Category: Directors Fu

The Appaloosa (1966, Sidney J. Furie)

The Appaloosa could be worse. Director Furie apes styles he doesn’t understand how to use—his Leone-esque angles, the Acid Western—with what’s a fairly traditional Western, albeit just with a Mexican supporting cast. Well, okay, so Marlon Brando is the only gringo playing a gringo. All the other White people are supposed to be Mexican. You can tell from their makeup. Even the actual Hispanic actors are wearing a pound of makeup. The scene where Brando tries to darken his skin—it’s not clear he’s trying to actually appear Mexican, it seems like it has more to do with his monologue about his adoptive (Mexican) father and wishing he looked like him or something. But it turns out it’s not. Anyway, in the scene Brando uses coffee grounds to do it and sister-in-law Miriam Colon tells him it doesn’t work; you wish he’d just asked her what she was using.

Colon is married to Rafael Campos, Brando’s adoptive little brother. Or whatever. Campos isn’t good. You feel like it’s not his fault. The whole thing with Campos and Colon’s family is really forced. Maybe because Campos is exaggerating everything—exaggerated Mexican accents are going to be a thing, Appaloosa establishes real early on—but also because Brando’s in this goofy wig, fake beard thing. With the Western hat version of a Robin Hood hat. Brando’s appearance itself is distracting. It takes him a while to clean up too, long enough it seems like he might be in the makeup the whole movie. It’s distracting. You can’t watch him without wondering if they really thought the beard looked real enough.

But he does clean up. Just in time to do a Speedy Gonzales impression. See, it’s not clear Brando’s trying to appear Mexican when he decides to go into Mexico to get his prized horse—the titular Appaloosa—back from bandit leader John Saxon. Not until he’s sitting in a bar and bad guy Alex Montoya forces Brando to drink pulque to show he’s tough enough to be in bar. Montoya comes over to chit chat after Brando shows he’s legit and Brando goes into full Speedy Gonzales. It’s kind of beyond cringe, quickly getting into the “Greatest American Actor” humiliates himself in studio Western territory. Like, Brando wasn’t doing too great to start—the fake beard gets in the way of his mouth and the wig’s goofy—but he wasn’t doing a hideously bad Mexican accent opposite a Hispanic actor also doing an amped up Mexican accent. It’s like exploitation in action.

And it’s also bad. Montoya’s a lousy villain. Though I guess it doesn’t matter because Brando’s a lousy hero, going towards that Acid Western turf; he wants to get his horse back because it’s the key to him finally repaying Campos for everything his father did for Brando and he acts like a badass—he starts the movie confessing to a priest about all the men he’s killed—but it turns out, it’s all talk. Brando’s best scene—maybe only good scene—is when he talks about his inability to accomplish his mission. There’s some halfway good scenes in other parts, but it’s hard because Saxon’s effective without being good and Brando’s good without being effective.

A lot of the problem is the script—by James Bridges and Roland Kibbee–which tries not to be exciting. But then you’ve got Furie trying to bring tension to everything; he and editor Ted J. Kent also don’t know how to time the action for tension. It might just be Brando’s too laidback. The whole thing’s hard to take seriously. Again, if Furie knew why he was using the techniques he was using… it’d be better. The film’s sound design is way too bland. And the inserts in the third act—cutting from medium shots to close-ups—never match. Brando and sidekick Anjanette Comer are in one position in the two shot, in obviously different ones in their close-ups.

Comer’s a whole other thing, playing Saxon’s “wife.” She’s in a pound of brown face, she’s not very good, and her backstory is a mess.

Half okay, half bad music from Frank Skinner.

Good photography from Russell Metty.

The first act has its cringe moments, the second act’s plodding, but the movie does seem like it’s at least going to do something interesting. Then the third act is rushed and the finish itself pointlessly cops out. Unless Brando refused to shoot an actual ending.

But, yeah, could be worse. Probably couldn’t be any better though.

