Some of you would say, WTH (who the hell) is Lucio Fulci? I was acquainted by Lucio Fulci's works as a teenager in the 80s. The late prolific Italian filmmaker directed a whopping 56 features and was best known for his horror films. I would say the first Fulci film that I saw was Zombie (1979), an obvious but effective rip-off of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, which was released in Hong Kong and UK as Zombies. And then Fulci's Zombie was subsequently released in Asia as Zombi 2. So when I was tricked into watching the "sequel" on VHS, I was like WTF (what the fuck)?
Nevertheless, Fulci's Zombie made a haunting impression in my young mind. It's a dark and disturbing zombie epic with sadistic and ridiculous gory sequences outdoing Dawn of the Dead. Fulci for the first time found an international horror hit. I mean who wouldn't take note of a director that came up with a death sequence with a splinter piercing an eyeball?
Without a doubt, Zombie ranks as one of Fulci's best films.
Yet the best film that he made is perhaps The Beyond (1981), which is as original as a Lucio Fulci film could possibly be. It's a haunting mix of supernatural elements and zombies that Fulci started with Zombie. In Zombie, the cause of the epidemic is voodoo in Haiti. In The Beyond, it's a house built over the gates of hell.
Somehow in The Beyond, all of Fulci's haphazard use of extreme close-ups, crazy zooming and truncated framing synthesized into a coherent style of storytelling. The end result is chilling horror film, a cross between a haunting supernatural film and a gory zombie flick. Bravo!
His third best film is arguably The House by the Cemetery (1984) which is a hybrid between a haunted house and a single zombie movie. The zombie is Dr. Freudstein who did genetic experiments that have caused him needing human flesh and organs. A young couple with a child move into the very house that Freudstein haunts in upstate New York.
There is something poignant about The House by the Cemetery with child endangerment that perhaps predisposed me to liking the film as a teenager.
Last of my best four of Fulci is City of the Living Dead (1980, also known as The Gates of Hell). How could you possibly forget a scene where a young woman sees the apparition of a priest who committed suicide and ends up vomiting her entire intestine?
By committing suicide over the gates of hell, the priest has opened them up and let the dead return as zombies. None of it quite makes sense. For me the movie is basically a bunch of people walking around a city of zombies and getting chomped up.
While I've truly become a fan of Fulci and watched at least another dozen of his films from Murderock to Manhattan Baby to New York Ripper to even Cat in the Brain that I bought a few nights ago, really in my opinion the four films that I've picked are the four you should watch first to get yourself hooked on Fulci's world of horror.
Can 2011 be the year of the Asian American women filmmakers? On my radar are Motherland and Adultolescence, both first films by two Asian American female directors due out this year that I’m excited about.
Doris Yeung’s independent drama Motherland will be opening in New York at the Quad on March 18. The movie stars Françoise Yip, Kenneth Tsang and Byron Mann. The film originally world premiered at Outfest in 2009, which I thought was a creative choice of platform to launch the film. The film’s protagonist is an Asian American lesbian who’s returning from abroad to America to deal with the aftermath of her mom’s murder. No, there’s no steamy lesbian sex scene even though I told Doris she should put one in. I guess it’s not that kind of a movie. Like me, Doris straddles both the Asian American and LGBT community.
As a friend of Doris, I’ve followed the development of the movie over the years. What many people don’t know (or what hasn’t been publicized) that I find electrifying and shocking about the making of the film is that the story is based on Doris’ own experience of dealing with her mother’s murder. Doris’ mother was murdered in an unsolved home invasion several years ago.
In 2004, two Asian men invaded Doris’ mother’s home and stabbed her to death in the otherwise peaceful and upscale Hillsborough neighborhood in the Bay Area. A suspect of the crime was her stepfather who was going through a bitter divorce settlement with her mom and the robbers might have been hired guns. Read more about the murder on Sfgate.com. In this instance, I particularly find truth more shocking than fiction.
