Book Review: East is East (1990) by T.C. Boyle

This is the final review in the "Books About Asian Women" series. These are the previous entries: Memoirs of a Geisha, The Joy Luck Club, and Shanghai Girls.

Although East is East was meant to be my final review in the books about Asian women series, it's not really about Asian women. Rather, it is about a half-Japanese, half-American sailor named Hiro who, in attempt to escape a Japanese society that won't accept him, jumps ship for the expected greener pastures of America. He instead finds himself a fugitive on an island off the coast of Georgia, which is the location of a writer's and artist's retreat. His attempt to survive and escape from the island is probably the funniest and most entertaining part of this novel. One part that was laugh out loud funny to me is when he goes into a convenience store and, after making his purchase, bows and says obscenities, thinking it to be polite, because of what he saw in a Clint Eastwood movie. As well, he is able to stay at a wealthy, elderly woman's home because she mistakes him for a composer that she saw in Atlanta. Unfortunately, these are the best parts about this novel.

Later, he is helped by one of the writers, a mid-twenties woman who is dating the son of the retreat owner. She leaves him food and offers to let him stay in her writer's cabin. However, her intentions are not as pure as they seem. She has been having writer's block and is hoping her experience with Hiro can help her along her way to win the Pulitzer; in fact, when she thinks he has left her, she says "to hell with him." She is also quite childish in her envy of a former classmate who has been much more successful in the writing game than she. "All she writes about is sex!" she says. And perhaps this is unfair of me, but I can't help but feel like her experience must reflect that of the author, T.C. Boyle. Is it a sign that you don't really have a story that you're itching to tell if one of your main characters is a writer who is struggling to find something to write about?

The novel largely revolves around the struggle of these two; we aren't really brought into the struggles and desires of the surrounding characters. When we are, though, it is not central to the plot. Thus, the only character I feel any sympathy for is Hiro, making at least half the book something I don't care about. And when the reader does get to follow him, it seems like just one long chain of suffering and fighting to survive. It was not very enjoyable to read; if not for my resolve to finish it wouldn't have been. It has no redeeming value in terms of history or culture that the previous novels in the series do. If it does have a side benefit somewhere, it might be in the vocabulary one picks up. It was as if the author had a heart-felt need to prove himself through his vocabulary. But I feel like I can safely make the recommendation to skip East is East.

DVDs We Love: Rush Hour 2 (2001)

This should be an easy transition: as you know, we've spent the last few weeks on Code Redd Net revisiting some Classic Chan films. Now we return with a new recurring feature, one that aims to spotlight some of the best, most valuable and most interesting DVDs/Blu-rays on the market. Too often films released for home viewing provide little incentive for purchase beyond the quality of the film it contains. Our purpose here is to draw your attention to those discs laden with special features, special features that make repeated viewings worthwhile, that keep the DVD/Blu-ray in question spinning in your player for years. To that end, we can find no better way to kick things off than by returning to Rush Hour 2. In addition to being a beloved CRN Awards winner and longtime site/blog staple, it's also one of our favorite DVDs ever released. Find out why below.

Ricky, you sly son of a gun, just look at you.

Rush Hour 2 is not the best Jackie Chan film. In fact, looking over the items chronicled in our recent Classic Chan series, arguably eight of those ten films feature better fights, better stunts, and overall a more competent use of Chan's physical abilities. What those films lack, though, is the sheen of Rush Hour 2, its efficiency of storytelling and style. Undeniably, Rush Hour 2 is lean Hollywood filmmaking, all its excesses contained in 90 minutes and rounded off by the credits. Hollywood is at its best when taking something mediocre and inflating it to the absolute limit, usually via astronomical production values. So while Chan's choreography is below average in this film, so much else around him is of a higher quality (everything from the lighting, the sets, the cameras, to the film stock itself) that we can temporarily forget the handcuffs put on our favorite action star. It's a decent enough compromise for the Chan enthusiast and the casual viewer, I suppose.

Besides the quality of the film, the DVD for Rush Hour 2 really delivers the goods. As part of the abandoned Infinifilm brand of New Line, the Rush Hour 2 disc is loaded with stuff:

• Commentary with director Brett Ratner and writer Jeff Nathanson
• Featurettes: "Making Magic Out of Mire", "Fashion of Rush Hour 2", "Jackie Chan's Hong Kong Introduction", "Culture Clash: West Meets East", "Language Barrier", "Attaining International Stardom", "Kung Fu Choreography".
• Evolution of a Scene
• Visual Effects Deconstruction
• Deleted Scenes/Outtakes (with optional director/writer commentary)
• Theatrical Trailers
• Cast and Crew bios
• Fact Track
• DVD-rom with a script you can read alongside film
• as well as the usual plethora of language/subtitle options and chapter selection

This may not sound that impressive at first, but the DVD's Infinifilm option integrates almost every one of these elements into the film's presentation. Menus pop up onscreen, inviting you to watch short clips, snipped from the full featurettes listed above that deal directly with the scene.

