Ong Bak 2 – Magnet Releasing, 2008. Directed by Tony Jaa and Panna Rittikrai.

Click to watch trailer

I had pretty high expectations going into Ong Bak 2 which is why I made sure to catch the last screening before it left theaters after its brief three week run. The first Ong Bak was a great return to old school kung fu movies with a scant story, but a great variety of action. Tom Yum Goong’s story (whether you watched the uncut version or the slimmed down American version) was pretty awful, but did you care when Tony Jaa is fighting in every other scene?

Story – (This section will be inordinately long because it’s fun to talk about how badly it’s done. If you don’t care then skip to the “Action” section) Abandoning the “Where’s my Buddha head!?” or “Where’s my elephant!?” story structure of the first films, Ong Bak 2’s story is a far more ambitious period revenge story. Revenge stories in martial arts films are pretty standard fare so how did they mess it up so badly? Permit me to illustrate with a stream of consciousness description to the progression of the story. It should give you a good idea of the problems with the story in this film.

A boy is being carried on horseback fleeing soldiers shooting at him with bows and arrows. The rider drops him for his safety before he and his horse are riddled with arrows. The boy is taken to a village with nasty looking men. A Frankenstein looking guy throws him into a pit of muddy water where he’s forced to duke it out with a crocodile. A bearded man intently watches and decides to save the boy along with his friends who all have unique martial arts skills and weapons. These men are the leaders of a group of bandits.

KISSSSS MEEEE!!!

Boy is trained in martial arts of all types and grows up to become total badass and seemingly invincible Tony Jaa. The Bearded man passes the mantle onto Tony Jaa who will now be the leader on raids. Wait, what? Why is Tony Jaa now looking evil and killing people and stealing their stuff while looking evil? Am I supposed to cheer him on?

Here's the villain of the film... no wait that's Tony Jaa.

We see Frankenstein guy again and this time he’s selling slaves. Tony Jaa puts a stop to it and defeats the bad men with a kind of Drunken Boxing. He frees the slaves. Wait, you alternate between being evil and being good?

Now we see flashbacks to his training where he prays diligently and talks about wanting to learn martial arts so he can protect himself and his friends. That fits with freeing the slaves, but right before that you were killing people and stealing their stuff. Isn’t this a bit hypocritical? Oh by the way, when he was a boy he went to a dance school where he met a girl and had a silly dance off with a guy (Dirty Balls from Ong Bak 1) and as he leaves the girl in tears he gives her a bracelet with bells on it.

On with the story. Bearded man wants to make Tony Jaa the leader but he sees he still has revenge in his heart. Oh, I guess all this time he had revenge in his mind, could’ve told us sooner because now it’s probably more than halfway through the movie by now. In another flashback some man in dark robes killed his father at the behest of some evil leader. Now we’re caught up on his desire for revenge.

We get it... we get it... Thai dance is beautiful... now fight some more!

[Insert loooooong dance scene with Tony Jaa's childhood friend who we connect because she still wears the bracelet] [Insert another looooong dance scene with a decidedly more martial arts twist to it] [Insert girl and evil leader exchanging looks] [Insert girl and evil leader exchanging looks] [Insert girl and evil leader exchanging looks] [Insert girl and evil leader exchanging looks] [Insert girl and evil leader exchanging looks] OMG Tony Jaa threw explosives and is now killing people and alternately slashing the evil leader with a sword!

Oh no I think I see dust on the lens! Tony stop looking at the camera!

Tony Jaa flees! Wait, what about the girl? Oh well.

Tony Jaa returns to the bandit village an is attacked by a robust cast of diverse martial artists in black robes wielding lots of different weapons. End with a fight with Tony Jaa and some weird boss character that makes crow noises and has weird bird-like ticks. Tony Jaa loses, bird man disappears for the rest of the movie. [SPOILER ALERT] Evil leader man and his soldiers surround Tony Jaa, turns out he was wearing armor the entire time and is still alive! Also, the Bearded man was the man who killed Tony Jaa’s father so they duel and Tony Jaa wins.  Evil leader orders Tony Jaa tortured then some abrupt narration about Tony Jaa having bad karma and not being able to escape it. Cut to Tony Jaa with beard standing in front of… OMG IT’S THE ONG BAK HEAD FROM THE FIRST MOVIE!! Roll credits.

I probably just talked about the story of Ong Bak 2 more than all the other reviews on the internet do combined. You think in kung fu movies that the story doesn’t really matter at all but it kinda sorta does. The action scenes in Ong Bak 2 are great and hard hitting, but doesn’t it feel better when you REALLY want the protagonist to kick the crap out of the other guy? People always say they’re not going to the movie for the story, but we still need enough story that we root for the hero. In Ong Bak 1 we REALLY want Tony Jaa to beat up some of the villains whether it’s for beating up helpless people, breaking their arms etc.

I pray I don't knee you in the face TOO hard.

The problem in Ong Bak 2 is from one scene to the next the protagonist goes back and forth between seeming evil to benevolent. So by the time the revenge plot is finally revealed halfway through the movie we’re really not sympathizing with him.

Sometimes I find myself thinking that a movie could be shorter, but never has it been so clear which parts should be cut out as when I was watching Ong Bak 2. The entire subplot with his childhood friend could easily be cut out because it’s never resolved in any way shape or form nor does it add anything to his character. Also if they cut out the raid scene where he’s killing and robbing that would make the character more consistent and make him more sympathetic.

Action – Enough talk about plot let’s get down to the action. The action is excellent and shot with well framed shots that allow you to see all the action and smoothly edited so your eye never gets lost.

The first action scene is the bandits fighting in their various styles. This scene is more like a taste of things to come since no one in here is really a star. Most of them have a few good moves before they cut to the next person. A nice variety of weapons from spear, katana, metal rings and knives.

I wear my shawl thus so I can take it off like this!

The first real scene where Tony Jaa gets to show his chops is during a series of trials where he fights with a Japanese katana which has a lot of stances and close up shots on hand grips you usually see in samurai films. Next is a very hard Southern style Chinese kung fu fight with very deep rooted stances and hard strikes. It’s cool to see Tony Jaa doing more Chinese style kung fu with its pretty low stances. Finally a fight which looks more like Tony Jaa’s typical Muay Thai style with lots of grappling and submission holds mixed in. These fights are good, but still also just a sample of what’s to come. His final trial is a sort of “Empire Strikes Back” cave scene against a feral woman which is an okay scene but seems more focused on the woman growling like a lion and showing her fangs.