Zombie (1979, Lucio Fulci)

They filmed a lot of Zombie on location—New York City, the Dominican Republic, the ocean floor. For over half the movie, the location filming is the most important thing—if we’re going by what director Fulci showcases the most. Not even the gore gets a bigger showcase until the third act, though there are some rather gruesome exceptions. But the static (or just panning) long shots of palm trees once the action gets to the Caribbean island where Richard Johnson is playing Dr. Moreau only with zombies are the rule. It’s very pretty, even if it’s desolate as something has happened—an unseen voodoo witch doctor has decided the dead must rise so everyone’s a flesh-eating zombie. The film can’t decide on what happened. Johnson says things went bad three months ago, non-acting action hero and world traveller Al Cliver says the island’s been cursed at least a year. It’s also unclear how long Johnson’s been on the island. And why. Despite the almost endless exposition in Zombie, usually from actors poorly delivering it, the exposition just doesn’t matter. Because Zombie is going to be all about the gross stuff Fulci and his crew get his fake shemps to endure.

For instance, I don’t think there are any shemps covered in maggots—their faces, the zombie makeup is entirely on their faces—but lots of them have live worms wriggling around the makeup. I think one zombie has a mouthful of live worms, no doubt worms not protected by the American Humane Association. The zombie makeup itself isn’t great. There are a lot of attempts at showing bone in the makeup, incorporating masks, which just makes the zombie look bulky like their skulls are retaining water or something. So the live worms and such do a good job distracting from such deficiencies. Zombie has a lot of gore in the second half, a little in the third, with Fulci saving the grossest zombies for the finale. They’re coming out of their graves too at one point, so he’s able to get a lot of mileage out of his long (timing wise) practical effects shots. Sergio Salvati’s photography and especially Giorgio Cascio and Fabio Frizzi’s music help for those shots too. They’re really good tests of one’s stomach; the last big gross-out scene the gore is so extreme it’s actually unbelievable at least one of the characters doesn’t puke. Though then we’d have to see one of the leads trying to essay puking, which they probably couldn’t do.

See, Zombie’s an Italian production shot without a synchronous audio track, which is called motor only sync (MOS). I didn’t know the jargon until today, even though pretty much every Italian production from the twentieth century seems to use this method. Thanks Wikipedia. But what the lack of synchronous sound means is the actors, who might be speaking different languages, never get any actual rapport. Fulci tries to compensate with reaction shots. It doesn’t work.

The worst case is when ostensible lead Ian McCulloch is watching Auretta Gay undress for scuba diving. She does it topless and in a string bikini bottom. McCulloch just stares, occasionally making sure top-billed Tisa Farrow’s still watching him watching. You’re worried the male gaze compounding on itself is going to cause a cosmic singularity before the sequence ends. Though McCulloch’s exceptionally unconvincing comb-over is enough to cause a singularity on its own. Farrow doesn’t mind the comb-over by the way, in fact she’s very hot to trot for McCulloch. At one point during the long opening of the third act, “escape the zombies on foot” sequence, Farrow even gives McCulloch the “I don’t want to die without sex” speech, so they get it on in a graveyard. Too bad the now zombified corpses are waking up below.

But not really because even though Farrow’s not good, she’s not a shit heel like McCulloch. It’s hard to be a such a big shit heel when you’re dubbed but McCulloch abides.

The best performances appear to be Johnson and his assistants—Stefania D'Amario and Dakar—worst are Johnson’s wife, Olga Karlatos, Gay, Cliver, McCulloch. Farrow gets a pass from that list because she’s so irrelevant once they get to the island. She mustn’t have been willing to take her clothes off. Karlatos, who the film manages to portray negatively for not wanting to be on the zombie island of undying death, also gets a gratuitous nude scene. Unlike Gay, however, it’s not prelude to something awesome. Gay’s scuba diving sequence leads into the zombie versus shark scene, Zombie’s claim to fame. It’s an impressive underwater stunt sequence. But much like the rest of the film’s impressive moments, it’s nowhere near enough to justify it. With a better budget, Fulci and his crew probably could’ve done something revolting and realistic, instead of revolting and effective. Zombie’s set pieces are gross instead of scary, but its default—with Fulci’s often good composition, Salvati’s photography, Vincenzo Tomassi’s editing, and that score from Cascio and Frizzi—is disquieting. Maybe it’d help if the third act of the script didn’t sink it.

