NYAFF ’17: Happiness

The human mind is an incredibly complex machine. It can protect us by burying painful memories or betray us through dementia. Kanzaki has developed a device that will help it make up for its mistakes.  A depressed provincial town gets its spirit back when he helps its citizens remember their happiest moments, but he has a secret agenda in Sabu’s Happiness (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 New York Asian Film Festival.

Kanzaki’s retro-futuristic helmet is the product of a marriage between science and traditional Chinese medicine. It stimulates the right lobes to trigger perfect recall of the wearer’s happiest moment ever. At least that is the feature Kanzaki shows off when he somberly blows into town. Soon, all the demoralized senior citizens and disillusioned bureaucrats feel like they have a new lease on life. However, to secure the town’s future, Kanzaki will have to reach the younger generation too. In fact, that was the whole point. It turns out reaching one twentynothing is his reason for being there.

Happiness, a truly ironic title, is the second film about mysterious strangers playing games with villagers’ memories, by means of wild-looking helmet, but it is far darker and more realistic than Chen Yu-hsun’s Village of No Return. It also inspires deep, viscerally-felt sympathy for the outsider in question, as it takes its more sinister turn.

Masatoshi Nagase is a king of understatement (for reference, watch him in Sweet Bean or Kano), but here he takes angst-filled brooding to new artistic heights. He hardly speaks a word, yet you can see the pain radiating out from him. We feel it with him, when Sabu reveals the shockingly brutal truth.

Happiness is likely to be divisive, but that’s nothing new for Sabu. However, it is also an acutely human, achingly moving film. It might just be the most memorable and distinctive pay-back movie since the original, largely misunderstood Death Wish. Yet, it is impossible to imagine it would have a fraction of its potency with a different actor playing Kanzaki. (We shudder at the thought of an English remake with the likes of Johnny “The Tourist” Depp).

Although Happiness has fantastical elements, there are no grand cosmic special effects. Instead, it is an unusually intimate tale, delicately calibrated by Sabu with exquisite care. It forces viewers to contemplate the worst of humanity, but it does not leave us bereft of hope. Very highly recommended, Happiness screens this Friday (7/14), at the SVA Theatre, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

Tribeca ’17: Mr. Long

Movie gangsters have been taking a shine to neighborhood kids since Angels with Dirty Faces, but few have been domesticated as quickly as this Taiwanese hitman. His latest assignment takes him to Tokyo, but it will not turn out well. While laying low, he falls in with the son of a heroin-addicted former prostitute. It is unclear how serious his intentions are, but it will hardly matter much if his enemies find him in Sabu’s Mr. Long, which screens during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.

Mr. Long only wields a short stiletto, but it is sufficiently lethal in his hands. We get a sample of his handiwork in the opening scene, but unfortunately, his yakuza prey gets the drop on him in a nightclub. Barely escaping with his life, Mr. Long crashes in a squat in the distressed outer boroughs, where he quickly befriends Jun, a young boy forced to care for his drug-addled mother Lily. As we learn in flashbacks, she was once relatively happy working as a high-class yakuza prostitute, but when she fell for her driver Kenji, Jun’s father, it launched them both on a steep downward spiral.

Bereft of passport and money, Mr. Long must while away a week or so before he can catch a mobbed-up freighter back to Kaohsiung. In that time, he will start assuming a surrogate father role with respects to Jun and help Lily quit cold turkey. With the encouragement of the nosy, but well-intentioned neighbors (they can be a bit too cute), he starts selling Taiwanese beef noodles from a street cart. Of course, it is inevitable the villains from his past or Lily’s will interrupt this peaceful interlude.

Viewers should be warned, they could very well feel like they were stabbed in the heart with a stiletto after watching Mr. Long. Much like Sabu’s shockingly moving Miss Zombie, Mr. Long takes familiar genre elements and recombines them into an emotionally devastating tragedy. As a case in point, viewers will hope a key figure will appear at an opportune time to save the day, but Sabu is too honest for that.

As Mr. Long, quietly brooding Chang Chen burns up the screen. It is one of his darkest, most powerful turns since his teen debut in Edward Yang’s classic A Brighter Summer Day. However, Yao Yiti is arguably an even great revelation as the heartbreaking Lily. She just rips the audience’s guts out and stomps on them. Likewise, Bai Runyin’s performance as Jun is mature beyond his years.

To maximize their impact, Sabu is stingy with the action scenes, but when he uncorks one, the fight choreography is spectacularly down-and-dirty. In fact, the long period of household tranquility makes the third act showdown exponentially more powerful. Mr. Long will knock the wind out of you and stay with you. Very highly recommended for fans of yakuza movies and Sabu’s work, Mr. Long screens again tonight (4/25), tomorrow (4/26), and Saturday (4/29), as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

SFIFF ’14: Miss Zombie

Could you ever fall in love with a zombie? Don’t answer too quickly. The point at which humanity ends is open to debate in Sabu’s intimately stripped down Miss Zombie (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival.

In the very near future, zombies are a fact of life, but Dr. Teramoto is still rather surprised when an old colleague ships him one for safe-keeping. As long as they do not feed Shara meat, she should remain docile, but her instructions come with a handy pistol, just in case (hello Chekhov). In spite of the neighbors’ protests, Shara soon settles into a Sisyphean existence scrubbing the Teramotos’ flagstone veranda.

However, Shara seems to inspire very human-like responses from those around her. Teramoto’s wife Shizuko feels pity for her, while their son Kenichi is fascinated by her mysterious presence. Unfortunately, the doctor’s lecherous groundskeepers act on their vilest impulses towards her, with his silent acquiescence. When tragedy unexpectedly strikes, Shara’s relationship with the family will become far more complex.

Miss Zombie has the general sensibilities of the zombie film Joseph Losey never made. To a large extent, the human exploitation of zombies represents more conventional class and gender conflicts (which are present too, barely contained beneath the film’s surface). It also directly explores notions of human sentiency, hinting at lingering sense memories from Shara’s previous life.

Without question, Ayaka Komatsu gives the finest zombie performance probably ever. She is the film’s lynchpin, anchor, and all-around MVP. Watching her so subtly yet so vividly project her stirrings of memory and consciousness is absolutely heartbreaking. Bub from Day of the Dead simply cannot hold a candle to her. She also gets some key support from Makoto Togashi and young Riku Onishi, as Shizuko and Kenichi Teramoto, who figure prominently in the emotionally heavy third act.

Fortunately, Sabu’s relatively simple but deep-as-the-ocean story is worthy of her efforts. For a genre film, Miss Zombie packs a shocking wallop of a punch. Daisuke Sôma’s mostly black-and-white cinematography is also unusually stylish, conveying a vibe that is part old school Romero and part Cassavetes.

With Miss Zombie, Sabu really raises the stakes for zombie films. The same old shuffling hordes simply will not cut it anymore. It ranks alongside the original Night of the Living Dead, but takes viewers to a very different place. Highly recommended for genre fans and those who appreciate social allegories of any stripe, Miss Zombie screens Friday (5/16), Saturday (5/24) and Sunday (5/25) during this year’s Seattle International Film Festival.