*The following review contains descriptions of suicide, torture and animal cruelty.
The Isle features one of the more unique film settings I’ve ever encountered, taking place at a lake resort full of little floating platforms with huts placed atop, in which patrons rest, sleep and (and most significantly for this film) fish. I do find myself questioning the logic and safety implications of such a setup, yet it turns out such resorts do exist in South Korea known as Jwadae Naksi (좌대낚시), literally “platform fishing.” Information regarding these resorts is very limited in English (googling the romanised name yields no results), although this international obscurity makes the setting of The Isle all the more mysterious and dream-like (with director Kim Ki-duk employing a similar setting in his later film Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…and Spring). With this secluded setting and heavy emphasis on the surrounding nature, The Isle captures the introverted desire to be left alone. The opening scenes featuring the resort covered in a blanket of morning fog, with the aquatic-sounding music score, capture a sense of peace and tranquillity.
The resort in The Isle is operated by a mute, nameless woman (Suh Jung), although her name is credited as Hee-jin. The resort is very much her domain, in which she facilitates the men staying there with prostitutes and offers her own sexual services. Like other characters in Kim Ki-duk’s films, Hee-jin utters no dialogue throughout the entire film, yet so much is conveyed without it with her alluring yet threatening presence (as memorably captured on the film’s poster). There is a strong mythological element to her character, as she is comparable to the archetype of a nymph or the mould of a mermaid. Her attire of a long skirt mirrors that of a mermaid’s fin, while her seemingly supernatural ability to get out of the water and into a boat so fast or the recreation of the Captain Willard head rise out of the water echoes that of a mermaid (and with the water being her domain, this neatly ties alongside the symbolism of water as a representation of the feminine). Moreover, her role echoes that of Lady Wakasa in Ugetsu (1953) or the titular character in Woman In The Dunnes (1964), keeping the men as prisoners in her domain (early in the film, she even kills one of her patrons after he openly disrespects her following sexual services).
Hee-jin, however, does develop sympathy (and eventually falls for) one of her customers, a depressed, suicidal fugitive named Hyun-shik (Kim Yu-seok), who takes refuge at the resort to evade the authorities following a murder. He is, remarkably, the closest thing the resort has to a sympathetic male character (as sympathetic as you can get for someone who has murdered and attempted rape), compared to the other men who are all outright abusive and unpleasant. However, I have to say the film’s male lead is not terribly interesting (lacking the characterisation of his female co-star), and he does weaken the film overall. Although his character may be uninteresting, what he inflicts upon himself is anything but.
According to Roger Ebert in his review for The Isle, audience members gasped and walked out during the film’s screening at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001. The scene in question involves Hyun-shik quickly devising an impromptu way to kill himself (as he lost his gun earlier in a botched suicide attempt) when he sees that police have arrived at the resort to arrest him. So what is this way he is going to unalive himself? He gets a string of fishhooks, which he places inside his mouth and attempts to swallow, causing him to bleed profusely out of his mouth (possibly an ineffective way to kill yourself, but I guess when you’re about to be arrested by the police, you stop thinking rationally).
I’ve never been fishing, but I have handled hooks in the past, and they are something I feel squeamish about even touching, and I know I’m not alone in that thought, which I feel really makes this scene so difficult to watch without looking away from the screen. But it doesn’t end there (far from it). As Hee-jin arrives in the hut before the police, she hides Hyun-shik under the platform, dangling from a rod with the hooks still in his mouth. After the police leave, she then reels him back up with the rod like a literal fish (I can’t possibly think of a more graphic metaphor for the power dynamics between a man and woman). However, if this is not enough on-screen torture for you, Hee-jin later ups the ante with her own fishhook suicide attempt, only this time placing the hooks inside her vagina (bringing new meaning to the word hooker, amirite? *ba dum tiss!).
Following both of these suicide attempts, the opposite person removes the hooks from their respective body parts with pliers as they recover from the pain. I find both of these moments oddly satisfying to watch, as they represent a gradual relief after having endured the most unimaginable pain. Hee-jin even makes love to Hyun-shik after his own attempt as a way of easing the pain, which is soon followed by the ultimate consummation of their relationship in the film’s most oddly endearing scene of domesticity, as the two paint the floating hut bright yellow.
The Isle also includes several instances of animal cruelty. This includes the on-screen death of a frog, the electrocution of a fish and the slaughter of a fish (which is then returned to the lake in its mutilated form). Any Western perceptions on the reverence of certain animals over others are reflected in the fact that the Australian release I watched does feature one piece of censorship at 35:06 in which there is a visible cut in which a dog is pulled by the leash onto a boat, whereas the rest of the animal cruelty remained in this edition of the film. I hear many accounts that Kim Ki-Duk is not well regarded in his home country or among the South Korean filmmaking elite. I’d imagine this is due in part to the politically incorrect nature of his work, from the aforementioned treatment of animals to female characters who exist outside the progressive 21st-century norm (alongside accusations of assault made against the director). His work in my ways can be hard to swallow but is worth digesting, and that is a factor in why I find him to be the Korean filmmaker I’m most fascinated by.
I bestow Jacques Deray’s The Swimming Pool (La Piscine) with the oddly specific accolade of being the 2nd best 1960s swimming pool-centric movie. The other film of this double feature I am referring to is Frank Perry’s The Swimmer (1968). Both movies not only share aesthetic similarities but also explore a seemingly idyllic existence that isn’t quite what it seems, with the use of swimming pools as a metaphor. A pool creates a refracted, warped image, and it’s only when seeing through the surface that things become clear.
