Entry 061: "Ichi the Killer: Episode 0"

Who in the world designed this logo?  It is like a cross between "Samurai Pizza Cats" and "Dexter."

Dear Internet,

                It has been some time since I watched "Ichi the Killer."  It is either one or two years since I saw that shocking film.  My memory of the plot may be a little hazy, so I hope you do not hold me responsible for any mistakes I make.  The reason I bring this up is because "Ichi the Killer: Episode 0" is a direct prequel of the aforementioned movie.  The plot of the original is not all that important in this context, but remembering that the two are linked directly is.  There are a few other bit of links that I will try to cover, but I should probably say a few words of what I can about the first movie.

                "Ichi the Killer" followed the story of the exploitation of a psychologically deranged murderer, Ichi, who kills because of his mental unbalance and because he is lied to about the people he kills.  The film also tracked the investigation carried out by a yakuza trying to determine who is killing of his fellow gangsters.  Then there is the man manipulating Ichi for his own personal goals.  That is about all I can off-handedly recall about the film's plot, but that is probably not what most people recall about that film.  The thing that usually sticks in people's minds is the absolutely over-the-top amount of violence and visual effects that the movie showcased.  People were sliced in two, had boiling oil thrown at them, and cut out their own tongue.  The amount of violence could make one vomit, and apparently did in early showings of the film.  When watching it, there are two ways to view it.  Either you can become absolutely horrified at what is occurring or you can realize that the violence appearing on the screen is so unrealistic in its quantity and quality that it becomes comical.  The story was originally made in comic book form, which the film's extraordinary scenes reflect.  Nobody in real life, when their carotid artery is cut, has blood shoot out like a pressurized hose.

                "Episode 0" does carry over this gratuitous level of violence.  People are beat up, cut and mauled in various ways.  There is no lack of want for action in this short film.  But adding to an already large repertoire of visually chocking scenes is not what this prequel is trying to accomplish, even though it does do this at least.  Episode 0" tries to elaborate on the back story of Ichi.  The film shows the various things that caused Ichi to become the mentally broken character that we have already seen.  Ichi was bullied, mocked, hazed and blackmailed by his peers.  His parents misunderstood him with little to no attempt in correcting their perceptions.  His teacher forced him into live animal vivisections.  The list goes on and on.  It almost gets to the point that the film wants to throw as much grease onto the fire.  Even after Ichi had murdered and entered a rehabilitation center, he was mistreated by nearly everyone he meets.  The film here gets to the point that there is not a single individual who is not a psychotic who does not care for anyone but themselves.  It paints a grim picture with no hope.

I hear this new piercing thing is all the rage with young adults.

                The animation should definitely be addressed.  The original film was live action with minimal computer effects only used when stage effects could not get across the image needing to be shown.  "Episode 0" is completely animated.  In a reasonable way, this would make sense since the original story had been done in comic book form.  Taking static drawings and reinterpreting them into animated ones is a common decision.  The problem arises with the quality of the animation here.  The original comic was extremely detailed.  It had to be with the kind of content it was depicting.  Creating a stylized comic that reflects the aesthetics commonly found in ones aimed at a younger audience would not work well in a comic that was specifically aimed at adults.  "Episode 0" loses a lot of detail and line work that made the original comic so graphic and engaging.  The animation is constantly taking shortcuts.  The characters have very little amount of values and hues.  Expect to see at maximum only three shades for each character: the highlight, the shadow, and the midtone which is not even a midtone but the local color.  The characters are drawn with next to no detail and can vary in style sometimes in the same scene.  A majority of the time, only one character is on screen at a given time with their head taking up most of the image.  There are repeat cells throughout that you can start to spot the same shot after a while.  The whole thing is such a deviation from the standard set by the comic that the end result is laughable.

Like a cross between Mr. Potato Head and Clayface.

                About the only thing that that is of a high quality is the music.  The background songs are wonderfully done.  They create a technopop exhilaration during the action sequences, which is a relief considering the story.  I want to say that the music is taken from the first film, but I cannot make that assumption.  I would not be surprised if "Episode 0" took the score directly in an effort to cut costs even further.  The original songs from the first film are sporadic and eccentric, reflecting the unstable minds of the various characters being showcased.  Here, they do much the same which is a good thing.  

