Well actually it is WordPress or more accurately Video-Press, a service that I pay no insignificant amount of money for, is having technical problems screwing up the all important video-clips. I will have to take down Falling Down and see if we can’t get it up correctly with the proper clips. On behalf of JPFmovies we apologize.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Old Boy (2003) you come out 15 years older after watching this film.
The website “Film School Rejects” recently picked the top 30 movies of the decade and Old Boy (2003) landed in the number 7 slot so I wanted to give it a shot so I would share my respect for this film with you.
The film follows the story of one Oh Dae-su, who is locked in a hotel room for 15 years without knowing his captor’s motives. That is right for 15 years, stuck in the same hotel room. No contact with the outside world except TV. For food, he eats dumplings and every so often, his captors will flood the room with gas that sedates him the same gas apparently that the Russians used on the Chechens during their disputes. The sedation allows his captors to groom him i.e. cut is hair and fingernails, but also prevents him from committing suicide meaning that someone is constantly watching him. Oh Dae-su is not the only prisoner at the facility, we are shown that there are in fact others in the same predicament as he is: stuck in some sort of private prison for as long as the customer wants you there. No judge, no jury, nothing to get you out of the hotel prison cell. The concept gives new meaning to the Eagles song hotel California “you can check out but you can never leave.”
While watching his only outlet to the outside world, he learns that his wife has been murdered, a crime for which he is the prime suspect (though he has the perfect alibi), and that his daughter has been adopted. In addition to his consistent television viewing, Oh Dae-su begins to shadowbox and harden his fists by punching the walls. As anyone would he pledges revenge on his captor(s) and secretly begins trying to tunnel out of his cell. Then after 15 years he is released and finds himself on the roof of a building with a cellphone and some money no explanation or any other information about why 15 years of his life were spent in a hotel room.
At a sushi restaurant, he meets a young woman Mi-do but passes out after boozing it up. Mi-do takes him to her apartment where Dae-su puts the moves on her. She explains that she will have sex with her just not now. Cleverly, they track down the restaurant that supplied the dumplings he ate while imprisoned and use it to discover those who held him captive. After justifiably threatening the owner, the only explanation for the confinement is that he “talks too much.” Dae-su must fight his way out of the prison past dozens of henchmen using a hammer.
Then comes the really weird part. The tail involves incest, rumors and the suicide of others. Apparently, Oh Dae-su mistakenly spreads the rumor in school that his captor and his sister had an incestuous relationship, which caused false signs of pregnancy and eventual suicide.
Eventually we find out that the events surrounding Dae-su were orchestrated, as well as by using a hypnotist, to cause Dae-su and Mi-do to commit incest. Woo-jin gives Dae-su a photo album. As Dae-su flips through of pictures of his family, he witnesses his daughter grow older in the pictures, until discovering that Mi-do is actually his daughter (the sushi chef). The warden then betrays Dae-su with a similar photo album ready for Mi-do. A horrified Dae-su begs Woo-jin to conceal the secret from Mi-do, groveling for forgiveness before slicing out his own tongue as a symbol of his silence.
We then see Dae-su working with a hypnotist in winter to help him forget the tragic and even evil deeds that he has done or done to him. Our last glimpse of Dae-su is an expressionless face—no one knows what his fate will be.
Old Boy is highly credentialed; it won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and high praise from the President of the Jury, director Quentin Tarantino. Voters on CNN named it one of the ten best Asian films ever made. The film currently has a rating of 8.4 on IMDb, being the highest rated Korean movie and the 88th best movie of all time on IMDb Top 250. No small feat for a foreign film not made by Kurosawa. Moreover, an American remake is planned for release in 2013 directed by Spike Lee starring Samuel L. Jackson. In its country of origin, South Korea, the film was seen by 3,132,000 filmgoers and it ranks fifth place for the highest grossing film of 2003.
What do I think about this film? It is one hell of a movie. The film is original, complex and unpredictable, all of the elements I think a good movie should have. Old Boy is also well cast and has an ending that I believe is intentionally vague generate conversations and differing opinions. It is a hard film so be ready, but by all means necessary give the Old Boy a try, you might be surprised even if you don’t like foreign films.
JPFmovies has created a working index of all our reviews so please feel free to browse/
I’ve been asked many times if there was a way for visitors to the site to see what movies we’ve reviewed and after some consultation with WordPress, a solution was found. The site only has two pages, the first are the reviews and the second is the index of movies with links to the film’s review. Simply click on the “Here is a list . . . ” and take a look at what we’ve done in the past. Thanks for following and I hope to hear from you all soon.