The majority of The Swimming Pool takes place within the confines of a holiday villa in the French Riviera town of Saint-Tropez (which I am reliably informed is pronounced san troh-pay for us word ending consonant pronouncing English speakers). This setting makes The Swimming Pool an oxymoron of a film in that it is a thriller, yet a relaxing one at that. I find myself watching on in jealous enchantment as the sexy, shirtless and effortlessly cool Alain Delon and his glamorous, bronzed-fleshed co-star Romy Schneider flex their sculpted physiques as they relax and make love in the nostalgic, rustic, sun-soaked atmosphere (as 60’s lounge music along with the film’s repeated song of choice Ask Yourself Why sung by Ruth Price echo in the background). Jean-Paul Leroy (Delon) and his girlfriend of two years, Marianne (Schneider), are madly infatuated with each other as they intensely make out (back scratching and all) and engage in light-hearted power plays and one-upmanship. However, there is soon trouble in paradise with the unexpected arrival of the couple’s old friend Harry Lannier (Maurice Ronet).
Harry is a figure who gives off mid-life crisis vibes; a cringeworthy dad with his prized sports car and top shirt buttons always undone. Harry, however, merely goes from being a figure of cringe to one of great suspicion from the accompaniment of Penelope (Jane Birkin), a girl he claims to be his daughter. Harry speaks of his daughter and interacts with her in a very intimate manner, commenting to others that she is pretty and telling her that her skin is smooth and that she smells nice. Both Jean-Paul and Marianne are surprised to discover their old friend even has a daughter. Penelope is apprehensive to talk about her background when Marianne asks her questions, while Harry simply tells Jean-Paul, “Her mother is simply an Englishwoman, you don’t know her”. Even the very scenario of a father and daughter going on a European road trip together is an unlikely one, with the film never making it clear if Harry is her Daddy or her “daddy”.
Throughout the film, Penelope wears short dresses and skirts (even to a funeral), although regardless of whether she is trying to provoke, she ignites a lust within a youth-chasing Jean-Paul. Even from their first meeting, Jean-Paul grabs her by the hand and asks, “How old are you?”, to which she responds mildly nervously, “Eighteen”. This eventually culminates in the two making love and, by extension, the dissolution of his relationship with Marianne. Delon and Schneider were real-life ex-fiancés, with the word through the grapevine being that he continued to be infatuated with her, with Delon being instrumental in getting Schneider cast in the film. Regardless, I’m sure their real-life background contributed to their on-screen chemistry and to the emotional weight of the gradual, undramatic breakdown of a relationship and the quiet acceptance of such within the film’s very slow build approach.
Harry brings about Jean-Paul’s gradual emasculation, both through Harry’s subtle flirting with Marianne but more so through his low-key taunting of Jean-Paul in relation to his failed and abandoned career as a writer. Jean-Paul now works for an ad agency while Harry has no issue showing off the expected-to-be hit music records he is producing (he even has to rub it in his face that Mariane herself is a successful writer). After several days, the once cool Delon is now grumpy and carrying a bad posture. The glamorous film star now comes off as a loser. It is this aspect of The Swimming Pool which makes the film strangely comforting, that the rich and beautiful, our betters, are just as miserable as John Doe. On the surface, Jean-Paul has an incredible life, from a gorgeous girlfriend to a high-paying job that permits him to enjoy month-long summer holidays. Deep down, however, he is unhappy as he gave up on his ambitions of becoming a professional writer (with it even being revealed that he has attempted suicide in the past). Just like how social media in the modern day shows other people’s seemingly perfect and amazing lives, the swimming pool offers a distorted reflection that hides what lies beneath.
On a more humorous observation, The Swimming Pool showcases the dangers that arise when close friends start living with each other and/or spend prolonged periods of time together when travelling. The Swimming Pool takes it to the extreme, with the outcome being murder, as the tension between Harry and Jean-Paul reaches its boiling point (both Delon and Ronet had previously appeared alongside each other in Purple Noon (1960), to which both characters see a similar fate). The film’s final act delves into Columbo-like territory, as an inspector (Paul Crauchet), questions Jean-Paul and Marianne about the irregularities in the investigation of Harry’s death. These being Harry wearing a non-waterproof watch when he was found in the pool (which is itself foreshadowed earlier in the film when Harry asks for his watch immediately after coming out of the pool), and perhaps the biggest smoking gun, the clean, perspiration-free clothes lying next to the pool (like someone had taken clean clothes and just put them next to the pool, hmmm). It is this final act in which the picture increases the suspense as the possibility of Jean-Paul being outwitted by the inspector feels dangerously close. Was it an irrational decision for Jean-Paul to remove the clothes from Harry’s corpse and lay clean ones next to the pool, or should he have just left Harry as he was? I guess when you’ve just committed murder in a fit of jealous rage, you cease to think rationally.
During Jean-Paul and Harry’s final confrontation by the pool, both men are dressed in corresponding white tops and blue jeans. The two look like mirror images of each other, a metaphor that Jean-Paul’s interest in Penelope is partly an expression of Harry’s taboo desire for his own daughter. Likewise, when Jean-Paul is dunking Harry beneath the water, it echoes the myth of Narcissus, in which a young mortal, in love with his own beauty, drowns while trying to possess his reflection. Just like The Swimmer before it, The Swimming Pool takes its setting to its ultimate metaphorical height. The pool only reveals its true depth once you look beneath the surface.