                "Episode 0" wants to explain further about how Ichi became who he was.  The problem is that the first film did a good enough job at explaining him.  Ichi was a man who had been abused for most of his life and taken advantage of.  "Episode 0" merely paints a black canvas with black paint.  It beats an already dead cat, hoping to kill it further.  The fine details of Ichi's past never mattered to the extent "Episode 0" hoped to illustrate.  All it ends up being is an add-on to a movie that did not need an extra film riding its coat-tails.  As a standalone work, "Episode 0" is a miserable failure that cannot hold its own.  It relies on themes that the first movie went into great depth but does not do anything better or equivalent.  To a certain extent it does explain why Ichi is a sadist, but did anyone ask the question?  All in all it was a great let down whose only redeeming values are the few action scenes.  I just keep wondering why this was made.  Is it just for the sake of making and watching violence for the sake of violence?  If it is, then it falls into the trap that the first film set.  People get a kick from gore.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop,

P.S. Tomorrow looks like a mixed day with a record album being first.

Entry 060: "1001 Nights" (1999)

Dear Internet,

                It seems I made a mistake.  I had said last time that I was going to review a 1969 film named "1001 Nights."  I had thought I was going to watch the one connected to Ozasmu Tezuka called "One Thousand and One Arabian Nights."  Instead, I was going to and have now watched the 1999 short film called "1001 Nights."  I apologize for this mistake and will make an edit to the previous entry to reflect this error.  

                The movie is short, really short.  Clocking in at 24 minutes, it would better for it to be called an episode rather than a film.  In many ways, it would actually make sense considering the film's history.  "1001 Nights" was supposed to be the first short film in a series of animations linked together with full orchestrated pieces.  One can think back to "Fantasia" for the closet similarity.  From what I can gather about searching for the series, called Filmharmonic," there were to be another three pieces featuring directors Paul Verhoeven, Tim Burton and Renny Harlin.  Sadly, there were financial problems and management problems that plagued the project to the point that the rest of the shorts were canceled.  Some of these problems can be seen in this production.  One thing that showed its already present financial problems is the fact that this was supposed to be completely animated in CGI, but I am getting ahead of myself.

                "1001 Nights" tells the story of Princess Budu's dream as she sleeps.  She dreams of fairies, spiritual beasts, Arabian castles, and various other ethereal images.  Budu thinks fondly of Prince Kamar, her lover.  They intermingle and passionately make love.  Meanwhile, a terrible figure born from nightmares looms ever on the sidelines.

Budu sleeps peacefully despite her dreams.

                That is about it for the story.  There is not much, and the film is ready to admit to that.  The point of it all, however, is not to spin a yarn.  The film is foremost up front about the fact that the whole thing is a dream.  The visuals are what is being showcased, and for the most part does a fine job.  The art style is constantly shifting.  One minute, it is a plethora of washed out watercolors depicting a caravan of carnivalesque clowns.  In the next, a series of CGI towers scrape the sky.  Afterwards, fairies dance in the air with only minimalistic lines outlining their silhouettes.  The colors explode off the screen at times, while other times they mix together like pigments bleeding together on a tie-dyed shirt.  All of this creates a specific mood for the various segments.  When Budu and Kamar rest beside one another upon the bed, the visuals slow down with little color to reflect the calm atmosphere of the scene.  On the other hand when the couple is chased by the malignant spirit, saturated colors sit atop a black velvet canvas that shows the emptiness that wishes to ensnare them.  The film does a wonderful job of creating a visually exciting atmosphere that reflects the musical accompaniment. 

A line drawing illustration shown here could either be a stylistic choice or a reflection of how the project needed to reduce its budget.

                The music, which is a key element, if not the cornerstone of the film, is magically played out.  The Los Angeles Philharmonic plays an original piece made for the film, and for the most part fits perfectly.  There are times that the music does not fit the current scene.  Most notably of the inappropriate tempo occurs early in the film in the sequence with the carnival characters parading before Budu appears.  The beat is much too hard and fast for her character introduction and excites the viewer too early.  Instead of creating a single climatic crescendo to the film, there are a series of smaller peaks that lessen the effect of the final escape of the couple.  While this might seem that the film, and the music for that matter as well, is a series of small ramps that smoothly go back down after reaching unnoticeable crests, I would be misleading you as to the excitable nature of the film.  There is a nearly constant sense of exhilaration throughout the score.  After having watched it twice, I felt my pulse race both times.  Although, this might be an occurrence that would be hard to duplicate.