What's in there? Only what you take with you.

Later we have the aforementioned raid scene where Tony Jaa acts all evil and stuff. There’s some quick hand to hand, sword fighting and spear fighting, but mostly this scene isn’t entirely about cool choreography. Plus, he’s being evil in this scene so it wouldn’t really be fitting for you to cheer him on. First rule of writing a hero character, don’t make him beat up and kill innocent civilians!

Next up is Tony Jaa’s take on drunken boxing which he actually spends mostly on the ground kicking/breaking knees and falling on people elbowing them in the back of the head. While nothing yet has topped Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master II this scene is fun to watch because it’s a different take focused more on really hard hits and broken bones. This is the first scene where we get a good amount of Tony Jaa’s brutal style. He’s not quite as evil in this scene because he’s freeing slaves but he still looks pretty evil.

Ow

After what’s probably the longest stretch without any fighting we have Tony Jaa’s masked dance/kung fu performance which is fun to watch, but all I could think of at the time was how he was just wasting time before he tries to kill the Evil leader who isn’t even really watching his show. He has some knife and sword fighting, but this scene isn’t about the choreography.

Fighting two people at the same time is hard...

Finally we get to the final fifteen minute fight scene. This is where Tony Jaa really just amps it up and shows everything he can do. He alternates between sword and sheath on rope, three-sectioned staff, blade and string, more swords, elephant (yes elephant) and good old hand to hand combat. I think the hand to hand versus two fighters is where I really started making sure I didn’t miss any details because this fight has the longest takes and is very impressive. While I think Jackie Chan makes fighting multiple guys look the best, this is still a very good fight.

Why yes, I do fight with elephants. What do you fight with?

It’s interesting to contrast Tony Jaa and Jet Li’s use of three-sectioned staff. Tony Jaa has his flourishes to be sure, but for the most part it’s very direct. Older Hong Kong films usually focus more on the fight looking pretty, where as Thai action seems to focus more on being brutally efficient. Both are fun to watch in their own way so it’s nice to have the variety.

I’ve read some reviews of this movie that say the movie speeds the fights up too much, but after watching it again I don’t think they sped the movements up at all. The only thing I think that could give that impression is it looks like they might’ve used a camera with smaller shutter which gives a unique kind of motion a la “Saving Private Ryan” or the Mexico scenes in “Traffic.” My kung fu teacher is in his mid 40s and watching his movements are like watching a movie so it’s not hard to believe that someone in his 30s could move as fast or faster.

All sword fighting scenes are cooler with sparks!

I also give credit to the way the film was shot and edited. When they aren’t using long takes the editing is very smooth and precise from one motion to the next. The shots are framed such that you can see everything that’s going on and the use of slow motion is used well to give maximum impact for the big hits (watch closely Zack Snyder, this is how it’s done). The only bit of slow motion when they let me down was a slow motion jump he makes to escape a shack full of explosives… that doesn’t explode. That aside, after watching Chocolate it feels good to watch a kung fu movie which knows how to best show off the skills of its star.

Final Thoughts – Recommended. I wish the story was more interesting, but the action makes up for it in the end. The production design is also very good, they clearly spent a lot more money making this film with its sets and costumes. It looks like they could’ve just filmed in villages they found in Thailand (maybe they did?).

Tony Jaa continues to impress, let’s just hope in the future he has some smarter writers and story editors. Or who knows? Maybe Ong Bak 3 will tie up loose ends that they didn’t get to here. As long as he continues to use the same action directors then we can expect more good things to come from him in the future.

Chocolate – Magnolia Pictures, 2008. Directed by Prachnya Pinkaew.

Click to watch trailer

I’ve been excited about this film ever since I saw the first trailer, but I just couldn’t bring myself to get a non-subtitled version which is all that was available for a while. Then when an official subtitled version came out I just sat on my hands for a while because I wasn’t really buying DVDs. Also I had heard that it might be coming to theaters which would be the ideal way to see it. Finally I got the blu-ray and sat down and watched it. So did it live up to my expectations? Unfortunately no.

Story – Jeeja Yanin plays Zen who is an autistic girl born of a Yakuza member and a Thai call girl, Zin, who get together after some business dealings between the Yakuza and Thai mafia. Zen’s father leaves before she is born, and Zin raises the girl on her own. The girl’s autism gives her very fast reflexes and with her friend Moom she earns money as a street performer who will catch balls that people throw at her from any angle. They’re using this money to buy medicine for her mom who has cancer. When Zin’s condition turns for the worse, Zen and Moom find a book Zin was keeping that has a record of all the people who owe her money. Zen spends the rest of the movie kicking the butts of the people until they give the money her mom is due.

Catching balls

Sounds like a simple enough premise with loads of excuses for fights, right? Yes you’d be correct on that, but did you know that the first two sentences is at least twenty minutes of the entire movie?

Do you know what the worst thing about this movie was for me? Watching most of it thinking of how it could’ve been done better.

Critique – Prachya Pinkaew did a fine enough job with Ong-Bak and sort of to a lesser extent with Tom Yum Goong, but his directorial shortcomings really show through in this film. Ong-Bak was the best film because it’s very very simple and pretty difficult to mess up. The only problems that film had were maybe a bit too much of the subplot with the girl trying to clean up and fly right, and also a gambling scene that was way too long. Other than that it works just fine. Tom Yum Goong was way too long, the comedy fell flat and the story tried to be more than it was which is just Tony Jaa going from place to place yelling “Where’s my elephant!?” Plus what the hell was up with the horrible CG battle scene?

If you didn’t know what Chocolate was about, from the first twenty minutes you’d probably think it was going to be a romance of some kind. So much time is spent trying to develop the relationship between Zin and her love interest Masashi (played by famous Japanese model Hiroshi Abe). I think this was probably in here to give him more screen time, because otherwise he’s not in the film much at all. This section is waaaaaaay too long. We all know we’re watching the film to get to the butt kicking and the setup is very long and could’ve been done more efficiently.

