Fantasia ’17: Kodoku Meatball Machine

It is sort of like Stephen King’s Under the Doom, but with gallons more gore. The director claims he used four tons of fake blood, but that sounds like a conservative estimate based on what’s on the screen. Regardless, a neighborhood filled with some of the worst people in Tokyo is in for a mutated beatdown when a cosmic bell jar cuts them off from the rest of the city in mad man Yoshihiro Nishimura’s Kodoku Meatball Machine (trailer here), which screened during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Job never knew how good he had it, compared to poor, put-upon Yuji. The would-be debt collector is a magnet for all the neighborhood’s bullies, grifters, and freeloaders. He was already deeply in debt when he received a terminal cancer diagnosis. He is about ready to just cash-in, but he still finds himself attracted to Kaoru, the pretty girl working at his local used bookstore. Unfortunately, she is involved in an exploitative cult.

The hits just keep coming when an evil little boy in the cult frames Yuji for assaulting him. However, at least he will be safely tucked away in jail when the bell jar lands. The less “fortunate” will have embarrassing body parts sheared off by the impenetrable barrier. Once the neighborhood is cut off, some sort of space parasite starts infecting Yuji’s neighbors, turning them into rabid bio-mecha killing machines. They get to Yuji too, but he is able to maintain control of his new cyborg-like body, thanks to his cancerous blood. Old enemies become allies when the altered Yuji teams up with a dojo of ex-cops to save Kaoru from her infected guru.

Believe it or not, Nishimura actually makes us care about Yuji and Kaoru. They deserve better than they’ve ever got or are likely to get. However, the reason to see a Nishimura movie is the wildly gory practical effects and maybe some bare breasts. He does not disappoint on either score, particularly the former. Four tons worth. However, the bizarre harlequin-witches who usher in the alien occupation are devilishly intriguing, especially since they are played by Eihi Shiina, best known as the femme fatale for the ages in Takashi Miike’s Audition.

Right, at least four tons of fake blood. You can’t say you don’t know what you’re getting into with KMM. It should safely vault Nishimura past Noboru Iguchi to become the uncontested king of Japanese gore. Yet, the fact that he maintains a semblance of a human element amid all the berserk chaos is rather impressive. If you dig Nishimura, this Meatball is your huckleberry. Recommended accordingly, Kodoku Meatball Machine has another high-profile international festival screening coming up at Fright Fest UK, following its Canadian premiere at this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: Breaker (short)

Here is a scary thought—when humanity starts to integrate itself with digital systems, it will become susceptible to both physical and computer-borne viruses. Just ask the hacker (or so-called breaker) Mach1. When she accidentally downloads a weaponized artificial intelligence, it takes over her body, but they will have to work together to survive the nefarious agents that want to control it in Philippe McKie’s short film, Breaker (trailer here), which screened during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Blame the junky. Whether she intended harm or not, she is the one who hired Mach1 to break the encrypted file containing the A.I. Much to her panic, the A.I. immediately started deleting files to make room for itself. However, when the program convinces the Breaker bad guys really are following her/them, they start to work together. If Mach1 can get to a port to download the A.I. into the wild internet, it will repay the favor. To survive that long, Mach1 will let her digital parasite control her body when they face-off against the sinister hunter tracking them. It is sort of like Neo’s kung fu sequences in The Matrix, but McKie’s emphasis is on grit rather than razzle dazzle.

Breaker is smart and briskly paced film that makes you think about cerebral topics like the Singularity, earthly issues, such as drug addiction, and the general state of humanity. He creates a world that owes a debt to Bladerunner and most subsequent cyberpunk films, but he makes it feel grungier and more dope-infested. The production design is first-rate, but it is Yuka Tomatsu who makes us care. She is terrific as Mach1, no matter who happens to be controlling her body at the moment.

McKie manages to combine a lot of action with social and scientific speculation in a mere eleven minutes. It is easy to see how this narrative or another story in Mach1’s near-future Tokyo world could be expanded to feature length. Regardless, it is a very cool short in its own right, showcasing the impressive range of Tomatsu. Highly recommended, Breaker will soon screen at the 2017 Action on Film Festival, following its Canadian premiere at this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: The Peculiar Abilities of Mr. Mahler (short)

He is sort of like an East German Sherlock Holmes. His powers of deduction and persuasion are so keen, some of his atheist materialist colleagues think he “has the shine.” Unfortunately, he does not use his talents for the purpose of good in Paul Philipp’s chilling short film, The Peculiar Abilities of Mr. Mahler (trailer here), which screened during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

The case of the disappearance of young Henry Kiefer is threatening to become an international embarrassment for the GDR, because his relatives in the West are making noise in the press. The Stasi wants the Kiefers to sign off on his bogus death certificate to end the matter, but so far, his parents are hanging tough. Enter Mr. Mahler, whose keen powers of observation immediately rattle the distressed Kiefers.

Philipp’s film directly addresses particularly horrifying crimes of Stasi, but explaining the details would spoil the film’s big revelation. Instead, we will safely say life under socialism in the GDR was even worse than you realized.

