Killed My Wife

As titles go, this one sounds like a pretty damning confession. For Chae Jung-ho, it is more of a question than a declarative statement. In matters of uxoricide, if you have to ask, you are in a world of trouble. Waking up from a post-blackout stupor, Chae’s discovers his estranged wife has been murdered and he is covered in blood. Naturally, like all protagonists of Wrong Man-style thrillers, he will evade the police to prove his innocence, if his is indeed innocent in Kim Ha-ra’s Killed My Wife, which releases on VOD this Friday.

Chae is a mess. He is an angry drunk, who is prone to blackouts. It is easy to understand why his wife, Jung Mi-young kicked him out, especially after his gambling debts forced him into the arms of an especially predatory loan shark. However, Chae is rather surprised to find his wallet stuffed with cash, but it seems to match the blood on his shirt and the stiletto in his pocket. Bits and pieces of the previous night start coming back to him, as he retraces his steps.

The dogged police detective Choi Dae-yeon is right on his heels and he has a strong motivation to hang the fugitive out to dry. That would be the frying pan Chae took to his head. Choi has plenty of his own issues, but when he follows Chae into the underworld, he turns up plenty of lowlifes he would also like to take down.

Thematically, Killed My Wife shares the economic determinism and dour world view of Kim Ki-duk’s Pieta, but it actually might be grimmer, if that’s even remotely possible. Fortunately, it also has the benefit of grizzled Det. Choi. He’s no Sam Gerard from The Fugitive. Frankly, the slightly corrupt Korean copper is much more interesting. He will look out for himself during the course of the film, but he still has a sense of justice. Ahn Nae-sang is terrific expressing all Choi’s moral nuance and middle-aged frustration. In fact, his portrayal of the character is worthy of a sequel.

Immortal: Tales Where They Don’t Die at the End

For Larry Talbott (a.k.a. The Wolfman), immortality was a source of unending horror rather than a gift. Some of these characters might very well agree. It turns out there are people out there who just will not die. In most cases, they have the Wolverinish healing powers to go with an unending life-span. They also tend to learn of their rare status at the darnedest times in the shared world/concept anthology Immortal, written by Jon Dabach, which releases today on VOD.

People are hunting people yet again—the cinematic epidemic continues (following The Hunt, Bacurau, The Prey, etc., etc.)—in the first storyline, “Chelsea,” directed by Rob Margolies. However, the stakes are higher this time around, because the prey is a high school track star and the hunter is consciously immortal. In truth, it is rather clever, but viewers would probably appreciate it more if it came at the end of the film rather than the start.

“Garry & Vanessa” directed by Danny Isaacs also builds towards a “hey there, immortality” twist ending, but this time we’re already expecting it from the start. The titular Garry plans to do something extreme to provide for his pregnant titular wife. Presumably, it will not work out exactly as planned. As a modest bonus, we get to see an incredibly tired looking Mario Van Peebles playing a cable guy.

Things unexpectedly get a little preachy in “Ted & Mary,” directed by Tom Colley, wherein our focal couple give a final interview before he administers her assisted suicide. The good part is Tony Todd pays Ted (quite poignantly). The bad part is the third revelation of immortality is extraordinarily depressing.

Harbor from the Holocaust, on PBS

Criticizing the CCP’s handling (cover-up) of the Covid virus or its appalling genocidal policies in East Turkestan and Tibet does not make someone anti-Chinese. In fact, the same concern for human rights that is alarmed by the current wave of arrests in Hong Kong leads us to celebrate the citizens of Shanghai for accepting and befriending Jewish refugees during WWII. 18,000-20,000 German-speaking Jews (primarily from Berlin and Vienna) found hardship, but also relative safety in the cosmopolitan Chinese port city. The “Shanghailanders” tell their stories in Violet Du Feng’s Harbor from the Holocaust, which airs tomorrow on PBS.

It wasn’t exactly an orchestrated national policy. Instead, the sanctuary for Jewish refugees came about through a strange set of circumstances, capitalized on by Ho Feng-shan, the Chinese consul in Vienna. The diplomat recognized his Jewish friends and neighbors were in dire jeopardy, so he issued visas to all comers, knowing there were no functioning authorities in Shanghai to check them. Although the city was under effective Japanese control, they allowed the ports to operate unregulated, so they would not antagonize the foreign concessions.

