I have to admit that I absolutely love Hong Kong crime movies. I got hooked on them since I watched all those classic Chow Yun Fat movies like The Killer, Hard-Boiled, and A Better Tomorrow. One of my favorite films of all time is Infernal Affairs and it's American remake The Departed. They remind me of the great Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone Western in that they are simple stories with a lot of great characters. Sometimes the characterization can be quite over the top, but in all honesty, art and entertainment should be over the top, right?
Blood Brothers is great example of the genre (although it is a Taiwanese production). The movie follows three friends that seek to strike it rich in Shanghai. In their quest for fame and fortune, they are caught up in working for the local mob/Triad/organized crime syndicate. Slowly, the brothers start to lose their own identity in this new world and turn on each other. Its a simple setup, but yet the movie is engrossing and stylishly shot. It helps that it is set in the 1930s and everyone is in period clothing of the era. It is hard not to look awesomely cool in a three-piece, fedora, and a trench coat. Imagine Untouchables in Chinese with a smaller scope.
The plot is fairly predictable, but it doesn't matter too much as everything with the film is wonderful. The setting, characters, and even the music is amazing. Heck, I even spotted no less than two Godfather homages within the film, and that is a good thing. There was a really easy to spot homage to the ending of the first Godfather. It is the part where Michael Corleone is talking to other crime bosses and the scene is shot from the doorway while one of his associates close the door on the camera/character (watch from the 3 minute mark). The shot symbolizes how Michael is lost to the outside world, and his descent to a life of organized crime is complete. It also emphasizes the outsider status of Diane Keaton. Blood Brothers uses the same shot for the same effect in the middle of the film. One of my favorite things of these films is some of the details are not explained in a clear cut manner. The movie makes the assumption that the audience is intelligent enough to figure things out. There is even a great shoot out to end the movie in style.
Blood Brothers was a great film that if I would highly recommend to fans of the genre.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment