Hard Boiled has got to be my favorite film of the Gun Fu genre, one which I only belatedly discovered the joys of, and mainly because of this movie.
The film starts with undercover detective played by Chow Yun Fat blowing a suspect's brains out point blank, as he pins him to the ground, then spitting his toothpick out right as the blood hits his face has got to be one of the grittiest opening sequences of all times, in league with that of Kill Bill I . The fact that the victim turns out to be an undercover cop himself (unbeknownst to Chow), only underscores the main character's uncompromising and violent approach to his job. After the beginning scene, there is not a five minute segment of the film that does not feature at least one gun battle where the combatants are firing pistols two fisted in an orgy of lead, with no thought given to the average real life clip capacity of a handgun.
Hard Boiled is not without its lighter moments though, as when Chow Yun Fat is carrying a baby out of a burning hospital, which just so happens to be a front for an arms smuggling ring, and the hero catches on fire after jumping through a flaming door. The infant saves the day, urinating on his rescuer and extinguishing the fire, after which the grateful Chow says "Thank you sir, thank you", to the baby.
My one and only regret in watching Hard Boiled was that after seeing it, no other Gun Fu could quite compare, and I am stuck watching lesser films in the vain hope of recapturing that level of excellence.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Sunday, February 11, 2007
The Virtual Reality Copout
I recently watched Harsh Realm, Chris Carter's short lived TV series about a man fighting to get out of a virtual reality simulation, while an evil dictator seeks to keep people in, and eventually to replace the real world with the fantasy one that he controls. Aside from the utterly stupid dog sidekick, it is a reasonably entertaining series. Unfortunately, Harsh Realm suffers from the drawback that so many VR movies and shows do, namely the fact that the featured virtual world is nearly identical to our own (could it be to save money?)
This fault can also be seen in the most famous VR film, The Matrix. After the robotic bug scenes of the first movie, and the acrobatic car chase flips of the second, the weakness of having villains who look exactly like a clone army of real people wearing suits becomes painfully obvious, leading me to laugh too hard to ever get through the last part of the series. As I watched the evil "Smiths" gloating about their plans in The Matrix: Revolutions, I couldn't help but think of a grade school play where a child says "Hi I'm a bush", and expects the supportive audience of family members to take him at his word.
In both The Matrix and Harsh Realm, it would have been far more compelling to offer a world like the dark dreamscape of The Cell. While the later movie took place in a psychopath's mind, it could have just as easily have been in a virtual construct. Not every film, or especially TV series, has the budget of The Cell, but those involved can easily muster the budget of Tron, and the glory of a virtual environment, is that as anyone who has been in Second Life can attest to, "virtual" doesn't have to mean realistic! A trip to Kmart, a talent search for the last surviving members of Dr. Who's fx crew, and one can have a virtual realm completely justified plot wise in its corniness by its imaginary nature.
Now the underlying story of The Matrix offers the convenient excuse for the real life look of its participants, that the simulation must look real in order to convince the human food capsules that they are really living, and the same need for verisimilitude, to create an engaging combat sim, might be offered for Harsh Realm, but in the end the show just looks cheap. My advice to the future creators of cinematic virtual environments, watch some post apocalyptic Italian film for creative cues, and then proceed directly to KMART, do not pass go.
This fault can also be seen in the most famous VR film, The Matrix. After the robotic bug scenes of the first movie, and the acrobatic car chase flips of the second, the weakness of having villains who look exactly like a clone army of real people wearing suits becomes painfully obvious, leading me to laugh too hard to ever get through the last part of the series. As I watched the evil "Smiths" gloating about their plans in The Matrix: Revolutions, I couldn't help but think of a grade school play where a child says "Hi I'm a bush", and expects the supportive audience of family members to take him at his word.
In both The Matrix and Harsh Realm, it would have been far more compelling to offer a world like the dark dreamscape of The Cell. While the later movie took place in a psychopath's mind, it could have just as easily have been in a virtual construct. Not every film, or especially TV series, has the budget of The Cell, but those involved can easily muster the budget of Tron, and the glory of a virtual environment, is that as anyone who has been in Second Life can attest to, "virtual" doesn't have to mean realistic! A trip to Kmart, a talent search for the last surviving members of Dr. Who's fx crew, and one can have a virtual realm completely justified plot wise in its corniness by its imaginary nature.
Now the underlying story of The Matrix offers the convenient excuse for the real life look of its participants, that the simulation must look real in order to convince the human food capsules that they are really living, and the same need for verisimilitude, to create an engaging combat sim, might be offered for Harsh Realm, but in the end the show just looks cheap. My advice to the future creators of cinematic virtual environments, watch some post apocalyptic Italian film for creative cues, and then proceed directly to KMART, do not pass go.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
A Belated New Years Resolution
It is the Chinese Year of the Pig . . . .
Wild packs of swine roam the land.
Rooting, destroying irrigation systems, defecating and contaminating ground water, and wreaking a wide swath of havoc that grows as new states are added to the wild hog positive zones that creep ever northward by the year.
It has been said that a pig can go feral within two weeks of escaping from a farm . . . .
It has been said that such hogs often return to free their female cohorts from confinement . . . .
It has been said that pigs are some of the smartest animals on the planet besides chimps, whales, and humans . . . .
I hereby resolve to spend 2007 catching up on my neglected reading, doing my own small part to keep the human race up to speed with this unpredictable species. I will report on these efforts here on the Internet until such time as I run out of opportunities or interest in doing so, or until I discover that the hogs have learned to surf the web.
Wild packs of swine roam the land.
Rooting, destroying irrigation systems, defecating and contaminating ground water, and wreaking a wide swath of havoc that grows as new states are added to the wild hog positive zones that creep ever northward by the year.
It has been said that a pig can go feral within two weeks of escaping from a farm . . . .
It has been said that such hogs often return to free their female cohorts from confinement . . . .
It has been said that pigs are some of the smartest animals on the planet besides chimps, whales, and humans . . . .
I hereby resolve to spend 2007 catching up on my neglected reading, doing my own small part to keep the human race up to speed with this unpredictable species. I will report on these efforts here on the Internet until such time as I run out of opportunities or interest in doing so, or until I discover that the hogs have learned to surf the web.
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