The Beef @ Fantastic Fest: SOUTH OF HEAVEN, CHOCOLATE, TOKYO GORE POLICE, And THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE WEIRD!!

Merrick here...
Here's The Beef with more thoughts from this year's Fantastic Fest. HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

SOUTH OF HEAVEN Every year that I've attended Fantastic Fest I've seen one film that's been somewhat of a surprise. A surprise in that it's a tiny film, in terms of budget, but works solidly despite its financial shortcomings. In year 2, my first FF, it was a micro-budget sci-fi mystery called FIREFLY which will probably never see the light of day, unfortunately. Last year it was a subterranian, end of the world, religious fanatic horror film called END OF THE LINE which also may never see any kind of release. Come next week I believe I will look back on this year's lineup and deem SOUTH OF HEAVEN as my surprise of the festival. The plot involves an intricate storyline that centers around the Coop brothers. One brother is an aspiring writer that moves in with his brother in the big city to try and sell the novel he's been writing. The other brother is missing on arrival, but is apparently involved in the kidnapping of the daughter of a well known criminal and is holding her for ransom. The big bossman sends two of his goons to the apartment of Coop and mistake his brother as the mastermind. Meanwhile, we are introduced to the other Coop brother as he is traveling through the Southern U.S. with a crazy murderer called Mad Dog, seemingly against his will. As the story progresses things get worse for both brothers as each try and find a way out of their current predicaments. The story plays out, to me, like a classic 40s film noir with a decent dose of black humor. It utilizes such plot devices as mistaken identity, kidnapping, femme fatales, some detective work, and snappy dialogue. The sets also add a degree of nostalgia to the 30s and 40s style utilizing painted backgrounds, and having scenes usually take place in one single room with a lot of conversation. A lot like a stageplay actually. In fact, a few of the scenes involving Mad Dog and the alleged kidnapper Coop brother reminded me of THE PETRIFIED FOREST. Not in terms of story, but the scenery mixed with the dialogue somehow made me think of Bogie. SOUTH OF HEAVEN is the kind of film that may split audiences right down the middle, because the story is rather clever as well as the dialogue, but it's the kind that you either tap into the style or you don't, and if you do the rewards heavily outweigh the shortcomings. THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE WEIRD THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY as told by Koreans influenced heavily by the great popcorn action adventures of Steven Spielberg and the like. The story is loosely related to Leone's classic western. There are three characters - one good, one bad, one weird / ugly - and there is a treasure that each are trying to get to for different reasons. That's about where the similarities end. For one, the majority of this film is spent on the thief character ("Ugly" in Leone's film), and he is the heart of the film as he is the only one of the three that isn't really just playing the archetype. The character is more like the modern day goofy sidekick as opposed to the invincible hero, and stonecold killer. He's played by SONG KANG HO, and he acts the part similarly to what he did in THE HOST, gaining the audience's sympathy with his mix of idiocy and a little bit of arrogance. The other outstanding aspect of this film are the action sequences. There are three really big, and really long gunfights in the movie that take place roughly at the beginning, middle, and end of the picture and each fight is increasingly more impressive than the one before it. Some of the stunts that were pulled off, and the amount of playfullness that occurs alongside all of the destruction reminded me strongly of INDIANA JONES, which makes me feel a little better that someone made a really good INDIANA JONES film this year. THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE WEIRD is the kind of film that you can show to anyone that's willing to read and can be pretty sure that they will enjoy it, because it's hard not to. It's popcorn fare at its very best combining some excellent comedy with elaborate and impressive gun battles. Highly recommended. TOKYO GORE POLICE This film is exactly what you'd think it would be from reading the title. It takes place in Tokyo. The main character is a police woman. And there is enough blood and gore in this film to feed a village of vampires and werewolves for decades. So much so that the appeal of its excesses kind of wears off as the film goes on, but it definitely makes a strong effort to show you something better death-wise than the scene that preceded it. All anyone really needs to know about this film is that it has more blood than most rivers have water, it's very tongue-in-cheek, and has zero reservations about not excluding a single body part from injury. A story does exist in it, but I really think that the script was written after the filmmaker decided to get a bunch of actors together and start cutting off limbs, and shoot out blood geysers from dismembered body parts. If you're looking for a good date film you can't make a poorer decision than TOKYO GORE POLICE. However, if you want to give cannibals something to salivate over you you'd be hardpressed to find something better. CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE is about an autistic teenage girl who is being raised by her mother, herself escaping a life of crime for the safety of her daughter. The little girl is mentally deficient, but she is not unable to learn, and learn quickly. All day long she enjoys sitting in front of the television and learning martial arts through watching Tony Jaa and Bruce Lee flicks. Initially, they use her learned skills to raise money, which they plan to use to help pay for her mother's medical bills, as a street act by having pedestrians throw hand balls at her, and they watch her catch everything. Later on, the little girl and her friend uncover an old book that lists a bunch of people that owe her Mother money, a bunch of crooks. So, with medical bills to pay and criminals needing to help pay it, it's time to collect. This was my second film involving muy thai fighting at this year's festival, and is infinitely more entertaining than MUY THAI CHAIYA (which I enjoyed). First, something this film has that the other did not, as well as the two Tony Jaa flicks I've seen, is a sympathetic lead character. I mean Jesus, how the hell can you not root for a young autistic girl beating the hell out of an army of crooks so that she can get the money to save her Mother's life? How? Second, while the story is fairly simple compared to CHAIYA it's definitely more engaging. It gets from point A to point B without taking any side paths, and that's typically how I prefer to see a martial arts film. Now, where I can see a lot of people feeling unsatisfied with CHOCOLATE is in the fight sequences, because they are less than stellar when you've seen a Tony Jaa film. This girl is not Tony Jaa in regards to physical gifts, but I personally bought more in to the story aspect of watching a young autistic girl doing martial arts and so I overlooked the fact that I had seen better fight scenes. That isn't to say there is no value in the fight scenes, because they are much better than most and a little comical, they just aren't on the level of some of the best of the Tony Jaa's and Donnie Yen's. However, the final sequence on the outside of a three story apartment building is a damn fine piece of choreography and stunt work. It was like watching a human game of Donkey Kong played with human barrels with Mario attacking the barrels instead of dodging them. It was a great way to cap off one of the best crowd pleasers of the festival. Thanks, The Beef