for a time like this was a Region-3 DVD of Blood and Bones.
Directed by Yoichi Sai and starring Beat Takeshi, Blood and Bones is 2 hours and 20 minutes of pure id. Takeshi plays Kim Shun-pei, a Korean immigrant who moves to Japan in 1923 with his knocked-up bride (whom he supervised in a factory). In Japan, he proceeds to beat up his family, abuse his girlfriends, and generate a fortune making fishcakes and being a loanshark. He is as ruthless in his moneymaking as he is in raising a family.
Kim is a violent asshole who brutalizes the people he should be protecting. But Takeshi plays him with such intensity that you can't take your eyes off him, and I even started to admire his character when he his first business takes off. That lasts for a moment, until he throws his wife down the stairs and knocks out his daughter's teeth. Or is it the other way around? The incredible violence becomes a blur after a while, but it's hard to forget the buck-naked dad breaking his son's ribs in the public bath.
There are historical forces at play, such as the Japanese occupation of Korea, the rise of Japanese communists, the Korean independence movement, and general racism toward Koreans in Japan, but in the end, Kim is portrayed as a fucker on his own. When his mistress becomes bedridden, his chilling solution is surprisingly heartfelt but revealing of his incredible potential for destruction. After becoming too old to do the intimidating by himself, Kim resorts to hiring yakuza to help him collect money, and even they consider him a freak.
The tone is unflinching, the acting is excellent, and the production value is epic. Blood and Bones is easy on the eyes, but not easy to watch. All the men are shown to have their flaws, pointing fingers at Kim in public while doing their share of wife beating, back stabbing, and flip flopping at home. Meanwhile, the women are depicted as helpless pawns in a sick, male-dominated society.
When the movie was over, I was still wired but my mood was considerably dampened. Taking gear out of my softball bag to throw in the washing machine, all I could think of was Beat Takeshi's character and his son going at it with a stick and a baseball bat.
Directed by Yoichi Sai and starring Beat Takeshi, Blood and Bones is 2 hours and 20 minutes of pure id. Takeshi plays Kim Shun-pei, a Korean immigrant who moves to Japan in 1923 with his knocked-up bride (whom he supervised in a factory). In Japan, he proceeds to beat up his family, abuse his girlfriends, and generate a fortune making fishcakes and being a loanshark. He is as ruthless in his moneymaking as he is in raising a family.Kim is a violent asshole who brutalizes the people he should be protecting. But Takeshi plays him with such intensity that you can't take your eyes off him, and I even started to admire his character when he his first business takes off. That lasts for a moment, until he throws his wife down the stairs and knocks out his daughter's teeth. Or is it the other way around? The incredible violence becomes a blur after a while, but it's hard to forget the buck-naked dad breaking his son's ribs in the public bath.
There are historical forces at play, such as the Japanese occupation of Korea, the rise of Japanese communists, the Korean independence movement, and general racism toward Koreans in Japan, but in the end, Kim is portrayed as a fucker on his own. When his mistress becomes bedridden, his chilling solution is surprisingly heartfelt but revealing of his incredible potential for destruction. After becoming too old to do the intimidating by himself, Kim resorts to hiring yakuza to help him collect money, and even they consider him a freak.
The tone is unflinching, the acting is excellent, and the production value is epic. Blood and Bones is easy on the eyes, but not easy to watch. All the men are shown to have their flaws, pointing fingers at Kim in public while doing their share of wife beating, back stabbing, and flip flopping at home. Meanwhile, the women are depicted as helpless pawns in a sick, male-dominated society.
When the movie was over, I was still wired but my mood was considerably dampened. Taking gear out of my softball bag to throw in the washing machine, all I could think of was Beat Takeshi's character and his son going at it with a stick and a baseball bat.
posted by gr at
3:49 PM
martin...
It sounds harrowing and authentic, but I'm curious if you sensed any sort of exploitative usage of the character's Korean background... Or is it more of a thesis implicating strained relations between the country's are in some way responsible for the man's destructiveness on a personal level.
I remember reading somewhere that Beat found out he's part Korean. But I never saw an authoratative source on that, and I'd be curious if it was true what reaction was in Japan.
If fools don't see Lady Vengeance in cinemas, they is fools. I can't say good enough about that.
Watched Vital the other night. Had to watch it twice cause first time through i was too distracted. I do feel that Tsukamoto could've done more with that premise. It's quite incredible how sensitive he makes it but sometimes it just lapses far too much into melodramatic depressed person chic. Though the last fifteen minutes are very earnestly moving. If the whole film had been like that last section, it would've been really good.
I'd say the treatment of Kim's "Korean-ness" was pretty straight up. It's not like that was shown to be a reason for him being violent, mean, emotionally undeveloped, or anything like that. I almost wish there were a reason given for him being that way--it would make the story easier to digest--but that's just the way he is.
Lady Vengeance is great. I still haven't seen it on a big screen.
I liked Vital a lot. The way cadavers were treated was totally different than what you'd see in a George Romero flick, for example. Very stark, and somehow beautiful when Asano connected with his past and his emotions by sketching the layers of flesh...
There's that line in Dead Ringers:
" I've often thought that there should be beauty contests for the *insides* of bodies. "
Vital was far, far less gory than I thought it would be. And yes, the illustrations are shockingly beautiful. By the end of the film I did have a certain personal schism - the shots of the cadavers no longer made me uneasy. I felt like the med students themselves, I hope.
What got in my way were certain moments of interpretative dance and making depression look a bit too cool.
That being said, Kiki (is that her name) has one of the most incredible faces I've ever seen. I want to do a film that would be mostly closeups of her face.
I'll see if I can't hunt this down. Maybe going to see Art School Confidential tomorrow.
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