Although Motherland is a dramatized account of what happened, it is also very much Doris’ own way of dealing with a traumatic and painful experience that provided the emotional backbone for the project. The film and the making of it very much illustrated the idea of literature being born out of trauma. According to literary critic Cathy Caruth, literature was born out of trauma because of the author’s need to make sense of the traumatic events by placing them into a sensible narrative—hence a movie!
Taking into the personal backstory, there is an ironic poignancy in dramatizing the story. Perhaps it was necessary for Doris to fictionalize her personal story in order to have some emotional distance from such a painful loss, but I’ve always felt that the movie cannot be read alone. We have to know that it is based on a true story.
Vicky Shen’s Adultolescence will start playing the festivals this year. Adultolescence is a coming of age drama about a young Asian American woman aspiring to be a filmmaker. Vicky Shen starred as the protagonist and co-directed the film with Zoe Bui who first appeared in her brother’s Sundance entry Three Seasons.
I was privileged enough to get a sneak peak at the film. Like Motherland, the backbone of the project is also autobiographical and I think that’s also the strength of the movie. There are some genuinely intense and raw feelings expressed in the film that set it apart from more traditional fictional narrative films. In some way, it is a portrait of the artist as a young Asian American woman.
In a tete-a-tete conversation with Vicky as a filmmaker, I have learned about the challenges that she faced in getting the film into the festivals. As a filmmaker, my heart goes out to her because I know how hard it is to make a film and how hard it is to make your first feature. Not even does she have to deal with distributing her film, she is struggling to get it seen. For me, I don’t understand how Asian American filmmakers and their community can thrive when Asian American film festivals stop thinking themselves as community-based and stop embracing every Asian American filmmaker who comes to knock on the door.
The current landscape of Asian American film festivals feels like the “others” are creating a hierarchy that very much duplicates the mainstream hierarchy that oppresses them. Asian American film festivals were created because mainstream film festivals don’t serve the needs of Asian American filmmakers and their audience. However now it seems that even Asian American film festivals are becoming “mainstream” and competitive that leave young Asian American filmmakers fall by the wayside.
Adultolescence is a poignant Asian American film with a strong female protagonist and I really hope that people will be able to catch it at a film festival very soon. Both Motherland and Adultolescence are very much deserved of our support.
When I was at a friend’s birthday party, someone started playing a music video on a computer and said it was his friend’s video. At first I was like “OK?” but I was pleasantly surprised by how engaging it was. The song is called “Stop It” by Rosie Okumra. The beat is catchy. Rosie’s pretty hot and has a good voice. The video is also decently made and styled. I’m constantly amazed at what pops up on Youtube these days.
Who is Rosie Okumura? I wonder. Rosie is HAPA, and I’m sucker for all things Asian American and independent. I was curious to see what she was all about. She’s obviously a struggling musician who works at my friend’s restaurant.
So I e-mailed her on Youtube account and asked if she would be open to answering my questions. And she got back to me! You gotta admit that her work is a cut above the rampant and sometimes embarrassingly bad stuff out there on Youtube.
FH: What's your background? Where're your from? Where did you grow up? And what are your music aspirations?
So I was born in Evanston, a small suburb of Chicago, moved to Virginia, then to Hawaii with my dad for the last year of high school, THEN to Michigan for school at MSU; but I was too obsessed with music to finish, and moved to Seattle and last year to Los Angeles!!! I guess mostly I'd say I am from Virginia, even though I lived in Chicago the longest. I miss Seattle the most out of all the places. Sorry. That took awhile.
My aspirations are to create music that everyone can like in some way or another; I want people to have fun when they listen to what I've written. It wouldn't hurt to make a butt-load of money either; I really wanna spoil my parents and friends!
FH: Right now, where are you in your career? Do you have a day job? How do you plan to move ahead with your music career?
Right now I am literally just trying to write as MUCH as possible with as many creative people I can get ahold of. Everyone always says they just "need that ONE hit", but not me; I want 50 hits. I don't settle.
My day job? I am pretty cliche, and working in a restaurant bartending and serving. I cannot wait to be on the other side, and leave someone a $5000 tip out of nowhere. I want to be able to make someone's day like that after so many people have ruined mine in that industry!
I plan to move ahead by staying true to myself; no matter what. I want to really love what I write, to be proud of it, and to be successful with sticking to that. I also want to make sure I work hard every day. Not a day goes by where I don't work on something to help further my career.
Do you identify with being Asian American? Do you feel being Asian American compliment or hamper you as an artist? Do you get inspired from being Asian American?
My Father is Japanese and from Hawaii, as are his parents so I grew up with different cultural traditions both Japanese and Hawaiian. My mom is German, but I only know how to scold the dog in German; thats what she did a lot. I dont know any Japanese either. I am probably the most non Asian-American Asian-American there is. I feel like it's super cool to be half Japanese because it’s a really rare mix, and I wanna rep who I am for sure. It's inspiring because it makes me want to pursue a career outside of the states. My dad is very passionate about my pursuing the JPop thing, and I think being Asian definitely makes a difference when it comes to reaching out to more people. I'm excited and definitely proud!!
FH: How did "Stop It" come about? It's a very polished video... and are there more songs in the pipeline. Who are you working with in terms of music?
“Stop it” was a song I wrote with some friends in Chicago with The Cassette Company production team. Sean Geyer is a song writer, and Stefan Clark is a producer/writer.
Together we were able to write and record a couple of songs in just a few days, and once I got it mastered; I wanted to do a video. Once I decided on making a video I asked around and a ton of people were supportive and proud of the song; so it wasn't too difficult to round up a team of amazing people to help make it happen! My stylist/choreographer is one of my best friends now. I was so blessed to have such amazing people around me that day. James Toth was an amazing director; he's super young and super driven - we worked really hard together!
There are CERTAINLY more songs in the making. I'm planning to go back to Chicago next month and make a hit song my Valentine this year.
Right now I am working with some friends and producers that have actually worked with some familiar names that are huge influences of mine; Bonnie McKee, Ke$ha, Miley, Katy etc. I decided to go out and find the people who helped them get their careers started so I can just make it happen. So here I am. Ive been so crazy busy lately - but in the best way ever.
FH: If you were given one wish before you die, what would it be?
Filmhustler catches up with his filmmaker friend Phil Leirness who's embarking on his second documentary feature The Truth is Out There with the X-files famed Dean Haglund. Like many talented filmmakers, Phil is a man for all seasons. He has directed both narrative and documentary features on top of being a international sales agent.
FH: It's great to hear you are finishing up a new feature. I know you have been talking about working on a project with Dean Haglund. What's the genesis of The Truth is Out There?
Neither Dean nor I can remember how we met, but we have worked together before. I directed him in Spectres, we co-wrote two screenplays together (both of which have come perilously close to getting financed on multiple occasions) and, of course, we have co-hosted Chillpak Hollywood Hour, a free weekly podcast for almost four years now (http://www.chillpakhollywood.com). In having had the opportunity to get to know Dean over the course of these many years, it became quite intriguing to me that this improv comic from the frozen plains of Canada, who studied dance and art history in college, would become so closely identified with such an iconic role (“Langly”, one of the computer-hacking trio known as “The Lone Gunmen”) on the seminal television series The X-Files (and their own spin-off series), and would subsequently be so closely identified with the world of conspiracy. So, my interest in Dean as a person was part of the inspiration for The Truth Is Out There.
Also, I find I enjoy making movies about things that make me angry. Eighteen months ago, when we started principal photography, the public debate over health care was waging and it truly seemed like NO political debate could take place without what should have been a meaningful conversation devolving into conspiracy theories. For example, Person 1 might say, “Gee, I’d really like a strong public option” and Person 2 would respond, “That’s interesting. Obama has no birth certificate!”
