Reviews

Watching this movie is like watching everything that was good drained from it predecessor.

The martial arts scenes are unimpressive, lacking the speed and energy of the original. If the actors had much martial arts skill, they certainly don't show it. The editing in these scenes is workmanlike at best. Admittedly Peck Prior didn't have much to work with but there are several points during the fight scenes where you can't even tell what's going on.

While the sets of the original had a cool expressionist look, these had the look of a Power Rangers movie. Leonetti certainly does a lot with special effects but they just don't look very good (Motaro was pretty well done though).

Meanwhile the music track had little merit. Most of the notable musical themes were taken from the first movie.

It's basically 90 minutes of martial arts guys dressed up as characters from a computer game fighting each other over really thumping music, with plenty of special effects. Definitely a treat for a fan of the game. Character development is admittedly lacking, however, I am of the opinion that character development is often detrimental within the action form.

This is one of the best choreographed and edited martial arts films to come out of the U.S. The fights have speed and energy such as one would normally have to look to Hong Kong to find. Even if a good deal of the moves are not especially realistic they are packaged well.

Anderson really gets the most out of his limited sets. Shang Tsung's island fortress consists of three or four rooms repeatedly filmed from different angles and with different furniture (I'm pretty sure that's a picture of Dr. Doom from a Marvel card series on the floor of the Sub-zero Liu Kang fight room which is also the main dining room and I believe the Goro Artie fight room). The sets throughout are expressionisticly effective having little attachment to reality and making the most of it.

Mortal Kombat is further outstanding in its music track. The techno beat is so infectious that many real dojo's use it for background during physical conditioning classes. Anderson knows where and when to use this music to make the fight scenes some of the most enjoyable I've seen.

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Shang Tsung) is among my favorite character actors. Whenever he delivers a line it looks like his face is in excruciating pain.

Even allowing for problems in translation, Chinese Ghost Story is thoroughly odd. It may well take you more than one viewing to figure out everything that is going on. I wouldn't even posit on where they got the theology behind it.

However, it is still a highly entertaining film. It is a love story that appealed even though I despise love stories and a comic adventure such as I've rarely seen. If you don't mind things not entirely making sense, you should love this film.

Chinese Ghost Story uses an interesting combination of computer and cell animation. The combination is not seamless as in more recent films, resulting in a very interesting look. Meanwhile, Chan experiments with the possibilities offered by the combination (look near the beginning when the camera cranes through solid ground).

Best line in the movie 'Scissors of Heaven.'

If you like to feel like you are better than other people, see this movie and pretend to like it. This film combines short, chiefly unrelated shots in order to explore the viewing experience. Though there is basic technical skill involved and Brakhage must have certainly spent a long time making Dog Star Man, if the film were cut up and recombined in much any other way, it is doubtful anyone would know the difference. This film comes from the same sort of mentality which created color field painting and other such things which chiefly interest people who don't have anything useful to do with their time. If you haven't seen it yet and aren't on acid, avoid this film at all costs.

This review is being written by a man who absolutely despises everything about realist style films. However, Flaherty's depiction of life on the Isle of Aran captivated me from start to finish. Filled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, Flaherty would have been lying through his teeth to have called this a documentary (the man of Aran wasn't even from Aran). Man of Aran remains realist however in that, I believe, in that it only speaks to you if you hold a connection to the sort of life it depicts. Flaherty brings forth the essence of that life but will only hold your interest if you actually care how someone might farm in a soilless field of broken rock.

If that isn't your bag, you can still at least enjoy Flaherty's visuals. Waves pound against rocky cliffs sending spray a hundred feet high. It is quite a spectacle.

Quite a lot has been said about this film and its landmark importance in forming the language of film. If you are interested in film history, to truly understand the innovations Eisenstein brings to the medium you might try viewing Potemkin along side most any film made before it (those of D.W. Griffith offer a good contrast). It should be allowed that Eisenstein was not the only montage theorist and the principles of montage editing would likely have been discovered by another given time. However, even today, few directors have approached the skill with which Eisenstein created meaning through the combination of images at such an early point in the evolution of the medium.

If you are not interested in that sort of thing, Potemkin is still one of the most beautiful and moving films ever made. You should see it, buy it, and tatoo it to your chest.