There was supposed to be a Tony Scott tribute here at JPFmovies but . . .
Dr. H. and I were supposed to do a tribute to the legendary Tony Scott over the weekend. Alas, because Dr. H never dropped by, the tribute will have to wait. So until he he decides to grace us with his presence, we will have to movie forward with a look at some other films until we get Dr. H on the same track.
Yamada: The Samurai of Ayothaya (2010) and Dangerous this one has choreography for you.
Yamada: The Samurai of Ayothaya is a 2010 Thai action movie directed by Nopporn Watin. The film features renowned Muay Thai boxers Buakaw Por. Pramuk, Saenchai Sor. Kingstar, Yodsanklai Fairtex, and Anuwat Kaewsamrit along with its main cast of actors.
The lead character in the film is based on an actual historical figure Yamada Nagamasa, a Japanese samurai/adventurer who later became a governor in the Ayutthaya Kingdom (1590-1630). Yamada is the true story of how a samurai warrior came to serve as one of the personal bodyguards of King Naresuan the Great. Yamada’s story is laced with beheadings, broken bones and many bloody wounds; however, he was eventually granted a lordship and served as governor of Nakhon Si Thammarat.
The young samurai, who lived during the Edo period, came to be a soldier in the Japanese volunteer regiment in Ayothaya. The higher-ups of regiment were using him as a scapegoat to justify the failure of the soldier’s inability to subdue the Thai. Ninjas try to assassinate the samurai in a dark alley. Vastly outnumbered, the young samurai puts up a good fight but is seriously wounded. Four Thai fighters appear just as the ninja are about to be dealt the fatal blow. The Thai fighters brutally kill most of the assassins while a few escape. In accordance with their Buddhist teachings, they take the samurai to their village, tend to his wounds and treat him as a guest. Over time and under the watchful and wise eye of Sir Monk he begins the road to recovery. The viewer quickly sees that Sir Monk is the people’s spiritual and de facto leader whose wisdom is greatly respected even by the King.
While Yamada recovers, there is another assassination attempt on his life. Though far from healed, Yamada again dishes out some serious punishment on his attackers who must also contend with the village Boxers who quickly arrive on the scene. After the enemy is driven away, the boxers blame and beat Yamada for causing trouble in their otherwise peaceful town. One look from Sir Monk and the Boxers stop the beating and are hauled into the temple to have a serious word regarding their inappropriate behavior. While Sir Monk takes the Boxers out to the proverbial woodshed, he tells them that he and he alone has the authority to kill whitey. An order that will only be issued if Yamada starts to hurt the villagers.
As Yamada recovers, he begins to contribute around the village by doing chores and eyeing their forging process. When he is back in shape, he attends the Boxer’s practice and foolishly challenges one to a bout. The eight weapons of Muay Thai – fists, feet, knees and elbows make quick work of him to the point of embarrassment. One of the boxers suggests that he ask Sir Monk to teach him the techniques of Muay Thai training. These training sequences are set against the beautiful backdrops of temples and lush forests. It is interesting to watch the blending of the Thai boxing style with Yamada’s lifelong samurai training especially when he uses his sword.
Yamada’s martial arts background helps him quickly learn the Thai style and at the end of the training, Sir Monk makes him an officially sanctioned warrior with holy tattoos and all. Sir Monk’s approval permits whitey to join King Naresuan’s personal bodyguards. Yamada sticks out like a sore thumb as a mostly white clean-shaven man when compared to his dark skinned and the crazy hairstyles of his comrades.
Though he has become a full-blown warrior, he is still not fully accepted by the other Boxers or villagers. We start to see Yamada begin the extremely secret process of forging Japanese steel and what are unquestionably the best swords in the world alone since no one will help him. Later we find out that the sword he was forging is for the boxer who has taken extra time to practice with him after hours to help Yamada perfect his skills. Sir Monk is contemporaneously meeting with his top fighters who are preparing to try out to be the king’s guard and battle a rival nation state in a customary contest. Here Sir Monk takes the Siamese warriors to task by telling them (and the blacksmiths) that Yamada is by far the best forger in the village and that his swords (which Sir Monk still has) are the most perfect weapons he has ever seen. As a demonstration of the exquisite artisanship Yamada is capable of Sir Monk throws up a flower petal and as it falls to the ground, it is cleanly split in half when it comes into contact with the samurai’s blade.