Of course, that also meant nobody was prepared to welcome the refugees and help them integrate into Shanghai society. However, the prosperous indigenous Jewish community (largely of Iraqi heritage) eventually stepped up, providing basic assistance, housing, and even founding a Jewish school. Unfortunately, the refugees’ living conditions and freedom of movement further plummeted after Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese imposed systematic restrictions on Westerners. Yet, they still refused Germany’s request to apply their “Final Solution” in Shanghai.

In just an hour’s time, Feng (who co-produced Maineland and Our Time Machine) and her interview subjects fully convey the complexity of the Shanghailanders’ situation. It was always difficult and often quite perilous, but they were still better off than they would have been in Europe. Yet, they also found friendship and comradery with average Shanghai residents, who were also suffering under an occupation.

Back to School: The Silent Revolution

Kids are not any safer living under oppressive regimes and ideologies than their parents are. That is a lesson all students should learn sooner rather than later, for all our sakes. In 1956 East Germany, the Stalinstadt senior class always basically knew the Communist government was vicious and unjust, but dramatic events will prove it beyond all doubt in Lars Kraume’s historically-based The Silent Revolution, which is a perfect supplement for your schooling-at-home lesson plans.

It all started when two high school seniors wanted to see German bombshell Marion Michael in the risqué (for the time) Liane, Jungle Goddess, naturally only screening in the morally decadent West (this is pre-Wall, when travel between East and West was not strictly forbidden). However, before the feature, Theo Lemke and Kurt Wachter are amazed by a newsreel accurately reporting the Soviet crackdown on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Lemke is the class clown and Wachter is the son of a local Party official. Neither fits the revolutionary profile (or rather “counter-revolutionary,” according to Party propagandists), but they are both electrified. On returning, they listen to West German radio with their classmates to confirm their reports.

At school, they decide to observe two minutes of silence to honor the fallen Hungarian freedom fighters. Essentially, it was Wachter’s idea, but a majority agreed to it. The only vehement no vote comes from Erik Babinsky, who believes he is the son of a martyred Communist partisan. However, the entire class is in huge trouble when the ministry gets wind of their silent protest. Following Franklin’s advice, the two “ringleaders” try to keep the class hanging together, so they do not hang separately, but the Communists will ruthlessly exploit any and all of the young students’ weaknesses.

Silent Revolution is an absolutely terrific film everyone ought to see, just because its great cinema. It is especially recommended for students, who can surely identify with the teen characters. It can help explain the nature of Communism, particularly with respects to the Hungarian Revolution and the divided Germany. The tragically ill-fated 1953 Uprising also casts a shadow over the events it dramatizes. Yet, Kraume’s adaptation of Dietrich Garstka’s book also addresses worthy themes like personal loyalty, family love and sacrifice, the demands of integrity, and the corrosive impact of lies and propaganda on society.

Back to School: America’s Musical Journey

Hey parents, it’s September. Have you finished your Fall lesson plans? After years of sneering at home-schooling, the media now thinks you ought to be doing it. Even with Board-of-Ed materials, you’re going to need supplements to keep your kids focused and learning, so we’ll offer a few video suggestions, from time to time. For a very general lesson in American music history, you can safely turn to MacGillivray Freeman, a leading producer of IMAX films for museum patrons. Currently available on Prime, Greg MacGillivray’s America’s Musical Journey ought to keep kids busy for 39-minutes while you take a meeting.

Your host will be Aloe Blacc, but our narrator is the ultimate voice of authority, Morgan Freeman. Blacc is in fact a good choice to be the film’s tour guide, because even though he is a hip hop-R&B-club-crossover, he is deeply steeped in jazz and Latin styles. He says all the right things about Louis Armstrong, who is clearly the central musical figure in Journey. However, it is a bit annoying he keeps choosing to perform “What a Wonderful World,” which was a posthumous hit for Armstrong, instead of a song that would have had more personal significance for the jazz icon, like “Black and Blue.”

It is fun to see Blacc get a walking tour of New Orleans courtesy of Jonathan Batiste, but it would have been nice to hear more from the pianist (who some viewers might recognize from appearances in Treme, Red Hook Summer, and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus). Dr. John gets even less screen-time, but at least we hear one of his licensed tracks.

