The Wicked Little Monthly Review of August 2024

Posted on September 1, 2024 by badblokebob

In the spirit of “littleness”, I don’t have any great or insightful or amusing intro ideas for this month, so let’s just dive on in…

This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#59 Scenes from a Marriage (1974) — Blindspot #7
#60 Robot Dreams (2023) — New Film #8
#61 The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) — Failure #7
#62 Road to Bali (1952) — Series Progression #9
#63 Clue of the Silver Key (1961) — Series Progression #10
#64 Hamilton (2020) — Rewatch #8
#65 Wicked Little Letters (2023) — Wildcard #2
#66 The Swordsman of All Swordsmen (1968) — Genre #6

I watched 11 feature films I’d never seen before in August.
Six of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with two rewatches.
That leaves me bang on target with the Challenge, which is slightly better than this time last year — which is good, because things only got worse month by month last time.
This post’s namesake, Wicked Little Letters, could’ve qualified as a wildcard on two fronts: as an additional New Film or an additional Failure. It doesn’t really matter which I class it as, but because it was a Failure in both February and July (and as one festival screening makes it, on most listings, a 2023 film rather than a 2024 one), it felt more fitting to designate it an additional Failure.
This month’s Blindspot film was Scenes from a Marriage. I should’ve watched two to get fully caught up, but (as discussed last month) I’m intentionally putting off that double-bill until October (let’s hope that pans out!)
No WDYMYHS film this month. I had a few days at the end of the month where I intended to get one in and, you know, I just didn’t feel like any of them. That’s just how it goes sometimes. I feel like that’s ok when I’ve still got a whole third of the year left to get caught up. That said, out of the past five runs of Blindspot/WDYMYHS I’ve only succeeded once, so maybe I should take the task a little more seriously.
From last month’s “failures” I watched Wicked Little Letters and rewatched The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

The 111th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
At either end of this month’s viewing sit the two best (new) films I saw this month. Now, I should probably pick the “insight into the human condition”-packed Bergman film, but, you see, that movie doesn’t have any sword fights, whereas The Swordsman of All Swordsmen has seven really good ones. Sorry, Ingmar.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I expected Save the Cinema to be a pleasantly quirky British true story kinda film — a sort-of genre we seem to have specialised in for the past couple of decades — and it is, kinda… but it also feels like an imitation of one, where it’s going through the expected motions but doesn’t properly hang together in its own right. Shame.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
No reviews again this month (at this point you’d be more surprised if there had been, right?), so once again it’s a two-way battle between the monthly review and failures. The victor, by a considerable margin — and, somewhat intriguingly, continuing the alternating pattern that’s been going on since April — is July’s monthly review. Will the failures win again next month? Will there actually be some reviews in contention? Find out in 30 days’ time…

Summer’s over, here comes autumn. I know that kind of thinking depresses many people, but I welcome it. Heck, it’ll be Christmas before we know it. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves — I’ve still got 34 films left to go in my challenge, after all.

Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends (2014)

Posted on December 4, 2017 by badblokebob

aka Rurōni Kenshin: Densetsu no Saigo-hen / Rurouni Kenshin Part III: The Legend Ends

Picking up where Kyoto Inferno left off, The Legend Ends is the second half of the two-part conclusion to the Rurouni Kenshin trilogy. With the villainous Shishio (Tatsuya Fujiwara) on his way to conquer Japan, Kenshin (Takeru Satoh) returns to his old master, Hiko (Masaharu Fukuyama), to learn the final tricks of his unique fighting style. All the previous film’s various characters (including ones I thought had died) have their role to play in getting Kenshin into position to battle Shishio again and, hopefully, defeat him once and for all…

The Legend Ends is, unfortunately, not all it could be. The first hour or so essentially goes nowhere. The idea of Kenshin returning to the man who trained him to learn a final technique to defeat the big bad (aka the plot as outlined in the blurb) is a good one, but the way it plays out in practice kinda sucks: Kenshin washes up on a beach and it’s his teacher who happens to find him — what a stroke of luck! And the lesson Kenshin learns has bugger all relevance, as does that entire character in the end — even when nearly everyone who can fight shows up as part of the big finale, Hiko’s not among them.

The second half is better, in particular the climax — it’s one big sword fight, of course, which is exactly how it should be in a film like this. Throughout the film the action is all excellently choreographed and staged, but the finale is the pinnacle of that. But aside from the thrilling combat scenes, the movie just doesn’t hang together as a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. On a literal level the conflicts are resolved and characters are reunited, etc etc, but the way it goes about that business is, from a character or emotional perspective, lacking in impact. It’s a shame.

As is a common fate among so many trilogy-closers, I thought Rurouni Kenshin 3 was sadly the series’ weak link. That said, it’s not a bad action movie — if you’re only in it for the swordplay then it satisfies with bells on; it’s the storyline around that is disappointing. Even while a significant chunk of its running time is somewhat underwhelming, at least the killer climax provides a suitable finale to the trilogy. Or it did until earlier this year, when they announced a fourth movie. Although my score errs on the harsh side, I’m still looking forward to Kenshin’s adventures continuing.

