Mulan

**½

My father once said, “There is no courage without fear.”

If you’ve come here waiting for me to rip into the live action remake of the beloved animated Mulan, then you do not realize how much I love Donnie Yen. Besides Donnie Yen, Liu Yifei plays Mulan and is a thankless role as it is much harder than in the animated version. She does not have to sing, but it is harder to pass as a man than to pass as a cartoon man. The costumes and locations are wonderful. The Chinese look like the Rohirrim and the Mongols look like the League of Shadows or the Immortals.

Positives aside, this is a very flawed movie that has more good intentions than good ideas. While the plot isn’t hard to follow, it’s got lots of holes and jumps. I think that in a cheaper, less beautiful, more poorly cast movie, that these errors would be easily ignored and the positives would be embraced. Maybe that is my bias regarding inexpensive Chinese films of the past. Jet Li is in this like he was in Once Upon a Time in China, and in those I easily accepted poor dubbing and Chinese propaganda all in service of that amazingly enjoyable film, so why not here?

There is a mix of grand, huge fight scenes, and George Lucas-esque CGI usage. For instance, CGI roof jumping is not as good as well-done wirework roof jumping. The end is very predictable, but I got emotional watching it. This may be more a reflection on how I watch movies more than the quality of this particular film, but when excellent actors earnestly emote it is easy to feel emotional. Still, in the end, this really makes me want to watch Hero again. Fortunately I own it, so I can watch it soon!

Seven Minutes

**

I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.

No, that was not the director of the film, but one of the characters. The most disappointing part of the film was that this film, despite its name, lasted beyond the 90 minute crap barrier. 92 minutes does not sound like a long runtime for a movie, but this certainly felt like it took forever.

The film stars Luke Mitchell (Lincoln Campbell from Agents of SHIELD) as a guy who had to rob a bank because his wife is pregnant. It turns out the story was more complicated than that, but it took time to get there with all of the jumping around. That directorial choice, along with the very artsy shots of people driving or talking, kept making me think about the directing. In most instances, the best directing is the kind that doesn’t overtly show up on the screen. That attitude can be said for most aspects of filmmaking. A good musical score is one that helps the scene, not one that makes you pay attention to the music by itself. A good performance from an actor does not make you think about her acting. There is very little good to be found in this movie that, like it’s characters, bit off more than it could chew.

Bloodsport

***

Very good. But brick not hit back!

Bolo Yueng as Chong Li

The end of this movie includes some amazing facts about its protagonist Frank Dux and his success in the secret international fighting circle known as “kumite.” You might look at the dates on this film and get the impression that Dux watched Enter the Dragon and then started to tell stories about himself in the role of Bruce Lee. From what I have read, that basically sums up what happened! But I learned that after I watched the movie. All I knew is that Jean-Claude Van Damme (JCVD) was a less than convincing Californian and that he fought against Bolo Yueng. You may recognize Bolo from being the #1 henchman in the movie ENTER THE DRAGON. I am just glad that the wonderful Bolo did not lose out on a role that was clearly designated for a “Bolo Yueng type.”

The gist of this based-on-a-false-story movie is that JCVD goes AWOL from the US military to compete in a kumite in Hong Kong to honor his master, who only taught his own son and JCVD the “death touch.” The story actually gets more absurd as the story continues in this narcissistic fantasy. The military sends two officers to bring him back because he is such a valuable asset. A (female) reporter investigating the kumite falls for him and they have sex. It is like if Bruce Lee did a bunch of cocaine and then tried to juice up Enter the Dragon so that he was even more amazing and desirible.

While the film is dishonest and its protagonist is excessively self-aggrandizing, there are positives too. JVCD’s charisma vacuum is at work, so he does not come across as self-centered or cocky. There are some good fights and the setting for their matches was quite interesting. Bolo Yueng was in the movie too. He was in both Enter the Dragon and Drunken Master, so usually his appearance in a film is a symbol of quality. He was probably the highlight for me in this movie.

What We Left Behind: Star Trek DS9

Hello, my name is Andy Robinson. I played Garak on Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Which means, I know something about truth and lies. What We Left Behind is merely a documentary. And like most documentaries it consists of stories recalled in memory fueled by emotion. Now, stories require embellishment. Memory can be faulty, and emotion often obscures clarity. The end result is entertaining, informative, heartfelt, but it is truth as seen through a glass darkly. I’m afraid it’s the best we humans can do.

Casey Biggs, Jeffrey Combs, Armin Shimerman, and Max Grodénchik; aka Damar, Weyoun, Quark and Rom.

I truly enjoyed this documentary. I tried reading a review so that I could be more objective about this, but it didn’t work. There is a lot to criticize in this film, but it seems only fair to say that I loved this movie so much. It has a lot of Ira Steven Behr in it, which makes sense when you realize he was showrunner on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and a co-director of this film. In fact he used crowd sourced funds to make the movie.

The documentary essentially has two aspects to it. The actors and crew members talk about their experiences on the show and the relationships that came out of it. These were both done in one on one and group settings. The narrative portion, which is very Behr centric, comes from the all-male writing team getting together and sketching out how they would write the season premiere of DS9, were it to be made in 2018, 20 years after DS9 had its series finale, also titled, “What We Left Behind”. Having just rewatched the entire series this year, I was extremely curious to hear what the writers had to say. If you have not seen at least the Dominion War episodes of the series, then I assume this would be totally uninteresting to you. On the other hand, the actors, fans, and crew talking about their experiences and what the show meant to them is touching and will resonate with anyone who has felt truly touched by a TV show.

This was a movie that was funded by, and thus literally made for, the fans who 20 years later wanted to see this. That is wonderful, but it also had created something very niche. For diehard fans of the show ****½. For everyone else **½. That averages to ***½, which seems low but I think my own personal enjoyment does not necessarily make a film great.

P.S. Andrew Robinson, Garak from DS9, played Scorpio in the movie Dirty Harry. He was the punk on the end of “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk? Not only that, but Kai Winn on the show was Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I don’t know of any other iconic 1970s villains who had roles on the show, but if you know any, please let me know in the comments.