True Bromance: Chivalry, Honour, and Violence in John Woo's Movies [Editorial]

Disclaimer: The following article contains spoilers for movies A Better Tomorrow (1986), A Better Tomorrow II (1987), The Killer (1989), Bullet in the Head (1990), and Hard Boiled (1992). Synopses for the films were reappropriated from my individual blog reviews. John Woo’s comedies from the 1970s and his Hollywood blockbusters do not constitute the analytical subject matter of the text.
 
     I wanted the mood to resemble a dream, like they have something to hope for. It’s a dream for the killer. No matter where I am, what I love to do is watch people’s faces. Even when walking on a street, I also love to watch different faces. I wonder about the feeling. It’s very interesting, you’re watching a different face and getting a different feeling. ~ John Woo
 
Enthusiasts of Asian Cinema often hail John Woo as the master of action movies packed with guns, explosions, and massive set pieces. The director in question, however, distances himself from this title. It goes without saying that his most popular Hong Kong productions from the 1980s and the 1990s constitute idiosyncratic viewing experiences, but what makes them so unique, especially to Western viewers? Let's explore this issue in the herein editorial.
     In order to gain greater understanding of John Woo's movies, we need to take a look at the life of the film auteur himself. Woo was born as Wu Yu-seng on the 1st of May, 1946 in Guangzhou, China. His father was a teacher and a literary scholar, while the mother did manual labour. Because of the ruthless rule of Mao Zedong after the war, the family had to flee to Hong Kong in order to avoid persecution for their Christian background. In a new land, they experienced a great deal of hardships as well: the father suffered from tuberculosis while 3-year-old Woo had to undergo a spine operation. It was not until five years later when he regained the ability to walk properly. It was in the childhood years when he had found consolation in religion and was planning to become a Christian minister.
John Woo giving instructions on the set of Hard Boiled.
     (Un)surprisingly, shy and reserved Woo decided to change his career choice when he discovered the magic of cinema. He felt deeply passionate about the French New Wave (the movies of Jean-Pierre Melville, in particular) and Westerns. The ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid about two comrades trying to shoot their way through against all odds engraved itself deeply into the mind of a future filmmaker.
     Nevertheless, it was not like Woo entered the industry with immediate success. He had a steady work in the 1970s, directing standard kung fu flicks and comedies, but he felt increasingly displeased with these endeavours because of the lack of creative control. It was in the mid-1980s when a colleague and fellow collaborator, Tsui Hark provided Woo with a funding to realise his movie ideas.

     A Better Tomorrow is a film that turned Woo into a respected filmmaker and jettisoned its leading man, Chow Yun-fat, into stardom. This is the classic good guys vs. the bad guys story set within the context of Hong Kong triads. Nevertheless, if we look beyond gunfights, gangsters, and 80s aesthetics, we will see that A Better Tomorrow is about the restoration of the Confucian family structure.
     Sun Tse-Ho (Ti Lung) is a trusted triad member who deals with distributing counterfeit dollars. His loyal helper and best friend is Mark (Chow Yun-fat) who is a cool-hand shooter. On the other hand, there is Kit (Leslie Cheung), Ho’s younger brother who joined the police academy and intends to become an officer. Ho supports his brother’s career choice, but does not reveal to him his real line of business. Ho decides that he will make one more distributing deal in Taiwan and then leave the triad for good. He travels there with a new guy called Shing (Waise Lee); however, all hell breaks loose and Ho is betrayed. In order to allow Shing to escape he turns himself over to the Taiwanese police. Three years later, Ho gets out of prison and he is determined to start a new life. He comes back to Hong Kong only to find that Kit (now a police inspector) does not want to speak to him and that Mark is a crippled beggar. Shing became the new leader of the triad and he offers Ho reinstatement in the organisation. Ho refuses, yet he quickly realises that his brother is in danger.

