Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the U.S., specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and just plain fantastic movies from all around the world, starts here in Austin in just one week.
Over the next seven days, I’m previewing the movies I’m planning on seeing and blogging about over the course of the week long festival.
Thursday, September 22nd
LET THE BULLETS FLY
Wen Jang 2010 | Action, Comedy, Feature | 132 min.
Notorious bandit Pocky Zhang is the Robin Hood of 1920s China. He and his gang steal from the wealthy and have genuine concern for the poor. When they try to rob a train, they discover that the Governor traveling inside is a fraud. He conned his way into his position and is now preying on small villages and collecting illegal taxes from those who have never seen the real official. Zhang decides to team up with this conman and try the clever scam in a the next town down the line. Once they arrive, however, they must battle the equally Machiavellian Master Huang, the local godfather who has beaten them to the punch and already holds the town in his tyrannical grip.
The powerhouse acting trio of Chow Yun Fat (The Killer, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and about a 1000 other films) is joined by director/actor Jiang Wen (Red Sorghum, The Lost Bladesman) and arthouse mainstay Ge You (Farewell My Concubine, To Live) to deliver a crackling dense script full of twists, turns and genuine belly laughs. By their actions, the trio of characters are all fairly loathsome, morally bankrupt individuals, but they follow their broken moral compass with such genuine charisma, you can’t help but fall under their spell.
From the meticulous décor to the non stop barrage of guns blazing action (the title is most definitely not a red herring), LET THE BULLETS FLY is a classic martial arts comedy romp that gleefully harkens back to both the Leone Spaghetti Westerns but also the golden age of Hong Kong action, where a movie ticket was almost always a gateway to perfect, gleeful escapism.(Luke Mullen)
KILL ME PLEASE
Olias Barco 2010 | Black Comedy, Feature, Guest in attendance | 96 min.
Director Olias Barco live in person!
KILL ME PLEASE is the heart-warming story of one of the world’s foremost euthanasia clinics. Dr. Krueger and his well-trained staff have created the optimal environment for the terminally ill, the hopelessly depressed, and those with a generally abysmal quality of life to quietly and peacefully drift off the mortal coil. As one would predict given the controversial nature of his work, not everyone is a fan of Dr. Krueger and his clinic. As the ire of the local villagers rises to the boiling point, Dr. Krueger must contend with forces both within and outside his own facility that seek to bring ruin to his reputation…as well as to his clientele.
If there is anything funnier than euthanasia, I haven’t seen it. Kill Me Please does require some patience; not because it is poorly paced, but because it plays its motives close to the vest for the first half hour. Its true colors are playfully obscured in black-and-white and it’s flush with the trappings of French new wave. It flirts with melodrama as well as early ‘90s indie films and generally feels at odds with traditional Fantastic Fest fare. But stick with it, because as it gets rolling, its qualifications for this festival become remarkably clear.
It slowly transforms from contrived drama to something in the neighborhood of violent thriller and finally bursts out as an absurd black comedy. The overall experience of KILL ME PLEASE is spectacularly unique and provides an interesting balance of deeply introspective character moments and farcical humor. By the time the fat lady sings, you may not know exactly what to make of KILL ME PLEASE, but you will be grateful for the ride on which it has taken you. (Brian Salisbury)
POLVORA NEGRA
Kapel Furman 2011 | Action, Feature, Guest in attendance, Thriller | 89 min.
When Carlos hunts down his mistress who has run away, he brutally murders her and shoots her brother in the head leaving him for dead. Years later, the brother returns, minus an eye, but somehow miraculously alive.
He now goes by the name Castilho and has been hired as a hitman to help deal with an inheritance squabble caused by the death of Carlos. Carlos was a bit of a crime kingpin in the small Brazilian town of Piedade. Now his son Merino runs things, but a new judge will soon give a ruling on the estate Carlos left behind and the illegitimate daughter he had with his former mistress may cause problems. Everyone in the town seems to bear a subtly different grudge against someone else, all connected by blood or money. In the end, however, there is far more blood than money on the streets of Piedade.
Although shot on a budget in rural Brazil, first-time director Kapel Furman creates a rich landscape of gritty bars, sweaty cafes and dusty plazas. The scenery matches well to the screenplay, inspired no doubt by the criss-cross revenge plots of classic Spaghetti Westerns. Also akin to the Spaghettis, the world of POLVORA NEGRA is peppered with eccentric supporting characters who lend both depth as well as a welcome dash of comic relief. Beef punching cooks, obsessive-compulsive restaurant owners, and fruit-fancying mercenaries all circle the main action in the periphery, adding small doses of humor in between the mayhem.
Furman’s leg up on this indie production is his long history in stunts and special effects. The production team from Polvora Negra seemingly smash up every cart, van, window and stick of furniture in the town and load up enough squibs to make Sam Peckinpah proud. (Luke Mullen)