One of the big problems with such a long setup is that we don’t get anymore invested in the characters or relationship considering how long the film lingered on it. When they’re reunited later on in the film it’s not like we care at all. So why bother spending all that time in the first place? There’s also way too much bad pop music in this section, it’s like all the horrible Hong Kong end credits music, but used in the film instead. Pinkaew’s direction has the subtlety of a freight train but with none of the impact.

After this very long intro we finally get to the action! From the trailer the action looked really freaking awesome and of course was the primary reason I was watching this film. So, how does that fare?

Action – During and after watching this film I spent a while with my girlfriend discussing just why the fight scenes lacked the impact they deserved. There are a number of things that robbed this movie of its potential as a really awesome kickass martial arts film. First I blame the director. It’s clear from watching the film that the star Jeeja Yanin has impressive kicking skills and flexibility, that’s all DESPITE how the movie was shot.

What makes Hong Kong action films so exceptional is the seamless editing, the well thought out tempo of the fight scenes, the power and energy. Chocolate is rather lacking in these things. Okay so why is this? Thai Boxing is a lot less about the acrobatics, quick series of blocks, punches and kicks and more about the BIG IMPACTS. When Tony Jaa hits a guy with his elbow, knees or combination of the two you know he really doesn’t need to follow up with anything else. If you see a guy go down from one his hits you believe it. Mostly because you can see the power in Tony Jaa’s blows. If Jackie Chan is going at a guy you know he’ll probably use a ton of punches and blocks and finish off with a big kick or punch.

One thing you see in Jackie Chan documentaries is when he’s describing how the rhythm of the fight will go. He’ll describe a bunch of fast hits and then a big one, then repeat. It’s the mix of fast, slow, rapidfire and impactful hits that makes them so dynamic. Thai Boxing is more like a series of really big hits, big periods one after another. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just different.

The problem the film runs into is that the choreography is treating Jeeja Yanin like she actually is Tony Jaa. Her physical abilities are impressive to be sure, but you can tell she doesn’t have the same power. So when she does a kick that’s supposed to be as strong as one of his it doesn’t look good. Her small frame just can’t sell it as well.

When I’m at my martial arts school and helping newer students there’s something I find myself saying a lot when we’re kicking pads. If someone’s technique isn’t good I’ll say something like “It feels like you’re hitting the very front of the pad really hard, but it’s not going through.” That’s because the tendency of people is to use muscle strength instead of body strength. When I’m watching Chocolate, at best I feel like I’m seeing her kick the surface of the stuntmen very hard. Now, of course in filming fight scenes they’re not hitting nearly as hard as they would be if it was a real kick, but it feels very apparent in this film. I think either she was going too easy on the stuntmen or they were going too easy on her. Either way, this brings me to the next criticism of the fight scenes.

The fight choreography for the most part is just fine, but the editing and shot selection keep it from looking as good as it should. Since she’s not as big and muscular as Tony Jaa the film should’ve compensated by making her appear faster. The individual shots in the fight scenes very often feel like they start too soon, or end too late. They give us time to breathe between the cool bits, and the effect is that it feels like she had a lot of time to hit them, or prepare to hit them or try to dodge. In Jackie Chan movies the speed of the fights means that if he’s not doing something for a half second, then the other guys are going to jump in and kick him.

After watching the film I watched the trailer again. The trailer uses the exact same shots from the film and yet it works great in the trailer. Why is this? Because the individual moments in the fight scenes are cut together with very little gap in between the hits so there’s better flow and impact. Maybe they edit together a bunch of fast kicks, then finish off with a slow motion big one. This is what the movie’s editing is lacking in its fight scenes.

Angelina Jolie wishes her feat was this cool in Wanted.

Also the way it was shot you can see that you’re not getting the optimal angle for some of the really impressive stuntwork. Anyone who compares Hong Kong fight scenes to Hollywood close up shaky cam fights knows how important camerawork is. Unfortunately the shot selection and framing takes a really really impressive move, and doesn’t let it shine like it should. I rewatched the fight scenes before writing this, but I know that every time I watch this movie I’ll be thinking of how certain shots could’ve been done better. I really shouldn’t be thinking “Oh, if only they framed it more to the right and closer up in this shot.” The music often doesn’t help either. The end especially has very ambient lethargic music, the earlier scenes have a bit more of what you’d expect, but still doesn’t help much.

My hope is to see Jeeja Yanin in another film with a more competent director who knows how to use her properly and make her look as good as she did in the trailer. I would love to see her in a Jackie Chan directed film or some other Hong Kong director who knows how to use her better. Her next film is a movie called Raging Phoenix. The gimmick of that film is that they combine B-Boy dancing with martial arts. We’ll see how it pans out. The trailer’s fight scenes didn’t look as impressive as Chocolate’s from its trailer, but I’ll reserve judgment until I see it.

This scene, sooooo not in the movie. I demand deleted scenes!

Final Thoughts – I’d still say that kung fu movie junkies should see this film because there’s still some great stuntwork and martial arts, it just fails to live up to its potential. Too much sentimentality, very uneven tone, unnecessary stylistic choices hamper what could’ve been a really awesome easy to recommend movie. Oh, I forgot to mention that one of the movies Zen watches in the film is Ong Bak, and during her first big fight scene she experiences a sort of revelatory vision of Tony Jaa almost as if he were Obi-Wan Kenobi saying “Use the Muay Thai! Trust your feelings!” Really not subtle and kind of silly when it comes down to it.

The Blu-ray disc has a short fluffy “making of” piece that doesn’t really do much except show some behind the scenes footage. The only English subtitles are for the hard of hearing so you have stuff like “loud clang” mixed into the subtitles. Oh and the end credits do have bloopers but they kind of make too much of themselves, lingering on the people after they got hurt complete with the audio. I think even the blooper reel wasn’t edited well.

Oh and despite what the trailer says, you can clearly see in the behind the scenes footage there were some wires used that were later digitally removed.

Today is the launch of Google’s “Make the Chrome icon” event. Anna and a few other people online were contacted in advance to be the first entries when the event premiered. I edited the video of her making the bento box. Check it out:

Music is “Main Title” from Giant Robo OST Composed by Masamichi Amano

The Last Samurai – 2003, Directed by Edward Zwick

Click to view trailer

This is another trailer that I distinctly remember seeing in theaters. What was so memorable? Well, right from the first two shots the audience seemed very interested. I think because feudal Japan hasn’t been shown in modern cinema all that much, especially in the U.S. But then all that comes crashing down when the fifth shot rears its head and it’s a Tom Cruise movie. This was in 2003 so I don’t even think this was when he was crazy-Scientology Tom Cruise.