Dragnet Girl (非常線の女, Hijōsen no Onna) was Yasujiro Ozu’s final foray into the gangster genre, and appropriately so, as the picture is deeply embellished in not only the aesthetics of the genre, but also the tropes. Dragnet Girl captures the pulpy world of James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, but unlike the American pictures of the time, it is a silent film. It is this, alongside the additional combination of German expressionism and traditional Japanese iconography, which creates a unique hybrid of a film. By this point in his filmography, those famous Ozu still frames are well in use, and needless to say, the man knows how to compose a shot that sticks in your mind long after watching (with Dragnet Girl in particular being very keen on layered, deep focus shots looking through glass).
One of the film’s major recurring motifs is the striking image of several dangling, gymnastic rings with the silhouette of a boxer adorning the wall and containing the words (in English), “The manly art of self-defence”. This is one of several examples in the film showcasing the Japanese use of English as a cosmopolitan signifier. Later in the film, a pool hall is showcased, in which the rules of the game are printed on the wall in large English text (as well as the early Ozu motif of prominently featuring Hollywood movie posters in the background). In a more subtle use of English as a cosmopolitan signifier, the office featured in the film has an array of typists working on typewriters; however, there were no Japanese-language typewriters akin to the standard QWERTY Western typewriter in 1933 (rather, Japanese typewriters of the time were large, cumbersome machines), suggesting that this company provides translation services.
Correspondingly, although Dragnet Girl is a Japanese gangster film, the traditional Japanese gangster of the Yakuza are nowhere to be seen. Rather, Dragnet Girl focuses on a subculture known as Mobo (Modern Boy) and Moga (Modern Girl), a youth movement which rejected traditional societal values and embraced Westernised clothing, jazz music, and a liberated, urban lifestyle (prevalent during Japan’s Taishō and early Shōwa periods). Likewise, the plot of Dragnet Girl is built on tropes commonly seen in various Hollywood gangster pictures. Kazuko (Sumiko Mizukubo) becomes concerned that her younger brother Hiroshi (Kōji Mitsui) is skipping school and hanging out with local gangsters. To combat this, she approaches head gangster Joji (Joji Oka), whom her brother respects and admires, to tell her brother to straighten himself out. Joji obliges and tells the youngling to leave the world behind (Hiroshi himself is very unconvincing as a gangster, coming off as a larper). This recognition that the gangster ultimately knows what they do isn’t right and will stop others (the innocent and naïve in particular) from entering the world is seen in later Hollywood films, such as Kid Galahad or the ending of Angels With Dirty Faces.
Sumiko Mizukubo perfectly sells the role of Kazuko with her homely, down-to-earth, innocent demeanour. With no parents present or even mentioned, Kazuko is a mother figure to her brother and a youth who has been forced into the role of a hardworking adult. On the opposite end of the spectrum, however, is Joji’s girlfriend and self-described delinquent Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka). Tokiko is on an equal footing with her male gangster peers and is treated like one of the guys. Likewise, in stark contrast to the innocence of Mizukubo, Tanaka is a true, glamorous movie star in the Hollywood form (and boasting an impressive wardrobe in this picture).
Both Joji and Tokiko, however, find themselves questioning their paths in life following their encounters with Kazuko. They both fall for her charm, with Tokiko stating, “I’ve started to feel more domesticated since I met her”, and quickly develops a desire to start knitting socks for Joji. This trope itself, of the otherwise cold and calculating gangster revealing a softer, more affectionate side due to the influence of an innocent, girl-next-door, is seen in later films such as The Roaring Twenties and High Sierra (and Ozu’s earlier gangster picture Walk Cheerfully). Joji and Tokiko decide they will go straight and begin their trad lifestyle, but not before engaging in that other timeless trope of doing “one last job”. If you know anything about gangster pictures, the “one last job” never quite goes to plan.
In many subtle ways, Dragnet Girl presents the gangster lifestyle as a cowardly way of life. Joji, a former boxer, is pursued by a trainer at the gym to return to fighting, which he rejects. This, coupled with the aforementioned recurring image of the boxer with the words “The manly art of self-defence”, suggests that the path of a fighter is more noble than that of a gangster. While the film shows the glamour that comes with the lifestyle, just like Cagney in The Public Enemy or Robinson in Little Ceaser, in the end, it all comes crashing down. Likewise, many may read into the film that the purification of Joji and Tokiko comes in the form of the only character throughout who wears traditional Japanese clothes, suggesting a traditional antidote to the perverted import of Western malaise. Although this is a reading I don’t buy into, as by all accounts, Ozu himself makes it no secret himself to be a fan of western culture in the form of Hollywood movies, with this picture, concluding his trilogy of Hollywood-inspired gangster movies, and in my view, some of the most underrated work of his long career.
Is it harder to construct a film with little or no dialogue compared to the average parlance-filled production? While the general rule of filmmaking is “show, don’t tell”, dialogue is still an important tool for revealing character motivations, relationships, plot information, themes, emotional states, etc. Since the majority of movies in existence (barring silent pictures) are comprised of characters speaking to each other, to watch a movie with this tool stripped out, it really makes you consider all that goes into the art of storytelling through only visual means. 3-Iron (Binjip) is one of several productions in which (the late) director Kim Ki-duk excels at this very feat.