Blacc follows the jazz story up to Chicago, meeting up with Ramsey Lewis, but seriously, how could MacGillivray cut away from his performance of “The In-Crowd,” which is still one of the coolest jazz tunes ever? In Chicago, Blacc also checks out a flash-mob dance set to his hit song “Wake Me Up,” one of several IMAX-friendly performance numbers. Later, there will be dancers rappelling across a skyscraper and sky-diving Elvis impersonators to keep kids interested.

Boycott Disney’s Mulan, Watch the Shaw Brothers’ Lady General Hua Mulan Instead

Please do not spend money to watch Disney’s Mulan. It is not me whose asking. It is the brave young Hong Kong democracy activists, whose very lives are now threatened by Beijing’s draconian “National Security” Law. First star Crystal Liu publicly sided with the abusive HK police and against the activists defending the principles of “One Country Two Systems.” Then co-star Donnie Yen celebrated the imposition of the harsh law now being widely used to crack-down on Hong Kongers who advocate the ideals of a liberal civil society. That is unacceptable and so is Disney’s deafening silence regarding their comments, so their Mulan is unacceptable. However, if you want to revisit the story of Mulan in a film you (most likely) haven’t seen, try Yueh Feng’s Shaw Brothers-produced Lady General Hua Mulan (which like many Shaw Bros. films is easily findable online, if you look).

The Shaw Brothers’ Mulan is not just another retelling of Mulan’s story. It combines the folktale with traditional Mandarin-language Huangmei opera, which was growing in HK popularity at the time, due to a mid-1960s surge of immigration from the Mainland region. It is all singing, all the time, because when the principles and secondary leads are not communicating through song, the unseen chorus handles exposition and chronicles the march of time.

Hua Mulan is indeed Hua Mulan, so she takes her ailing, aged father’s place when her family receives their draft notice. In fact, she is keen to serve, because she has trained for years with the spear. Her skills are so sharp, she wins the new recruits’ tournament, bringing her to the attention of General Li. They will serve together for years, fighting to beat back the Mongol invasion, but only her cousin Hua Ming knows her true gender and helps cover for her. Apparently, the pre-Tang Imperial Army admirably respected the personal space of enlisted grunts and junior officers. Of course, Hua could fight, so presumably allowances could be made.

Hua Mulan is a perfect subject for the Shaw Bros. studio, because her heroic story was compatible for the audiences of both their budding operatic films and their established martial arts historicals. Wisely, they cast Huangmei star Ivy Ling Po, who dubbed her own arias. She has the pipes and the action chops. Yet, she also manages to be both boyish and weirdly saucy and coquettish at times. As a result, we can suspend disbelief, even though she never remotely looks like a man, while buying into her chemistry with Chin Han’s handsome Gen. Li.

Surprisingly, the action sequences are less consistent. The tournament sparring and Hua’s proving-herself bout with her father are nicely choreographed, but the grand battle scene is a bit muddled. Nevertheless, the long marching armies and colorful, fur-trimmed costumes give the film a suitably epic vibe.

Right now, Hong Kongers are afraid to exercise the rights of free speech, free press, and free assembly that we take for granted. Beijing’s puppet government has rounded up known critics, forcing young leaders like Nathan Law to seek sanctuary abroad. After her arrest, his colleague Agnes Chow has been hailed as “Hong Kong’s real Mulan.” Even identifying with Hong Kong’s local culture (demonized “localism”) is dangerous under the current repressive climate.

Fantasia ’20: The Paper Tigers

It is the one rock-solid law of kung fu movies: no matter where you are in life, you must avenge your sifu. The trio of boyhood friends who became Master Cheung’s three true disciples really ought to know that, but they have been estranged from each other and kung fu for a number of years. Nevertheless, they will come together and do what honor requires in director-screenwriter Bao Tran’s The Paper Tigers, which premiered at the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.

In the gloriously analog 1980’s prologue, Danny (a.k.a. “Eight Hands”) was the toughest teen martial artist on the scene. His sworn brothers Hing and Jim were not too far behind him. Unfortunately, these days, they are slightly less youthful than they once were. For various reasons, each drifted away from Master Cheung and kung fu. Only Jim remained somewhat involved in the martial arts world, becoming a Brazilian jiu-jitsu-MMA trainer. Hing has certainly lost a step due to a workman’s comp accident, but Danny has probably slipped the most mentally. He was once a master at psyching out his opponents, but the divorced, workaholic father no longer has confidence in his kung fu.