I think seeing Tom Cruise in this movie trailer was about as jarring as it must be in the movie for the Japanese to be seeing his character in their country. Anyway, on with the review. This will be kind of short because it’s not a very long teaser.

Story – Not much you can get from this trailer but here goes. It’s feudal Japan, Tom Cruise is there for some reason. There’s a large battle going on of which Tom Cruise is observing or training one side (the one with guns). Tom Cruise probably has a relationship with a Japanese woman and ends up in the battle with samurai armor.

Music & Editing – If memory serves me correctly, this trailer is one of the unique few which has a custom score for it. The music according to Soundtrack.net was done by Parodifair. Since there’s no sound or dialogue this teaser is all music so it better be good. This trailer music is pretty much to a T what is often ideal in a trailer. That is, it has slow moments, fast moments and lots of beats to cut to. After a slow build up in the beginning it climaxes at the end after which it’s slow again for the last Tom Cruise card and the title card.

Intercut in the trailer are the title cards with the obligatory mention of the word “honor” (this is a movie with Asian people in it after all). These nicely break up the action giving the trailer the cool slow/fast/slow/fast sort of editing. I think what I like is the simplicity of this trailer, which the music allows for. When I’m editing trailers I usually consider it phoning it in when I’m doing a trailer with no dialogue or sound effects (though I almost never have music this good to edit with ) but in thise case I think it works very well.

Selling Points – Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise. Oh, and did I mention it tries to sell it based on the fact Tom Cruise is in it? Of course it’s also about the setting, epic battles and such. Seriously though, obviously Tom Cruise is the main character so he has to be the focus of the trailer, but it just feels so incongruous. Maybe that’s the point, Tom Cruise doesn’t belong in Japan like his character doesn’t. But Tom Cruise not only in Japan but kicking butt and all that?

Final Thoughts – Not much else to say, elegant simplicity. If only it wasn’t Tom Cruise. I enjoyed the movie, but these types of stories about a white guy in a foreign land falling for someone, fighting alongside the leader of the group. In this case not even the leader, but the EMPEROR of Japan. I think just about any Japanese person you talk to about this movie will say that the biggest contrivance in the movie is that Tom Cruise’s character is let anywhere NEAR the Emperor let alone have a private talk with him. Japanese magazines even have a specific type of Japanese used only in articles talking about the Emperor. But I still enjoyed it because this isn’t a time period/setting you see often in film and it was cool to see. I have a friend who walked out because they couldn’t take all the Tom Cruise

I wish I could go to this, but it’s in California so I can’t. It’s this show called “Trailer Music Live!” which is a concert where they’re going to play trailer music. It’s partially going to be by Immediate Music which is the trailer music company that has albums of music they recorded with a full chorus.

The even is June 27th in Santa Monica, California.

It sounds a lot like the “Video Games Live” concert where they perform music from famous video games like Halo, Castlevania, Super Mario Bros. and Shadow of the Colossus. If you’re in the area and you like trailer music you’d be a fool to let this pass by!

Star Trek – Paramount, 2009. Directed by J.J. Abrams.

Finally saw the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot movie. Because of various different weekend trips I didn’t see it until about a month after most of my friends so I’ve been hearing nothing but how everyone liked it. I enjoyed it too, and it was about as good as I was expecting. I had a general idea of the plot with only a few minor spoilers. Basically I went in expecting a Summer Hollywood blockbuster formula movie that pushes all the right buttons, and also puts in bits here and there for the hardcore Star Trek fans. I think that pretty much that’s exactly what it was. When you have that sort of formula and a competent production it’s kind of hard to not enjoy, whether or not it was a transcendent is debatable.

This review will contain spoilers.

What I liked – I think what I enjoyed the most were the bits that fleshed out each character and their field of expertise more. In the original Star Trek the characters all have their areas of expertise, but you never necessarily got the sense that they were the best at what they did. Sure Spock is the science officer who can do all the great calculations, Scotty is a good engineer who can fix things, but you never got the sense that it was entirely special.

In this movie you find out Uhura is a top member of her class, knows three Romulan dialects and is really good at filtering through communication static and such. Oh, so then it makes perfect sense that Uhura is the communications person with the ear thingy on the flagship of Starfleet. Similarly you find out Chekov is a young genius at doing complicated calculations and Scotty is a genius when it comes to transporter theory. I think there were bits about McCoy’s skill, but I might’ve missed it because of a guy next to me was talking during a lot of the movie.

I think Sulu kind of got the shaft in this one because you don’t get much of a sense of him, only bit they stick in is the joke about him being a good fencer. Of course the story was primarily about Kirk and Spock so really everyone else didn’t get to do all that much. Most of them had their one scene or two, but other than that were on the sideline for the majority of the movie. Only person other than Spock and Kirk who got more time was probably McCoy. McCoy as people have been saying was dead-on McCoy. He definitely had the most direct quote fan-service in the movie, but thankfully the delivery was good otherwise it would’ve been really annoying to have the winking and nudging. More on this later though.

The development of Kirk and Spock worked well. Spock was Spock and Kirk was definitely very Kirk-like. Chris Pine I think did a good job of being Kirk without necessarily aping William Shatner, but there were definitely moments when he really was sounding like him. I think Kirk’s attitude is what came across best.

Thanks Hollywood – Okay here’s where I get my geek on. This next section won’t be very organized. Star Trek has always been very convenient sort of science fiction as opposed to hard science fiction shows in the stylings of Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. There’s a lot of convenient technology and deux ex machinas. Still though they were always more science fiction than fantasy. That said

What the heck is this monster doing in a Star Trek movie???

A great English teacher of mine in high school once spelled out for us why Star Trek was science fiction and Star Wars was fantasy. Science fiction deals with probabilities and fantasy is possibilities. While in the farthest reaches of space it’s possible that a wookiee or rancor exists, it’s certainly not probable. Though The Force is mostly what makes Star Wars complete fantasy as opposed to science fiction. The giant spider monster thing made this movie move more towards fantasy. Also Kirk being ejected from the ship for mutiny? I don’t think there’s any precedent for something like this, at least not within Starfleet. Seems like unduly harsh punishment, wouldn’t they court martial him or something?