Not a single word is spoken by the two leads in 3-Iron (almost), yet the film still creates compelling characters through only visual means. The film’s initially unnamed young protagonist (Jae Hee) (later revealed to be called Tae-Suk) is a drifter who enters and lives in people’s homes while they are on vacation. However, he is likely not a poor man. He is a well-groomed, pretty boy with an expensive motorcycle and a passion for golf (hence 3-Iron), suggesting that perhaps wealth aids this dangerous and unethical hobby of his.
This pastime is aided by his technical know-how. He can identify when no one is home by placing restaurant flyers on the doors of homes, and when the flyer hasn’t been taken down after a period of time, he picks the door lock and makes his way in (as well as listening to the messages on the answering machines inside). From there, he treats the dwelling like his own home (watching TV, taking a bath, self-pleasuring himself in bed). Tae-suk, however, is not a thief (at least not in the traditional sense). He keeps the homes he has broken into clean, does the laundry, waters plants and even fixes broken electronics, thus helping create empathy from the viewer. This, however, doesn’t undo the ethical dimension of his actions. In much of the world, the protection of private property is held as sacrosanct and for good reason. To have someone break into your house feels incredibly violatory and people even end up moving house because of it. Why does Tae-suk partake in this hobby? Is he simply a thrill seeker and/or mentally unwell (especially since he remains mute) or a perverted voyeurist (his collection of selfies taken alongside family portraits would suggest so)?
These sequences of Tae-suk scouting and then breaking into people’s homes feel very reminiscent of French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville. In particular, his seminal film Le Samouraï (1967), which, like 3-Iron, depicts lengthy dialogue-free sequences in which illegal activity is perpetrated in meticulous detail but with a sense of calm and harmony. From the quiet, empty scenes of the suburban streets of Seoul to the film’s wide showcase of Korean home design, 3-Iron has a sense of comforting domesticity. Likewise, the film even acts as a nostalgic representation of the pre-Internet of Things world with its array of early 2000’s tech. Although the most memorable filming location present in the film is Seoul’s famous Bukchon Hanok Village, a residential area comprised of picturesque traditional Korean houses known as Hanok. Having been there myself in 2025, I can say there is no way that the officials monitoring visitors would allow anyone to attach flyers to the doors nowadays (although I don’t know if that would have been the case either in 2004).
Tae-suk’s blurred world of fantasy vs reality comes to a head when he finds out he is not alone in the house of a wealthy businessman, when he meets his abused and black-eyed laden wife (Lee Seung-yun). Like Tae-suk, she is also mute but is able to portray a sense of torment through purely visual means. Not fearing Tae-suk, the two form a bond and leave the house together to escape her abusive marriage, all while, as a viewer, I ask myself if they will ever actually break their silence. The law, however, eventually catches up to the two delinquents, with Tae-suk thrown in prison and the wife returned to her abusive husband.
Depending on how you choose to interpret the final act of 3-Iron, Tae-suk may have died during his incarceration and became a literal ghost (as indicated later by his weight scale reading of “0”), or through the stealth manovers he learnt during this period (to avoid the regular beatings of a corrupt officer), has escaped from prison and has had a metaphorical transformation into a ghost. The following portion of the film plays out like a semi-horror film in which, through a series of voyeuristic point-of-view shots (even feeling quite Michael Myers-esque), he gets revenge on a corrupt police officer who wronged him, with the 3-Iron and some golf balls as his weapon of choice.
Tae-suk returns to the house of the abused woman, where the blurring of fantasy and reality reaches its zenith. Tae-suk remains in the house in view of the wife, while the husband is unaware of his presence. The woman smiles for the first time and utters her only line in the movie, “I love you”. The husband thinks the line is directed at him, but it’s actually to Tae-suk standing behind him. All three characters are now living a lie, yet for perhaps the first time in the film, all three appear content. “It’s hard to tell the world we live in is either a reality or a dream”.
I only recently made a new addition to my vocabulary, “anemoia”; nostalgia for a time or place you’ve never known. A feeling I have experienced many a time before, but never had a word for until now. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (時をかける少女/Toki o Kakeru Shōjo) is encapsulated in this specific feeling. Shot in director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s hometown of Onomichi (as part of his Onomichi trilogy), the film’s real-world locations create a tranquil yet painfully nostalgic representation of Japan’s Showa era and for parochial, small-town living. The film’s unnamed dwelling is full of traditional architecture and narrow streets, and although it is an urban setting, there is still a strong presence of nature within the setting. The film is even set during the cherry blossom season as if it weren’t already beautiful enough (although it appears many of the cherry blossoms have been superimposed into the image). Even the classrooms with their chalkboards and the townspeople’s use of analogue technology compound this blissful feeling. The film’s cinematography has a washed-out, hazy, dreamlike look, which, coupled with a melancholic, downbeat music score, evokes a sheer emotional anemoia, of which the closest film I can compare it to would be Cinema Paradiso.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time combines many visual styles. Not to the extreme which Obayashi did in his more popular film House, but still to an extent which showcases him as a unique auteur. The film opens with a school skiing trip, shot in dreamy black & white with a 4:3 aspect ratio. The sequence perfectly captures that studio backlot look from the 1940’s in particular, bringing to mind snowy scenes from Citizen Kane, or It’s a Wonderful Life (helping me to suspend my disbelief that one student states on the top of the mountain that he forgot to bring his skis). By stark contrast, on the other hand, the film’s big special effects showcase comes in the form of a time-travelling montage which features extensive use of moving time lapses (which personally bring me back to the early days of YouTube content creation) and an amalgamation of practical effects resembling a 1980’s music video.
