Buckle up folks, we’ve got a pile of films to get through and not much time to do it! The house was pretty darn productive this week, with our viewings ranging from mid-century horror to modern family films, along with a delightful garnish of One Piece. We are at this point in full savoring mode for Wano, consuming only an episode or two at a time, and making the most of what we have left. After all, when each sequence of episodes offers a few highlights like this, it feels like it’d be disrespectful to rush through. In the meantime, we’ve actually been turning back to catch up on all the filler episodes we initially skipped past, and enjoying the low-stakes nostalgia of conflicts like “Sanji’s gotta win a cooking contest!” It’s been a cheery week on the whole, and I’m eager to share my findings with you all, so let’s get started on the Week in Review!
First up this week was The Masque of the Red Death, an adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe story starring Vincent Price as the devious Prince Prospero. While the countryside outside is ravaged by the red death, Prospero gathers his closest and most compromised companions for a grand ball. There, he hopes to earn the favor of his infernal master, as well as corrupt the soul of a village girl who still claims to believe in God.
The Masque of the Red Death was a whole bunch of fun, an exuberant festival of sin elevated by its terrific set design, as well as Price’s devilishly compelling performance. Price comes across as a larger-than-life vampire king in basically all of his roles, so Prospero is the perfect role for him, as he capriciously directs his guests to cavort like animals, or praises a reveler for a good jest involving setting a man on fire. And Prospero’s castle is a festival of visual wonders, chief among them the series of mono-color rooms that lead into his most sacrilegious chamber. Though its subject matter is bleak, Masque of the Red Death feels playful and energetic throughout, and serves as a perfect showpiece for one of horror’s most memorable stars.
After that, we checked out the original Kung Fu Panda, starring Jack Black as a panda who dreams of becoming a kung fu master, in spite of being a panda. Kung Fu Panda has a reputation for being one of Dreamworks’ best productions, and our watch bore that out. Jack Black is in fine form, and he is surrounded by a truly absurd roster of vocal talent. His master is friggin’ Dustin Hoffman, his fellow combatants range from Jackie Chan to David Cross, and his father is played by the prolific and always-excellent James Hong. Even Ian McShane is there, bringing an unlikely sense of gravitas to his diabolical leopard.
Casting aside, Kung Fu Panda succeeds mostly because it’s a sturdy, genre-faithful kung fu movie. The plot is close to something like Return to the 36th Chamber, wherein a martial arts imposter must make good on his artifice, leading to a satisfying mixture of training and payoff. And the film’s action scenes are expertly choreographed, cleverly transposing kung fu disciplines to the animals that are their namesakes. With a plot that dances expertly from training sequence to fight scene and back again, Kung Fu Panda feels even shorter than its ninety minute runtime. A light, charming watch.
Next, my housemate demanded we watch Bedazzled, a film about Brendan Fraser making a deal with the devil, played by Elizabeth Hurley. Bedazzled isn’t really good in any way, but Fraser is such a likable on-screen presence that it’s also not the worst time, either. The biggest thing I took away from this film is that Hurley was a star before her time. In Bedazzled, Fraser is desperate to use his devil wishes to secure the love of his mild-mannered coworker – but to be honest, through this entire film, I was mostly just thinking “wait, why isn’t he shacking up with the devil?” Hurley’s capricious sadism and parade of horny costumes feel pretty much perfectly tuned to 2021’s “just fucking murder me” romantic sensibilities. Sadly, 2000’s screenwriters were not big-brained enough to see Brendan Fraser romancing the incarnation of evil itself.
We then shifted over to action, checking out John Woo’s 1992 film Hard-Boiled, starring Chow Yun-fat as a police inspector, and Tony Leung Chiu-wai as an undercover agent. As an overall narrative, Hard-Boiled is confused and choppy, with its central priorities only coming into focus around the halfway point. However, as a series of spectacular action scenes bookended by melodramatic music videos, Hard-Boiled shines.
John Woo’s style hinges on excess as an aesthetic guide – excessive slowmo, excessive pans, excessive explosions, excessive everything. Hard-Boiled’s big action sequences roll through one over-the-top, deftly choreographed setpiece after another, coming about as close as live-action can to the madness of Symphogear. I could also see the roots of something like John Wick’s style in the balletic interplay of the last forty minutes, as Yun-fat and Chiu-wai essentially perform a gunfire-based dance all the way through an active hospital. This is the kind of movie where you are forced to accept early on that Yun-fat wields a mega-shotgun which fires explosions, and by the end are cheering each time he fires another shell that blows up an entire goddamn wall. A delirious and delightfully excessive time at the movies.
Finally, we concluded by watching the next One Piece film, One Piece Film Z. Z centers on a former navy admiral who’s grown disillusioned with the navy’s view of justice, and is determined to wipe out all pirates personally. After crossing paths with the Straw Hats early on, he leaves several of them suffering from the age-stealing power of his subordinate, guaranteeing an eventual collision between Z’s New Navy, the actual navy, and Luffy’s crew.
Z might actually be the best One Piece film I’ve seen so far in terms of its narrative. Z is a compelling villain, and his relationship with the navy means this film feels genuinely embedded in the larger world, offering new insights into the relationships between the key naval figures. Aokiji gets a welcome star turn here, and Luffy’s often self-destructive pride is smartly contrasted against Z’s ambition.
As far as the visuals go, Z is generously stuffed with expressive character acting and action highlights, though obviously in somewhat more conventional styles than the incomparable Baron Omatsuri. The film makes effective use of CG models and environments, building unique CG sets for both Zoro and Sanji’s battles, and masking the CG by always returning to traditional animation for closeups. The resulting fights have a remarkable sense of space and momentum, and if you’re hungry for more traditionally animated highlights, Luffy’s final battle has that to spare. All that said, Z’s crowning achievement must be its dazzling backgrounds and layouts, particularly in the more subdued first half. The Straw Hats’ journey on the sea train is one of the most quietly beautiful moments in the franchise, as the film bears witness to the splendor of this world, and the warm bonds of this found family.