It also doesn’t help the best sequence—an empty sailboat showing in New York Harbor, Dracula-style—is the first one in the picture.

The Big Red One (1980, Samuel Fuller)

The Big Red One is a fairly even split between action and conversation. The film tracks a single squad as they start fighting in North Africa, follow the war into the Mediterranean, participate in D-Day, then go east. The film skips to each event. There’s usually some epilogue to the event, something like character development or character revelation, then it’s on to the next event, starting with the time and place in the war. Squad member Robert Carradine narrates the film, which includes bridging the gaps between the events. He’ll occasionally have something to say about his fellow squad members, something to further reveal their character, but he doesn’t have much opinion of that new reveal. Even if it’s something bad. Even though the film’s about these five men, it’s not about their relationship. We’re not invited. Carradine fills in some details, very occasionally contextualizes, but there’s something going on in One away from the viewer. Director Fuller is telling the audience a story, which is somehow different from telling a story. How he’s telling the story is very important.

Fuller centers the film around the sergeant, played by Lee Marvin. He’s not just the center of the movie, he’s the hero of Carradine’s narration, which is more important; Carradine’s not the hero of his own narration. It’s not his story he’s telling, it’s Marvin’s, even though Marvin’s an intentional mystery. And not a mystery Fuller’s inviting the audience to solve. Or even attempt to solve. Marvin’s the hero. He’s the older, gruff sergeant with a heart of gold. A World War I vet too (the film opens in a flashback to it; good de-aging makeup). But Marvin’s never a stereotype. Neither are Carradine, Mark Hamill, Bobby Di Cicco, or Kelly Ward. Because Fuller doesn’t even give them that much character in the script. All the personality to the characters comes from the actors, which is an exceptionally odd choice for Fuller to make. And a completely successful one. That open space where Fuller could’ve written character—remember the movie’s half conversation, so these guys are always talking, sometimes about themselves, but nothing about anything to do with themselves. Hamill’s an artist. We find out nothing about it, he’s just drawing all the time. Carradine’s a writer, we find out a bunch about it… but he’s never actually writing. Di Cicco and Ward imply these complicated characters in their deliveries of one-liners. It’s a very strange, very good way to… get out of doing the character work but not let it go to caricature.

Fuller does something similar with Marvin, but gives him more backstory and experience because he’s older and has more experience and backstory. But Fuller’s still relying on Marvin for all the action reactions and processing of the events he’s experiencing.

Because in many ways, the four younger guys—they’re all privates—the four privates, they’re interchangeable. During the action scenes, anyway. When one of them does something significant, sure, then they’re different—usually Fuller forecasts the character’s taking center stage—but some of the point is how everyone in the squad except Marvin is interchangeable. Fuller sets the leads apart from the other four squad members (you usually only know one other squad member at a time, the other two or three are screen filler), but not in any way to make them exemplars. They’re just the guys who hang around Marvin the most and have some unrevealed history together. It’s none of our business, they’re just our protagonists.

And, incredibly, Fuller gets away with it. Di Cicco’s charming enough, Carradine’s funny enough, Ward’s surprisingly alpha enough, Hamill’s sufficiently sad enough. See, Hamill’s the movie’s second-is lead. It’s really Carradine but the movie pretends it’s Hamill because Ukelay Ywalkerskay. And Hamill gets a fairly intense arc all to himself and Fuller makes him do it all on his face. The film charts Hamill’s abilities at emoting improving until they’re finally successful enough they cover the absence of exposition on Hamill’s subplot. Fuller avoids it, then leaves it up to Hamill to make it all right to avoid it.