There is the irony that a movie which invokes such a feeling of longing for a different time and place is itself a movie about time travel. Kazuko Yoshiyama (Tomoyo Harada) unknowingly gets the ability to travel through time after exposure to lavender in the school science lab, to which she finds herself reliving Monday, 18th April (the time loop plot device was common in Japanese media before becoming popularised in the West through Groundhog Day). The in-universe logic of the film’s time travel mechanics is very vague, using lavender as a symbolic connection to the poppy field scene from The Wizard of Oz. These schematics are beside the point, however, as Kazuko has to use her knowledge of the day she has previously lived to save a friend from the danger (of that natural phenomenon etched into the Japanese physique), an earthquake. Likewise, in a particularly endearing if questionable scene, Kazuko travels back in time to witness a moment in which she and her childhood friend Fukimachi are playing when they accidentally cut their hands on the shards of a broken mirror. They immediately do the sensible thing and exchange bodily fluids via their open wounds. One interpretation of this moment is in relation to the Japanese idea of ketsuekigata, a widely popular belief system that blood type can be used to gauge compatibility between individuals. Either way, kids, don’t do this at home.
Harada’s youthful charm and ability to project a sense of innocent teenage romance within a love triangle help elevate the film above the two male leads, whom I do find very forgettable. The more significant of these two, Kazuko’s friend Fukimachi (Ryôichi Takayanagi), reveals he is from the year 2660, has a Ph.D pharmacy and informs us green planets will be scarce in the future due to an explosion in the population. This terrifying dystopian future, in which we rely on big pharma for our survival and hashtag, “Robert Malthus was right” is terrifying enough, but Kazuko is told all her childhood memories are all lies, created by Fukimachi. She is told she must lose her own feeling of anemoia (although the ending and her career choice would suggest this might not be the case).
This loops around to a piece of foreshadowing from the film’s beginning in which Kazuko states, “Science can be so unfeeling at times”. Fast forward to the future date of Saturday, April 16th 1994, and Kazuko has become a pharmaceutical researcher, a rather dowdy-looking woman who chooses to dedicate herself to a field of research over a love life. Science may be unfeeling, but the ending of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is itself hard to stomach in its sheer melancholy. With her chosen path in life, it is stated that Kazuko turns down dates, never dresses up or wears make-up, and her mother even asks, “How can she be a bride if she keeps going like this?”. Even an unmistakably early 80’s, synth-heavy track as the final song over the fourth-wall-breaking end credits, doesn’t quite shake this feeling of sheer emotional weight.
Alongside such films as The High Sign and The Electric House, One Week follows in a line of Buster Keaton shorts which utilise aspects of engineering for comic effect. In the case of One Week, Keaton and his newly married wife (in contrast to the usual Keaton formula in which Keaton doesn’t typically begin a film already having the girl), receive a package from the Portable House Co, with their DIY dwelling inside. With the popularity of Ikea-style, flat-pack, ready-to-assemble furniture in the 21st century, this concept being expanded to a full-on house is particularly appealing to the contemporary viewer. At the same time, the short displays that 1920’s go-getter attitude, which paired with the romantic, domestic setting of newlyweds constructing and living in their new home, does make One Week feel endearing and sentimental. I do also find Keaton’s stoicism to be just as endearing in itself. His house is furiously rotating in a storm while the couple are soaking wet, yet there is no point complaining; let’s just sit here and wait until it’s over.
Once the newlyweds finish building their dwelling, it ends up looking like a set piece from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari due to sabotage from a jealous love interest. Yet the home is still full of clever, utilitarian innovations such as a retractable section of the wall for easy access, a patio banner which can be removed and double as a ladder, and a conveniently indented foot hole on the roof. Likewise, the two-dimensional presentation of certain shots even resembles a platforming video game. They also manage to throw in a meta, fourth-wall-breaking on-screen representation of censorship when the wife drops a bar of soap out of the tub and waits until someone’s hand is placed over the camera lens so she can lean out and retrieve it.
Keaton’s expertise with messing with the audience’s expectations is in full gear with One Week. In particular, the forced perspective shot near the short’s conclusion in which an incoming train appears as if it’s about to smash into their dwelling, only to narrowly miss (only for moments later does another train actually do just this). Keaton makes it look so easy, yet this ending still takes me by surprise when watching One Week again after several years. It might sound contradictory, but watching a short film like this, you can see all the ways in which the world has changed in over 100 years, yet there are ways in which things remain the same.
1911, The Xinhai Revolution, “China under the Manchu Emperors…three centuries of unspeakable oppression…then…rebellion of wretched, starving millions”. The Son-Daughter was released in 1932, in which the supporters of the Chinese nationalists are, by and large, the good guys while the defeated royalists of China’s last emperor are ruthless hatchet men who subject their enemies to neck-straining torture devices. The head of royalists is portrayed by a moustache-twirling Warner Oland, of whom his death through strangulation with his own traditional Chinese queue (pig tail), surely signifies the death of the old. You don’t want to upset the winning side and the current government of one of the world’s largest powers, I guess.