Zatoichi the Fugitive (1963)

Posted on November 30, 2017 by badblokebob

aka Zatôichi kyôjô-tabi

2017 #159
Tokuzô Tanaka | 86 mins | Blu-ray | 2.35:1 | Japan / Japanese

“His sword is shiny and ice-cold. The only thing it won’t cut in this whole wide world is oil and the bond of lovers.”

The fourth film in the Zatoichi series finds the blind masseur (Shintaro Katsu) with a bounty on his head, which only increases when he kills the first person who tries to claim it. Travelling to a nearby village to apologise to the guy’s mother, Ichi finds himself in the middle of a yakuza scheme to grab territory from a young boss. There’s also the small matter of a ronin (Jutarô Hôjô) and his companion, Ichi’s old love Otane (Masayo Banri).

That’s the straightforward version — much of the plot is an overly complex account of yakuza plotting that, frankly, I sometimes struggled to follow. Especially at the start, there are so many bosses to keep track of, with broadly similar names, all of whom are more often referred to in dialogue than established on screen. I got my head round it eventually, but it took some work. It makes stretches of the film a bit dry and awkward, however.

Fortunately, that’s not all that’s going on. Otane is back from films one and two, but she’s different to how Ichi remembers her. Rather than just bringing back a familiar face for the sake of it, the film uses her to make a point about how people aren’t always who we think they are — a bit like Ichi himself, in fact. I imagine this would be even more effective if I’d watched The Fugitive closer to when I watched her previous two appearances, but there’s enough information recapped within the film to get the gist. It also continues what seems to be a definite theme of the Zatoichi films (at least so far) about past people and actions coming back to haunt our hero.

However, the best part of the film is the final 20 minutes, a tour de force of emotion and action that sees Ichi surrounded and, enraged into action, taking down an army that stands between him and vengeance. Said vengeance comes in the form of a one-on-one sword duel, of course. Obviously we know our hero will triumph, but it’s still a tense scene, especially as it seems to be a rare occasion when Ichi’s been out-fought. This third act elevates the whole movie, its very existence justifying everything that came before.

Reading other reviews, I’ve seen The Fugitive described as both “one of the weaker installments in the series” and “thus far the best [of the series,] a spectacular action-packed entry that deftly showcases why this series matters so much.” I think this stems to which you weigh heavier between the first-rate climax (plus a few choice sequences before that) and the occasionally dry plotting earlier in the movie. For me, the way it eventually comes together and concludes makes it all worth it.

The Tale of Zatoichi Continues (1962)

Posted on February 3, 2017 by badblokebob

aka Zoku Zatôichi monogatari

2016 #194
Kazuo Mori | 73 mins | Blu-ray | 2.35:1 | Japan / Japanese

Back in 2014, when I reviewed the debut Zatoichi movie a year after first watching it, I promised that reviews of the series’ future instalments would follow in 2015. Well, it’s 2017, and here’s Film #2. Yeah, this is going to be the new Rathbone Holmes, isn’t it?

Anyway, this second movie is — as its title might suggest — a direct sequel (a rarity for the series, so I gather), which sees our hero, the blind masseuse and skilled swordsman Ichi (Shintarô Katsu), back in conflict with one of the gangs from the first film. Despite that, it doesn’t start like a direct sequel at all. Reference is made to the previous film, the events of which have given Ichi a reputation, but that could be a reference to something that occurred off-screen for all its significance to the story. Later, however, we learn that Ichi is travelling to pay homage to the grave of the samurai he killed before, and we end up in the same town with some returning characters. It’s quite a nice structure for a sequel: to seem like a new adventure before revealing and exploring connections to the previous movie. Unfortunately, to say this film “explores” anything would be doing it a kindness.

The consensus seems to be that The Tale of Zatoichi Continues is a faster-paced and more action-packed movie than its predecessor, which is obviously to some viewers’ taste. The fight scenes are certainly on a more epic scale: where the first movie ended with a one-on-one between Ichi and an opposing samurai, here he takes on a small army of men. It’s less than an hour-and-a-quarter long, too, at which length it’s hard to avoid running at a brisk speed. However, I thought it lacked the artistry of the first film. It’s very focused on plot rather than digging into character, which is especially problematic when it comes to a subplot about a rogue who turns out to be Ichi’s brother. It’s structured to make for good reveals, but they aren’t always well executed, and what should carry a weight of emotion ends up rushed.

The movie as a whole is oddly paced and very oddly ended. What turns out to be the de facto climax starts earlier than you’d expect, but then the film moves on from it… before suddenly stopping. Is this meant to be a cliffhanger? It doesn’t quite play like one, but it’s also unresolved. Film 1 felt like a complete story, but this ends with the need for a Part 3 — or rather a Part 2.1, because it doesn’t feel like a whole movie. The fact the next one is called New Tale of Zatoichi isn’t promising…

Technical merits are similarly mixed. It’s not poorly shot, but it’s not as striking as its predecessor. The music is occasionally horrendous. There is indeed more sword fighting, and with it more involved choreography, but it doesn’t feel like an earned trade-off with the lightweight story.

The Tale of Zatoichi Continues comes with lots of great ideas and potential themes, but the rushed production seems to have led to a weak execution. It’s almost like you want to say to the filmmakers, “good effort, you’re almost there. Now try again and do it properly.” Of course, there are 23 more films where they may do exactly that…

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