Frankly, Peculiar Abilities is about the tensest twenty-nine minutes of cinema you can hope to see all year. Credit is equally due to Philipp’s tight, claustrophobic execution and André Hennicke’s powerhouse portrayal of the titular Mr. Mahler. It is a quiet but emotionally violent performance that will deeply and profoundly unsettle viewers. Hennicke is absolutely unforgettable, but Jasmin Schwiers and Matthias Lier are also heart-breakingly effective as the distraught and destroyed Kiefers.

Thanks to Jann Döppert’s ominous noir cinematography and the spot-on period details, Peculiar Abilities is an unusually cinematic short film. It is some of the best work you will see screening at festivals this year, regardless of length. Very highly recommended, The Peculiar Abilities of Mr. Mahler screens next Tuesday (8/8) as part of Program 31 at the L.A. Shorts International Film Festival, following its Quebec premiere at this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: Lu Over the Wall

When it comes to mer-people, the Celts have their selkie, the Slavs have the rusalka, and Japan tells tales of the ningyo. Those ningyo legends have a darker tone than our Disney and Ron Howard mermaid movies, so it is not so surprising many residents of a coastal Japanese fishing village hold misconceptions regarding ningyos. One compulsively cheerful ningyo will do her best to change their prejudices, starting with a moody Tokyo transplant in Masaaki Yuasa’s Lu Over the Wall (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Yuasa has been busy, having already released Lu and Night is Short, Walk on Girl in Japan this year. While both feature his “flat” style of character rendering, Lu is clearly intended for a much younger audience. After his parents’ divorce, Kai moves to the harbor town of Hinashi with his father. The moody aspiring electronica DJ reluctantly joins the band led by town princess Yuho and her torch-carrier Kunio, mostly because he is curious to see Mermaid Island, where they practice.

The island was once the site of an ill-fated ningyo/mermaid-themed amusement park, but deserted jutting rock formation always shielded nearby “Mermaid Harbor” from the sun they dread. This is one of the few ningyo legends that is apparently true. They also really enjoy music, especially Lu, who can’t help singing along with the band. As luck would have it, she has a better voice than Yuho, so Lu replaces her as lead vocalist. Of course, this makes things awkward when they actually get live gigs, especially considering the anti-ningyo sentiments of old-timers, like the old granny who blames the ningyo for her husband’s disappearance.

It is indeed true ningyo can turn the land-bound into ningyo with a vampire bite to the neck. However, they only use their powers for good, as when Lu liberates all the puppies in the pound, turning them into merdoggies. She pretty much has everyone in the audience won over at that point. Still, she is a bit young-looking to be hanging with Kai and Kuho. Supposedly, they are in middle school, but their animated figures look more like high school teens, whereas Lu resembles a nine or ten-year-old. Technically, Yuasa keeps things squeaky clean, but when Kai finally admits he has feelings for Lu, it should make everyone feel a little uncomfortable.

Still, Yuasa has an affinity youthful alienation and the rhythms of small town life. It is also nice to see so many presumably minor characters take on greater significance later in the film. The major plot points are all pretty predictable and the environmental messaging gets a bit tiresome, but Yuasa keeps us hooked with all his clever bits of business. Plus, there are merpuppies. Miguel Ortega & Tran Ma’s Ningyo is still more our kind of mer-creature film, but Lu should charm fans of similar films, like Ponyo and Mia and the Migoo. Recommended for young viewers, Lu Over the Wall screens tonight (7/31) and tomorrow (8/1), as part of this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: Matasaburo of the Wind (short)

Kenji Miyazawa’s Night on the Galactic Railroad is the one Japanese children’s book non-Japanese speakers might know and even own. It has been adapted as anime features and inspired films like Giovanni’s Island. Miyazawa’s story “Kaze no Matasaburo” might not be as familiar to English audiences, but it was also the subject of several feature treatments. The characters of Miyazawa’s classic tale have been reconceived as anthropomorphic animals (as was often the case with Railroad) and the narrative is simplified, but the purity of spirit remains in Hiroki Yamada’s animated short Matasaburo of the Wind (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Even though summer is fast approaching, Saburo Takada has transferred to a remote provincial school. In this case, the city native is rather stunned to find herself sharing a classroom with a bear, a tortoise, a rabbit, a frog, and an earthworm—as fellow students. There is also a human boy who rather fancies her. Much to his annoyance, some of friends get it into their heads she is Matasaburo, the son of the wind god, because she arrived in such gusty weather. Its rubbish of course (starting with her being a girl), but she will have a fateful encounter with the real Matasaburo.

Yamada’s deceptively simple animation is packed with warmth and nostalgic goodness. The streamlining of the story boils it down to its essence, but the twentysome-minute running time is still long enough to feel substantial. The supportive but unobtrusive score further heightens vibe of summer rain and cicadas chirping. This really is bitter-sweetness at its sweetest.

After watching Wind, a complete retrospective of films based on or inspired by Miyazawa’s work suddenly sounds like a heck of a nifty idea. Yamada’s adaptation is just good for what ails you. Very highly recommended, Matasaburo of the Wind screens this afternoon (7/30), as part of the Fragments of Asia shorts block at this year’s Fantasia. Kang Heekyung’s superhero romance Rainbow also screens as part of the block. It is also sweet and well-meaning, but it cannot match the charm and depth of Matasaburo.

