A Little TLC(w): Tokyo Raiders (2000, PG-13)

Full disclosure:  I pretty much loved this movie.  Is it high art?  No, but it’s a damn good time, with an engaging cast and wonderfully-entertaining action sequences.

When her fiancé is a no-show at the altar, Macy heads to Tokyo in the hopes of finding him.  She’s followed there by Yung, the interior decorator who insists on collecting the fee her beau owes him, but once they arrive in Japan, it’s immediately clear that there’s more going on here than a delayed flight or a groom with cold feet.  Bad guys who work for worse guys are also on the hunt for the missing Takahashi, and Macy and Yung additionally catch the attention of Mr. Lin, a Chinese private eye working in Tokyo who’s been on the case.

I’ll concede that it’s not a perfect film.  There are cheesy moments here and there, and some of the twists are plainly there to disguise the overall thinness of the plot, which at times feels merely like a means of getting from one action set piece to another.  All that said, it is a perfectly-serviceable action mystery with comic flourishes.  It clips along at a good pace and always entertains, even if it doesn’t always hold together as a tight narrative.

Some good performances here.  I’m not familiar with either Kelly Chen or Ekin Cheng, who play Macy and Yung, but they’re both very likable.  Together with Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s Lin, they make for an engaging trio.  I know this is a film that, since its release has spawned two sequels, and I don’t know if either is any good, but I’m still looking forward to seeing them based on the chemistry generated by this cast.

But far and away, Mr. Lin is my favorite thing about this movie.  He’s mysterious, suave, magnetic, and just the right amount of ridiculous – there are some great bits, especially in his action scenes, that neatly balance on the right side of goofy without veering into cheesy.  The “but can they trust him really?!” signs are practically flashing in neon, but that’s okay.  Mr. Lin pulls people in, throwing them offguard and leaving them unsure what to make of him even as they’re getting into a car with him.  There’s even something fun about how he uses his terrible Japanese to his professional advantage:  he gets the juiciest, most secret cases because people assume no one’s talking to the Chinese P.I. who barely speaks Japanese.

Leung is fantastic in this role.  I can’t quite describe the overall effect of his performance here.  Lin is super capable and frequently unflappable in the seemingly most-hopeless situations, but at the same time, there’s just the slightest air that he’s making it all up as he goes along and is flying by the seat of his pants.  I don’t know what it is, but I love it and I’m excited to see more of this character.

Recommend?

In General – I would.  Great action, really entertaining, and a good jumping-off point for this franchise.  I hope the other two movies are this much fun.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Definitely.  While this character is pretty well designed to make audiences enjoy him, Leung plays it for all he’s worth.  He’s like a charisma bomb wrapped in an investigator package and pulling off some audacious action scenes.

Warnings

Violence, brief sexual content, language, and drinking/smoking.

The Book of Rannells: The New Normal: Season 1, Episode 22 – “The Big Day” (2013)

Here’s the season-finale-turned-series-finale.  The show was smart to close the season as it did – while it would’ve of course been nice to see more of Bryan and David’s adventures into parenthood, this is a nice resolution that leaves room for more to come without going out on a cliffhanger or something, as too many canceled shows have done.  And besides, if The New Normal had continued, we’d have gotten less Elijah on Girls, and with a full-season network-sitcom schedule, Rannels might’ve been able to do even less Broadway than he did with a ten-episode-season cable-dramedy schedule (one rather obvious spoiler.)

The day of the wedding has arrived, and despite David and Bryan’s mantra of “our day, our way,” people (particularly the guys’ mothers) keep foisting different “please, for me” stuff on them.  It wouldn’t be a sitcom wedding without things spiraling out of control, right?  And since it’s also a sitcom wedding involving one very heavily-pregnant attendee, you can guess what happens.

Bryan and David’s hijacked wedding reminds me a lot of Lily and Marshall’s on How I Met Your Mother – it even resolves in a similar fashion, albeit after a different, much more welcome interruption – although I’m sure there are plenty of other examples.  There’s no especially new ground trod here, although it is interesting that some of the traditions their moms insist on are very heteronormative.  It does seem weird to me that so many of these things would be sprung on the guys right before the wedding, but that might be more realistic than I assume.  Luckily, I have no experience on that subject and so cannot verify.

Also very well-worn is Goldie going into labor during the ceremony, but even though it’s blindingly predictable, the delivery montage that follows is just wonderful.  All set to “Beautiful Boy,” it really reflects how all these characters have come together over the course of the season and the different, overlapping families they’ve formed.

Rannells is of course as funny as always – I get a kick out of his reaction to seeing David in the family tux he’s talked into wearing, as well as blaming his own unwanted concession seconds before walking down the aisle on the death of his dad (which happened years before) – but I especially love him here in the more tender scenes, the delivery and the closing scene.  He radiates warmth throughout, which some might say is uncharacteristic for Bryan, but even though Bryan can be vain and shallow, he also has a huge heart that reveals itself numerous times throughout the season.  Besides, in Rannells’s hands, there’s no doubt that the birth of his son is transformative for Bryan; the look on his face as he holds his baby is perfect.

So, that’s The New Normal!  Not always as good as I wanted it to be, but to me, still a special moment in television.

Recommend?

In General – I think so.  Go in knowing that the episodes can be really inconsistent, and I think you’ll still be able to appreciate its good qualities.

Andrew Rannells – Definitely.  Whatever the show’s faults, Rannells is fabulous here, funny and moving in equal measure.

Warnings

Language (including racist and homophobic insults,) sexual content, a little violence here and there, drinking/a few drug references, and thematic elements.

A Little TLC(w): The Great Magician (2011)

I’ve had my eye on this film for a while – Tony Leung Chiu-wai hasn’t been in a ton of movies since I started getting into his work in the mid-2000s, so any film of his that’s come out in recent years catches my attention.  Unfortunately, most of them aren’t available through Netflix, so it wasn’t until I stepped up my game with A Little TLC(w) and started poking around in other places that I’ve been able to get my hands on some of them.  Luckily, I was able to rent a streaming video of this one through Amazon.

Bully Lei, a warlord, has been trying to woo his seventh wife, and all she likes are magic shows.  Of course, there’s the small matter of the facts that 1) he’s holding her father as a political prisoner and 2) he married her against her will, so it doesn’t seem like a magic show will really be the key to her heart, but he’s trying.  A small theatre is touting their new magician Chang Hsien, rumored to possess real powers.  Now, if you were a group of rebels looking to kidnap a warlord on the hunt for the perfect magic show, wouldn’t you want a magician on your side?

A very interesting premise, and I love all the scenes pulling back the curtain, so to speak, on the mechanics behind Chang Hsien’s tricks.  On the whole, though, the movie falls a little short for me.  It’s hard to put my finger on the exact why – some of the humor is overly-broad, there are places where the plot gets unnecessarily busy – but it doesn’t quite live up to its promise.  That said, I repeat:  I do love the magic scenes, both the ones that reveal “howdy doodat” and the ones that don’t.  They’re well-shot and well-executed.  I also appreciate that Yin, Bully Lei’s seventh wife, isn’t a poor damsel, nor is she merely a “feisty captive.”  The story gives her some agency beyond waiting for rescue.

Bonus point:  the movie features a very brief appearance by Daniel Wu, who plays Sunny on Into the Badlands.  Now, Wu is an American who became a big-name actor in China and has since been breaking into Hollywood, but I came at his work backwards with Bandlands, so this is the first Chinese movie I’ve seen him in.

As Chang Hsien, Leung is at the center of the film.  “Mysterious” is his whole shtick, so he gets mileage out of being just a little unfathomable.  His expression is often vague, and even when he smiles, it rarely reaches his eyes.  For me, that makes the character a bit hard to connect with, and I think it’s probably exacerbated by the fact that this is a mainland film, so Leung’s Mandarin is dubbed – I’m not sure if his own line delivery would’ve brought the performance home a bit more.

Not that it’s a bad performance; it’s just kind of remote, and even then not throughout.  There are some long, still moments when Chang Hisen’s expression becomes a private book for an audience of one to read, and those scenes are highly effective.  He also carries off the magician aspect well.  I’m curious to know how much of it is camera trickery and how much of it is Leung performing the illusions himself.  Enquiring minds…

Recommend?

In General – Maybe.  It’s all right but not great.  Might be worth a watch.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Eh, maybe.  Other than the magic (which, again, is fun,) there’s not a whole lot here that you can’t see Leung do better elsewhere.

Warnings

Violence, sexual references, language, drinking, and thematic elements.