                "1001 Nights" is artsy.  It is deep in symbolism and representational figures that calling it "artsy fartsy" would be accurate.  It is so "artsy fartsy" that it probably ate a whole can of Goya beans.  Watching this film in an effort to obtain a narrative or a coherent story would be rather futile.  Even some of the characters for no apparent reason act radically different with no explanation.  The fairies appear multiple times throughout the film.  Sometimes they fight against one another while other times they kiss.  The dark spirit seems to at times act against the couple but will also push them together.  The differences strike against one another so hard that they contradict one another.  If taken within the confines of a dream, it all makes sense, but that is because dreams, by very nature, do not make sense.  To enjoy "1001 Nights," rational thought must be thrown to the wind.  Thinking as a whole must be forgotten, at least for half an hour.  Pure emotion is the course of action.  Only emotion, as malleable as when we are asleep with the lightness of the world upon our minds, should be left within the head of the viewer.

                This is a problem no matter how you look at it, one big enough to prevent another film to be made.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to affect the audience with emotion and feeling.  If you did not, you most likely have nothing of note to be said.  The problem with "1001 Nights" is that it wants to do this in a purified form to the point of willing to lose its audience.  As I said before, the whole thing is a translucent dream.  It is at least linear with the story, but the rest of it is a twisting and turning presentation that can confuse the viewer.  It might even be purposely trying to confuse the viewer which would be a terrible strike against it.  What the film looses by throwing out a concrete mode of storytelling is not equivalent to what it gains in being able to represent abstract thoughts.  A complete lack of dialog short of the few word said in the beginning about the premise is another hurdle for the viewer.  I only mention this because with very little solid visual clues that sometimes mislead the audience, auditory clues would be the next bet but are absent.

                Then there is the problem with the intended audience.  "1001 Nights" has only gotten a home release in Japan.  This is most likely due to the fact that the art was conceived and designed by Yoshitaka Amano.  He is the man behind nearly every "Final Fantasy" promotional illustration or title logo art.  From what I understand, the film had originally been shown alongside a live performance by the L.A. Philharmonic.  What occurred was a washed out effect for the film due to the numerous small lamps that the musicians required to be able to see their music sheets.  The abstract nature of the film can leave the viewer scratching their head raw if they are not careful or think too much about it.  All of this adds up to an intended audience member being a concert attendant who wants to experience the visuals of a Japanese artist while foregoing objective storytelling for pure emotional expression.  The nature of the "Filmharmonic" project was extremely limited, which is probably what caused it to ultimately fail.  Unlike "Fantasia" which was meant to be enjoyed by the masses and reach a wide audience, "1001 Nights" seems to want such a specific audience that it did itself in.

                The film is enjoyable and rather well done.  As I said, the visuals are none exceptionally well, and the musical accompaniment can be enjoyed by itself.  The biggest thing that holds it back is the presentation.  Choosing to tell such a roundabout story and hoping that the audience can figure out to not care about figuring out the film is what prevented it from reaching a bigger audience.  Perhaps if the rest of the short films were made, there might have been a chance to market them together either in theater format or home media, but that boat has long since sailed.  Instead, one can either dig up this obscure gem and enjoy it for what it hoped to be or leave it and understand why no one else picked it up.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Tomorrow is "Ichi the Killer: Episode 0."

Entry 059: Pitbull Daycare Discogrophy

Dear Internet,

                I mentioned a few entries ago about a friend of mine who would ask me to find music for him.  This occurred a number of times, so I have accumulated a few albums that would fit his tastes a lot more than my own.  Pitbull Daycare would have to be one of those groups.  There is no way that I would have gathered their three albums together or even listened to them if my friend did not ask for my assistance

. 

                Pitbull Daycare was a Texas based electronic industrial metallic punk rock band.  If you can saw that all out loud, try swallowing it next.  The nature of the music from their albums was not eclectic, which one might assume with that first line about their genre.  No, the band played exactly electronic industrial metallic punk rock music, and they played it often.  They made three albums before their apparent disassembly.  I was able to find an official Myspace page for the band, but the group has not logged on for almost three years now.  The three albums were "Six Six Sex" (1998), "Unclean" (2004), and "You, Me, and the Devil Makes Three" (2006).  As you can tell by the titles of the albums, the group heavily pushes their songs to the depressing, darker themes.  Listening to the sings themselves, one realizes that the band has "edge" to them.  In fact, there is so much "edge" in these songs that it makes a truncated cuboctahedron look like a two sided dice.