Fantasia ’17: Highheels (short)

It sounds like a Cosmo punchline, but it is acutely human. For millennia, mankind has only survived as remnants within androids. Yet, by the year 4015 that little piece of humanity has started to covet luxuries again. Designer shoes are in particular demand among fashion-conscious androids, but Kai is one of the few artisans capable of crafting something worth obsessing over. Her perfectionism also manifests itself through obsessive behavior in Inchul Lee’s darkly beautiful science fiction short film, Highheels (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Highheels must be the most fashionably fabbest science fiction since Luc Besson and Jean Paul Gaultier collaborated on The Fifth Element. For proof, check out the ensembles donned by Blue, Yellow, and Red, three customers of Kai’s retro-retro showroom (you should be able to tell which is which). When Blue commissions Kai to make a custom-made shoe, the android-shoemaker produces something so elegant, it catches the eyes of both Yellow and Red. Of course, Kai will keep faith with her original customer, so she’d better appreciate it.

This is a terrific speculative short that takes a rather dark turn, but that is what you get when human nature reasserts itself. Frankly, this would have been a great selection for MoMA’s current Future Imperfect series, because it is very definitely an example of science fiction exploring the question of what it means to be human. Plus, it has the star-power of Rinko Kikuchi, who amazes as the increasingly driven (and perhaps consequently human) Kai.

Highheels also looks incredible thanks to Remi Yanai’s eye-popping, runway-worthy costumes and producer Mutsumi Lee’s carefully crafted art direction. This is a triumph of mise-en-scene that might be described as Fifth Element with dashes of Bladerunner and Black Swan, but the action is entirely confined to the carefully controlled environment of Kai’s boutique.

Very highly recommended, Highheels screens today (7/30), as part of the Fragments of Asia shorts block at this year’s Fantasia. There are several great shorts in that block, but Chai Siris’s 500,000 Years is somewhat disappointing. The hybrid-documentary shows an itinerant projectionist showing a lurid 1970s Thai horror film at a forgotten shrine, but it really just makes us want to watch the film they are screening instead. However, Highheels and Matasaburo of the Wind make Fragments a can’t-miss ticket.

Fantasia 17: The Night is Short, Walk on Girl

It’s easy to play up the bittersweet moments in an American Graffiti­-style end-of-an-era night of partying. However, if you can find the best parts in the hangover than you’re really onto something. Buckle up, because it is going to be a heck of a party in Masaaki Yuasa’s The Night is Short, Walk on Girl (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

It starts with a wedding, but the after-after-party is where it’s at. Than these Kyoto college students are off to enjoy the night life of the nocturnal city that apparently puts both New York and Las Vegas to shame. The Senpai (upperclassman) would like to chat up his crush, an underclassman known simply as “The Girl with Black Hair,” but he is painfully shy, He gets ribbed by his friends, but frankly they are even worse, especially Don Underwear, so-called because he pledged never to change his under-garments until he finds the mystery woman he fell in love with during a brief chance encounter. If the logic of his strategy escapes you, just backburner that thought for now.

The Senpai will follow the Girl with Black Hair as she struts through the college district nightlife like an animated Holly Golightly. It would be a bit stalkerish if he weren’t so ineffectual. They might actually be meant for each other, but first the Girl with will get a lesson in exotic cocktail history, assist the Puck-ish God of the Used Book Market restore cosmic balance to the free flow of used books, and step into the lead role of a guerilla theater troupe’s floating production.

Kyoto looks like a heck of a fun city and the Girl with is an absolutely charming companion to share it with. There is probably more alcohol consumed in Night is Short than a typically sloshed Hong Sang-soo or Thin Man movie, but there is more to it than that. In fact, the wild night catches up with them, sending nearly everyone to their sick beds to nurse colds and flus, except Girl with. As she starts tending to her old and new friends, certain aspects of the night come into sharper focus.

Night is Short is a rarity among animated films, because it maintains a light, whimsical vibe, including absolutely no objectionable material whatsoever, but it clearly has an adult sensibility. You need to have lived through a few nights like this, albeit without the surreal flights of fantasy, to fully appreciate the film’s intoxicating vibe.

Yuasa’s style is also rather mischievously flexible. He slides up and down the scale from representationally realistic anime to dayglo candy-colored abstraction, but somehow he maintains a consistency of tone and attitude. It is just a trip to take in all the visual confections.

Like the Girl with Black Hair, Yuasa’s film is an energetic charmer. Night is Short has heart and panache married together in ways we’ve rarely seen. It will make you feel several years younger, so consider it therapeutic. Very highly recommended, Night is Short, Walk on Girl screens tonight (7/30) and tomorrow (7/31), during this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: Cocolors, etc.

Whether it is the far future or the distant past, the environment is a sinister force not to be trifled with. We’re talking about poisoned atmospheres, radiation, mutated monsters, and of course birds. The grimmest view of humanity’s possible fate comes in Toshihisa Yokoshima’s Cocolors (trailer here), the lead selection of a trio of animated shorts that screen together during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

We never see the faces of Aki and Fuyi, but we still feel for them deeply. Like all the residents of their subterranean shelter, they are never seen without their dark reflective environmental helmets. Fuyi is acutely sensitive and sickly by nature. Aki is also rather sensitive, but he is relatively healthy compared to his peers, so he is selected for the salvage corps. It is their job to bring back useable resources from the surface to sustain their community. Aki is not very good at it, but he regularly managed to bring back colored stones for Fuyi to color in his idealized portrait of what life was like on the surface. It is a harsh, inhospitable world now, but it turns out it wasn’t mankind’s fault—at least not entirely.