Granted, that is a pretty familiar set-up, but some smart buddy chemistry and co-star Ken Quitugua’s action-direction makes it feel fresh. As the three disciples, Alain Uy, Ron Yuan, and Mykel Shannon Jenkins bicker, banter, and bust chops like old friends with long memories. There is definitely humor throughout Paper Tigers, but the action is played scrupulously straight and it compares favorably with any of its mirthless martial arts movie cousins.

Yet, what really makes the film special is Danny’s relationship with his son Ed (nicely developed by Uy and young Joziah Lagonoy). You can tell Tran seriously studied martial arts at one time, from the way he has the father character discussing with his son how and when to fight and when to walk away. After all, those with real training always try their best to avoid fighting in real life, even though they strive to be ready for it at all times.

The Owners, Starring Sylvester McCoy

Kids need to learn to better respect property rights. The actions depicted in this film probably aren’t the best way to go about it. Still, if teen viewers take an object lesson from the woes inflicted on four ill-informed home invaders than maybe some good will come of it. Regardless, it is safe to say crime does not pay, at least not the larcenous kind, in Julius Berg’s The Owners (Anglicized and adapted from Hermann “Jericho” Huppen’s graphic novel, Une Nuit de Pleine Lune), which opens tomorrow on demand and at select theaters.

Mary’s boyfriend Nathan was always a big-talking loser, but he has become progressively worse since falling under the sway of Gaz, a predatory drifter. When Nathan’s childhood pal Terry off-handedly mentions the cash kindly Dr. Huggins supposedly has stashed in a safe at his country home, Gaz hatches a half-baked plan to break-in and grab it. Mary is appalled when she catches them in the act, but Nathan manipulates her into going along. Unfortunately, there are two problems with Terry’s assumptions. There probably isn’t cash in that safe, but rather something a bit more sinister, and Huggins and his wife (and longtime nurse) Ellen are not so kindly (that really shouldn’t be giving away much, since the film is titled The Owners, rather than The Intruders).

Buckle up, this will get brutal, but don’t worry, you won’t worry about any of these awful people. Okay, maybe we feel a small degree of sympathy for Mary, because she usually tries to do the right thing, but she still has massively bad judgment. Regardless, you would think a man of advanced years like Dr. Huggins would be somewhat more challenged by four able-bodied twenty-nothings, even though he has all the brains on his side.

What generation you identify with will determine who you think is the proper star of this film. Maisie Williams (from Game of Thrones) plays Mary. While she handles the frightened prey business well enough, The Owners is not a great showcase or star vehicle for her. Sylvester McCoy (the seventh Doctor Who) really is terrific as the cunning psychopath masquerading in country doctor-sheep’s clothing. Then there is Rita Tushingham portraying his wife Ellen. Seriously, everyone who remembers her when she was a sensation in British New Wave films like A Taste of Honey and The Trap was really thinking: someday she will reach her full potential playing a half-senile psychopathic killer.

Fantasia ’20: Undergods

Apparently, it is fun to obsess over post-apocalyptic dystopias, but you wouldn’t want to visit one. Yet, that just might happen to the unfortunates who somehow blunder through a random portal, or maybe not. Maybe, it is all part of the tales of a better past that two wasteland scavengers tell each other to pass the time in Chino Moya’s Undergods, which screens during the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.

L and K sound very Kafkaesque, don’t they? Indeed, they are a bit like Vladimir and Estragon, but more predatory. When they come across a body (living or dead), they either sell it as slave labor or meat to be butchered. Essentially, they tell three stories that sort of but don’t quite tie into each other. The first is the least, involving an interloper who worms his way into a not so happy marriage.

The second part is by far the best, by every standard. Presumably, it is being told twice, by either L or K and an incidental bystander to the first tale. There is a darkly baroque quality to this yarn that is not unlike vintage Gilliam. We meet Hans Hals, in this case a former tycoon rather than the Dutch master. This Hals has come down significantly in the world, but when a mysterious “Foreigner” comes to him with the invention of lifetime, the would-be investor decides to steal it for himself. However, like most mad geniuses, the Foreigner is not to be trifled with. He also leads Hals towards a shocking conclusion to his storyline and the film’s only brilliant transition.