Like I said at the beginning, at the foremost this is a Summer Hollywood blockbuster action movie. There were a lot of scenes in this movie where it felt like there were wacky hijinks and gags that helped space out the more Trekkie moments in the film. Moments like Kirk’s enormous hands, the giant monster creature on the planet, Scotty inside the tubes in engineering, felt very much like they belonged in another movie and struck me as silly.

There were a lot of fan service-y moments in the movie that had nothing to do with Star Trek and all about being cool. Okay haha, Sulu is really good at fancing but he carries around a foldout sword? What the heck? Not only does he have a non-fencing foldout sword but the one Romulan he fights happens to also have a sword instead of a phaser or disruptor.

Turns out this one scene they showed in the trailers really IS my only real scene. But who cares, FOLDOUT SWORD BEATCH!

Uhura undressing while Kirk is under the bed, total fan service. I knew it looked out of place in the TV spot and trailers and yes, it was totally gratuitous in the movie too.

Yep, this is Star Trek all right... wait a second...

Comic-book guy geek out – Star Trek has never been a slave to its science fiction tag (remember when Beverly and Geordi vented the airlock, but prior to doing it they took DEEP BREATHS?), but still I’m a believer in a movie adhering to the guidelines it sets for itself. For one thing, if that one tiny drop of Red Matter (*cough*Shizuma Drive*cough) was enough to destroy the entire planet of Vulcan then they should’ve made the giant enormous ball of Red Matter smaller if they wanted to be able to escape it at the end of the movie. Also I know they need the shot of Kirk seeing the Enterprise being built, but would they really have built it on Earth where its physical impractibilities would make it rather unfeasible? My meaning that the saucer section is so huge it would be quite a feat to prop it up during construction. Far as I know, they should be building at a space dock.

This was the most practical way to build this, on Earth.

I also had a problem with the interior of Nero’s ship, why the heck would you have a ship with huge bottomless pits in it? A mite impractical wouldn’t you say? A friend told me that this was explained in the comic book, but I like movies to stand up on their own. I also questioned why Old Spock would’ve been the one on the mission to save Romulus in the future, would someone that old be the the most *ahem* logical choice? Also assuming they were following the timeline he was probably on Romulus at the time, but I can’t know that for sure so I’ll leave it alone. Did the Romulan ship not have many guards? I know Kirk and Spock shot up the place upon arriving, but no guards on Spock’s ship?

Pointy

Also transporting from the planet back to the Enterprise while it was in warp was awwwwwwwfully convenient. Come on, really? While on the subject of Scotty, why does he have to go all the way down to engineering to eject the cores when all he’s going to do is press some buttons? Would it not make sense that he could be hitting those buttons from a more accessible area?

One thing I also wondered about was the Kobayashi Maru scene. This scene is referenced countless times and is a rather big plot point in Wrath of Khan. Kirk as we know cheated the test because the test was made to be a no-win situation. But was everyong supposed to know so obviously that he cheated? There’s no shadow of a doubt that Kirk cheated in here, but I was under the impression no one knew it really. I think I have to rewatch Wrath of Khan again. I just know that Saavik (who takes the same test at the beginning of Wrath of Khan) didn’t know how Kirk beat the test.

Another thing was McCoy. Karl Urban does a great McCoy that fits to a T without feeling like it’s an outright imitation. That said, it seemed like he was a bit too similar. I felt like a lot of his gruffness would’ve come with age which means he wouldn’t be the full on McCoy so early on in this story, but maybe you’d be able to see him going down that road. McCoy is a cranky old man, in this movie he’s a cranky man in general.

I've always been this gruff, didn't you know?

The other bit I had a sort of problem with was Old Spock. So he’s just sticking around? Already because of the destruction of Vulcan, the original Trek series (except Enterprise T_T) are now alternate universe since they can’t possibly exist in this same timeline where there’s no Vulcan. Also Old Spock meeting Young Spock and giving him a little talk about how you shouldn’t always do what’s logical, but what feels right. I kind of thought that would diminish Young Spock’s development as a character if he had Old Spock lecturing him on this. Isn’t it more meaningful if Young Spock learns to develop the friendship with Kirk and occasionally lighten up of his own volition? Speaking of Spock, Winona Ryder? Really? They did a great job of creating a basically unknown cast but Winona Ryder is in it, really distracting.

Final Thoughts – Despite these criticisms I did enjoy it a lot, and will probably end up seeing it in theaters again (if nothing else, for a less noisy experience). Though there are moments that are kind of un-Trek-like I don’t think any of them are SO bad that it’s necessarily crapping all over the franchise. It’s more like moments when I’m rolling my eyes thinking “Really? That’s what you’re doing? Foldout sword?” but it’s not so blasphemous that I can call the entire thing off. The movie was indeed very pretty and shiny, the innards of the ship were cool (more pipes is cool!) and the characters were well done. Sure, some of them got short changed and Sulu’s one moment was decidedly un-Sulu-like but it doesn’t bother me enough to hate it.

I’d of course see another Star Trek movie like this, but I don’t think I would grow to love it and claim it as my own like I do the other Star Trek movies. As well made as it is, it still feels like it’s not entirely for us geeks because they make it so accessible. It’s giving geeks some fun bits here and there, but it’s watered down Trek. There’s very little science fiction sort of stuff in here because it’s a Hollywood Summer Blockbuster action movie. I’m not sure that these movies will

Avalon – 2001, Directed by Mamoru Oshii

Watch trailer here

This is a Japanese trailer that I remember first seeing when I was a freshman in college. If there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that Japanese trailers do have a certain style but it really doesn’t compare to American trailers. Usually it involves some Jpop song as the climax (complete with music video style annotations).

This movie was riding the wake of its own sweet looking visuals, because I remember thinking that the trailer didn’t have much impact at all. It just felt kind of flat, but couldn’t figure out why. So now I’m going to analyze it and determine what it is that makes something so cool looking so uninteresting.

Story – There’s no subtitled version of this trailer that I could find so I had my girlfriend translate the few subtitles there are. The story you get from this trailer is that they’re apparently in some kind of virtual reality game that seems impossible to beat, but they say that there is a way. That’s it.

