Ran

I saw Ran the other day because it was the Japanese epic.It wasn't what I expected. Don't get me wrong, it was indeed "epic" in the highest degree. But man, I was wrong in expecting a movie about people kicking ass. Sure, asses were kicked but Ran is a tragedy and when Kurosawa does tragedy, you know it's gonna be depressing as all hell.

Seriously, the end of the movie will have you contemplating putting your head in an oven. Even if the movie is close to three hours, things escalate, or rather, descend into chaos quickly. This movie has hatred, anger, envy, betrayal, murder, scenes of chaos and war, scenes of horrific bloodshed and violence. This movie will have you contemplating putting your head in the oven. The film flat out tells you in the end that the gods have abandoned humanity and that mankind is only good at inflicting misery and suffering on itself. The film tells you that man is born crying, cries and cries throughout his life until he finally dies. Goddamn.

There's no uplifting message here; the film goes full on nihilism. I guess I'm not used to films like these with such a strong, depressing message.

The story is about the patriarch of the Ichimonji clan, Hidetora, and his three sons: Taro, Jiro and Saburo, oldest to youngest respectively. Hidetora realizes he is too old and decides to cede authority of the domain to Jiro and live out his remaining years in peace as ceremonial leader. Saburo, however, tells his father rather bluntly that it's a stupid idea and he relies too much on the supposed love and affection of his children. Saburo tells him that the age they are living is one of conflict and strife and that the his siblings could turn on each other at any time. Hidetora refuses to believe his family could turn on each other and is angered at Saburo's protests so he banishes Saburo. This sets the stage for the conflicts to follow and it goes downhill pretty fast.

I won't spoil anymore. Nothing I write will do this film justice. This is just one of those things you just have to see. This film is supposedly based on King Lear, but not really. Kurosawa allegedly only saw the resemblance after he'd started but this should give you some basic idea of what to expect. All I can say is leave all your idealism and hope at the doorway. This film will mercilessly kick you in the balls until you lose faith in humanity.

And I thought, Throne of Blood was brutal...

Assembly

Been feeling sick lately. My throat hurts which is good. Maybe I can channel it all to write and make an update.

My friend and I are kind of war freaks. We like war movies. My friend let me borrow his copy of Assembly, a Chinese war film made back in 2007.

The first part of the movie is action packed. Guts and blood flying everywhere and people's tiny pieces being blown to tiny pieces. Our hero, Captain Gu, is fighting the Nationalists (bad guys for China) in China's civil war. Anyway, you can tell he's a pretty emotional guy after he loses it and almost shoots POWs when his political officer gets evaporated. Anyway his superiors send him over to defend a strategic location and hole up in a mine to resist the Nationalists. They order him to defend it to the last man or until the assembly bugle is sounded. You meet his crew of cheerful and interesting soldiers who all die horribly and the first act is finished with everyone in a smoldering heap except the captain.

The story then gets a little hazy. Gu jumps through time and ends up in the Korean War and then jumps through time again to retire as a soldier and then just wanders about aimlessly...through time. This movie skips through years like a fatty skips the salad bar. He gets pissed and loses it again when he hears his men, who defended the mine, were simply listed as MIA instead of heroes and their final resting spot turned into a quarry. So he runs around crying manly tears, throwing chairs, kicking gravestones and fighting bureaucracies. Some chick gets married I guess... Anyway, its revealed that his men were sacrificed so the rest of the battalion could escape so that's why the order never came to retreat. In the end, the bodies of his men are conveniently found, are honored posthumously and the assembly bugle is sounded over their monument all poetic and shit. More manly tears.

I like simple war movies like this. At first I liked it for all the bloody carnage but when it turned to drama I had my doubts. Fortunately, the drama was okay enough. Come to think of it, we don't really know much about Captain Gu. His character was never developed that much. I mean, we don't know his history, his politics and whatnot but that's the beauty of it. It became easy to just label him the righteous grizzled war hero and feel his pain. This movie is best if you don't think of it too much. Gu fights Nationalists(bad guys for China), he and his men are heroes, his men are forgotten, he feels alone and pissed, he fights for his fallen comrades, they are found and honored, pack it up and we are done.

Not bad.