The Son-Daughter follows an underground group of Chinese nationalists in San Francisco’s Chinatown running contraband to the Middle Kingdom, whom must raise $100,000 to release their latest ammunition ship from the wharf. The set and costume design are one of the picture’s biggest strengths, with exotic, smoke-filled rooms, noir-ish lighting and striking attention to detail. The meeting liar, seen 5 minutes into the picture, showcases a large number of extras and some stunning deep-focus cinematography; it’s a world that feels lived in and not an obvious Hollywood backlot. There’s just something fascinating about the world of a Chinatown with all its narrow corners and maze-like structure.
Based on a play, a large amount of The Son-Daughter takes place inside the apartment of Dr Tong Wong (Lewis Stone). Wong is faced with the challenge of raising the money to release the ammunition boat from the wharf. Although only third billed in the cast, Lewis Stone is the picture’s most prominent star and delivers the film’s most standout performance, as the ageing patriarch who is navigating between tradition and modernity; the values of the old world vs the new world (“Your daughter was born in America, where a girl is left free to meet her own heart”). His daughter Lien (Helen Hayes) feels guilty for being born a lady, as she can’t help her people in the way a man could. She does propose to her father that “I could do what no son could do”, to which her father promptly scolds her. Yet it is this very thing which he is forced to do to raise the required funds for the ammunition ship. The auction scene in which Lien is being bid for a man’s hand in marriage is the most fascinating scene in the film. Fascinating on the one hand to watch a woman being treated like a commodity by older, unpleasant men, but she herself is fully invested in this auction, and she works to increase the men’s offers (“Am I not all Confucius demands in a wife?”); making such a sacrifice to something which you feel is greater than yourself.
The Son-Daughter is a film in which its cast billing doesn’t accurately reflect the screen time of its stars. Second billed after Hayes is Ramon Novarro, who is actually absent for lengthy stretches of the film, but disappointingly, this is actually for the best. Novarro is the weakest aspect of the film, a great lover alongside the likes of Rudolph Valentino (thus his casting makes sense), but he is the weakest aspect of the film. He gives a very cheesy performance, but more importantly, he lacks any chemistry with Hayes. I can’t buy why she is head over heels in love with this man, and as a result, his scenes do cause the film to drag. The Son-Daughter is left as a flawed but intriguing gem in the treasure trove that is pre-code cinema.
The Corporations Sit There In Their Corporation Buildings And See, They’re All Corporationy And They Make Money
***This Review Contains Spoilers***
The Bad Sleep Well (悪い奴ほどよく眠る/ Warui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemuru, which translates to The Worse The Villain, The Better They Sleep) is Akira Kurosawa’s loose adaptation of Hamlet. By replacing the kings and queens of ye olden days with the chairmen of mega corporations, Kurosawa transports Shakespeare’s tale to the (then) contemporaneous sinister underworld of corporate Japan (in which the opening music score by Masaru Sato infuses jazz in with primal toms-toms as a perfect musical metaphor for this deadly urban jungle). Koichi Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) marries Yoshiko (Kyoko Kagawa), the daughter of wealthy industrialist Iwabuchi (Masayuki Mori), in an attempt to avenge the death of his father, of whom he believes Iwabuchi and his corporation are to blame. This, however, is only scratching the surface of a bizarre revenge scheme. Is Nishi’s wild and crazy plan to be or not to be?
The Bad Sleep Well has one of cinema’s most intriguing and unique first acts. The plot, characters and relationships are established through the wedding of Nishi and Yoshiko. This is not your average ceremony, however. Rather, it is a public, voyeuristic and somewhat dystopian affair swarming with journalists in which the main focus is not on the coming together of two families but rather a focus on corporate business. The wedding not only acts as the tying of a union between a man and a woman, but more so the amalgamation of the fictional entities of Dairyu Construction and Public Corp. Whereas in Hamlet the titular protagonist stages a play referencing his father’s murder, watching for the King’s reaction to the scene to ascertain whether he did commit the crime in question, in The Bad Sleep Well Nishi (unbeknownst to the attendees) has the most bizarre and superlative wedding cake delivered. A cake which is modelled after the company headquarters with a rose marking the window from which Nishi’s father plunged to his death. Aside from the intriguing, bizarre nature of this opening 20 minutes, the sequence is also made highly effective by the chatter of the onlooking journalists as well as the wedding narrator, acting as an effective way to deliver exposition – as a viewer, you become just as curious as the onlooking media men. The sequence concludes with a fitting meta-reference by two of the journalists: “Best one act I’ve ever seen.” “One act? This is just the prelude.”
The not-so-benevolent conglomerate that is Public Corp are sending officials instructing people to take their own lives or else an assassin will be sent out to do so. This is seen early in the film when a man is told by company officials, “You’ll carry this through until the end”, and immediately proceeds to throw himself in front of a moving car. With this threat in place, a government official named Wada (Kamatari Fujiwara) attempts to commit suicide by throwing himself into a volcano (and I thought Hara-Kiri was hardcore), but is prevented from doing so by Nishi (in order that he can use Wada to expose Public Corp). I might be able to accept Nishi knows about Wada’s attempt to commit suicide, but how does he know the location where he intends to do so? Likewise, at the volcano itself, Nishi waits until he can make a bad-ass entrance, even though Wada has had the opportunity to go ahead and jump into the volcano – typical movie-land logic.