     Essentially, Ho, the main protagonist of the story, restores his fraternal bond with Kit, who is at the opposite side of the law. Nevertheless, this process of restoration cannot be completed without a sacrifice. It is the character of Mark (a spiritual brother of Ho) who brings two estranged men together in the bombastic finale that takes away his life. Brothers united again take matters into their own hands and execute Shing, the ruthless villain. Still, Ho is aware that he has to pay the price for his actions, and thus allows himself to be arrested by Kit.
     John Woo manages to evoke the bromance relationship because he puts emphasis on honour and integrity of his male characters. Just as in Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Arthurian legends, men with a steadfast morality compass do whatever it takes to restore order. This is what matters the most, not even a love for a woman can overshadow this because the female figure always plays a secondary part in the storyline.

     We see the recurrence of this bromance pattern yet again in A Better Tomorrow II, but the configuration of characters is different this time. Sung Tse-Ho (Ti Lung) serves his time in prison after the events from the original film. The police offer him early parole in exchange for doing a spy job on Ho’s ex-mentor, Lung Sei (Dean Shek), who is suspected of counterfeiting. Ho agrees when his brother’s wife Jackie (Emily Chu) tells him that Kit (Leslie Cheung) is working on the case. Ho reunites with his brother and they decide to work together, but soon after, Lung is framed for murder and he flees to New York. Ho and Kit try to protect his daughter, but she is killed by the triads. Upon hearing devastating news, Lung loses his sanity. Meanwhile, it turns out that Mark had a twin brother called Ken... (Chow Yun-fat) who also happens to live in New York. After Ho’s phone call, Ken finds Lung and nurses him back to health while attempting to flee from assassins sent by the triads. Eventually, Ken, Lung, Ho and Kit reunite together in Hong Kong and they decide to take down the man who betrayed Lung and took over his organisation, Ko Ying-pui (Kwan Shan).
     Regardless of the sequel’s dubious quality (making things more explosive and coming with an outrageous excuse to bring back Chow Yun-fat), the story-arc of Ho is extremely tragic here. The man paid his dues from the first movie, and does not want to get involved in crime undertakings again, but he has to because his friend, Lung, was betrayed. On top of that, Kit, his dear brother, is brutally killed at the end of the second act. Kit’s wife serves no other purpose but to underline her husband’s chivalry in a scene where the two are talking over the phone.

     Kit’s death subsequently pushes Ho to go all out against the triads. In the film’s finale, we see the haunting image of Ho, Ken, and Lung alive but badly injured after storming the villain’s house and fighting masses of expandable baddies. The order has been restored but at what cost?
     After a disappointing reception of A Better Tomorrow II, Woo had a falling out with Hark who went to single-handedly make A Better Tomorrow III. Woo, on the other hand, went to shoot his dream project called The Killer, a tribute to the cinematic style of Jean-Pierre Melville and Martin Scorsese.