The third arc chronicles the drama that results from the sudden return of a husband and father who disappeared without a trace fifteen years ago. Yet, it is really very much like the first full storyline, suggesting how easily people who have lived together for years can abruptly turn against each other. Frankly, much of Undergods plays like the bitter old bachelor trying to justify his misanthropic lifestyle.

Fantasia ’20: The Grave of St. Oran (short)

St. Columba is considered one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland, who was indeed canonized by the Church. Yet, even though Colmcille, a Celtic form of his name is found all over Ireland, Scotland, and Canada (especially Quebec, where many Scots settled), Neil Gaiman isn’t afraid to talk smack about him. The cult favorite fantasist narrates his poem “In Relig Odhrain” throughout Jim Batt’s animated short film adaptation, The Grave of St. Oran, which screened at the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.

According to legend, St. Columba and St. Oran were attempting to build a chapel on wind-swept Iona Island, but the walls kept collapsing. The future saints had a vision telling St. Oran to sacrifice himself under the foundation, to keep the walls straight and strong, at no cost to his immortal soul. In Gaiman’s telling, Columba also gives him a little extra encouragement.

The practice of foundation sacrifice was actually Celtic Pagan, rather than Christian, so the St. Oran myth is one of the few instances of the early Church coopting it, at least through stories passed down through the oral tradition. It is already pretty macabre, so it seems like overkill to tweak it, making St. Columba look creepier. Perhaps Gaiman would like to try “punching-up” the teachings of another great Abrahamic religion next—or maybe not.

Fantasia ’20: The Block Island Sound

Block Island is part of the state of Rhode Island, so you know it is probably economically depressed, but the recent waves mass fish deaths will make things even worse. That is the only reason Harry Lynch’s sister Audry, a state environmental field investigator has returned home, but when she does, she finds her father and brother acting all kinds of weird in Kevin & Matthew McManus’s The Block Island Sound, which had its world premiere at the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Old man Tom Lynch has not been himself for a while, but his son has covered for him, mostly due to fears he might be losing just about his only companion. Sadly, during Audry’s visit, crusty Tom sleepwalks onto his boat and keels over the side somewhere in Block Island Sound. The thing is old Lynch maybe wasn’t sleepwalking. Angry Harry suspects something more sinister might have been controlling his father and now it is tormenting him too.

Of course, Harry was always irritable and anti-social, so it takes a while for Audry to realize the severity of her brother’s condition. However, as Harry suffers from increasingly conspicuous headaches, blackouts, and apparent sleepwalking bouts, she becomes alarmed. She assumes it is neurological or conventionally environmental, but Harry and his conspiracy-mongering former classmate suspect paranormal causes. So will viewers, since this film screened at Fantasia.

Block Island has a strong sense of place, with a vibe that suggests a cross-between Sea Fever and a 1990s Ed Burns movie. The Lynches truly bicker like family and drink like sailors. Everything looks grungy, lived-in, and totally believable.

Ayumu Watanabe’s Children of the Sea

Contrary to what you might have heard in animal rights propaganda docs, Japan has a special kinship with whales. In fact, a gigantic humpback whale appears in Tokyo Bay to offer some kind of mystical warning or portent. Something big (but vague) is going down and only three young teenagers have any clue as to what it might be in Ayumu Watanabe’s Children of the Sea, which releases today on DVD.

Ruka Azumi’s semi-estranged parents met at the aquarium where he still works, so she grew up around marine life. However, Umi and Sora are even more comfortable in the water, because they were literally raised by dugongs (instead of wolves). The aquarium’s brilliant but mysterious research biologist Anglade is studying the boys, in hopes of facilitating their integration into land-based human society and extending their apparently accelerated lives. However, he is also working with the government to prepare for the big impending cosmic whatever.

Feeling alienated from her cliquey peers, Azumi meets Umi and Sora exactly when she needs some new friends. Frankly, she has better rapport with the cheerful Umi than the angsty Sora, but they will still work together as a trio to investigate the mystery of the big thing looming.