Perhaps, I’m exaggerating, though if I am, it’s not by much. So, the lack of conversation between people who disagree, the dogmatic polarization that dominated seemingly every important discussion, and the non-stop litany of conspiracy theories surrounding EVERY topic, these were things that made me angry. And when I get angry, I stop myself because it’s very easy to find what’s wrong with something. What’s more interesting is to ask, “What’s right about this? How does this serve?” And so, I thought following Dean Haglund, insider into the world of conspiracy theories and truth-seekers, into that world would make for an entertaining, illuminating and possibly inspiring journey.
From a business standpoint, the genesis of the project was my wanting to make a film that could prove the distribution paradigm I had designed over the prior few years. What we have ended up with is a true epic of comedy, consciousness and conspiracy (the trailer can be viewed at http://truth-is-out-there.com) that we will be self-distributing through the Rational Exuberance banner (the company that Dean founded).
FH: You've made both compelling narrative features and documentaries. Do you lean toward one form or the other? How do you see the technique and storytelling differs between the two forms?
It’s funny. For my show, I’ve been attempting to put together a list of my Top Ten Films of 2010 and all I can say is, “Thank goodness for documentaries!” Seriously, where would those of us who have to put together such lists be without documentaries this year?! I think one of the reasons documentaries have been so well-received of late is that increasingly their makers are finding new techniques for creating intimacy between the audience and the films’ subjects. Whereas narrative filmmaking, certainly commercial narrative filmmaking, seems increasingly to be set up in such a way as to actually PREVENT an audience from experiencing intimacy with the film’s characters and even with each other!
Intimacy is our birthright and to experience intimacy, we must be willing to open ourselves to the good, the bad and the so-called “ugly” that makes up a human being. A storyteller’s responsibility is to immerse the audience in the world experienced by a character. Whether that character is fictional or the subject of a documentary, if the story is artfully told, the audience will be inclined to move beyond their own personal judgments and find genuine compassion for the people that inhabit the world into which they’ve entered. And if the storytelling is particularly masterful, then the audience might just come away from the film, be it documentary or narrative, with a more compassionate, loving and accepting relationship with the full range of aspects that make up their own nature.
People who watch The Truth Is Out There may want to judge the people Dean meets and interviews on the basis of whether they agree or disagree with them. I think that judgment will prove difficult, however, for these people with whom Dean speaks are real human beings who come across as more than the sum of the information they have to offer, more than the sum of the conclusions they have drawn, more than the sum of the beliefs they espouse. Truly, I think audiences will love the subjects Dean interviews.
I know I do. And that as much as anything is why we list all of Dean’s interview subjects, collectively, as “The Friends of TRUTH”.
Naturally, there’s a fundamental difference in approach between the traditional documentary and the traditional narrative film. In a documentary, you are inspired by a question or hypothesis and you proceed to seek answers, hoping to be able to embrace the structure that emerges through your explorations. In a narrative, you iron out the structure in advance, and if you don’t, odds are that dog will NEVER hunt. As a director, though, you always want to be open to embracing that which truly wants to come forward (rather than simply sticking to some pre-conceived vision). And certainly with my last film (Karl Rove, I Love You) I employed documentary techniques and applied them to a fictional narrative. That’s why we describe it as a “fictional documentary” rather than a “mockumentary.” On this film, I’ve applied some traditional narrative techniques. So, I always seem to be interested in a blending between the two.
As to whether I “lean” towards one or the other, I feel myself enjoying the possibility of going back and forth between them, of working in both, and I’m currently trying to attract financing for a wide range of documentaries AND narratives, so if you think I’m going to proclaim a preference, you’re crazy!
FH: Since you were also in distribution and sales and you have a strong sense of the market, how does this knowledge influence you on this project? What's your plan for this movie?
I got so angry (again, there I go with my anger!) witnessing the way the distribution business operates. There was almost no way for a film’s investors to ever see a return and no way for the artists to ever make any real money. Moreover, the distribution companies themselves, at every level of the food chain, were merely in business to stay in business. It was just bad idea after bad idea. So, once I realized that technology and our modern culture allow for filmmakers to reach their target audiences directly, without the marketing costs that cripple most releases’ bottom lines, I knew it was time to prove that films can make money for their investors, can put money in the pocket of filmmakers and can help those filmmakers reach an audience directly, interact with that audience and quite possibly grow their audience in the process.