     Ah Jong (Chow Yun-fat) is an assassin for hire. His long-time friend, Fung (Chu Kong), frequently serves as the middleman when offers are being made. During one of the assignments, Jong accidentally damages the eyes of the singer, Jennie (Sally Yeh). Guilt-ridden Jong looks after Jennie and tries to gather money necessary for her surgery. After killing a high-profile mobster, Jong is betrayed by his employers who want him dead. To make matters worse, the police detective Li Ying (Danny Lee) is on his trail as well.
     In The Killer, Woo depicts three sets of male friendships: 1) between two killers (Jong and Fung); 2) between two cops (Li and Tsang) 3) between a killer and a cop (Jong and Li). Although the affair with Jenny is the plot device which drives the main protagonist in the story, the woman never takes a center stage. She represents a disruption of the order; therefore, Jong and Li unite in the film’s finale (almost like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) to restore the order. However, sacrifices have to be made.
     That is to say, for bromance to take place, the two characters have to lose their beloved friends. Sergeant Tsang dies in the line of duty while investigating Jong, while Fung gives up his life to get the money for Jong from the triads. The death of the latter character is especially emotional and it reminded me greatly about the relationship between knight Roland and his loyal paladin Olivier de Vienne as described in the 11th-century epic poem The Song of Roland. Evidently, Woo did not take inspiration from the poem, but he replicated the archetypes of chivalric heroes in action which are present in literary traditions of the Orient as well as the Occident.
     In the final confrontation, the bro power between Jong and Li is so much over 9000 that they manage to defeat a whole army of triad lowlifes on their own. Nevertheless, Jong loses his life in a stand-off against the villain. Similarly to Ho in A Better Tomorrow, Jong has to atone for his past sins, and he does so by saving Jennie in the church (Christian imagery is extremely prominent in The Killer). The last moment between Jong and Jennie, when the two can’t find each other because of their blindness, eerily references Greek tragedies like Oedipus Rex or Antigone. In the end, it is the cop who shoots the villain.
     In 1990, Woo turned his original idea for A Better Tomorrow III into a stand-alone feature called Bullet in the Head. The movie tells the story of three friends: Ben (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), Frank (Jacky Cheung), and Paul (Waise Lee), who regularly brawl with gang members in Hong Kong during the 1960s. Unfortunately, Frank accidentally kills one of the mobsters and the friends decide to flee Hong Kong. They go to Saigon, in order to work as smugglers in the ravaged by war Vietnam. However, things do not go as planned and the protagonists find themselves on the run, together with a hitman Luke (Simon Yam) and a nightclub singer Sally (Yolinda Yam), from the Vietcong soldiers. Eventually, Paul betrays his friends for a box of gold.
     Bullet in the Head stands out of John Woo’s rich repertoire as not being just a standard bullet-ballet flick. It is neither as fast paced as A Better Tomorrow nor as spectacular as Hard Boiled. Nevertheless, the film’s primary asset is a human drama set against the background of a harrowing military conflict. John Woo reinvents the “bromance formula” known from his other films by turning it into a war epic similar to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
     As in the previously discussed films, we have the theme of betrayal. Waise Lee again (as in A Better Tomorrow) plays a rotten individual who chooses wealth over his friends. What is more, he cripples Frank in a brutal manner, which pushes Ben to seek revenge. In addition, there is also a female character in-between the three men, but her subplot is more of a passing vignette rather than a proper story arc.
     That is not to say that the film is simply a melodrama. Bullet in the Head is filled with magnificent action set pieces (nightclub shootout) and wonderful David Lean-like sequences involving large crowds of people (riots scenes the evoking Tiananmen Square incident or Vietnam exodus scene). However, the real show stealer is the final battle sequence involving the characters played by Tony Leung and Waise Lee.
     Similarly to medieval knights battling on horses, we see the two characters ramming each other with cars. Ultimately, Paul transforms into a Shakespearean lunatic (like Macbeth or Hamlet) as he starts talking to Frank’s skull. It is at this moment when Ben is able to avenge his friend by putting a bullet in Paul’s head. The order has been restored once again, and Ben (in contrast to previous protagonists) did not have to atone for his sins. He already went to hell and back again. At the very end, we see him screaming in despair and throwing away his gun…
     The year 1991 saw the release of Once a Thief which appears to be a complete contradiction of John Woo’s already established template of storytelling. In this instance, we follow three orphaned siblings (Chow Yun-fat, Leslie Cheung, and Cherie Chung) performing heist jobs for their mentor figure (Kenneth Tsang). The movie feels like a side-project for Woo, something tonally lighter with an amazing ensemble cast. It does not function well as a bromance picture at all.
     However, there came Hard Boiled in 1992, the very last picture Woo made before his departure to Hollywood. Without a doubt, Hard Boiled is a classic picture and a landmark of action cinema, praised by the critics and film scholars, which still looks impressive today. Nevertheless, I disagree with the claims that this film is Woo’s finest directorial achievement. Naturally, it cemented his reputation as the master of action genre and it also allowed him to break away from the label of a guy who can only make gangster epics, as this film definitely glamorises the police. Still again, apart from mind-blowing stunts, great performances, and jazz music score, Hard Boiled suffers greatly in terms of a screenplay.
     Police officer “Tequila” Yuen (Chow Yun-fat) tries to eradicate the gun smuggling business which is being controlled by rival triad syndicates. However, this results in a brutal war between the police and the triads. In the meantime, Superintendent Pang (Philip Chan) has placed his own trusted man, Tony (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), as an undercover cop in one of the syndicates. Tequila is not aware of this and he quickly escalates the situation with one of the triad bosses, Wong (Anthony Wong Chau-sang), while relying on info from his own informant in the syndicate. Soon after, Tequila crosses paths with Tony and learns about his true identity. The two cops discover that Wong has a huge weapons warehouse beneath Maple Group Hospital. They step into action, but the psychotic gangster does not let himself get busted that easily as he takes all patients hostage at the hospital.
     Believe me, there are lots of plot holes and downright illogical behaviour of the characters in this movie, but the general bromance premise is still preserved. Tequila and Tony join forces in order to take down a (yet another) archetypal villain. The female figure played by Teresa Mo is unimportant in the face of spectacular shootouts performed by Tequila and Tony. These protagonists receive perhaps the best ending out of all the heroes of Woo’s movies: After defeating the villain, Tequila remains a police officer and Tony stops being a mole in the triads.
     Allegedly, John Woo and his team had many difficulties with developing the film (for example, the original plot about Tony Leung poisoning children was dropped). Then, the screenwriter Barry Wong passed away halfway through the rewrites and the teahouse raid was filmed without any script whatsoever.
     Consequently, I do not regard Hard Boiled as John Woo’s “all time best of the best”. This status rightfully belongs to Bullet in the Head. However, Hard Boiled is still a wonderful fun as well as a great lesson in filmmaking. In a way, this film is Woo’s love letter to chivalric/bromance cinema. In a commentary for The Killer, the director stated that the righteous characters played by Chow Yun-fat are an expression of his own personality. Whenever we see Chow on the screen, Woo is there too. In Hard Boiled, we get the culmination of this concept as Chow Yun-fat and John Woo share the screen together for the first and only time (Woo’s plays a cameo role of Tequila’s friend in a bar).
     All things considered, John Woo’s movies should not be categorised exclusively as loud and flashy flicks made only for people suffering from empathy deficiency. On the contrary, these are modern morality tales, tragic visual poems which reinvent and reiterate universal values about men of justice putting things right. This is a true bromance at its finest.
     This was my brief trip across John Woo’s movies. Do you have your own favourite bromance flick? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments and thank you for reading.
References: John Woo The Films (Second Edition) by Kenneth E. Hall * John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow by Karen Fang * John Woo’s Bullet in the Head by Tony Williams * John Woo’s The Killer by Kenneth E. Hall.
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The Killer (1989) [Film Review]