In this example, the massage parlor fight is supplemented with material describing its construction. Play the clip and the disc returns you to the film at exactly the same point you were at before. Though the disc obviously needs a few seconds to gather up the selected data after you click an option, and a few more to get you back, it's nothing too jarring; and it helps that the clips are usually interesting and engage you more thoroughly with the film. Certainly the Infinifilm feature could become annoying for those watching the film for the first time, but it's not the default option on the disc. For those looking for a reason to watch it again, though, it's a perfect means to do so.

Outside of the Infinifilm, you can access all the supplemental material individually and in full. Though there's plenty of flatulent industry fluff, like "Fashion of Rush Hour 2" and "Making Magic Out of Mire", many of the other features are worth watching. Evolution of a Scene, essentially rehearsal footage of some of the more expensive/explosive scenes, is an interesting opportunity to see Jackie's method of choreography at work. I always appreciate the inclusion of deleted scenes, though in this case they were clearly deleted for a reason; same goes for the outtakes, really.

Brett Ratner and his screenwriter writer provide feature-length commentary and it's mostly banal stuff that gets regurgitated elsewhere on the disc. There's a bit too much gossip, and way too much Hollywood name-dropping, but on occasion they provide an insight or tow. One of the more intriguing special features is the Fact Track (above), an option that places a running stream of incidental notes on the lower part of the screen. These include useful biographical bits on Chan, Tucker, and the minor or incidental characters that surround them, as well as trivia regarding the scenery, shooting locations, and Snoopy's height relative to Tucker's racially-charged estimation of Chan's height. Like the Infinifilm option, though perhaps less exciting visually, Fact Track is yet another way to make a repeated viewing of the film seem novel. Strangely enough, it's possible to watch the film with the Fact Track, commentary, and Infinifilm features all running at the same time! It's a bit too much for the senses, I think, but it nonetheless proves that the disc is loaded not only with special features, but with a highly customizable engagement with them.

All things considered, the Rush Hour 2 Infinifilm DVD is one loaded with replay value. By my count, there's at least four-five different ways to watch the film: by itself, with Infinifilm, with commentary, with the fact track, and with some combination of the above options. This is in addition to the standalone full features accessible via the menu. It's too bad New Line gave up on the Infinifilm brand, because I wish all my DVDs/Blu-rays had this kind of depth.

Get the DVD on Amazon for $.01 right here (and make sure you follow the link to the Infinifilm product specifically, as there's another, stripped-down and feature-less version of the disc in circulation).

Classic Chan: The Accidental Spy (2001)

Classic Chan concludes today on a bit of a downbeat, as The Accidental Spy is not one of Chan's best. Regardless, it's been a real pleasure bringing you this series on one of our favorite performers. Chicken Man and I have enjoyed this chance to revisit some of the key films in our history, films that somehow escaped our critical eye. Stick around for more Chan coverage coming your way on Code Redd Net.

Even when Jackie Chan is at his most mediocre, he still brings the goods. To wit: though The Accidental Spy is pretty pedestrian stuff, there's an excellently choreographed fight in a Turkish* bath that saves the film from totally descending into Tuxedo territory. But first, the evergreen wacky plot: Jackie is an exercise equipment salesman who foils a robbery. Some strange old man then approaches Jackie about another strange old man, this one wealthy and on his deathbed. He sends Jackie off on a globetrotting quest for clues of some sort or another, all the while unknowingly working for a shadow American intelligence operation. By even the loosest narrative standards of the genre, The Accidental Spy makes no sense. Why Jackie goes to certain places, why certain clues are deemed important, and why certain characters show up at certain times and do certain things, barely any of it is adequately explained. I suppose it's a bit of a throwback to the oddball political affiliations Jackie dealt with in First Strike, but for all the James Bond-lite intrigue and exoticism of locales, it doesn't add up to anything substantial, let alone anything really comprehensible. Still, though, there's nothing like Chan acrobatics to distract you from the confusing story. The aforementioned Turkish bath bash is a true highlight, as Jackie not only defends himself from his assailants, but also defends the dignity of his naked body from exposure. It's a subtle technique of layering the choreography that Jackie is particularly adept at executing. He doesn't simply fight an opponent or a mob of opponents: often, he also has to contend with the elements, with the environment, with physical restraints (such as handcuffs or that odd rope apparatus in Mr. Nice Guy), with notions of decorum and cultural heritage (recall the complicated vase choreography in Shanghai Knights), and so on. Unfortunately, the dynamism of the Turkish scene isn't present in all the fights, as some of them are fairly bland and lack that trademark Chan structuring. If it's your kind of thing, there's plenty of vehicular stuntwork going on here, especially the impressive tanker sequence that concludes the film. Nevertheless, The Accidental Spy should be ranked fairly low in Chan's oeuvre. I recommend checking it out for the Turkish bath fight scene, but you can snooze through the rest and not miss anything important.