As for the specific plans on this film, why don’t we re-visit this topic a year from now, we’ll see what’s working and I’ll tell you why it’s working and we’ll see what didn’t work and I’ll tell you why it didn’t work. Fair enough? For now, I will simply reiterate that spending money on marketing is ludicrous. It is quite possible, depending on the type of film to MAKE money marketing the film. Imagine that. The traditional “expenses” actually become additional sources of revenue. It’s possible and we’re going to try and prove it.
FH: Tell us about your fascination with actor and performance as both your documentaries Karl Rove I love You and this one are about actors.
In a society that celebrates fame and celebrity, I fear we’ve lost sight of the fact that acting truly is a sacred art.
In discussing The Truth Is Out There and the various topics explored therein, people will often ask me what I “believe” and I’m rather quick to respond that belief is boring. What I’m interested in is what people know. Knowledge is truth that can be embodied and actors teach us how to embody the nourishing truths of being human.
Put another way, in the wake of the economic downturn (or as Dean calls it, “implosion”), he was doubting the importance of acting, of theatre. He said that in times such as these, acting and the arts are luxury. I feel that in times such as these, the arts become necessities again. One reason is that in our lives we will all be called upon to play many roles, and we will also be called upon to relinquish those roles. Our relevancy will constantly change as we move from relationship to relationship, from job to job, from community to community and as age settles upon us. This is all terrifying! And as human beings our instinct is to cling to our roles, to identify with our roles, to not want to lose our relevancy.
Actors show us it’s all okay. They demonstrate how to play each role as artfully and as joyously as we can and then to have the grace to let that role go.
And sometimes, actors are called upon to demonstrate the true danger of identifying too closely with any particular role we might be play. History is replete with examples provided to us by celebrated performers who have “gone down the rabbit hole” … And that leads us back to the inspiration for this film. What WAS it like for actor-improv comic-inventor Dean Haglund to be so closely identified with such a specific role for so long? Indeed, to still be identified with it to this day.
FH: This is a bit from the left field. Did you find film school helpful or necessary? How was your experience at UCLA? Would you recommend film school?
To steal and butcher one of my favorite lines of Tom Lehrer, film school is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it! Of course it was helpful. A writer writes. A painter paints. A filmmaker makes films. And creativity begets more creativity. I learned a great deal because I put a great deal into it.
Is film school necessary to become a filmmaker? No, of course not I don’t know how I would have managed to gain so much experience in so short a time without film school. And I love being around creative people and sharing in their efforts and being inspired by them, but most of the people in my class didn’t end up becoming filmmakers. So, one must be very careful not to surround oneself with people who simply enjoy talking about making a film. One should surround oneself with those who are actually DOING it.
Quite honestly, on each of these last two projects, it’s been like going back to film school… Both in terms of being forced to learn new skill sets and new techniques and also in terms of stripping away much of what I had learned previously during my career and reminding myself that there are no rules. These films have truly restored my sense of play.
FH: Since you're such a multi-hyphenate... I mean very much a film hustler... what would be your advice for young filmmakers out there?
My first advice to EVERYONE out there is to stop using the phrase “young filmmakers” and to replace it with “ASPIRING filmmakers”! I’ve lived long enough now and traveled around the world enough to know that dreams of creatively expressing oneself ought to have no expiration date. To all aspiring filmmakers I say this, “Don’t do it.”
Seriously. Unless you have nothing else that turns you on as much, don’t do it. It’s really hard.
Then, when they decide to ignore me and pursue their filmmaking dreams anyway, I would tell them, to read. Not scripts. Books. Fiction and non-fiction. Study painting. You don’t have to paint, but study the way stories are told, emotions conveyed in still frames through color and light. Study architecture. Study dance and theatre. ESPECIALLY study dance and theatre. Study how stories are embodied by and expressed through the human body. Oh, yes, and love people. Unconditionally. I see so few films where the filmmakers seem to love their characters, to say nothing of people in general.