The Killer; or, Tomorrow Never Came
     In this world, not everybody is untrustworthy.
Just how awesome is John Woo? The director is obviously no stranger to this blog (see my other reviews here), but I can’ get over the fact that such a visionary gets a bad rap only because of his Hollywood follies. We have already discussed Woo’s magnum opus Bullet in the Head (1990), but this time allow me to take a look at the filmmaker’s another highly acclaimed picture, The Killer (1989).
Release Info
Directed by: John Woo Starring: Chow Yun-fat, Chu Kong, Danny Lee, Kenneth Tsang
Language: Cantonese Original Title: 喋血雙雄 Runtime: 110 min
Synopsis
Ah Jong (Chow Yun-fat) is an assassin for hire. His long-time friend, Fung (Chu Kong), frequently serves as the middleman when offers are being made. During one of the assignments, Jong accidentally damages the eyes of the singer, Jennie (Sally Yeh). Guilt-ridden Jong looks after Jennie and tries to gather money necessary for her surgery. After killing a high-profile mobster, Jong is betrayed by his employers who want him dead. To make matters worse, the police detective Li Ying (Danny Lee) is on his trail as well.
Battles Without Honour
The pre-production period of The Killer was quite an ordeal for John Woo. Allegedly, Tsui Hark was convinced that Woo ruined A Better Tomorrow II (1987) and tried to fire him from his production company, Film Workshop. Whenever Woo pitched a movie idea, it was immediately rejected.