Despite the absence of big anime eyes, Cocolors is absolutely devastating. It relies solely on subtitled vocal performances and animated body language, but it will emotionally cold-cock you just the same. As an added bonus, Yokoshima creates a richly detailed world in only forty-five minutes. Somewhat conspicuously, he leaves plenty of questions unanswered, especially when he briefly but unambiguously establishes the extraterrestrial nature of the catastrophe. That leads us to believe he has more planned for this world, but probably not with Aki and Kai.

As in Cocolors, the protag of Park Hye-mi’s Scarecrow Island has had to grow up fast. After a nuclear disaster, mutated monsters took over the Earth’s land masses, forcing humanity onto aircraft carrier shelters. Call sign FA35 is fighter pilot in his early teens at the latest, but he was just promoted to captain his own squad of “cleaners.” It is their job to clean sectors of monsters. However, when he is thrown off course, he spies a living, breathy human, who has decked out its secluded isle with scarecrows. Although they never really communicate, good will blossoms as FA35 regularly returns for fly-bys and to drop supplies for more scarecrows. Unfortunately, militarism will interrupt their budding friendship.

Scarecrow is another provocative post-apocalyptic tale from the maker of Crimson Whale, but it sort of suffers when compared to Cocolors. Still, Park crafts some memorable visuals and somehow avoids a feeling a finger-wagging didacticism, even though the film obviously has a heavy take-away.

On the surface, Cloud Yang’s Valley of White Birds is the ringer of the trio, yet it totally fits. A haughty mage has blown into an abandoned hamlet like Sergio Leone’s High Plains Drifter. It appears to be inhabited entirely by white birds, who could very well have the jump on him. Frankly, Valley is more about style and imagery than narrative, but is it ever gorgeous. In a way, it is like the most spiritually-imbued wuxia fantasies, rendered with a look that subtly hints at traditional watercolor. It is a film to sink into and just let whatever happens happen.

Altogether, it is quite a strong trio. Valley probably edges out Cocolors as the class of the program, but it is a close call—and their respective merits are radically different. Highly recommended for fans of animation and dystopian cinema, Cocolors, Sacrecrow Island, and Valley of White Birds screens this afternoon (7/29), as part of this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: Fritz Lang

It was one of the first films to be “ripped from the headlines.” Although, the great auteur sometimes denied it, his classic M was transparently inspired by the case of Peter Kürten, “The Vampire of Düsseldorf,” premiering in theaters two months before his execution. Gordian Maugg offers up some wild speculation as to why the case so fascinated the filmmaker in the fictionalized Fritz Lang (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

It would be the film that forever changed Peter Lorre’s life. It was also highly significant for Lang as his first sound film. While the Kürten case started out as grist for the new screenplay Lang has been unable to start, Maugg and co-screenwriter Alexander Häusser suggest other reasons the case hit so close to home for the filmmaker. Perhaps most obviously, Anna Cohn, a witness who last saw her murdered friend presumably in the company of the killer, happens to be a dead-ringer for his late first wife Lisa. The Düsseldorf police chief also happens to be an old acquaintance.

Maugg flashes forwards and backwards, showing us scenes from Lang’s WWI service, his convalescence, during which time, he meets and falls in love with his future first wife, his affair with eventual second wife and great co-writer Thea von Harbou, and his current position as the monocled-king of Weimar high society. Yet, the Kürten murders bring out his dark side. Suddenly, he too is stalking witnesses and revisiting crime scenes. Indeed, Lang might just understand Kürten too uncomfortably well.

It is devilishly difficult to portray Fritz Lang on-screen when the director roguishly played himself with so much dash and verve in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt. That subversively witty persona is the Lang we will always want to see, which puts Heino Ferch’s brooding, traumatized Lang at an enormous disadvantage. To be fair, he does some good work reinterpreting the director as a real-life film noir character, but the “real,” reinvented Lang is way more fun. Frankly, Jack Palance’s character in Contempt, the crass Jeremy Prokosch, would probably be the only one who would enjoy seeing Lang depicted in such an unflattering manner.

Frankly, Harbou does not get much better treatment from Johanna Gastdorf (cold-blooded and highly calculating). However, Samuel Finzi would do Peter Lorre proud as the profoundly damaged, Dostoyevskyan Kürten. Lisa Friederich also deserves credit for valiantly laboring to humanize the film as the acutely human Lisa Lang and Anna Cohn.