                When I began to listen to the albums in the order of publishing today, I was reminded of how my friend had described the band and their songs.  It was something like "Music to be downright be pissed off to."  That pretty much sums it up, but I suspect that you want to know a little more than that.  Between the three albums, the majority of the songs are very similar.  It is to the point that nothing changed over the course of the eight years from the first album to the third.  I can make sweeping generalization about the band because they were stagnant for the entire time.  The problems of the first album spilled over into the next.  It became a constant repetition through the three albums that only when the band tried to do anything different did they actually succeed.  

                The albums are filled with elements of the various genres that I mentioned earlier.  These genres do have distinct sound to them despite being closely related.  Electric will be filled with synthesizers and computer made sounds.  Industrial will include rhythmic beats that sounds more in place at a steel mill than in a song.  Metal can be directly tied to industrial as an influence if not a parent genre.  Punk and rock go hand in hand in most cases.  A band can belong to one group and not another, although I imagine they would most likely all be grouped under "rock" at a store.  Pitbull Daycare makes use of all these genres all of the time.  A song will start off with an electronic melody or random synthetic sounds, and then it will make way for the industrial percussions, which will lead into the metal guitar riffs, which overshadow the punk lyrics.  Eventually the song will reach a closing point where everything becomes mute short of the electronic sound samples.  About 80% of the songs on the three albums play like this.  The songs are painfully repetitive once they actually begin.

                The lyrics of the songs are not going to win any awards.  A number of the songs just constantly repeat the same four or five words over and over.  Most if not all of the songs are depressing, moping, pity party songs.  That is except for the rage filled ones throwing insult upon a supposed third party.  I do not mind songs about a cheating woman or about some other calamity thrown upon the unsuspecting fool.  I love old county-western songs.  Pitbull Daycare, however, does very little to make one song feel unique against its peers.  There are a few lyrics at the beginning, but they all stand aside for the two minutes of insult throwing, which is screamed out.  The benefit of making screaming lyrics is that there are no notes to hit.  There is no melody to keep the screams within a specific range.  It is all just shrill sounds.  It takes no skill to scream at the top of your lungs, only to cream longer and louder than others.  

                The only times that I found the tracks good was when they were covering songs from other bands.  "Sheer Heart Attack," "Ace of Spades, "It's the End of the World As We know It (And I Feel Fine)" are all well done.  The band's take on each one feels unique because they are applying a plethora of genre techniques to songs that have proven their worth and ability.  On top of that, those same techniques work very well for those selected songs.  That is another thing that the band does seem to do well.  The instrumentals are well done to the point that the lyrics are in the way.  Even the ways the levels are mixed place the words well behind the guitars and drums.  If the albums were composed of more cover versions, I might have liked them better.  

                The only thing that I can do is highlight the few songs that I liked, which were "Hold On" and "No Compromise."  The rest, like I said, are repetitive angst filled tracks that would appeal mostly to teenagers.  Maybe after finally getting through these albums I should wonder about the musical tastes of my friend.  I can question the compatibilities of our tastes, however.  It really is not much of surprise that Pitbull Daycare was only around for a little while and never quite got above a limited level of popularity.  There are plenty of indie, underground, or amateur bands around that can learn a few genre techniques and spit out mediocre albums.  A listener might be willing to have a go at these albums, maybe even work out to the hard hitting beats and shredding guitar riffs, but listening to these songs on headphones or ear buds will make their lackluster lyrics seep through, and listening to this on a speaker system will get you stares and maybe a knock on your door by the landlord.  The whole thing is stuck in the middle, between problems that come from a mess of genres and actual skill with the instruments.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next will be "1001 Nights" (1969).

Edit: The next Backlog item is incorrect and is addressed about in the next entry.

Entry 058: "Pyongyang Nalpharam" (2006)

Dear Internet,

                I bet you talk to a lot of people, Internet.  You probably talk to people from all over the world and all wakes of life.  There are only a few areas that you probably do not get much conversation from, right?  The majority of North Korea would be one of them.  I am sure you get a few bits of information coming from Pyongyang, the capital.  The rest of the country is an all-around blackout zone considering the night time space photos from satellites cannot find any light from outside the capital.  Considering that the country has such a large gap between the haves and the have-nots, it is with some curiosity to know that North Korea has put out a few movies over the years.  If there is a viable movie industry there, how can the populace afford to go see the movies unless the government forces or cajoles the populace to watch the films? "Pyongyang Nalpharam" is one of the few movies that the Hermit Kingdom has produced.  How few you ask?  The all knowing Wikipedia says there are about 60 films.  In comparison, Hollywood makes more films than that in half a year. You would not stumble upon a North Korean film browsing store catalogs or shelves, even if you were to do it for years.  