In The Bad Sleep Well, Mifune is clean-shaven and suited up with specs. Yet, Mifune has the ability to play such a dorky-looking character and still look cool (“Well, well, a big muscle-bound nerd”). Likewise, he is playing a male secretary in Japan circa 1960, although no reference is made to working in a traditionally female job being beneath him. Nishi, however, is not a man you want to get on the wrong side of. From his unsettling use of a whistle motif (similar to that which is seen in Fritz Lang’s M), to going full Christian Bale’s Batman through extorting a man by hanging him out of the same window his father supposedly committed suicide. He even torments the already suicidal Wada even more by showing him his own funeral (itself a dystopian affair in which a corporation itself shows its respect by laying two huge wreaths).
Nishi’s plan, however, is complicated by the fact that he inadvertently finds himself falling in love with Yoshiko, stating he can’t take advantage of the girl after being “touched by her innocent nature on their wedding night”. Yoshiko is particularly vulnerable due to having limb length discrepancy (one leg is longer than the other), due to a motorcycling accident. In a film full of humanity at its worst, the sweet and sentimental love story within does act as a counterbalance. We get classic aborted kiss cliché, but I do appreciate films of many decades past never partaking in the dreaded liar-revealed cliché. Yoshiko’s feelings towards Nishi are reciprocated even when she is fully aware of his plan, rather than having that scene in every contemporary rom-com (you know the one); “No Yoshiko-chan, I can explain!”. Nishi, however, is not alone in his revenge plan, as he is assisted in creating a fake identity by his long-time friend and war buddy, Itakura (Takeshi Kato). There is something endearing about their bromance in that friends could be so tight to the point that he is willing to assist in such an elaborate plan. Like, yes, I will help you switch identity and use my car-repair store as a hideout in order to help you marry into a family so that you can expose an evil corporation.
The most contentious aspect of The Bad Sleep Well, however, is that of Nishi’s death. His murder occurs off-screen and is described to the viewer by Itakura, in a reverse of the classic “show, don’t tell rule” of storytelling. I am off two minds on this aspect of the story. On the one hand, it comes as a big shock to be told Nishi has suddenly been killed, and like the characters hiding out in the bombed-out factory, you can feel their palpable sense of anger and disappointment. On the other hand, for a movie which in many ways was very over the top with its jumping-into-volcanoes levels of shenanigans, it does feel quite anti-climactic. Yet, in a way, this anti-climax feels somewhat appropriate. After all, this is a story in which the bad guys win. The Public Corporation Vice President, Iwabuchi is a perfect representation of the banality of evil. While he has a human side when he is seen being a homely, domestic figure as he cooks dinner at home for his children, he is the head of a corporation which literally Jeffery Epsteins anyone how could speak out of turn with their Clinton-style body count and can shut down stories in the media, Hunter Biden laptop style (it’s hard to watch The Bad Sleep Well and not find analogies through the lens of 2020’s online political discourse). Iwabuchi speaks of his plans to run for political office, so it’s your best guess at what happens next.
Good does not always triumph. Sometimes, the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.
Juzo Itami’s penultimate film Supermarket Woman has all the hallmarks of a movie intentionally trying to position itself for cult classic adoration from its quirky premise to the film’s comic book-like aesthetic in terms of both its visuals as well as the comiclly clear-cut distinction of good-guys and bad-guys. Above all, Supermarket Woman feels like a film in which its visual motifs were created with the intention of selling real-world merchandise. I’d happily buy t-shirts with the logos of fictional supermarket rivals Honest Mart and Discount Demon.
The noble but failing Honest Mart is struggling against its absurdly evil rival Discount Demon, a supermarket run like a militaristic operation out of Imperial Japan (with their business meetings emitting strong Yakuza vibes). Discount Demon is the Chum Bucket to the Krusty Krab or Mondo Burger to Good Burger, thus it takes the ever-fabulous Nobuko Miyamoto as Hanako Inoue to use her womanly, housewife intuition to reinvigorate Honest Mart. Miyamoto’s impeccable comic timing both physical and verbal has a real sense of contagious enthusiasm. Much of the sheer fun within Supermarket Woman comes from the screwball comedy-like antics of Hanako and her co-workers as they try to please customers and right various wrongs, from gathering hoards of shopping carts left in the parking lot to dealing with frustrated Karens on the verge of asking for the manager. Equally as memorable is Miyamoto’s wardrobe of bright, contrasting colours. Even when she wears an informal blazer it is accompanied alongside tartan trousers and sneakers, in keeping with a character who never takes herself too seriously.
Just how accurate a reflection is Supermarket Woman of Japanese commerce in the post-bubble 1990s? It is unique to observe a wholly independent supermarket that doesn’t trade under a franchise name (something which I’ve never even seen in my own country). This is emblematic of the world Supermarket Woman inhabits, one which presents Japanese supermarkets like the Wild West with the absence of any legal regulations or government oversight. Discount Demon is determined to eliminate the competition so they can raise prices, while both outlets engage in actions such as repacking food with a new expiry date, mixing meats and passing them off as more expensive cuts and even falsely advertising imported meat as being home-breed Japanese.