During the second act, Fritz Lang the movie really seems to be getting someplace as it capitalizes on the intrigue of the doppelganger motif and the suspense of the investigation. However, the pop psychology of the third act is not worthy of its subject. Stylistically, the incorporation of 1930 archival film and newsreel footage, ironically heightens the feeling of unreality, giving it a Guy Maddinesque vibe, which might be the most effective aspect of the film. Earning a conflicted response, Fritz Lang ultimately disappoints when it screens tonight (7/28), during this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: Oscar (short)

Legendary jazz producer Norman Granz knew what he was doing. It would be quite a challenge for just about any musician to make their American debut during a Jazz at the Philharmonic Concert at Carnegie Hall, but Oscar Peterson killed it. Not merely the greatest Canadian jazz musician thus far, Peterson probably led the best-selling, most acclaimed mainstream swing piano trio—ever. He took the place Nat King Cole vacated to become a full-time crooner, making the piano trio bigger than ever. Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre mixes animation and archival footage to pay tribute to the master in the National Film Board-supported short film, Oscar (clip here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

O.P., as he was sometimes called, played his final bars in 2007, but he left behind a rich and extensive recorded archive. He was also interviewed on numerous occasions, so Saint-Pierre had plenty of primary sources to draw from. We do indeed hear Peterson recall his sink-or-swim debut and also listen to him self-deprecatingly tell the famous story of how he erroneously assumed an Art Tatum record was a piano duo, which is probably the second most famous event in the O.P. creation story. Fans would probably prefer to hear more about his great trios, but Saint-Pierre opts for the personal side of Peterson, in which he forthrightly admitted the demands of his profession put unfair stress on his first wife.

We hear a great deal of the Peterson touch in Oscar and it still sounds sophisticated yet infectious. The film is also attractive looking, frequently framing the archival performances and interviews in suitably urbane animated foregrounds. Saint-Pierre and animator Brigitte Archambault previously collaborated on the documentary short McLaren’s Negatives, which explored the creative process of Canadian animator Norman McLaren, whose 1949 short Begone Dull Care was scored by Mr. O.P., so presumably they shared a full understanding of Peterson’s significance as well as a strong working relationship—at least we would so assume from the stylish finished film.

It is hard to explain what a giant, transcendent figure Peterson cut in his final years. When he came to town to perform a concert, he was more like the earthly personification of jazz itself than a merely mortal musician. This is someone who recorded on equal terms with Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Ella Fitzgerald. Saint-Pierre’s film gives us a taste of what made him so special. Frankly, the only problem with the film is it isn’t longer. Peterson’s life and Saint-Pierre’s approach could easily sustain a two-hour feature treatment. Recommended with affection, the fan-making Oscar screens tonight (7/28), with L’Ange et la Femme, at this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: Thousand Cuts

Call it the Gallic corollary to the Broken Windows Theory. By allowing racist intimidation to continue unchecked, the Gendarmerie actually creates an environment where drug cartel warfare and hostage-taking can flourish. Everybody is in the wrong place, at the wrong time during Eric Valette’s Thousand Cuts or Le Serpent aux Mille Coupures (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

There is a full-scale, all-points manhunt on to capture “The Motorcyclist.” News reports call him a terrorist, but in France that could just mean he wrote a letter to the editor criticizing multiculturalism. Regardless, it will be Colombian drug traffickers waiting for their French connection who stumble across the mystery man first, but they won’t live to talk about it.

Wounded in his misadventures, the Motorcyclist forces his way into the bi-racial Petit family’s farmhouse. For months, the racist yokels have been harassing French-Senegalese Omar Petit and killing their livestock. As a result, the Petits are not inclined to call the police and if they did, the coppers would be unlikely to respond. However, they still must endure a very real hostage crisis. Even though the Motorcyclist quickly figures out their desperate circumstances and he privately shows signs of sympathizing, he is still not inclined to trust his hosts. Meanwhile, when their deal goes sour, the Colombian cartel dispatches their ace hitman-trouble-shooter to “stabilize” the situation.

Frankly, aside from the xenophobic rustics, it is pretty confusing just who all the dozens of bad guys are and which factions they are aligned with. However, there is no mistaking Terence Yin’s career breakout performance as the blue-eyed Chinese-German-Colombian assassin-problem-solver. He is absolutely riveting in a creepily charismatic, discomfortingly sadistic kind of way. Tomer Sisley (spending time in an even more confining location than in the original Sleepless Night) is all very credible brooding and throwing down as the Motorcyclist, but he just can’t compare to Yin. However, Stéphane Debac compliments him nicely, as the cartel’s French fixer, who is in way over his head, while Pascal Greggory helps humanize the film as the overwhelmed police chief, who could have avoided a lot of this trouble if he had been more proactive addressing the plight of the Petits.

Thousand Cuts has a terrific villain, a nifty action climax, and it makes French society look profoundly corrupt and prejudiced. What more could you ask for, except maybe greater narrative clarity? Recommended for fans of hardboiled French fugitive thrillers, like Valette’s The Prey and Fred Cavayé’s Point Blank, Thousand Cuts (Le Serpent aux Mille Coupure) screens tonight (7/26) and Friday night (7/28) as part of this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: Junk Head

It the far future. The clones have rebelled against humanity (or what passes for it), but they did not get very far. They are still at the bottom of the dark metropolis and humans are at the top. However, in hopes of reversing centuries of sterility, humans will send explorers down to the bowels of the city. One intrepid surveyor finds some highly unusual genetic material and no end of trouble in Takahide Hori’s stop-motion labor of love, Junk Head (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Our protagonist’s probe already looked like a rocket speeding towards the earth, but some of the lower level denizens decide to blast it with an RPG anyway. Basically, only his head survives the blast, but a semi-mad scientist operating in the ground-level region manages to fashion him a new head and mechanical body. This process will repeat, but the good mad doctor’s work looks rather sleek and stylish compared to the subsequent encasing.