It was not until Chow Yun-fat agreed to play the lead role that the project received financing and was given a green-light. Although Tsui Hark is listed as the producer of the film in the opening credits, his actual involvement remains unconfirmed (at that time, he was already gearing up to make A Better Tomorrow III with Chow).
To put it in layman’s terms, The Killer is the quintessential John Woo flick. Action, drama, and gun violence are cranked up to the max, but each cinematic aspect serves its purpose within the story (in contrast to films made by Woo’s copycats in America). The director stated that he was influenced by such movies as Narazumono (1964), Le Samourai (1967), Mean Streets (1973). His aim was to present an image of a romantic (anti-)hero who forges a friendship with an individual at the opposite side of the law, a police officer. 
Needless to say, The Killer functions perfectly as the ultimate bromance flick. Some critics claim that the story is borderline homoerotic, but I believe this claim is too much of an exaggeration. Woo masterfully pays homage to classic tales about chivalric men joining forces to vanquish evil and perform a good deed. All of his early “bullet ballet” movies are tragic visual poems, but The Killer is the most stylised one with its gripping cinematography, outstanding settings, and vibraphone-influenced music score.
With regard to performances, Chow Yun-fat, as always, knocks it out of the park as the charismatic protagonist. Danny Lee is just as awesome as the righteous detective who eventually helps Jong. Sally Yeh is great as the damsel in distress, but she does not have much screen time. In addition, the wonderful supporting roles of Chu Kong and Kenneth Tsang cannot be forgotten. Shing Fui-on provides a standard performance of a crazy triad boss.
Recommendations
If you want to check out John Woo at the peak of his auteur style, then I recommend The Killer. My all-time favourite Woo movie will always remain Bullet in the Head, but The Killer is close second. It’s a great, fast-paced tale with lots of tears and tons of explosions. It is a steadfast progenitor of such magnificent films as Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita (1990) and Leon: The Professional (1994). My old DVD disc from Criterion comes with a booklet essay, theatrical trailer, deleted scenes, and a commentary from John Woo and executive producer Terence Chang.
Overall score: 8/10
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Space Battleship Yamato (2010) [Film Review]

Space Battleship Yamato; or, The Stars My Destination
     Even a single gleam in the dark, even the slightest chance… let us use that as a basis for hope!
I have been meaning to watch Space Battleship Yamato for quite some time because I have heard a great deal of positive opinions about the anime from the 1970s which made an enormous impact on the science fiction genre and influenced such franchises as Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Macross. Well, an opportunity finally came and I sat down to watch the live-action adaptation from 2010 with none other than Takuya Kimura himself in the leading role.
Release Info
Directed by: Takashi Yamazaki Starring: Takuya Kimura, Meisa Kuroki, Tsutomu Yamazaki
Language: Japanese Original Title: 宇宙戦艦ヤマト Runtime: 138 min
Synopsis
It’s the year 2199. Mankind is at war with extraterrestrial beings known as the Gamilas for 5 years now. The aliens continuously bombard the planet with radioactive bombs which render it uninhabitable. Consequently, people have to hide underground. The Yamato, the last interstellar battleship of the Earth’s Defence Forces, sets out on a mission to a distant planet Iscandar in order to obtain a device that will eradicate radioactivity. The ship’s crew is humanity’s last hope against the invaders from outer space.
Trek Wars
At the beginning, allow me to address my initial worries with regard to the film. The movie trailer looked promising, but I was afraid that such kind of production would fall victim to sloppy CGI and unevenly done special effects (like Godzilla movies from the Millennium Series). Thankfully, this is not the case with Space Battleship Yamato. All the space/battle sequences look absolutely spectacular and really stand the test of time. I wish I could have had the ability to see the film in a theater, back in 2010. It is a great viewing experience from the visual standpoint. Allegedly, Takuya Kimura himself put pressure on the director to deliver on this front, and the actor even reduced his working fee just to accommodate the F/X budget. What a guy!
This being said, I can’t help but notice a correlation between Space Battleship Yamato and classic franchise from America, Star Trek. Evidently, the original anime took a lot of cues from the original show devised by Gene Roddenberry, but this movie seems to really evoke the vibes of J.J. Abrams’ reboot from 2009. That is to say, there is a lot of emphasis on bombastic action, character development, and pathos. Sususmu Kodai, the protagonist played by Kimura really resembles young James T. Kirk in terms of bravado and charisma.