Honestly, it is not exactly clear what the big Shyamalanian event is, even after it happens. Let’s just say, Children of the Sea suffers from an acute case of anime-ending-itis, with all kinds of roiling maelstroms of waves that are nearly impossible to follow on-screen. Hanasaki Kino’s screenplay adaptation of Daisuke Igarashi’s manga is much more interesting when it keeps thing micro, exploring the world of the aquarium. It is sort of like the Natural History Museum in Night at the Museum or Relic.

Fantasia ’20: A Mermaid in Paris

Sailors know. There is a reason the old salts fear mermaids and sirens, because they really are out to get men. Lula assumes Gaspard Snow will be her latest victim, but the retro-crooner is weirdly immune to her siren song. Yet, she starts to fear for the broken-hearted entertainer’s life as cares for the beached creature in Mathias Malzieu’s A Mermaid in Paris, which screened during the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Snow would have been happier in the past, so he tries his best to live there. He and his father operate a secret nightclub in the lower deck of a houseboat that was founded by his grandmother and her associates, the Surprisers. During the National Socialist occupation, the Surprisers were an underground resistance cell, who also raised the city’s spirits by leaving whimsical toys on the street for children. Snow tries to keep their spirit alive, but that kind of chanson-elan is not widely appreciated these days.

After a late-night set, he finds Lula washed up on the river bank, with a clearly injured tail fin. The hospital refuses to examine her without a national insurance card, so he takes her back to his bath tub instead. Lula is amazed he can function at all, because her song has left several bewitched men ailing in their wake. She is even more impressed when he is still hail and hearty the next day. According to Snow, his last love affair left him heartbroken and immune to love. Lula is sort of happy to hear that, because she is starting to feel something for him.

Mermaid in Paris sounds like a conventional fish-out-of-water rom-com (which Lula literally is), but Malzieu’s visual approach is endlessly inventive. After seeing this film, it is clear he is the perfect director to tackle a film version of The Drowsy Chaperone. Best known for the animated Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart, Malzieu occasionally incorporates animation into Mermaid, but he really shows a knack for letting visual set pieces unfold before our eyes.

Pieges, on MHz

Elsa Aubry is about to receive an Indecent Proposal, but it won’t jeopardize her marriage—just her soul. Some unknown benefactor will offer her one million Euros, ostensibly as an inheritance, if she simply kills someone, who supposedly really deserves it. The dedicated wife and mother is not a murderer, but she desperately needs the money. Of course, the offer is also not as straight-forward as it is initially presented in creator-co-writer Chris Lang’s two-part French drama Pieges, which premieres tomorrow on MHz Choice.

Clearly, murder is not an enforceable contract item, but the lawyer Dugard maintains willful ignorance. He merely schedules a meeting with Aubry and gives her a flashdrive with a video file to be watched in his absence. If she refuses, Aubry still pockets 5,000 Euros for her troubles. However, if she returns in three days, she will learn who she must kill and when.

Aubry’s first instincts were to go to the police. However, her husband Marc convinces her to at least take the 5K. They are already struggling to make ends meet, even before her Leukemia-survivor daughter Zoe suddenly suffers a relapse. Ordinarily, Aubry would never entertain such an offer, but when Zoe’s only hope is an experimental treatment in Chicago not covered by insurance, Marc is willing to consider it for her.

The format of Pieges is relatively unusual these days, consisting of two hour-long installments, but it divides quite evenly, both in terms of narrative break and emotional tone. In fact, Pieges is quite effective and compelling, because Lang and co-writers Julien Teisseire, Claire Lemarechal, and Simon Jablonka go micro rather than macro when they reveal the truth behind the secret conspiracy. Instead of an international internet cabal, what is going on is actually deeply personal.

The likable and sympathetic Aubry family dynamics further raise the stakes. It is rather notable and refreshing that Marc is Aubry’s second husband, but Zoe fully accepts him as her father figure. As a result, we can credibly accept any decision they might and still root for them.

Fantasia ’20: The Oak Room

A guy walks into a bar. In this case, a duck does not tell the bartender to put the newcomer’s drink on his bill, but the man has a darkly ironic tale of his own to tell. Naturally, when the punchline finally comes, it is a real killer in Cody Calahan’s The Oak Room, produced by prolific Canadian genre director Chad Archibald, which screens again tomorrow during the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.

