Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
It isn’t easy for the casual fan to acquire tickets to Comic-Con. Once you get in, it’s an ordeal to squeeze past the movie studio palaces with their big screens and giveaways. But if you are willing to put in the work, Comic-Con is still pretty awesome.
Preview Night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen preview night so crowded. Of course, the first place I went was the Giant Robot booth to see my great friend and conspirator, Eric Nakamura (top right). If you looking at the GR site, you know what I mean. Also there was ace cartoonist John Pham (top left) Why is it that I see certain L.A. friends only at San Diego? One more reason to go, I guess. On the bottom row are the two other places where I lurked. Not working the GR booth anymore, I can be that guy who hangs out at other people’s booths until it becomes uncomfortable. At Super 7, we talked with Brian and Scott more about hardcore shows than toys. And then there were Tom and Peggy of Drawn & Quarterly with Peter from The Beguiling. No bow-tie on Tom yet because the table was still a work in progress, without banners flaunting their world-class roster of indie, international, and classic comic artists.
Hello all my friends and fans, Yesterday in my press conference in Cannes for Chinese 12 Zodiac I said that this movie was my last big action movie. Today I was shocked when I woke up to read all the news coverage that I was retiring from doing Action movies. I just want to let everyone know that I am not retiring from doing action movies. What I meant to say is that I need to do less of the life risking stunts on my movies. After all these years of doing so many stunts and breaking so many bones, I need to take better care of my body so I can keep working. I will continue to do international action movies. And I will keep improving my English I love all of you! Jackie
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The Bronze! This movie, Chinese Zodiacs comes out 12.12.12 and it’s supposedly Jackie’s last action movie. It’s no secret that his body is severely beat up from the years of stunts gone wrong. He’s retiring from action movies which then leaves the next question. What will he do in front of the camera? He’s already of legendary status and maybe one of the greatest on screen martial artists in history. His credentials may never be broken. What’s left? Comedy (he’s a funny man, but will it translate outside of China? His English is about the same from the 80s) Love stories (see Jackie kiss a woman correctly on screen which is something he hasn’t gotten right yet) or Drama (a tough sell when he’s as typecast as any actor can be. He can’t be taken seriously, or can he?) [youtube]6Y_XpS0lbAI[/youtube]
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The most stirring segment of 1911 Revolution is not when Jackie Chan’s eight-fingered general Huang Xing uses martial arts to beat down a bunch of colonized Manchu stooges. It’s when Sun Yat-sen played by Winston Chao, the Ang Lee-associated actor who has been cast as the character a couple of times before, delivers brunch-stopping speeches to European banker pigs that want to cut up the Middle Kingdom according to their own economic interests. Actually, they’re both pretty cool moments. The friendship and mostly parallel paths of the revolutionary army’s commander-in-chief and the Founding Father of Republican China is involving. And when their paths finally intersect, it’s a pretty cool moment. The problem is that there are far too many interchangeable battle scenes that chop up and clog up the two hours of epicness. No matter how large-scale and sweepingly shot they are, the montages become numbing without proper build-up or variations. There are other flaws, too, including much-too-lengthy historical explanations (which are impossible to read even on a bigger TV) and more annotated explanations than pop-up videos on MTV. Yet Jackie Chan’s 100th movie is not a total waste of two hours. While 1911 Revolution isn’t the most effective co-directing job of his career, Jackie Chan acts his ass off. After the first 10 or 20 minutes, you’ll no longer expect him to break character and start climbing walls and busting heads. The movie deserves your eyes for that alone. The ensemble is solid as a whole. Chao should be cast as president if they ever make a Chinese West Wing and Sun Chun is effectively off-the-rails as the unpredictable general who plays both sides. Joan Chen is powerfully understated as the Empress Dowager, although Li Bingbing’s role seems truncated. Yes, the cast delivers some admittedly schlocky moments but isn’t that what happens in fictionalized history? This is new Chinese cinema meant to stir up the increasingly comfortable Chinese, not a Hong Kong actioner for the fanboys (although the English dialog recalls the latter). You may not laugh, cry, or even learn much from this bloated piece of agitpop, but you will actually be moved by the actors at times and perhaps even be inspired by them. See for yourself on a big screen somewhere across America starting on Friday, October 7.
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Benny Chan’s Shaolin is an ambitious mixture of golden-age Hong Kong martial arts movies and new-jack epics from China. But can it please audiences of either genre? Everything in Chan’s movie is top shelf, from the full-size reproduction of the temple built and burned just for the occasion, to Andy Lau in the starring role as a ruthless general who inevitably falls and is reborn as a monk, to Jackie Chan’s extended (and awesome) cameo as a Shaolin cook. The martial arts are capably handled by Cory Yuen, who is not only an originator of action cinema’s visual vocabulary but continues to add to it from both sides of the Pacific. Meanwhile, production designer Yee Chung-Man has crafted stunning costumes for Hong Kong classics such as A Chinese Ghost Story and Comrades: Almost a Love Story as well as newer works like Curse of the Golden Flower and True Legend. Yet plenty of movies with big budgets and dream teams have flopped due to lame characters and unfocused storytelling, and this one falters in neither department. Going into production, Andy Lau admitted he wasn’t the greatest martial artist but recognized that his character had a lot of depth and humanity. The perennial good guy seems to have a lot of fun (and restraint) playing a full-blown villain, and handily accomplishes the even more difficult task of rising above yet remaining believable. But there are good movies and then there are good kung-fu movies. The drama, melodrama, and epic scale are present in bulk, but the martial arts are serviceable. While plenty of bodies are violently strewn around the screen without excess cg or wirework, the viewer will neither jump with excitement nor squirm with discomfort. It might just be me, but the period piece sets and ratcheting tension made me crave the crazed imagination and over-the-top intensity seen in melees from much lesser movies, sequels, and rip-offs that feature the word Shaolin in their titles. I wonder if that would have derailed the movie’s serious tone? As the first movie made with approval from the actual Shaolin Temple since Jet Li’s breakthrough effort of the same name, Shaolin easily succeeds in capturing its balance as a pacifistic yet powerful force for peace. The general’s story of redemption is expertly told, and possibly even inspiring to victims and outcasts of today’s vicious marketplace seeking peace of mind. However, it doesn’t quite qualify for the temple’s jaw-dropping, gravity-defying, ass-whupping onscreen legacy formed by Li, Gordon Chan, Bruce Lee, and other movie monks of the past. It probably didn’t intend to be. But as a result, while fans of world cinema will be well satisfied, action, midnight movie, and hardcore Hong Kong cinema freaks may be left impressed but slightly wanting. North American fans of epic action, Shakespearean drama, and righteous monks can finally see Shaolin on the big screen on September 9, 2011. Find your theater here and watch the international trailer here.
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