It's no secret that snarky reviewers love to rip open adaptations. Certain awful people have built their entire internet empires on making wacky faces in between random scenes from Super Mario Brothers. There's even fairly obvious tiers to these films based on how many reviews of them there are where someone goes WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA, MY PRESHIOUS NOSTALGIA (mug, mug). At the top you have stuff like the aforementioned Mario and Street Fighter, films that virtually every internet review king has to talk about at some point. Then you have the second tier, films like Double Dragon and the entire oeuvre of Uwe Boll, which get their fair share of in-depth outrage. Finally you get relatively unknown films such as Wing Commander or King of Fighters, films that have avoided the brunt of scorn either because the source material isn't as readily familiar to 13-year-olds, or because the movies are just really kind of dumb and forgettable.
All this being said, it's kind of shocking and depressing that Fist of the North Star seems to be at the bottom of attention, since in addition to the film being far more insane and terribad than the vast majority of film adaptations, it also implies that not enough people have watched/read the source material. And that really sucks. Because YOU WA SHOCK is about a million times better than whatever the hell you watch.
So in the mid-90s, Tony Randel, a guy who got his start directing Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 (a cash-in sequel that was surprisingly good in that it at least recognized that all we wanted was more skinned people and more Cenobites) and Ticks (I make no apologies for loving this movie) decided it was time to broaden his horizons and go film...a direct to video adaptation of an anime that only hardcore nerds were really aware of at this point (unless you had like 500 dollars to burn on VHS tapes with 3 episodes apiece, ah the good old days). Or maybe "decided" is the wrong word, because if you look at Randel's output in other films versus what we have here, it's obvious that regardless of the understanding Randel had towards the source material, he clearly didn't give a flying fuck about it.
There's almost always two scenes in video game film adaptations. One is where it's made really really clear that the director doesn't care about the actual video game plot. It's when you have Yoshi appear as a tiny ass dinosaur that looks sad all the time, or when Wing Commander first utters the words "Pilgrim." The other scene is where it is made really really clear that video game plots are too complicated for people that haven't actually played the game. It's when the film just expects people to understand that a giant fat black lady in red is supposed to be something else, or why anyone would ever be named Abobo.
Fist of the North Star is notable because not only does it consolidate its hatred of fanboys and confused neophytes into a single scene, it is literally the second scene in the movie. So let's break this down.
After the standard "THE WORLD IS RUIN, HELLO 20XX," opening narration, we see Admiral Tolwyn Malcolm McDowell playing Ryuken sitting in some ruined dojo. Shin (played by Costas Mandylor, who you might know better as EVIL DETECTIVE HOFFMAN GOD I HATE SAW) walks in, there's some awkward talk about DO YOU KNOW YOUR MISSION AS WELL AS I DO YES I DO YOU MUST DIE. Then McDowell plays his trump card of "well I'm Fist of the North Star and you're Southern Cross WE CAN NEVER FIGHT," which is the point when one half of the audience is like um why. But then Shin states:
"This is not a fight. It's an execution."
So let's review. Not only does the movie immediately start throwing weird minutiae about competing fighting systems, it also features Ryuken dying to a fucking revolver. Wielded by Shin. Maybe this is being a little too fanboyish, but holy shit way to completely subvert everything about Fist of the North Star immediately. It's like the title crawl of a Final Fantasy VII remake talking about how Sephiroth was once a respected US Senator until someone spilled radioactive coffee on his crotch, and now he's an angry robot that wants to pull down Space Station Mir.
But hey, I thought. So they completely threw away any credibility within six minutes. What are we really here for? PEOPLE EXPLODING! And at first, the movie seems to comply. After some opening bullshit about the plucky little civilian town with fresh water (this being 1995, this water is highly coveted because all the rain has become ACID RAIN that burns the skin away), we see Kenshiro (played by Gary Daniels) seeking refuge at a nice couple's home that is naturally attacked by raiders. As a result:
Pretty great, right? Well, good news: this never happens again! Instead, the rest of the fights are standard mid-90s american kick punch affairs, on a technical level slightly higher than when pink ranger did splits to beat up putties. I don't know if Daniels demanded more realistic fights to show off his kickboxing skills or the sfx budget ran out or what. While it's disappointing, that's not even the dumbest part of this film.
Remember how in the early episodes of Fist of the North Star Kenshiro constantly ran away from trouble and let civilians get tortured/raped because he didn't want to fight? I don't either, but apparently some joker spliced together neon genesis evangeleon scenes into the tapes the screenwriter used to write the film, because I have no other explanation as to why, aside from that early fight, Kenshiro does jack shit for two-thirds of the film. My best guess is that the writer felt that they needed some DRAMATIC CHARACTER GROWTH, but why? Is there anyone in the conceivable target audience that would not have preferred just a linear series of Kenshiro punching people? Or maybe it was a way to justify having Malcolm McDowell on the cast, since he randomly appears as visions, possesses little girls, and even reanimates as a zombie (I'm not even joking here), all to constantly tell Kenshiro to "STOP BEING A PUSSY BRO."
All that exhorting doesn't really come to much, as when the good guy village is raided by Shin's bad guy corps (who pilot those little mini asian taxis, which are only slightly more intimidating than the floor cleaners in space mutiny), Kenshiro just sort of peeks out from behind rocks with wacky asian teenager sidekick. Finally, after like 90% of the village has been raped to death, Kenshiro decides to attack the bad guy camp because he really feels bad and realizes that Julia is alive after all or something.
So it's action time, right? The early sequence was just a taste of what to come? No. Instead, all the other fights are quidessential 90's low budget kung fu sequences, where nobody ever seems to get hurt, just flipped over and over. Or slapped. Ken slapping people.
One of the few things worth noting about this film is the hidden contest between the two main actors trying to top each other in how little they care about the film. Both actors just have the same dead faced glare, to the point that in the final confrontation, Shin is wearing some sort of rubber butcher's smock for the sole reason of giving us a chance of telling them apart. Also for some reason the final fight room is accented by refrigerators with Gatorade bottles and Ajax boxes, which I'd like to believe is a commentary on materialism but considering the design decisions in the rest of the movie I refuse to postulate.
No, what I want to finish this review talking about is really the only memorable aspect:
Yes, that's Chris "chubbiest of the Penns" Penn. In the movie, his name is "Jackel," but make no mistake, that's Jagi. He's no longer Kenshiro's brother, but has the same delightful sociopathic attitude and the same protection from a previous Ken Punch.
Say what you will about what led Chris to accept the role of being an evil guy wearing belts around his head, he is the only remotely fun thing about this movie. While everyone else in the film shuffles through their lines and looks embarrassed, Chris Penn...also looks embarrassed, but he's still charismatic as fuck about playing an evil rapedude. The only highlight of the movie is Penn's speech to the rest of the raiders, which ends with "LET'S KILL SOME PEOPLE, AND LET'S ENJOY IT." Of course, for being the only source of joy in the film, how does he get offed? No doubt by another AWESOME SFX ATTATATATATA HEAD EXPLOSION right?
no he tries to rape julia in a giant clock or something and she rips off his belts and his head explodes
fist of the north star
No comments:
Post a Comment