The bodyguard tryouts are nothing short of merciless but whitey makes it through—much to Sir Monk’s delight. These tryouts are wonderful representations of this ancient and effective style of fighting. The survivors are sent to engage their Burmese counterparts who have not won this gruesome contest in years. Here again we are treated to seeing Yamada’s deeply ingrained samurai fencing techniques combined with his new hand to hand combat style. I believe that one reason Yamada is so effective with his sword against the enemy is that the natives have never contended with a full-blown samurai using the most deadly of weapons.
After returning as victors, Yamada believe he must bring finality to the Japanese question and returns to that dark alley where he was almost killed, again facing an army of ninjas and the head of the Japanese spy ring that wants him eliminated. He makes mincemeat of the ninjas but is ultimately saved by the fighter he gave the sword to who takes a bullet meant for him—his savior dies at the scene.
Putting Muay Thai fighters and samurais together is a fantastic idea for a movie. It also shows that humans can change and redeem themselves, even in the hands of an enemy. This film is astonishing not only because it shows a path of redemption, but because it features some brutal Muay Thai boxing that is very realistic, striking and primeval: these guys are the real deal champion Thai boxers and I sure as shit would not want to meet them on unfriendly terms.
This movie did a fine job with what many might say was an interesting, though not epic, historical story. I recommend this film to anyone (that means you Dangerous) who is interested in the choreography of martial arts, as it is real and something I have not seen before. Watch and if you don’t like it let me know why.
A Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) a Movie that is as funny as Kentucky Fried Chicken is Delicious.
Anyone who has seen So I Married and Axe Murder remembers the father’s claim that Colonel Sanders put some mysterious chemicals in his chicken “so that you crave it fort-nightly.” I could not agree more nor could agree more that A Kentucky Fried Movies is dollar for dollar one of the funniest movies even made (the film had a total budget of $650,000 and made millions).
A Kentucky Fried Movie consists of largely unconnected sketches that parody various film and TV genres. The movie’s longest segment (and main feature) satirized an early, yet classic, kung-fu film: Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon; its title, A Fistful of Yen, refers to A Fistful of Dollars. Parodies of disaster films (That’s Armageddon), blaxplotation (Cleopatra Schwartz) and softcore porn/women-in-prison films (Catholic High School Girls in Trouble) are presented as “Coming Attraction” trailers to the martial arts classic. Many other sketches spoof TV commercials and programs, news broadcasts, and classroom educational films. The city of Detroit and its high crime rate are a running gag portraying the city as a literal Hell-on-Earth; in “A Fistful of Yen,” the evil drug lord orders a captured CIA agent to be sent to Detroit, and the agent screams and begs to be killed or castrated instead of that.
“The popcorn you’re eating has been pissed in…film at eleven.”
—Kentucky Fried Movie’s TV anchor
What does this movie really mean to me? Simple. At some point in the early 1980’s, the clamps went down on American Studios and they lost their balls. The American movie system began to bow to special interests and censor itself away from nudity, confrontation, and anything else that might slightly offend anyone. Films that would have been seen as ‘for adults’ in the pre-ratings-happy 1970’s were suddenly not acceptable for release in the 1980’s, as studio executives clamored for the baby market and shied away from anything that might get mommy writing a letter to a sponsor.
Then came the 1990’s, where the studios claim that they’d reversed the trend, with “outlandish” comedians like Adam Sandler, Martin Lawrence and anyone else who ever lugged a cable on Saturday Night Live. Oh how Sandler’s wacky Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore re-captured the truly satirical and gritty humor of Animal House or a Kentucky Fried movie—anyone comparing the two genres of films who would say these movies are in the same league is nothing short of a fool. For those of us lucky enough to know what real guerilla comedy was all about, recall the outrageous humor that the Zuckers gave us back when there may have been rules, but no one paid attention or nobody cared, are now we are tortured with crap like The Waterboy and Deuce Bigelow that are somewhere along the level of animal shit on the comedic evolutionary scale. Then, with 2000, came the evolution of a new, lower life form: Tom Green. Fellow readers, we’re going backwards, and if you want to see the standard that we were at back when comedy that was pure, offensive and was freely given to those looking to take it, then The Kentucky Fried Movie is for you. Whether you have to stay up late to watch it or get the DVD I suggest you do it, you will not waste 90 minutes of your life whereas watching “Deuce Bigelow” or “Beverly Hills Ninja” you will.
That is what I think anyways. Your thoughts?
J.P.'s I'm Outta Here Movie Thoughts 