Mike Garcia
Posts by Mike Garcia:
CAPTAIN CHINA Review: Fighting for the Motherhood… And barely surviving…
This film has been mocked and slammed by western media, accused of being a cheap rip-off of Marvel´s Avengers with all the heroes of Chinese Folklore, and is undeniable that the film deserved all the backlash and didn´t deserve any praise, but it wasn´t neither the big happening that seemed that western media tried to make us believe it was, since it was just another low-budget independent film destined to be lost and forgotten in the vast sea of Chinese streaming platforms, that on other hand, probably felt benefited by all that negative that translated into free publicity that would give it some undeserved 15 minutes of fame.
IP MAN: KUNG FU MASTER Review: Kung Fu As The Ultimate Weapon For Truth And Justice
Chinese film industry continue turning their most beloved martial arts historical figures into pulp characters, sometimes even bordering on the superhero genre, but overall looking to exploit this figures beyond of what they really were, to bring them to the olympus of legends, where the wide variety of possibilities is unlimited, and all them stop being historical figures to transform into fictitional characters that inhabit universes that those kung fu masters could never imagine, bringing to moviegoers around the world endless hours of evasive entertainment.
THE YAKUZA Review: A Look Back At Sydney Pollack’s Masterpiece
If someone makes a list of manly movies, without any doubt this film deserves to be at the top of that list, because there’s no a bigger display of manhood that putting together onto the screen two badasses as Robert Mitchum and Ken Takakura… in fact, the whole movie is an exercise of badassery wrapped into the crafty and sophisticated excellent job of Sydney Pollack who managed to make a really arty Yakuza movie, filled with gory moments of glorious violence and a good script that really captures the essence of Yakuza cinema, without making the mistake of most Hollywood movies when they go east, misrepresenting asian cultures, respecting all the essence of Japanese culture at its fullest. Mitchum plays a retired detective who returns to Japan after being several decades away to rescue his friend’s daughter from the Yakuza. Once there, he will meet again with a past he left behind and unpaid debts that he needs to settle. Mitchum was always a convincing and very charismatic actor in everything he did but in this movie he was completely overshadowed by a terrific Ken Takakura who stole all the show with his screen presence and astonishing badassery. Unfortunately he never became an international movie star because the movie flopped in the box office, which was a real pity, because the movie deserved to become a hit, but time always sort everything out and the passage of time has gained it a cult following that really deserves
TAIWAN BLACK MOVIES Review: A Didactic Retrospective to a Cinema that No Longer Exists
An insight look to the explosion of B cinema in Taiwan during the end of the 70’s and the early 80’s and how those movies made an impact in Taiwan society of that era, being a reflection of it…
Through interviews with movie directors who worked in those films, such as Chu Yen pIng, producers and stars of those films as Yang chia Yun. The director of this documentary, Ho Chi jan, illustrates this interesting cinematic journey with numerous clips of those films, exploring the genre that was a mixed of exploitation cinema with tons of violence and sexuality, where the “Femme-Avenger” Genre was born, with trash classics as “Woman Revenger”, with Elsa Yeung playing for the first time a role that she would play countless of times in many different movies, that co-existed with “social-realist crime films”, such as “Never Too Late to Repent”, considered the pioneer of the genre, starred by real-life ganster Ma Sha, and based on his own autobiographical book, or anti-communist propagandistic movies that were a rough critic to he CCP as “On the Society File of Shanghai“.
The documentary also explores the ins and outs of Taiwan movie industry of that time, and the importance of triads in the making of those films, that for some of the gangsters that put money on them, it became a perfect vehicle for their ego, to see themselves as heroes in the screen.
A really interesting retrospective to a cinema that no longer exists but hat is really cherished and beloved by some desperate moviegoers around the world, that thanks to Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, has been available for free on Vimeo this December. with some of the most representative films of the genre.
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