Site: Bad Karma Makes Dangerous Science

It's all about quantum physics. In this case, it’s quantum entanglement rather than time travel, until it maybe sort of becomes time travel, or maybe not. It is all very complicated, especially for an average working stiff building inspector. To make matters worse, he is a massive screw-up, but maybe that wasn’t his fault. Perhaps the blame should fall on karma or string theory, in director-screenwriter Jason Eric Perlman’s Site, which releases today in theaters and on VOD.

Neil Bardo (a name rife with Buddhist significance) was on the verge of patching things up with his estranged wife Elena and moving back in with her and their son Wiley. Then he went on a fateful inspection with his slimy boss, Garrison Vey. The local district wants to convert a weird abandoned lab into a school, but it needs a clean inspection report. Vey stands to make a lot of money in kickbacks if the sale goes through, so he needs Bardo to issue a rubber stamp.

However, the property is very strange. There is a bunch of bizarre equipment that they naturally fire up. It has a strange effect on Bardo, giving him disturbing visions of a Japanese military lab in wartime Manchuria and warps his sense of time. Bardo suspects Vey had similar experiences, but the corrupt dirtbag denies it. Unfortunately, Bardo continues having vivid hallucinations. As a result, he crashes his motorcycle, potentially blinding Wiley for life. Obviously, the “site” should not pass inspection, but Vey uses every point of leverage, including Wiley’s future.

It soon becomes clear Bardo’s visions originate in the notorious Unit 731, where the Imperial Japanese conducted truly horrific experiments on prisoners. Using such a notorious site of real-life horror in a science fiction film conceived for entertainment purposes is a risky proposition. There is an a priori question of taste, but there was clearly an effort to depict Unit 731 with due sensitivity. Like it or not, the notion that the Macguffin experiment might focus on the facility because there were no survivors, also makes a certain degree of grim logical sense.

Perlman’s underlying concept, essentially that quantum entanglement, generational trauma, and karma are all more or less the same thing, is rather intriguing—and he develops this idea well. However, there is an awful lot that gets glossed over during the climax and denouement. It also strains credibility that anyone would ever trust Vey, especially Bardo’s wife.

Nevertheless, Theo Rossi is spectacularly sleazy as Vey. Jake McLaughlin and Miki Ishikawa have nice chemistry as Neil Bardo and Naomi Uchida, a journalist helping him investigate the site, who also happens to be his college ex. Arielle Kebbel does what she can in the role of Elena Bardo, but Perlman saddles her character with conspicuously dubious judgement.

The Chef, the Actor, and the Scoundrel: Chinese Opera in the Time of Cholera

The Imperial Japanese Army’s notorious Unit 731 has been the subject of several highly controversial docudramas that were sharply criticized for their exploitative use of horrific archival footage. This is not one of them. Instead, two members of the biological warfare research center will find themselves on the business end of an unorthodox interrogation in Hu Gaun’s comedic-tragic action mash-up The Chef, the Actor, and the Scoundrel (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and BluRay from Well Go USA.

A particularly nasty strain of Cholera is raging through China, courtesy of Unit 731. However, their leading biochemist Col. Ogasawara Goro and his aide de camp have been waylaid by a highwayman, who has more or less commandeered an inn to serve as his temporary hideout. However, the chef and his mute wife are not thrilled to have them there, but their Chinese opera singer sort of sides with the Scoundrel (and against his employers), for patriotic reasons. With varying degrees of reluctance, they proceed to grill the officer in hopes of exploiting his valuable formula.

Frankly, you just have to get through the first twenty minutes of buffoonery before Guan tips his hand. It turns out the four bickering captors are much smarter, disciplined, and unified than they would have the Japanese believe. In fact, we are witnessing an elaborate ruse inspired by Chinese opera, designed to lull Ogasawara into accidentally revealing the formula. The set-up works like a charm, but time is not on their side, especially when the Japanese military finally comes knocking.

Really, you want to stick with this film, because it reinvents itself several times. In a way, it rather shows up the kind of rubber-faced slapstick of co-star Huang Bo’s Lost in Thailand. There are indeed a number of twisty plot reversals and some ripping good action spectacle in the third act. In fact, it wins over viewer affections in surprising (but spoilery) ways.

Huang and Zhang Hanyu are rather amazing dialing it up and then cranking it down as the Scoundrel and the Actor, respectively. Liu Ye cannot quite turn on a dime as quickly as his two comrades, but he shows off the strongest action chops as the Chef. Yet, it is Liang Jing who probably undertakes the greatest upstairs-downstairs transformation as the goonish wife. One should also keep their eyes on Taiwan-based Japanese actress-model Chie Tanaka, for dramatic reasons, because she nicely turns her own subtle surprises, as well.

Somehow, the misleadingly Greenaway-esque titled Chef manages to be both a traditional homage and an ironic riff on the King Hu-inspired inn period drama. Guan throws just about everything into the mix, except maybe space aliens and cynicism. Highly recommended (but seriously, don’t bail on it early), The Chef, the Actor, and the Scoundrel is now available on DVD, BluRay, and digital platforms from Well Go USA.