The journeyer initially suffers from amnesia after the crash, but another bump to the noggin bring back his past. Inconveniently, he temporarily loses his comprehension of lower level dialects, but he will eventually have both memory and comprehension. Unfortunately, by that time, his new androidal shell no longer has the capacity for speech.

It is definitely one darned thing after another for our faithful traveler. Yet, he will learn quite a bit about what it means to be human from the clones, mutants, and genetic freaks he encounters down there. It frequently isn’t pretty, but it is always real.

Visually, Junk Head is a flat-out stunner. Hori’s stop-motion animation is absolutely incredible and the dystopian city (sort of like Lang’s Metropolis crossed with Kowloon Walled City and populated with H.R. Giger creatures is one of the most richly detailed animated worlds ever realized on film. Technically, it is a marvel, but Hori does not have an equal talent for screenwriting. Frankly, his narrative is episodic and the application of internal logic is spotty at best. So be it. Viewers will really just want to explore this world—and Hori essentially offers up pretexts to oblige us.

You can think of Junk Head as the film Shane Acker’s 9 aspired to be, but fell short of (especially since they were both expanded from earlier short films). Thematically, it would make a terrific pairing with Don Hertzfeldt’s clone-related short, World of Tomorrow, which is high praise indeed. Highly recommended, Junk Head screens again today (7/24), as part of this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: Broken Sword Hero

King Taksin defeated the constant waves of Burmese invaders, unified his country as the Thonburi Kingdom, and promoted trade with the European powers. Of course, he did not do it alone. Initially, the bullied Joi does not look like he will be much help to anyone, particularly himself. However, destiny has different plans in Bin Bunluerit’s Broken Sword Hero (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Unless you really know your Thai history, forget about the sword and focus on the hero. That will be Joi—eventually. It would seem like fate dealt him a tough break, considering the regional governor’s entitled son Cherd is his chief tormentor. When he finally fights back hard enough to draw blood, Joi resigns himself to a life of exile. Living by his wits, he becomes a talented Muay Thai fighter. Unfortunately, that will not be enough to defeat a true master. At least he learns an important early lesson: humility. From then on, Thongdee (as the white-teethed, betelnut abstainer is now known) will study any discipline, under any master with a unique specialty.

Along the way, Thongdee makes some real friends and serves his successive masters faithfully. Periodically, he will face off against his old nemesis Cherd and his corrupt uncle. Although Thongdee is still an outlaw, his good deeds and multi-disciplinary martial arts skills start to attract the attention of a mysterious mustachioed observer.

Bunluerit must be a heck of a persuasive director, because he convinced former Miss Teen Thailand Sornsin Maneewan to portray Thongdee’s potential love interest Ramyong with betelnut-stained teeth. Chutirada Junthit was doubly lucky to play Mauylek, an itinerant Chinese opera performer and marital artist, because she was spared the betelnut and had the chance to show off her own action chops in some of the action sequences.

Of course, the film is clearly intended to launch Muay Thai champion Sombat “Buakaw” Banchamek as the next Tony Jaa. There is no question he has the skills and the super-chiseled physique. Granted, his screen presence will not exactly blow you through the back wall of the theater, but he has greater emotional range than Van Damme and Schwarzenegger displayed early in their careers (or arguably even in their latest films). Still, he is not another Tony Jaa yet, but it isn’t for a lack of effort. He brings tremendous physicality to the action scenes, which should earn him good will from fans right from the start.

If you are looking for bare-chested, fist-pumping, sword-shattering action, Bunluerit and Buakaw deliver over and over again. Again, it is important to remember this is an origins story, so don’t get hung up waiting for a sword to break. Instead, just let the spectacle of flying elbows and knees wash over you. Highly recommended for martial arts fans, especially those who appreciate the Southeast Asian historical elements, Broken Sword Hero screens today (7/23) at this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia '17: Nutag – Homeland (short)

It was ethnic cleansing before there was such a term. During the Stalinist era, most of the ethnic Kalmyks who had not died of starvation during the period of forced collectivization were exiled to Siberia, half of whom perished while in transit. It was decades ago, yet the pain lingers on for the Kalmyk diaspora. Mongolian-Canadian animator Alisi Telengut gives voice to that pain in the hand-painted expressionistic animated short film Nutag – Homeland (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Telengut eschews narration, simply letting her arresting images wash over viewers. Technically, she takes a somewhat abstract approach, but there is no mistaking the significance of those trains. The effect is poetic and haunting. Originally, Telengut (whose first name ironically means “far away”) set out to make a traditional documentary, but her imagery and the ghostly music and sound design just took over. Frankly, there is still a need for a straight-forward telling of their story, but Telengut expresses the essence of the Kalmyk deportations, doing right by her subjects, ethically and artistically.