With regard to the screenplay, unfortunately, the farther it goes, the worse it gets. While the first two acts heavily rely on Star Trek atmosphere, the third section of the film veers into the territory of Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (1997), only to end with a finale that could have easily been incorporated into Ronald Emmerich’s Independence Day (1996). In other words, there is a LOT going on in the storyline but the unfolding events are linked with little to no causality.
Speaking about performances, the cast of this film is something really special. Apart from Takyua Kimura, we get Tsutomu Yamazaki, Toshiyuki Nishida, Reiko Takashima, and Toshiro Yanagiba! All of them did really well with the material they had to work with.

Recommendations
If you would like to check out a sci-fi tale straight from Japan, then I recommend Space Battleship Yamato. It is a fun flick driven by visuals but do not expect it to be a comprehensive story. As an anime adaptation, it works really well.
Overall score: 7/10
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Ace Attorney (2012) [Film Review]

Ace Attorney; or, Justice for All
     Stop being so cocky. You've only been to court twice, and you're still a rookie. If I wanted an attorney, there are plenty out there that are much more competent than you.
If you need legal advice, then seek no father and call Ace Attorney! A 2012 movie directed by Takashi Miike is an adaptation of a famous adventure/legal drama video game series developed by Capcom. I’m sharing my thoughts on Phoenix Wright and his larger-than-life courtroom battles.
Release Info
Directed by: Takashi Miike Starring: Hiroki Narimiya, Takumi Saitoh, Rei Dan, Mirei Kiritani
Language: Japanese Original Title: 逆転裁判 Runtime: 133 min
Synopsis
In view of the increasing crime rate, the Japanese judiciary branch has adopted the so-called Bench Trial System. Attorneys and prosecutors directly face each other in an open court, and the court determines the defendant’s innocence within the timespan of 3 days. We follow a rookie attorney Phoenix Wright (Hiroki Narimiya) who is frequently aided by his mentor, Mia Fey (Rei Dan). After the mysterious murder of Mia, Phoenix manages to determine the innocence of her sister, Maya (Mirei Kiritani), who becomes his associate. However, this is not the end of their troubles. Phoenix and Maya will have to gear up for a difficult trial in which Phoenix’s childhood friend, Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth (Takumi Saitoh) is accused of murder. It turns out that the cases of Maya and Miles are linked to a tragic event which took place about 20 years earlier.
Objection!
As a person completely unfamiliar with the craze surrounding this video game franchise, I have to admit that I greatly enjoyed this adaptation. I went in completely cold, without knowing the characters and the main story arc, but Takashi Miike’s skilful storytelling kept me on the edge of my seat. The dystopian world of retro fashion, over-the-top hairstyles, and top-of-the-line technology in courts is extremely amazing. Indeed, Ace Attorney is not only a well made homage to Capcom’s popular series, but also a clever commentary on Japan’s judiciary system (which, let’s face it, is extremely effective in the world of today).
Without getting into any spoilers, the storyline is very engrossing. Apart from epic court battles, there are lots of plot twists, and dramatic reveals along the way. You would think that these are cliched tropes, but these plot points actually drive the whole picture. In consequence, the movie never feels boring. 133 minutes passed by in a blink of an eye!
Apart from Takashi Miike’s direction, I have to praise the flawless cinematography of Masakazu Oka and the editing by Kenji Yamashita. The world of Phoenix Wright looks so flashy yet cozy at the same time.
On the other hand, the music score composed by Koji Endo is not very present throughout the duration of the movie. However, I read that the composer did try to implement original themes from the games.
With regard to performances, I am surprised that so many great actors appear in Ace Attorney! Evidently, the bromance undertones between Hiroki Narimita and Takumi Saitoh are a joy to watch. I also loved Mirei Kiritani, Dan Rei, and Kimiko Yo as the Fey girls. Ryo Ishibashi provides a convincing portrayal of a despicable villain. In addition, the wonderful Fumiyo Kohinata appears as a key character! Kudos to Eisuke Sasai and Akira Emoto for playing supporting parts of a prosecutor and a judge, respectively.
Recommendations
Even though you know nothing about the games, do not feel discouraged. Ace Attorney is a fun, escapist tale for everybody. Grab some popcorn and check out the improbable, yet romantic take on a world where justice prevails. Allegedly, the sequel is in development but no new material has seen the light of day since 2012.
Overall score: 8/10
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The Family Game (1983) [Film Review]