                "Pyongyang Nalpharam" is a martial arts movie set at the annexation of Korea to Japan in 1910.  It follows Jeong Taek and the adventures he must endure to ensure the protection of the traditional martial art Taekkyeon.  He has to protect a certain manual that details the various elements of the art from the Japanese imperialists who wish to destroy all traces of Taekkyeon and replace it with Judo.  As he seeks to protect his national treasure, Taek falls into a world filled with death and underhanded individuals willing to do anything to get what they want.

                That is not much of a plot description, but then again there is not much plot.  Looking back, there are numerous twists and backstabbing that occur on such a regular rhythm that saying anything more would spoil a lot.  Few of those twists are enjoyable, however.  A good number of them only added more confusion to the film.  Sometimes it would cut away to another scene where the antagonists were discussing various schemes.  They would occur so quickly and usually after a specific dialog line that the scene change suggested that the new scene was taking place in the past.  After a few lines, it would be obvious that this was not the case, but the frequency of such quick action transitions became a detriment since the jump was so quick and would cause me to have to collect my senses about the new scene while it was plowing into new and often important dialog.  

                This is one of the major qualities of the film.  It moves terribly quickly whenever some is not getting punched in the face.  The film is of a reasonable length, clocking in at an hour forty.  Those 100 minutes are jam packed to the point that you cannot look away.  Now, do not confuse that with being unable to look away, which stems from a film being so engaging that it pulls the viewer in.  No, "Pyongyang Nalpharam" moves with such intensity and ferventness that if you look away for even a few minutes while someone is talking, you will miss a new twist that changes the status quo.  The constantly changing status of the various characters is perhaps one of the films strong points, but it still bumbles.  Sometimes a character is a good guy, then he is a traitor, but he was actually a good guy all the time.  These kinds of flip flops make big holes that cause the story to fall apart.

                The film makes use of numerous action sequences.  It is about a martial art that was almost wiped out when Korea was colonized by Japan.  The fights are boring at best.  The shots are always very short, detailing only a single kick or punch most times.  There is very little technique being showcased.  Judo perhaps has more technique being shown because it is shown with longer shots and pulled out to show both fighters.  I am not saying that Taekkyeon is not technical, just that the film does little to show the skills of Taekkyeon fighters.  The first fight in the film occurs in a marketplace.  There, the camera spends more time watching the various thugs landing into a stall than the punch or kick that sent them there.  Later on, the fights start becoming more outlandish to the point where wire-fu starts coming into play.  It feels completely out of place considering that the film is not supposed to be a wuxia piece, but a dramatization of the very real cultural control programs that the Japanese imposed upon the Koreans during colonization.  The wire-fu elements break the mood of the film and attempt to push the story into fantasy rather than the reality that it was working so well with.

During a training montage, a student learns how to hammer a nail into a tree with his head.

                There are a number of other little bumps that "Pyongyang Nalpharam" hits as it rolls out.  They include a dead woman talking from beyond the grave, bad foley for horses, and bad choreography.  Overall, all of these things are problems that stem from low budget, something that this film cannot help hiding.  It all feels like a movie made in the 70's.  The style, film quality, and film techniques are all dated.  Even a viewer raised on only high production pictures in post 90's would not film this story like this.  There is little film literacy, which is the biggest problem.  A student of the art of film could shoot a better picture because he has learned the techniques that maximize the information that he wants to impart to the viewer.  "Pyongyang Nalpharam" is constantly showing that the individuals that made it are amateurs to the point that they have not consumed film to the point of learning from them.

                "Pyongyang Nalpharam" had a lot going for itself.  The historical conflict between Japan and Korea around 1910 is one that that can be analyzed and discussed until I am blue in the face.  Using Taekkyeon, a cultural icon of Korean, as the object of conflict is like hitting the nail on the head, as opposed to with the head.  The Japanese of the time were adamant about inserting their culture as much as they could, which meant that they had to minimize or get rid of Korean culture.  The film does hit on how Taekkyeon is only one of many other things that were almost wiped out.  This is the one thing that the film does right.  Everything else is caught between ignorance of technique and lack of skill brought about from a lack of production.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Tomorrow is the "Pitbull Daycare" discography.