It’s so well-directed. Fuller’s so thoughtful about it all. He rarely lets the film go off on tangents and usually they’re only because he’s interested in something separate from the main cast, their concerns, their needs. Fuller occasionally checks in with German sergeant Siegfried Rauch, who’s basically evil Lee Marvin. He’s got similar experiences; not just the last war, but also taking on these wet-behind-the-ears new recruits; he’s just really evil. Fuller likes using Rauch to distract from what he’s not doing with the main cast, like developing their characters. Rauch isn’t like the other main characters; Rauch never gets to mug his way through a scene. He doesn’t get free rein to do whatever on his character between his lines. He’s different.

Because, you know, he’s the Nazi.

Good photography from Adam Greenberg, great editing from Morton Tubor, very strong, very often disquieting score from Dana Kaproff. It’s a somewhat traditional war movie score, but Kaproff takes it in different directions, which help to reveal (presumably accurately) more about the lead characters.

Performances—Marvin’s great, Carradine’s great, Hamill’s good, Di Cicco and Ward are great. Marvin’s really great. He gets some great material and makes it even better.

The Big Red One is superb.

This post is part of the World War II Blogathon hosted by Maddy of Maddy Loves Her Classic Films and Jay of Cinema Essentials.

City of the Living Dead (1980, Lucio Fulci)

City of the Living Dead isn’t really about a city of the living dead, more an unincorporated municipality of the living dead. An unincorporated municipality of the living dead is far less scary than a city of the living dead. Though the film is rarely scary. It’s occasionally gory, even more occasionally awesome in its gore, but it’s rarely scary. It’s kind of a grody scary.

Most of the scares come toward the beginning, as ingenue psychic Catriona MacColl gets buried alive. Sure, the NYPD investigates her death as a possible homicide or at least drug-related thing (the detective is suspicious of pot use among MacColl’s fellow mediums), so one would think there’d be an autopsy, but no. No, she just gets buried alive. Luckily, intrepid reporter Christopher George happens to be being intrepid in the graveyard at just the right time to save her.

It’s actually one of director Fulci’s best sequences–George pick-axing into MacColl’s coffin–just because he never gets too carried away. Fulci likes his gore, doesn’t really like thinking about how it works. Later on, zombies appear and disappear at will. Both the zombies’ wills and the wills of their potential victims. The zombies are all presumably under the command of undead priest Fabrizio Jovine, who doesn’t have a character, he just stands around trying to look as much like Christopher Lee as possible.

But MacColl and George are pretty good, particularly George, and they’re able to carry the film. Fulci and co-writer Dardano Sacchetti spend most of Living Dead splitting between MacColl and George trying to get to the City (unincorporated municipality) and the residents of said city (unincorporated municipality) dealing with zombies. While MacColl and George’s scenes often aren’t great–sometimes they’re entirely useless–at least there’s a narrative drive to them. MacColl isn’t great playing a haunted psychic, but she’s not bad. And George chomps on the scenery just enough to maintain believability while still entertaining.

It’s the townsfolk who are the problem. There’s a runtime killing subplot about the town pervert (a reasonably effective Giovanni Lombardo Radice) who gets blamed for all the zombie murders. Maybe the most successful thing about how Living Dead’s narrative functions is how Radice can just disappear and the film doesn’t hit a speed bump. Because in the town, Carlo De Mejo is the lead. He’s the lovable town shrink, who seems to have gotten his degree from a Crackerjack box. De Mejo is awful. He doesn’t emote at all. You’ll have half-eaten corpses, everyone else freaking out, De Mejo blandly staring into space. In some ways, it helps the film through its sillier narrative moments. If De Mejo can’t get worked up about it, why should the viewer?