The best storytellers are true witnesses, of themselves and of others.
Finally, the most important bit of advice I would have for filmmakers, aspiring or otherwise is this: Remember that the most significant story you tell will never be the film on which you are working, but rather the story you are telling with your LIFE. Make it an interesting one. Don’t worry about making a film because it will sell. Make a film because it’s a film that needs to be made. Make that film because it IS you to make it. In this life, we don’t get what we want. We get what we are. So, take those opportunities that can reveal yourself to you and tell a story with your life that inspires others, that raises the bar for others. Be someone with the courage to embrace what comes forward in life with gratitude for all of it. You do that, and your life will be an artfully told story and the filmmaking … Will take care of itself.
I want to wish you all a Happy New Year by catching up with the dance movies of 2010. First up, Step Up 3D is an entertaining hip hop flick with dazzling choreography while lacking a heart in the story and characters department. The story follows a young NYU freshman meeting up with the handsome leader of a street crew after an unexpected and cheeky battle in Washington Square Park. The handsome leader so happens to own a large building which is a club and also houses random ragtag dancers who've come to New York from around the world. In order to save his property, the handsome dancer enlists the freshman to be part of the crew for a battle of their life with eye-popping numbers.
To be honest, none of the story and characters bear much reality to the contemporary global dance community or the historical roots of hip hop. Step Up 3D is more of a Hollywood hip hop fairy tale.
After Step Up 3D, I became curious and wanted to check out the unreleased UK counterpart Street Dance that generated some buzz and business abroad. When I received my DVD from Amazon.co.uk, I tore the wrapper open and popped it into my DVD player at once.
I have to say that Street Dance is a step down from Step Up 3D. I was introduced to the various characters of the crew in freeze frames in the first ten minutes but I barely knew anything about them at the end. The main character Isabella has to deal with her leader boyfriend leaving her and her crew to join a better crew. Isabella then becomes the leader and must battle her ex-boyfriend's crew in the grand finale. The embarrasingly trite twist of Street Dance is having Isabella teach a few snobby ballet students to "street dance" and battle as part of her crew in exchange for using the ballet studio to rehearse. Well, guess what their final battle piece is about—a fusion of ballet and hip hop. How much more cheesy could that be?
The fact is that professional dancers now train for all genres of dance from ballet to Jazz to hip hop. And hip hop draws from all genres of dance and sports from basketball to martial arts. That's what makes hip hop the now and future of dance.
By far, the year's best dance movie is The Black Swan which is entirely wrapped in the psychological framework and exploration of a dancer who must deal with issues of competition, family, passion and technique in preparing for the performance of her life. It also deals with the fear of failure that all artists face so dearly. What makes The Black Swan powerful is its rigorous and realistic portrayal of a dancer's psychology that is obviously lacking in both Step Up 3 and Street Dance.
I look forward to a hip hop dance movie that's both real and fun. For now, let's dance tonight away!
My fellow director friend Chuck Parello had set up a meeting between horror legend Stuart Gordon and us. I was excited for the whole day as I finally got to meet the director of Re-Animator, one of the horror movies I adored as a teenager. It was such an inspiring treat being able to talk about genre cinema with truly a master of the genre who has consistently produced excellent horror over past three decades since his first feature Reaminator burst into the scene in 1985.
Re-Animator was sort of the groundbreaking movie that took horror cinema to new heights with amazing prosthestic effects including exploding guts and a talking decapitated head and a reimagining of the concept of undead. Re-Animator is a literary, artistic and independent feat.
After Re-Animator, Stuart made the equally fun and effects laden From Beyond, another HP Lovecraft adaptation which is also a classic of its own. Stuart has since directed a jawdropping slate of over 13 features that include the scary killer doll movie Dolls, David Mammet's Edmond with William Macy, the super imaginative Dagon, and most recently Stuck with Mena Suvari and Stephen Rea that premiered at Toronto awhile back.