Indeed, there is a great deal left to say about the Kalmyk people and their history. For instance, when Khrushchev finally allowed them to return to their homeland, Kalmykia became the only majority-Buddhist political jurisdiction in Europe. At least Telengut has started the dialogue, having previously screened Nutag at high profile festivals, including Cannes and Sundance. It is a beautiful and terrifying work of art. Very highly recommended, Nutag – Homeland screens tonight (7/22) as part of a program of Quebecois short films at this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: A Day

Dr. Kim Joon-young is caught in the worst Groundhog’s Day ever. Like clockwork, he keeps waking up on his Seoul-bound flight, knowing he will scramble in vain to save his daughter from a fatal car accident. It is a horrible thing to experience over and over again, but he eventually learns he is not the only one repeating these painful hours in Cho Sun-ho’s A Day (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Dr. Kim is a famous humanitarian doctor, but pretty clueless as a dad. He really wants to patch things up with his twelve-year-old-ish daughter Eun-jung, but by the time he reaches their rendezvous, he finds her dead in crosswalk. Soon thereafter, the cycle repeats. He tries to pick-up time, but he can never get there quick enough. Much to his shock, ambulance driver Lee Min-chul is in the same position. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot rescue his wife Mi-kyung, who perishes in the back seat of the yellow cab that plows into Eun-jung. They will team up to save their loved ones, but they are in for at least one more nasty surprise.

It is time to retire the repeating time-loop concept for a while, because no film will be funnier than the original or manage to top the intensity of A Day. Unlike other Groundhog homages, just about every go-round in Cho’s film turns into a tense race against the clock. It also gets a little weepy during the climax, but it is a Korean film, so we can’t be too dismayed by that.

Kim Myung-min is terrific as the driven Dr. Kim, quietly radiating anguish and Sisyphean determination. Young Jo Eun-hyung is quite charismatic as the daughter, whom Cho never even gives a chance to become annoying. Byun Yo-han is maybe a bit wooden as Lee the EMT, but you could argue he is supposed to be emotionally distant. Regardless, the scenes in which he and Kim start to put it all together really raise the hair on the back of your neck.

That’s maybe already saying too much, but Cho’s breakneck pacing will hold even the most skeptical and resistant viewers rapt until the final day closes. The Broadway version of Groundhog Day is a super-satisfying show, but the thought of someone trying to stage this film as a book musical is almost too deliriously crazy to contemplate. Very highly recommended, A Day screens tonight (7/22) at this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: Le Manoir

Nadine might have a hard time recouping her deposit on the remote Belgian mansion she rented for a drunken New Year’s blowout. As usual, it is always the blood stains that are the hardest to get out. There will be a lot to clean up when a psycho-killer starts stalking her guests in Tony T. Datis’s Le Manoir (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Nadine and Fabrice are definitely still together, but in the case of Stéphane and Sam, it depends who you ask. He says they are just taking a break, but she says they are totally over. That already makes things pretty awkward, but the night will get much worse when someone starts knocking off the irresponsible partiers. Of course, the heaping helpings of drugs served up by the hippyish Drazic will not help much either, especially when he slips some Jim Morrison-strength mushroom brownies to Sam’s shy cousin Charlotte.

Frankly, there is even more attitude splattered over Le Manoir than blood. While Datis (previously best-known for music videos) helms the slasher business with a sure hand, the film is especially lethal when skewering the clueless millennial mindset. It takes on semi-meta dimensions when you take into the account most of the cast were YouTube “stars,” many whom were making their proper acting debuts in Le Manoir. However, they are totally watchable when bickering, bantering, and getting gruesomely murdered. (As American comparisons, they are not as charismatic as the stars of YouTube Red’s Single By 30, but they are vastly superior to the leads of The Thinning.)

Vanessa Guide probably counts as the professional ringer in the ensemble, delivering some truly outrageous lines with appropriate contempt for decorum as the sexually “confident” Sam. Jérôme Niel doesn’t take any prisoners either as the abrasive and possibly delusional Stéphane. However, Ludovik Day scores the most surprise laughs as the not quite as nebbish as he looks Bruno, whereas Vincent Tirel’s Drazic largely falls back on druggy-guru clichés.

Regardless, you have to give Datis credit for observing horror movie traditions while tweaking and twisting them at the same time. The mansion itself also represents some very effective location scouting and set dressing. Recommended without reservations for horror fans, Le Manoir screens tonight (7/21) and Wednesday August 2^nd as part of this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: The Laplace’s Demon

Physicists and philosophers like to argue thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory have vanquished Pierre-Simon Laplace’s theory of strict causal determinism, thereby restoring our free will. A group of scientists would like to agree, even though they have been working to create Laplacian predictive models. Finding themselves in a Rube Goldbergian death trap programmed with a revolutionary equation that anticipates their every move has dramatically changed their outlook. Thanks to science, there is a good chance they’re all doomed in Giordano Giulvi’s The Laplace’s Demon (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Isaac’s team of scientists have been working on models to predicts how many shards a crystal glass will shatter into when dropped from a table. They have refined it to within a two percent margin of error. Evidently, there host has advanced far beyond them. Frankly, he is not even there anymore. According to the videotape he left behind for them to watch, he just entered them into his fateful formula and programmed the output into his island villa of death.

Through computer automization, the absentee host will pick off his guests one by one, because he can calculate exactly where they will be at any given moment. They will even be able to watch it happen in real time through the scale model and pre-programmed chess pieces he left behind, unless they can figure out a way to cheat fate and science.