The Family Game; or, Keeping Up with the Numatas
     Why do we have to sacrifice so much for the sake of our children?
Yoshimitsu Morita’s Kazuko Gemu movie from 1983 is widely hailed by Japanese critics as the truly postmodernist motion picture made in Japan. It is hard to disagree with this categorisation. The film presents a very quirky take on the family unit and its degradation within the “bubble era” reality of Japan of the 1980s.
Release Info
Directed by: Yoshimitsu Morita Starring: Yusaku Matsuda, Ichirota Miyakawa, Saori Yuki, Juzo Itami
Language: Japanese Original Title: 家族ゲーム Runtime: 106 min
Synopsis
Katsu Yoshimoto (Yusaku Matsuda) is hired as a private tutor to help Shigeyuki Numata (Ichirota Miyakawa) who has low grades at school. The two meet regularly at the Numata household and Yoshimoto quickly discovers that his student does not care about studying at all, in contrast to Shigeuki’s older brother, Shinichi (Junichi Tsujita). The mother, Chikako (Saori Yuki), is too subtle and soft when dealing with her children; whereas the father, Kosuke (Juzo Itami), is way too strict. Yoshimoto presses on and attempts to turn Shigeyuki into an exemplary student.
All in the Family
After looking at the filmography of Yoshimitsu Morita, it seems that the director was a specialist at slice-of-life dramas. The Family Game is no exception as it focuses on family members who are desperately focused on performing their social roles without really putting emotions into it. Everything that matters is to “keep up appearances” of being exemplary members of the society: a hardworking breadwinner, a devoted housewife, gifted children.
The theme of meaninglessness is introduced with the character of Shigeyuki who does not see any purpose in learning at all; however, he begins to improve at school not because of the guidance of his tutor, but because he treats it like a game that angers his bullies…
In addition, we can also observe some interesting sequences which would not be present in a regular school drama done in the style of GTO (1997) or A Class to Remember (1993): transitions between the rooms of Shigeyuki and Shinichi, Yoshimoto chasing Shigeyuki down the staircase, or having a dinner at super short table. Such moments add the factor of the unreal to the story which basically has no resolution.
I am not a huge fan of postmodernist tales, but I have to admit that The Family Game did manage to keep me interested from beginning to the end. I rooted for the mom and her difficult situation in the house, but I also wanted to see how Shigeyuki’s affairs at school will unfold. Yoshimitsu Morita skillfully dissects the emptiness of family relations, which is exposed in the final scene of the film.
With regard to performances, Yusaku Matsuda steals the movie with his performance as a tutor. It is mind-blowing to think that the last film he ever did before passing away was Ridley Scott’s Black Rain from 1989. Additionally, I loved the appearances of Saori Yuki and Juzo Itami (didn’t recognise him at first!) as the parents. Come to think of it, The Family Game is devoid of typical Itami humour, but it definitely has the satirical touch which is present in all of his movies.
Interestingly, the movie served as a source of inspiration for a 2013 drama of the same title. I have only seen the first episode of the show, and the overall tone of the story is radically different. The tutor character played by Sho Sakurai definitely seems to be the main protagonist.
Recommendations
If you want to experience early postmodernist vibes of Japanese culture, apart from Haruki Murakami novels, then I recommend The Family Game. It is quite an interesting film for what it is. Worth checking out just to see the 1980s aesthetics on the screen.
Overall score: 7/10
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