*"Oi, did someone say Turkish? One of me many names it is."

Classic Chan: Shanghai Noon (2000)

Coming to the last review by Chicken Man in our Classic Chan series, we take a look at one of Jackie's distinctly American films, Shanghai Noon. Thrasher will bring the series to a close with Accidental Spy. But fret not, we will looking at more Chan favorites in the future.

Shanghai Noon is undoubtedly one of Jackie's best American films. It is perhaps the best film with which to introduce Jackie to a Western audience (no pun intended). The plot is quite simple: the princess of the Forbidden City (Lucy Liu) is kidnapped and held for ransom in the American West. Chon Wang (Jackie) is an imperial guard who is sent to pay her ransom and ensure her return. Along the way, he runs into screw-up outlaw Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson) and they become reluctant buddies. The action scenes are also tailored to fit the typical American movie-goer in that they are much shorter than the ones in Jackie's Hong Kong films. Interestingly enough, Jackie's skills as an action star shine through even without forcing some anachronism to do car chases, underwater stunts, helicopter hijacking, or destroy drug dealer's houses with large machinery. The focus is primarily upon his martial arts abilities, one of the highlights being his turning a horseshoe and rope into an effective medium-range melee weapon. He is also involved in a bar fight scene that is easily within the top ten bar fight scenes shown on film. And, as if he were a contestant on The Deadliest Warrior, Jackie tests his mettle against Native American warriors. Every fight scene advances the story (unlike the entertaining, but ultimately pointless, skirmishes between Jackie and Mr. Lo's henchmen), which keeps things fast-paced and moving along. And despite Owen Wilson's presence in it, Shanghai Noon is actually quite funny. It's really hard to point at any single thing and say that it is a flaw (besides the fact that it doesn't have a game like Shanghai Knights does). It defines the Martial Arts Western Action Comedy genre (however big that is), and is simply a solid film. This is truly a Chan classic.

[P.S. Shanghai Noon is also a loaded DVD and will be featured in our upcoming DVD review series, which will highlight some of our favorite DVDs, back from when they used to put worthwhile special features on them.]

Classic Chan: Gorgeous (1999)

Welcome back Chanphiles for another installment of Classic Chan. This time we have Thrasher's review of the supremely weird Gorgeous, an often baffling film, but not one without some show-stealing numbers that make it worthwhile. Better get ready for next time, as Chicken Man will take you all back to the year 2000 with a review of the always enjoyable Shanghai Noon.

Gorgeous is a silly film, and one that's all over the map; it moves from sappy sub-Disney Channel romance to mature martial arts exhibition like that. It's like zapping through your cable channels only to find Jackie Chan featured on every network, even the weird ones you never watch. Consequently, of all the films we've covered thus far in the Classic Chan series, this one is the hardest to pin down, to fit within the general trajectory of his career. Part of that stems from the odd premise: Jackie Chan is C. N. Chan, a billionaire trash tycoon and indolent playboy content to own expensive things and be cool. It's only when Chan's business rival hires a professional martial artist to humiliate him that things get interesting. The rest of the film follows the childish infatuations of Bu, a little Lolita played by Shu Qi, who heads to Hong Kong to find the author of a weepy love letter, and from there she becomes entangled in Chan's love life. Sad to say, but the scenes not involving Chan (and there are a good many of them) can be quite boring for all their saccharine flavor. At times it can be difficult to make sense of the extraordinarily cheesy music as well as the odd dubbing, but there are times when Gorgeous can be genuinely charming (I particularly like the banter between the anonymous thugs Chan dispatches, characters we do not typically think of as having other lives, let alone hot dates to pick up). Like most Chan outings, however, any deficiency in plotting is more than made up for with a few fights. Gorgeous is a bit different in this regard, as Chan's character has no urgent need that makes him fight. He's not an ordinary guy made to do extraordinary things here, he's not a cop out to clear his name or a chef seeking to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend. Instead, he's a rich Wall Street trader who fights because he wants to, not because he has to, and that subtle difference gives the fights of Gorgeous a unique register. As such, the contests between Chan and the professional fighter have an official quality to them at odds with the usually desperate situations Chan accidentally walks into. It's a subtle move that lends a high degree of novelty to the brawls, which are right up there with his best choreography. Unfortunately, there's too few of them to make Gorgeous a truly noteworthy Chan film. As it stands, Gorgeous is an strange entry that our fellow Chanphiles will undoubtedly appreciate, but it's one that ultimately lacks enough of the good stuff.