Laplace is a bizarre but wildly distinctive film that represents a quantum leap forward for Giordano Giulvi and his co-screenwriter-co-star Duccio Giulvi from the grungy-goofy Apollo 54. Shot in dramatically stylish black-and-white, it is like a strange puree of Pi, Saw, and And Then There Were None. The film is driven by some heady speculation regarding free will and scientific determinism, but people are still getting killed dead at regular intervals.

Arguably, characterization was not this film’s top priority, but Duccio Giulvi and Silvano Bertolin quite effectively establish the film’s two poles, as the unpredictably eccentric Jim Bob and fatalistic Karlheinz, respectively. However, the art and set design, also overseen by G. Giulvi is absolutely crucial to the film’s success. Most people would agree it is hard to pull off human-sized killer chess pieces, but Giulvi manages to do it.

The ultimate implications of Laplace are depressingly scary, but unlike the instantly stale The Circle, the overall film is so smart and inventive, we really don’t mind its philosophical upshot. It is a dark and twisted revelation that should absolutely not be missed when it screens tonight (7/21) and Monday (7/24) at this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: House of the Disappeared

Kang Mi-hee was Catholic, but she could still recognize bad feng shui when she was living right smack dab in the middle of it. We are talking some seriously bad energy here. The resulting horrors will reverberate for decades in Lim Dae-woong’s House of the Disappeared (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Kang was convicted for the murders of her second husband Chul-joong and her firstborn son, Hyo-je, but the latter’ body was never found. After twenty-five years in prison, Kang’s sentence has been commuted to house arrest on compassionate grounds. She has throat cancer. However, it is not particularly compassionate to imprison her in the same evil house where it all went down. Yet, she wants to be there, because she is convinced Hyo-je is still there somehow. Although she never asked for his help, Priest Choi keeps offering. Eventually, he will uncover the house’s creepy history, involving a regular cycle of disappearances.

If Disappeared sounds familiar, it is because it is a Korean remake of the Venezuelan film, The House at the End of Time. Frankly, screenwriter Jang Jae-hyeon follows Alejandro Hidalgo’s film beat-for-beat, but there is no getting around the fact Korean cinema is just so better suited to handling the uncanny sentimental heart-string tugging of denouement. It is what they do best.

Yunjin Kim, best known for her breakout American television work on Lost and Mistresses, happens to be very adept at yanking on those heart-strings. She is terrific as Kang, convincingly portraying her as a young mother and disgraced old woman. Former boy-bander TaecYeon also vastly exceeds expectations as Father Choi. Young Park Sang-hoon IV and Ko Woo-rim are both so strong as Hyo-je and his brother Ji-won, they often make it painful to watch the film.

Disappeared is one of the few remakes that seems to offer the story a more suitable home. The Catholicism is still there, but the added elements of feng shui and shamanism give it more texture and depth. Highly recommended, especially if you haven’t seen the Venezuelan original, House of the Disappeared screens again tomorrow (7/20) as part of this year’s Fantasia.

Fantasia ’17: Sequence Break

There was a time when you had to deal with people if you wanted to play video games. Players would put their quarters up to claim the next game and everyone would patiently wait their turn, through common consent. These days, an arcade is a good place for a technician like Oz (short for Osgood, not Ozzie) to hide from the world. Yet, both a cute but neurotic woman and an evil mother board will find him in Graham Skipper’s Sequence Break (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Jerry’s arcade-slash-stand-up arcade game wholesale business is on its last legs, but one of their final customers happens to be Tess, who is really interested in Oz. Much to his surprise, he starts seeing her romantically. They will have a chance to spend a lot of time together while he minds the shop for Jerry. He assumes his good-natured boss has already left to visit family, but he has actually been murdered by a mysterious drifter who intentionally left behind a sinister game board. After Oz installs it in a compatible cabinet, he finds the game exerts a disturbing influence over players, both physically and emotionally.

Sequence Break is a nice example of an emerging loose ensemble of recognizable horror specialists and cult favorites, who almost constitute a throwback to the glory days of the repertory players featured Hammer and Amicus horror films. Skipper himself is better known for starring in nifty retro films like The Mind’s Eye and Beyond the Gates, which also co-starred Chase Williamson, who is terrific as the socially awkward Oz. He also develops some shockingly endearing chemistry with Fabianne Therese, with whom he previously co-starred in John Dies at the End. (She also appeared in Starry Eyes with Noah Segan, who was also in Camera Obscura with Williamson and Mind’s Eye with Skipper. Get the picture?)

Given its retro 1980s arcade aesthetic, Sequence Break’s budget constraints are almost a blessing. The arcade setting and the in-game graphics look absolutely spot-on. The small ensemble really works well together, most definitely also including Lyle Kanouse as old Jerry. The visual effects are basically in keeping with the retro eighties nostalgia, but the practical cables-coming-out-of-throats effects are sufficiently gory and gross.

Basically, Sequence is a lot like Electric Dreams with a strong element of body horror added. However, there is just no getting around how disappointing the ending is. Maybe you can argue it is part of the eighties homage, but it is still lame. Nonetheless, Skipper and the cast press so many nostalgic buttons, it is impossible to stay angry with the film. Recommended for fans of modern horror’s repertory players and the films and video games of the 1980s that inspired Skipper’s screenplay, Sequence Break screens tonight (7/18) and tomorrow (7/19) as part of this year’s Fantasia.