Music & Editing – Right from the get go this trailer has what trailers love to edit to. What’s that? Big choral songs of course! This one is from the actual film and is the only cue used for the duration of the trailer. Right away I think this is one thing that makes this trailer flat. Music is of paramount importance to a trailer, not just what song but also how it’s edited. How the song is edited to the trailer  will determine how much impact the song and trailer ultimately will have. When you’re not really editing to the music it’s basically a music video or simple montage.

As an example I’ll show two trailers for one show that use the same music. These are from the company I work for (just so I’m not being wanky with my own trailer I’m using one a friend edited instead). This is for the anime “Ramen Fighter Miki.”

The first trailer is what I mean for one that doesn’t use a song well such that there’s no impact. Watch it here. I’m pretty sure any moments that sync to that song were coincidental. Not only syncing to the song but in this case a lack of sound mixing makes it a very very sloppy trailer. A friend of mine did this trailer which is shorter, sweeter and makes much more of an impact. Watch that here. The second trailer plays with the music suggesting it’s only going on outdoors, but especially the punches and title card sync make it more fun to watch.

The trailer for Avalon has music that seems largely incidental. As far as I can tell it only really syncs up in three places. First when the tank shows up, second on the first “Avalon” matrix numbers ripoff bit and at the end when it’s over. After watching it a bunch of times I think one of the chief problems with this trailer is its sound mix. The music starts off pretty strong but after the Matrix numbers it’s mixed waaaay down and barely audible in certain sections. On top of that the sound effects are really loud. One thing I think really separates American trailers is the use of sound effects. There are tons of hits, swishes, whooshes of sorts in American trailers but most of the time in other trailers you just have the sound effects from the actual film.

Sound effects are also a big part of what makes the trailer exciting and also gives the flow and transitions between scenes. When you cut a bunch of scenes together one after another like this it’s choppy and boring. Cut to this shot, bang bang bang, this shot, bang bang bang. There’s no flow or rhythm. Rhythm and timing is a big part of a good trailer. The timing of the dialogue, music, sound effects are what come together to make it cool to watch. It could be timing of an explosion or timing of a joke’s punchline. This trailer has no rhythm, just disparate shots. Albeit cool looking shots, but that only goes so far. In this case I think the shots are what make you want to see the movie, not the trailer.

Selling Points – The beginning card is a quote from James Cameron basically saying Avalon is the most beautiful, artistic and stylish science fiction movie ever made. The trailer is selling on its action and visuals, but man does it look boring in its presentation. If I liked this movie more I’d almost be inclined to make a fan trailer because of how crappy this one is. Last bit is that this movie is directed by Mamoru Oshii who directed the “Ghost in the Shell” film. Though that’s only catering to the anime fans really.

Final Thoughts – I was one of the fortunate few in the U.S. who saw this in a movie theater. Miramax got the rights but decided to have some focus group screenings which my friends and I got to attend. After that they sat on it forever before releasing it direct to DVD. The movie is really pretty to look at but it’s also very slow and pretty boring. Plus it has some flashbacks of moments that literally happened ten or so minutes prior. The movie was slow, but that didn’t mean the trailer had to be. It’s a shame too because cool visuals and music should be allowed to be made into a kickass movie trailer.

Kambi – 351 E 14th St between 1st and 2nd Avenue (As of the writing of this, Google street view is outdated)

Kambi Ramen

My girlfriend and I go to Minca every other week now, and we’re trying to go to a different restaurant during the off week.  We only slightly extended ourselves this past week because we went to Minca’s sister (brother?) restaurant Kambi. Same owner and same menu. Or is it…?

I consider myself something of a ramen connoisseur but not exactly a food expert. I like watching cooking shows like Iron Chef and Hell’s Kitchen, but I don’t think I necessarily have a great palate or understanding of subtle nuances of spices and flavors. That said I think that are some distinct differences between Kambi and Minca’s ramen. We did notice though that some of the staff from Minca were over at Kambi.

Kambi itself is more spacious than Minca. Minca seats I’d say at most 20 people if that. Kambi looked like it could seat 30+ people. As of the writing of this review Kambi doesn’t have a license to sell liquor so we couldn’t get our usual hot sake and Sapporo. Maybe they’ll get one in the future. We still ordered our pork gyoza and “Basic” ramen. The menu of Minca and Kambi is the same in content and format.

First thing I usually check for at Minca is how brown the egg is because it can vary between visits. Sometimes it’ll look lighter and sometimes it’ll be a nice dark and rich brown color which I always look forward to eating last. Kambi’s brown egg wasn’t very brown when we went, and maybe it could be browner other days but looking on flickr they all look about the same. You can even see it’s not fully brown in their business card.

Notice how the center of the brown egg is pretty much white

I admit there are times when I think that I’m just convincing myself a brown egg tastes different from a regular hard-boiled egg, but it really does make a difference. When I ate the brown egg I knew instantly that it was different, but I couldn’t quite tell what it was. My girlfriend said later that it was bonito flake tasting. Basically Kambi’s brown eggs are the quicker faster version of brown eggs. An example recipe for these kinds of brown eggs uses bonito flakes, cooking sake, mirin, sugar, soy sauce and water. These only takes 12 hours or so to make. The result is a weaker flavor than the real meaty brown eggs Minca has.

Minca and Kambi both give a choice of thick or thin noodles. We get the thin noodles. Kambi’s seemed to be yellower than Minca’s so I think they were eggier kind of noodles that didn’t have quite the same bite. Again, this is something that could be different day to day. Good noodles I think have a good chewy texture kind of the same with good rice. Not entirely weak, but not hard.

The pork I don’t think I could really tell the difference between, it was still very melty and tasted very good. If I thought there was any difference in this case it’s probably because I wanted to believe I tasted a difference.

The last difference is in the broth. It’s a rare occasion that I can finish all of the broth at Minca without feeling explodey. It’s just very rich and thick. I finished most of the broth at Kambi and didn’t feel explodey at all. I think their broth isn’t as fatty or thick. Sometimes at Minca when I take enough of a break I get that skin that forms on top of the soup but it didn’t happen at Kambi. My girlfriend was also commenting on the fact that her lips didn’t feel as sticky after eating Kambi’s ramen. The broth was still good, but definitely not quite as rich.