It has been years since Steve returned to his snowy hometown in the Canadian lake country, but Paul is still not happy to see him. Nevertheless, he indulges his late customer’s son, as Steve tells him a story of an unusual crime that happened in The Oak Room, a bar very much like Paul’s bar in a similar lake town nearby.

Of course, Paul will interrupt the tale with his own flashbacks and Steve’s perverse insistence in telling the story out of chronological sequence tries the barkeep’s patience, but it will eventually make sense from a cinematic perspective. Of course, to reveal much more than that would be telling.

Aesthetically, The Oak Room is very much in the tradition of 1990’s thrillers starring the likes of Steve Buscemi and Harvey Keitel that were promoted as something much more important than they really were, because of their indie status, but which we can better appreciate now for their lean and mean efficiency. Likewise, if you do not allow your expectations to snowball, you should be able to enjoy all the twists, turns, and reversals Calahan and company have in-store for the audience.

Fantasia ’20: Detention

During Taiwan’s “White Terror,” the KMT ruled over a one-party authoritarian regime. Despite formerly professing an anti-communist ideology, the KMT is now well-known as the Taiwanese political party most closely-aligned with Beijing and opposed to formal independence. You would think the Taiwanese would stop voting for the KMT—and they have. Pres. Tsai Ing-wen overwhelmingly defeated KMT candidate Han Kuo-yu, who was subsequently turned out of his mayoral office in a decisive recall election. Such election results would please the students in Wei Chong-ting, if they could live to see them. Tragically, it appears most of them are trapped in purgatory, as a result of the torture they endure in John Hsu’s Detention, which screened at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

The popular Mr. Chang and the very serious Miss Yin both supply books and guidance to Wei’s underground book club. Not surprisingly, a “model student” like Fang Ray-shin is not a member. Since her father is a high-ranking officer, she is about the only student who is not constantly under the microscope of Instructor Bai, the school’s military advisor. Yet, it is Chang whom Fang pines for.

Clearly, someone informed on the group, leading to disastrous consequences for them all, but Fang’s involvement is not exactly clear, even though she seems to share a similar fate as the others. She and Wei must figure it out together, when they suddenly awake in a surreal, nightmarish version of their school.

It is probably safe to say Detention is the best film based on a video game produced so far and most likely superior to any that might come in the future. Adapted from the horror adventure game of the same title, Detention is deeply steeped in Taiwanese history and also considerably informed by Buddhist teachings. Yet, the imagery is old school supernatural horror, all the way.

Fantasia ’20: Hunted

“The Handsome Guy” and his accomplice originally did not set out for another “Most Dangerous Game”-style people-hunting excursion. They aren’t that sporting. However, when their latest prospective victim escapes into the woods, they inevitably chase after her. It turns out the pagan spirits of nature will pick a side (and it won’t be the predators) in Vincent Paronnaud’s Hunted, which screened at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

The campfire-story prologue tells us this wooded setting is somewhat akin to that of In the Company of Wolves, but the forest has its own collective, Jungian, Gaia-goddess consciousness. That is about the only good news of the night for Eve (hmm, wonder why they chose that name? Maybe in honor of Eve Arden?). After a night drinking in a strange, vaguely Euro, English-speaking-with-an-accent town, Handsome and his accomplice stuffed her in their trunk, with the intention of doing terrible things to her. When a freak accident sets her free, she is off and running. The psychos would seem to have all the advantages, but the spirit of the forest will do what it can to level the playing field.

Even with the stylized preamble, the first two acts of Hunted still play like traditional neo-grindhouse victimization-and-revenge horror. However, things get interesting in the third act, when Paronnaud brings back the campers from the prologue. The action gets really messy and complicated, but in inventive ways.

Still, this is definitely quite far afield from Paronnaud’s classy collaborations with Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis and Chicken with Plums. Even Paronnaud’s super-cool zombie short Territory has greater cinematic scope. Yet, it should be readily stipulated, the payback pays-off in a big way.