There are some decent supporting cast performances–Antonella Interlenghi, Janet Agren, not annoying little kid Venantino Venantini–but the film plods along. It’s also a technical mixed bag. Fulci and cinematographer Sergio Salvati do create a creepy town–the wind machine effects are awesome–but Vincenzo Tomassi’s editing is weak and Fabio Frizzi’s synthesizer horror score doesn’t do what it’s going for.

But for most of its runtime, City of the Living Dead isn’t awful. Just when it gets to the third act and Fulci fails with the evil zombie priest showdown. The whole film’s been building to this scene and it tanks. De Mejo standing around like a twit doesn’t help things, of course.

Still, it’s far from unwatchable and even has its charms.

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974, Fukuda Jun)

I want to be more enthusiastic about Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. It has a number of good moments, often involving giant monsters, which is impressive. Godzilla facing off against a mechanical Godzilla (not to mention a flesh-covered cyborg–nothing dead will go), it’s a great visual. Director Fukuda milks it and he milks it well. The film sails into the third act, but the finish is more a stalling out than an ending. It’s too bad, because so much of the film’s a success.

The human stuff–two brothers who get involved with an alien plot to destroy the planet and the giant dog monster protector of Okinawa, complete with love interests and mentors–is solid. Everyone works at their part, even when they have nothing to do. Daimon Masaaki spends the entire fight scene acting with his eyebrows. None of his emoting matches what his character is watching, but it doesn’t matter. The dedication is endearing.

So it’s even more frustrating where Mechagodzilla finally breaks down is in resolving all that human stuff. The final fight is a pyrotechnic marvel–the whole film’s a pyrotechnic marvel–but the light show is a poor substitute for an ending to the film. Fukuda doesn’t have a finish.

Lots of good work from the crew, particularly Ikeda Michiko’s editing. He does these snappy montages and creates a far amount of tension in a short amount of time, just with the actors’ expressions. Satô Masaru’s music is necessary for those montages to work. The score keeps a certain pace to the film.

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla is a well-produced, well-acted Godzilla movie. But it’s too slight on story, too slight on characters. Fukuda doesn’t balance the human story and the monster battle and it sinks the film just when it needs to be excelling.

Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973, Fukuda Jun)

Godzilla vs. Megalon is madness. There are two distinct portions of the film and both of them are crazy. Initially, these portions might more seem stupid than crazy, but they’re crazy. Director Fukuda gets to make an espionage thriller and a Godzilla movie where Godzilla communicates with the other monsters. He even shakes hands with the humans’ emissary, a wimpy giant robot named Jet Jaguar who Godzilla constantly has to save, which is awesome. And Godzilla is portrayed as the tough good guy. It’s nuts.

The setup is real simple. Kawase Hiroyuki is the adorable little brother of giant robot inventor Sasaki Katsuhiko. Sasaki doesn’t know the robot will grow, but the evil undersea espionage agents do so they kidnap Kawase and Saskai. Luckily, Sasaki’s best friend is a charismatic troubleshooter with a fast car and a cool leather jacket. Hayashi Yutaka takes the role seriously, which makes it all work. There are practically no other characters. Japan’s apparently empty at this point in Godzilla history.

Then come the monsters. Giant robot man, giant bug, giant other space bug, Godzilla. And a weird, friendly but still dangerous Godzilla. It’s a rush job, but the result is pleasant. Since Megalon asks the viewer to think about Godzilla as a relatable character, it’s important to have his visual “character” work. It’s not like the mask is particularly animated.

Excellent photography from Aizawa Yuzuru, excellent editing from Ikeda Michiko throughout, in both the action thriller and the giant monster sections. Some poorly inserted footage from previous Godzilla movies hurts the flow of the action sequences–which also have to deal with the problem of new monster Megalon, who looks real dumb–but Fukuda keeps it moving. He likes working with the scale of the giant monster battles. There’s some rather good miniature work in Megalon too.

Megalon is a lot of dumb fun. Thoughtfully constructed dumb fun.

Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972, Fukuda Jun)

Godzilla vs. Gigan is a little like a filmed ballet or play. It’s a performance of its Kaiju ballet. The Kaiju ballet has a stage–a surprisingly large soundstage with a miniature Tokyo or Mount Fuji landscape for serve as the ring in which the men in suits wrestle. The men in suits are not the stars of the Kaiju ballet, they’re more like the stars’ operators. A good Kaiju ballet has the right set, right suits, right men in suits, right direction, right photography. Those people, and many more, get together and the men in suits pretend they are giants. Then the right editor and the right composer have to come along and get it into the finished project. Appreciating a Kaiju ballet is appreciating how everything has to flow together.

And for Gigan, Toho cuts corners and reuses footage, which really hurts the flow and offends Hasegawa Kiyoshi’s fine cinematography. Lazy day for night filtering on the old footage doesn’t match Hasegawa’s nighttime lighting of the miniature set. It’s unfortunate, but editor Tamura Yoshio does a decent enough job incorporating the content of the scenes into the visual narrative and Gigan gets past it.

The rest of the film, involving intergalactic cockroaches (literally), an out of work cartoonist and his karate black belt lady friend (unclear if it’s romantic), two urban environmentalist revolutionaries (or something), is fine. It’s silly, but the cast is game and Honda Yoshifumi’s production design is a lot of fun.

The film even has an inexplicable, heavy-handed warning against being beholden to technology. Because the bad guys made a giant artificial Godzilla in their theme park. It’s very strange. And a lot of fun.

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966, Fukuda Jun)

I’m having a difficult time writing about Ebirah, Horror of the Deep because, even though the movie isn’t good, I wish I liked it more. I wish I enjoyed it more. As a cultural artifact, Sea Monster is definitely interesting. Most of the film has to do with these four not so bright dudes–even Takarada Akira as the older one–stumbling into a James Bond movie where the villainous organization is out to rule the world. Or something. And they keep a giant sea monster.

Director Fukuda doesn’t do a terrible job overall. He does a lot better with some sequences than others; he’s humorless, which is one of Ebirah’s biggest problems, but he is serious about the film itself. Given the Godzilla suit and the limited set for the guy in the Godzilla suit to energetically walk around, Fukuda’s seriousness sometimes seems out of place.

None of the film’s giant monster sequences are particularly memorable (Ebirah, a sea monster, looks like a giant lobster and is much more effective when just menacing passing ships with a single claw) but they’re distinct sequences in the film. With Satô Masaru’s groovy music, they’re usually silly. Until they become serious (as evidenced by the change in music). Once the seriousness hits, Ebirah turns into a really effective suspense thriller. It just happens to have Godzilla and a bunch of scantily clad South Seas islanders running around.

And the four dudes.

Maybe if the acting were better–leading man Takarada is particularly weak, though it’s not like he has a role to play. Sekizawa Shin’ichi’s script is just plain lame. It’s distinctive, but lame. None of the other actors make much impression. Except Hirata Akihiko (he and Takarada were the leads in the original Godzilla) and not in a good way.

As that historical cultural artifact, Ebirah is nearly worth seeing. Just as a movie? I don’t know. The last quarter or so is tightly edited, wonderfully paced. Fujii Ryôhei ratchets the tension. Fukuda’s far better with secret agent action thrills than giant monsters. Satô’s score, whether groovy or somber, is excellent.

Ebirah’s a try and a fail and Fukuda doesn’t seem to be aware he was trying.

Son of Godzilla (1967, Fukuda Jun)

Strangely enough, Son of Godzilla ends well. It’s a surprise because the film loses a lot of steam throughout. Whether it’s the human plot or the Godzilla plot, the scene inevitably fails because of director Fukuda. Unless it’s one of the multiple times writers Sekizawa Shin’ichi and Shiba Kazue completely fail. Son of Godzilla constantly starts and stops. There’s no unifying style.