Still a very good bowl of ramen, but we’re going to stick to Minca of course. Before I went I saw some reviews on Yelp.com that looked roughly similar to Minca’s criticisms. Things like how the broth didn’t seem to have flavor or that it was too thick, that just confirmed for me that it was still going to be like Minca. Those people are crazy, they’re probably just used to shio ramen (salt based) or something. I think I’ve seen preferences for Menkui-te or Setagaya on reviews for Minca and Kambi and those people are definitely crazy. Setagaya at least is exclusively ramen, but their broth is nothing to compare and same goes for Menkui-te. Before I started going to Minca regularly I went to Menkui-te quite a bit, but it doesn’t compare in terms of richness and flavor. Plus Menkui-te takes FOREVER to get you hot sake.

I’d say if you’re in the area and want a good bowl of ramen it’s still worth going to, but Minca is still the place to beat!

Why isn’t that music in the movie??

There are a lot of reasons the trailer music 95% of the time isn’t music that is from the movie. It’s really the exception to the rule when the movie’s score is used in the trailer, but lots of times when it is from the movie you usually notice the trailer has a unique sort of impact.

The reason plain and simple is that most trailers start editing before music scoring has even started. Music and sound effects are things that are usually done last when making films because if the film edit changes then the timing will get thrown off and need to be adjusted and that’s really annoying. So where do trailer editors go for their music? Just about anywhere they can find it really, details are sorted out later.

Basically the type of music used in trailers will either be: the actual film score, film soundtracks, pop music CDs or trailer music libraries.

Some examples of trailers that use music from the actual film score are Gladiator, Batman Begins (this music also used in the teaser for V for Vendetta), The Thin Red Line and Paprika. In the case of foreign films it’s very common for it to use the film’s own score because usually those trailers don’t get as much attention from the studio distributing it so they don’t want to spend a lot of money on the trailer.

There are also a lot of movies which have a selected soundtrack in them that then get used for the trailer. Movies like: The Departed, Daredevil, and The Virgin Suicides. The advantage in these situations is that the music is already uniquely suited for the movie, though the music good for the film isn’t always best for its trailer. Then of course you have movies where the musical score is already well established so it’s a no brainer that it’s going to be used in the trailer. Music like for Mission Impossible, Star Wars, Harry Potter or Indiana Jones.

These are usually the exception to the rule, most trailers use film scores or popular songs from other movies or artists. Sometimes certain songs get very popular for a while so you feel like you hear it everywhere. Usually though a trailer company will be conscious of how much a song has been used and decide to go with something else.

Every now and then you get a situation like the music used in the trailers of Romeo Must Die (the first to use this piece of music), The Patriot, Quills, The Musketeer (the song is “Escape” from the soundtrack for Plunkett and Macleane).

You used the same trailer music as me. That... was a mistake.

Or the music for the trailers of Being John Malkovich, Matchstick Men and Wall-E (the song is “Central Services” from the soundtrack of Brazil). This is used in lots of other trailers too, but these are the ones I knew about off the top of my head.

Okay one more, the music in the trailers of Dragonheart, Dungeons & Dragons, Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow and The Time Machine (the song is “Kasuf Escapes” from the sountrack for Stargate).

There’s a lot of music that gets used over and over again in trailers. Sometimes one song is just very popular at the time so it keeps coming up. One song I remember is “Rock Star (Jason Nevins Remix Edit) by N.E.R.D. which was used (in this order) Shanghai Knights, Taxi, Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

So, next up is Trailer music libraries! So when you can use all these great film scores and songs why would you do this? Well, usually the reason is cost because buying the rights to use songs from movies and/or artists can be prohibitively expensive. Actually, there’s even one movie producer that prohibits the use of music from his movies to be used in trailers of movies he didn’t produce. Also trailer music is made just for trailers and TV spots so they have a unique quality that makes them easy to edit with because usually they have very specific sounds, tempos and variety needed.

So what are these music companies? Some very popular ones are Immediate Music, X-Ray Dog and Pfeifer Broz. Immediate Music is unique because they got an actual orchestra and chorus to record basically a ton of cues that sound like Carmina Burana “O Fortuna” inspired music. You know the music when you hear it. Some examples of this music was used in the trailers for The Island, Spider-Man 2, Ladder 49, Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End, If I remember correctly Immediate Music actually has a rule where if you use one of those choral pieces of music in a trailer, other companies can’t use it for a set amount of time. I guess so the trailers aren’t saturated with one song.

Immediate Music is also the one who wrote the cue “redrum” that was so popular they made “sequel” versions of it. A small sample of trailers that used this cue include: Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within, Ghost in the Shell 2, Legend of Zu, Minority Report, The Mummy Returns, Count of Monte Cristo, and The Ring. The Count of Monte Cristo you should ESPECIALLY watch for the completely ridiculous “Count on Revenge” trailer copy. Bascially, Redrum was a fallback music cue that is kind of the sign of a trailer editor phoning it in or maybe they didn’t have the budget for better music.

X-Ray Dog has a lot of music out there, but one that’s been used quite a lot was one first used for the Lord of the Rings. After that it was used in Terminator 3 and The War of the Worlds.

One CD that the trailer industry used to death was “Unearthed” by the independent music group “E.S. Posthumus.” One of the first times you heard their music was probably in the trailer for the remake of Planet of the Apes. That cue “Tikal” was also used in trailers for The Recruit, XXX, Tomb Raider and the teaser for Minority Report. I think what made a bigger impact might’ve been the trailer for the first Spider-Man which used the cue “Pompeii.” There’s a less flashy song of theirs which I call the “affair” music because two of the movie trailers it’s used in are about someone having an affair. That cue “Nara” was used in Unfaithful, Antwone Fisher, The Clearing, and Vanity Fair.

The last category is music which has been written to sound like something else. What do I mean by that? Well, sometimes a song will be used to edit a trailer, but then it’ll turn out that the rights to the song either cannot be bought or they’re too expensive. One song I hear alternate versions of is the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean. The most recent one that sounds like an alternate version I saw in this TV spot for Australia, and also a version is in the trailer for The Legend of Zorro.

So that’s all you need to know about trailer music. That’s why you might be continually disappointed that the music from the trailer has absolutely nothing to do with the music that’s in the actual film. One bit of crossover that happened though is the “Mr. Blue Sky” song by Electric Light Orchestra that was used in the trailers for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” was a bonus track on the film’s soundtrack even though it wasn’t in the film.