Classic Chan: Who Am I? (1998)

I hope everyone enjoyed the last review in this series, Mr. Nice Guy, provided in a delicious video format by Thrasher. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly encourage you to give your eyes and ears some much needed nourishment. And not only that, in the next installment of Classic Chan, Thrasher will be thoroughly reviewing one of Jackie's sillier episodes, Gorgeous.

Crazy Legs

One of the outstanding things about Who Am I? is that I feel more of an emotional connection with the struggle of Jackie than I can with most of his other films. In Police Story, we aren't shown the evils committed by the drug traffickers; we are just to assume that they are bad people. The same largely goes for Supercop. Yet, in Who Am I?, Jackie is affronted personally by the villain, a CIA operative who betrayed him and his team of special operators. He is the only survivor of the team and loses his memory in the process. This gives me more of a reason to cheer Jackie on. I want to see him regain his memory and defeat the traitor, whereas I'm left rather indifferent to whether he catches bad guys in the previously mentioned films. But just like before, Jackie provides a variety of action scenes so none of them feel stale or boring. Beyond his amazing martial arts skills, he entertains in an early scene where he displays MacGyver-like qualities, as well as his non-vocal comedy, in treating wounds, creating an IV, and repairing a rallycar. During an interrogation, he escapes with the extra handicap of being handcuffed. And though the car-chase may be an overused situation in the action genre, Jackie uses it sparingly and when he does, it can be a treat. Also of note in this scene is how Jackie's persona has somewhat changed for the American audience. In films like Police Story or Supercop, Jackie wasn't a stranger to firearms and killing people with them. We can see the contrast here when he helps his pursuers when their car is about to drop off the side of a building. Likewise, earlier in the movie the special ops guys used a gun that shot a net. How compassionate and kid-friendly! Overall, the pacing is friendly and it never feels like an action scene is overdue. The tension can be felt mounting, culminating in what is easily one of Jackie's finest fights (shown below). In sum, I feel like Who Am I? is one of Jackie's more memorable efforts, plagued only by some awkward scenes (such as Jackie's shouting of "Who am I?" into the distance) and revelations that make little sense in terms of the plot ("Oh by the way, I work for the CIA."). But Jackie Chan has never been known for dramatic effects. Regardless, Who Am I? excellently demonstrates what he is known for and is a very solid action movie.

Guest Review: The Whistleblower (2010)

Code Redd Net again welcomes Lea, who previously delighted us with her review of The Grey. Today she offers us a short and sweet review of The Whistleblower. Enjoy.

 

Movies based on books and true events always draw me in for their ability to retell and redesign. They can be classified under any genre. The Whistleblower is a thriller and a drama. But most importantly it’s based on a true story that deserves to be told. The Whistleblower tells the story of one woman who fights to uncover the truth behind sex trafficking and officials’ involvement.

Family matters in mid-America sent Kathryn, a mother and policewomen to aid the UN in post-war peacekeeping. A high-paying private contract would provide the economic means to be near her kids; now cities away due to divorce and court rule. After a display of compassion towards an ethnic and religious minority and legal process efficacy, the ordinary cop was positioned as the head of gender affairs. Her naivety and innocence were good fortune; politics and games couldn’t sway Kathryn from the pursuit of justice and peace. Her UN position provided her with the information and means to discover an unsettling network. The more she knows, the more emotionally attached she becomes to the victims and the less likely she is to survive. The ending credits were the most harrowing and hardly left the viewer with a sense of completion. It’s difficult to negotiate through the emotions a human rights story unleashes. Returning to the fact that this story is based on true events, I am awed that life can be so harsh and people so untrue. Her story echoes so many untold and muffled atrocities, and yet it’s told with grace and conviction.

Classic Chan: Mr. Nice Guy (1998) Video Review

Classic Chan continues this week with something new for Code Redd Net: a video review! It's a key part of our strategy to provide you with increasingly dynamic content across our various platforms. In this pilot test, Thrasher pays tribute to Mr. Nice Guy, one of our favorite action films and undoubtedly the spark for our lengthy Chan-o-philia. Also, look out for Chicken Man's upcoming review of Who Am I?, yet another classic Chan flick with some history for us.

As soon as Jackie starts asking questions, things explode.
Must be frustrating.