It was a childhood dream come true being able to sit in his Burbank office whose walls were plastered with posters of my favorite horror flicks and chatted with him about horror cinema. Talking about being in Montreal's Fantasia film festival, he tipped us into a new genre of Serbian horror films that are quite cutting edge and extreme born out of the violent social and cultural context of Serbia.
One Serbian movie cheekily titled A Serbian Film has been gaining global controversy. It's a horror film about an ex-porn actor who gets hired to do a snuff film with an insane director. The film is full of sex and extreme violence complete with a final unimaginable (SPOILER) sex scene with a newborn. Invincible Pictures in the U.S. has picked it up for distribution. I simply can't wait!
Queer experimental filmmaker Bryan Jackson has finally released his holiday cheers gay experimental safe-sex music video "Little Taiko Boy" with a Japanese flavor. The production originally began shooting in Tokyo 2009 and was planned to be released Christmas 2009. Due to some production issues, the music video was delayed until this Christmas a year later. No great art can be made without pain and suffering, right?
Woe to bare backers. Use a condom for the seasons and happy holidays!
Monga is probably the most exciting, commercial and well-made movie out of Taiwan in the history of Taiwanese cinema as I know it. Arguably The Wedding Banquet was another Taiwanese movie that was both artistically and commercially successful. Cape No. 7 truly escaped me. I tried watching Cape No. 7 five times and every time I fell asleep at the 30-minute mark. Cape No. 7 proved there was little audience beyond the eclectic Taiwanese audience that braced its local box office gross to an amazing USD$14 million.
First off, I generally hate gangster flicks, especially Chinese gangster flicks. I would only grudgingly watch them once in a blue moon in hope of catching up with Asian pop culture. So when I first heard about Monga, I had very little interest. In fact, I was drinking in a Taipei karaoke room with directors Doze Niu and Teddy Chen one night during the Golden Horse Film Festival 2009 with little knowledge that Doze directed Monga. When I was back in Hong Kong a couple weeks ago, another friend recommended the film so I decided to buy the DVD to take a look.
During a an early jetlag night back in Los Angeles, I popped Monga into my player and was immediately impressed with the filmmaking from the first shot on. Through the eyes of our main protagonist, Monga tells the story of Monk—played by hearthrob Ethan Juan—whom we first meets as a teen who gets bullied in high school and dares to fight back in a hilariously choreographed sequence. Monk's craftiness catches the eyes of Dragon, the son of a mafia boss, who takes him under his wings and initiates him into his elite gang who guards the titular district of Taipei.
Set in the 80s, Monga is an exceptional epic on all technical fronts from art and costume to cinematograhy and action choreography. The homosocial (thanks to the late Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick who coined this term) friendships and world between the five gangster youths are so finely and emotionally portrayed to a surprisingly poetic yet violent conclusion. And yet another thing I appreciate about Monga, setting it aside from its genre, is that the violence is necessary and creatively executed with good taste. The violence does not feel gratutious. It's the kind of cool violence that we go to the movies for. And that's why Monga is cinematic.
Technically, the film is close to flawless. The one extended fight sequence where the five uniformed school kids transform into full-fleged young gangsters kicking asses and getting their asses kicked is jawdropping in the synthesis of cinematography and action choreography. But what's most amazing about the film is that these kids are humanely and emotionally portrayed as young adults who are neither heroes nor antiheroes. They are violent and mean at the same time they are scared and vulnerable.
To give an example of Noze's attention to details, I am not spoiling the film for you because the scene is in the trailer. Monk gets to meet Dragon's father for the first time over a casual meal. As Monk is about to chopstick a piece of meat, he reaches over and catches a glimpse of a severed finger right at the spot below where Dragon's father is eating. Monk keeps quiet and the gang dines on.
Perhaps Taiwanse cinema has already passed the world by, but Monga is a gem and discovery. It was selected as the official Oscar entry for Taiwan in 2010.