If you’re ever curious about what music is used in a trailer Soundtrack.net is an indispensable resource which does just that. This is where I double checked my information, but I already have some mix CDs I had made based off of overused trailer music. Unfortunately it seems like their database eliminates old movies so some movie trailers I know they used to have listed aren’t anymore.

The Twelve Kingdoms Vol 1: Sea of Shadow – Written by Fuyumi Ono, Translated by Alexander O. Smith and Elye J. Alexander.
Published by Tokyopop.

Since I already reviewed the anime in this post. I’ll talk mostly about the differences between the novel and the anime. I’ll try to avoid heavy spoilers, but since this is meant to be a companion post with my anime review, then you’re probably fairly spoiled already.

The core story of this novel is exactly the same as the anime, but the key difference mentioned before is that the anime had the characters Sugimoto and Asano who after reading this book I realized do a lot more than I initially gave them credit for. Some of their role is to be the ones expressing doubts or asking questions that in the novel is part of Youko’s internal monologue. Youko is alone during the majority of the story, but even when she’s around other characters her internal monologue is constant. I give the anime writer major props for all the ways they managed to make the novel more interesting as a show. Actually I’ll get to that in a bit, because I’m supposed to be talking about the novel.

I think what I like more about the novel than the anime is how much greater Youko’s struggle seems to be. More is made about the long passage of time from when she arrives in the world of the Twelve Kingdoms until the end of this novel. It’s several months that she travels, with days of fighting off demons in the woods every night with no food to eat.

There’s also attention to detail that I’ve come to expect from this author that get missed in the anime. One being that having a creature inside your body that knows all about sword fighting is all well and good, but if you’ve never used those muscles then you’re going to be sore as all heck. I like that things like this are described in the book, it adds a new layer of depth to the story. It’s again this world logic that Fuyumi Ono created that I appreciate she adheres to so strongly. I think just like how I enjoy the new Battlestar Galactica because of its hard science-fiction, I enjoy this story for being a sort of realistic take on a fantasy genre story.

Gonna be sore in the morning

Also, the internal monologue helps to understand Youko’s character and motivations better. There’s a moment in the story when Youko almost enjoys slaughtering the Youma that attack her, saying that she’s become like a beast. In the anime it wasn’t out of place, but I didn’t quite understand what drove her to feel like this. This is because in the anime, her hardship wasn’t quite as great at this point as it is in the novel. In the anime, Youko’s friend Sugimoto has betrayed her and defeated her in battle after which the rat Rakushun finds and nurses Youko back to health. In the novel, the time previous to Rakushun finding her spanned several days, at least a week or longer of roaming in the woods, killing Youma at night and sleeping during the day on no food. At this point in the novel she’s back at full strength and takes pleasure in fighting against the monsters and the world that has been hunting her and beating her down for so long.

This insight into her character definitely made the novel a worthwhile read for me, especially since at this point I’ve watched the anime twice through, and know that more isn’t coming.

Why so serious?

So aside from acting as Youko’s internal monologue proxies, Sugimoto and Asano help the story along in other ways. Actually, Asano’s impact is pretty minimal in this story arc. Sugimoto’s is more important because it creates an antagonist and also augments the presence of the character who turns out to be sending the Youma after Youko all this time. That being King Kou, and evil ruler who does not with the kingdom of Kei to become great because it will reflect badly on his own kingdom’s rule. In the anime we see him sending his minions off, and also using Sugimoto as a tool to destroy Youko. In the novel you aren’t aware of his presence until it’s almost over. The effect being that the novel stays focused just on Youko, whereas the anime by intercutting other events going on in the story at the same time makes things build more dramatically.

From the beginning of the anime you see characters that you won’t know who they are until much later, and by the time you meet them you’ve probably forgotten you saw them in the first place. This is something else I enjoyed about the anime and novel is that there are bits and details that you don’t even absorb until the second viewing.

For example, one antagonist in the story is a monkey-like character who haunts Youko with words expressing her greatest fears and doubts. It turns out that this monkey is actually the sheath of her sword that has been set loose upon her when it’s separated from the sword early in the story. When the monkey is “vanquished” he disappears and we see the sheath of the sword (which Youko had thought was long lost), but this imagery isn’t explained until much later. It’s only in retrospect did I realize they planted this image not expecting us to understand it until we see it again. Even at the monkey’s introduction in the anime he’s intercut with a shot or two of Youko’s sword.

Just looking at this makes me want to watch it again!

For the purposes of the anime, the adaptation is really very well done in keeping the same basic story, but adding more action and plot to make things exciting without detracting from the main storyline. After reading the novel I’m very impressed with just how much was added to the anime for the sake of making a more visual story that still manages to have strong character development. Though reading the novel, I never felt bored by what was going on. Only towards the end was I starting to feel a bit like the novel should go on longer than it was going to, because the last bit of story where she collaborates with the King of En seems almost rushed. I don’t know if it’s actually rushed, or only felt that way because I was expecting it to happen.

Translation – The book’s translation is good with only a few spelling mistakes that I could probably only count on one hand. There are a few little translation things that miffed me a little bit. The first was the word “sennin” which is an actual Japanese word (仙人) that has a number of meanings, could be like a hermit, or sage. A popular example is the character Jiraiya in Naruto who is referred to as either a “perverted hermit” or “perverted sage.” In this story a “sennin” is a person who serves the ruler and has been entered into an immortality contract so that they can serve them forever (rulers are also immortal). The novel chooses to translate it as “wizard” which I’ve seen is also a translation for “sennin.” My problem is that the word wizard carries with itself all sorts of imagery and expectation and that interpretation doesn’t quite fit the nature of the people they’re talking about in the book. Another thing is the word “hanjyuu” which means a half beast, half human person. Though they use the word “hanjyuu” in the novel, they favor the word “beastling.”

There are also some things that I felt should’ve been romanized differently like the word “Shirei” is “Sirei” in the novel. Since at my job I’m used to spotting Japanese names accidentally written “SI” instead of “SHI” (there’s no “SI” sound in Japanese) this distracted me, and instead I just continued reading it in my head as “Shirei.” One other bit is the fruit that in the world of the Twelve Kingdoms babies come from. These are called “ranka” which is a made up word, but instead they decided to translate the made up word into “egg fruit.” It certainly illustrates the object better, but since it’s a made up word already I didn’t see the point.