Fantasia ’20: Class Action Park

Established in 1978, Action Park was really two parks divided by a highway: Water World and Motor World. You could say it was like Westworld and Futureworld, but more dangerous. Founder Eugene Mulvihill developed the attraction at a time when many thought Vernon, NJ could become the next Vegas. Instead, he turned it into Lord of the Flies. Action Park’s wild rides and wild times are sometimes fondly chronicled in Scott Porges & Chris Charles Scott III’s documentary, Class Action Park, which is currently streaming on HBO Max, closely following its international premiere at the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Affectionately called Uncle Gene by his under-trained teen employees, former Wall Street wheeler-dealer Mulvihill developed Action Park with capital raised by notorious penny stock pusher Robert Brennan. Trump almost came in on the deal too, but Mulvihill’s cowboy ways were too much for him.

Mulvihill definitely played it fast and loose when it came to safety regulations. To save money, he even fabricated a Cayman-based insurance company to supposedly underwrite the dodgy enterprise. Ironically, one of the bonuses of having a transparently bogus insurance company was it made trial lawyers decidedly unenthusiastic to pursue suits against him. Yet, Mulvihill genuinely seemed to want to provide adrenalized thrills for his visitors, so he routinely pushed the envelop when constructing rides, like the notorious waterslide, the Cannonball Loop.

Actually, all of the rides at Action Park were notorious. The film is filled with colorful survival stories from one attraction after another. Yet, for 1980s Jersey meatheads, unruliness of the park environment and the genuinely dangerous nature of the rides were all part of the appeal. Indeed, there seems to be an endless reservoir of anecdotes from former employees and guests that alternate in tone from disbelief they participated in such lunacy to pride they had the guts to stare death in the face.

Porges & Scott generally strike a nice balance between nostalgia for the craziness and respect for the very real tragedies that occurred there. Less persuasive are attempts to use Action Park as a club to bludgeon the enterprising spirit of the 1980s and Pres. Reagan’s modest attempts to deregulate the over-burdened economy, especially since the film clearly implies Mulvihill had local politicians running interference for him.

Fantasia ’20: The Weather is Lovely (short)

It turns out we can even blame millennials for bad weather. In this case, the irresponsible party is Claude, a rookie cloud-maker. When he drops his cloud-maker, it causes a potentially apocalyptic storm in Lien Chun-chien’s charming animated short film, The Weather is Lovely, which screened at the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Claude is a bit of a careless goof-off. The same cannot be said of Yin, the diligent young meteorologist conducting research in the observatory below him. When Claude’s device shorts out, it releases a thunderous cyclone. Although Claude tries to remain out of site, he will need her cooperation to avert catastrophe as the storm gains in size and severity. He will also have to cowboy up.

Visually, Weather is indeed a lovely sight that bears comparison to vintage Studio Ghibli studio films (particularly The Wind Rises, given some thematic similarities). There is a mildly steampunky vibe to the film’s tech, but Claude’s cloud conveyance also has an old school sci-fi aesthetic, in the tradition of The Rocketeer. It is also appealing to see two STEMmy young people working together and developing a romantic affinity (naturally enough).

Entwined: Lost in a Greek Forest Fable

What’s Greek for “you aren’t from around here, are you?” Their diet might be Mediterranean, but Dr. Panos’s new village neighbors are as superstitious and wary of outsiders as hardscrabble Appalachians. He expects to be busy as the first ever doctor in town, but it turns out the only one he will have to save is himself in Minos Nikolakakis’s Entwined, which releases virtually today.

His father’s death from cancer left Panos’s faith in medicine shaken, so he takes a Joel Fleischman posting in a quaint mountain community, expecting it to boost his confidence. However, his arrival is met with indifference bordering on contempt. When Panos has a chance encounter with the reclusive Danae, he thinks he has finally found someone he can rescue. He figures he can treat the strange bark-like rash on her shoulder with standard drugs and deliver her from the weird old man, whom he presumes is her sexually abusive father.

However, once he spends a night with Danae, the forest will not let him leave. We can immediately see she is some kind of pagan variant on the succubus archetype, but Panos is literally bewitched. Meanwhile, only his exasperated half-brother George seems to be concerned about his whereabouts.

Entwined is a hard film to get a handle on, because it combines the aesthetics of Catherine Breillat’s adult fairy tale films (like Bluebeard and The Sleeping Beauty) with the New Greek Weird Wave. It never really works as folk horror film, because Nikolakakis keeps both the emotions and the genre elements at arm’s length. We are also always several plot points ahead of poor, bedazzled Panos, which inevitably leads to audience impatience.