Directing the actors, Fukuda often shows ambition. It’s just there’s no way for that ambition to be realized. While he can intuit how a scene should play, he can’t make the scene play. Fukuda is just a bad director–and, of course, Fujii Ryôhei’s tone-deaf editing doesn’t help anything.

The film has an appealing male lead, a too enthusiastic newspaper reporter (Kubo Akira) who ends up as short order cook for a group of scientists. They’re studying weather conditions on an island where Godzilla and other giant monsters coincidentally are hanging out. The film often plays the giant monsters for laughs. Not well, but still successfully. The interactions between Godzilla and his not quite as giant son, Minilla, are endearing and fun. If incompetently visualized.

Now for a few things deserving standout attention.

First, Beverly Maeda as an island “savage” who’s always saving Kubo. She’s this great character; then, all of a sudden, Kubo’s the boss. But nothing about the characters’ personalities change, just Maeda’s place in the film. Logically, she should still be the hero but she isn’t. It hurts the film a lot. Maeda’s performance isn’t quite good, but she’s definitely appealing. At least until she’s the damsel.

Second, the music. Satô Masaru does this crazy, campy, playful score for the film. For ten minute stretches, Satô’s score makes Son of Godzilla feel like an absurdist comedy. It seems like Fukuda gets that disconnect, but then he doesn’t properly utilize it, which again makes the filmmaking appear inept. It’s as though everything good about the film–except the acting–is accidentally okay.

Finally, the giant mantises who terrorize the humans (who are more interested in the weather than these giant monsters) and Minilla. While the special effects are problematic in the film, the mantises are great. As are the backdrop paintings. Fukuda can’t direct the jungle sets, however. They’re always stagy.

But then comes Son of Godzilla’s last sequence and it’s amazing. Fukuda doesn’t screw up the direction and Satô’s score changes tone and the humans finally say something interesting. The successful ending closes the film on its highest note.

Tai Chi Hero (2012, Stephen Fung)

Tai Chi Hero basks in its extravagance. Whether it’s the kung fu fighting, the battle scenes (these are different types of scenes) or just the imaginative steampunk gadgets, Hero always invites the viewer to enjoy what it’s creating.

And when Fung has to come up with something different? He does. And he does a great job with it. I had to take a step back and think about the big choice he makes, but it’s the right one-the only one he could make for the film.

He does turn back on the extravagance a little with a final gag, however.

Hero directly continues the previous entry (Tai Chi Zero), complete with an opening flashback of memorable events. It probably stunts the drama a little, which involves Eddie Peng’s wiener-boy of a villain plotting against the peaceful village as his ex-girlfriend (Angelababy) tries to teach her platonic new husband (Yuan Xiaochao) kung fu. Her father (and Yuan’s friend) Tony Leung Ka Fai tries to help out, but he’s got his ne’er-do-well eldest son (Feng Shaofeng) back in town.

Most of the film plays like a soap opera, since it is such a direct continuation of the previous one, but director Fung always keeps it light and fun.

The biggest problem is after Yuan gets good at kung fu… Angelababy stops being such a driving force in the picture. There’s also Feng running away with the first half or so of the film.

Still, Hero works out.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Stephen Fung; screenplay by Cheng Hsiao-tse and Zhang Jialu, based on a story by Chen Kuo-fu; directors of photography, Peter Ngor, Lai Yiu-Fai and Du Jie; edited by Cheng, Matthew Hui and Zhang Weili; music by Katsunori Ishida; production designer, Timmy Yip; produced by Wang Zhongjun, Wang Liqun and Zhu Jing; released by Huayi Brothers Media.

Starring Yuan Xiaochao (Yang Lu Chan), Angelababy (Chen Yunia), Tony Leung Ka Fai (Uncle Laborer), Eddie Peng (Fang Zi Jing), Nikki Hsieh (Sister-in-Law) and Peter Stormare (Flemming).

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