The exterior and interior of Honest Mart is a world of unbridled, Americana-inspired artifice with its frequent use of checkered patterns and bright colours (in particular the film’s prominent use of pink and red) as well as a general warm and fuzzy atmosphere. To accompany this is the film’s soundtrack to consumer capitalism – stereotypically, catchy department store music by composer Toshiyuki Honda. Can any lost media sleuths track down an isolated version of the score? As far as weirdly specific film accolades go, Supermarket Woman is the 2nd best Supermarket-themed film I’ve ever seen. The top spot goes to oddly enough, another Japanese film, Mikio Naruse’s Yearning (1964). Recommend for a slightly more unorthodox double-feature experience.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, one of the most fascinating disasters in film history. There are bad movies which are straight-up boring, others are cringe-worthy and/or unpleasant to watch, while others fall into the category of being so bad they’re good. For this infamous production made at the madhouse that was Cannon Films, where does Christopher Reeve’s final outing as the Man Of Steel fit in among the pantheon of notorious cinematic failures?
So what is the explosive, hot-button main theme in the fourth instalment of the Superman film franchise? Well no need to fallout as you try to guess, it’s the nuclear arms race! So bear in mind this isn’t just Superman IV, no this is Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. A motion picture dealing with a topic so important that the powers at be gave the film a subtitle, whereas the previous films in the series had been given no such ovation. When listening to the DVD audio commentary for Superman IV by one of the film’s two writers, Mark Rosenthal (which I do highly recommend listening to), Rosenthal states that the plot of Superman IV stems from the idea that if God is an all-benevolent and all-powerful then why does he let bad things happen? Thus, if Superman is all-powerful, why does he allow bad things to happen? However, when thinking about this for more than a few seconds it quickly becomes apparent this notion is nonsensical as Superman is not equivalent to God. He is powerful but not all-powerful, he can’t be everywhere all at once. This shows that while one might argue Superman IV had good intentions behind it, these good intentions were seriously misguided. So why does Superman IV: The Quest For The Remaining Pieces Of Christopher Reeve’s Career choose the nuclear arms race as its main theme? Well, it’s because of Christopher Reeve himself. One of his demands when agreeing to reprise his most famous role was to have creative control over the story. When watching promotional materials for the four Reeve Superman movies, it’s clear the man did take great pride in the role of Superman and cared about the quality of the franchise. Unfortunately, the Film Actor’s Guild from Team America: World Police was in full swing back during the 80’s too, and lefty liberal Christopher Reeve made a Superman movie to act as a platform for his own politics.
The general plot of Superman IV: The Quest For The Remaining Cinematic Integrity Of The Superman Film Franchise sees the Soviet Union overtake the US in the arms race and as a response, a concerned young school boy named Jeremy (Damian McLawhorn in his only on-screen role) writes a letter to the Man Of Steel asking him to rid the world of nuclear arms “because only he can do it”. Ok, number 1, why are you taking moral guidance and advice on geopolitics from a child? Number 2, you do realise if all nuclear weapons were to suddenly disappear then the geopolitical landscape would become highly destabilised? But Number 3, how are you going to get the cooperation of the world’s governments to voluntarily give up their nuclear arsenals? It’s not like Superman is just going to walk into the United Nations and announce he going to rid the world of all nuclear weapons and have the representatives of the Earth’s nations give a huge round of applause and voice no objection whatsoever. Oh wait, that’s exactly what happens. Thus the world’s governments cooperate with Superman as they help him in this process of nuclear disarmament as Supes gathers all of the world’s nuclear missiles, places them into a giant net and then throws said net into the sun. Just how did Superman get a hold of such a net or did he make it himself? Additionally, he does realise throwing hundreds of nukes into the sun doesn’t sound like a very smart or safe idea. The first three Superman movies are full of ridiculous moments but you could gleefully suspend your disbelief at them. Superman IV: The Quest For A Plausible Premise on the other hand is so illogically constructed that it foregoes any such privilege with its moon moving, humans breathing in space, kindergarten levels of science-breaking shenanigans.
Superman IV: The Quest For A Competent Script takes no advantage of its theme of nuclear arms. There’s no political insight or analyses, no thought-provoking debate is brought up as to whether Mutually Assured Destruction is the reason why we have never had World War III. Just a simple “nukes suck” and everyone in the film’s universe agrees so why did we even have them in the first place? I have heard it argued before that Superman IV is a terrible film but it had a good message. No, Superman IV has a terrible message and the one aspect of the film which legitimately enrages me. What Superman is doing is deeply sinister as he is overriding the actions of democratically elected governments yet the film presents it as something oh-so wonderful. One of the many deleted scenes for Superman IV does feature Superman addressing this very point when he tells Jeremy “I’m going to pass the letter onto the leaders of the world, see they’re the ones, not I, who represent the people of the world”. However, the inclusion of this scene in the film would have made it less sensical as Superman just goes on to betray this principle. Betrayed! Betrayed! Betrayed! BETRAYED!
So how do you end this cinematic embodiment of what Thomas Sowell refers to as the unconstrained vision, well with one of the worst lines in film history as Superman proudly and sincerely says in a speech “There will be peace when the people of the world, want it so badly, that their governments will have no choice but to give it to them”. Oh Superman, if only life were that simple. But, it could be even worse! In the film’s deleted, extended ending, Superman once again returns to our young idealistic whip snapper Jeremy and flies him above the Earth (what is it with this movie and humans being able to survive in the vacuum of space?). Once there, he asks Jeremy what he sees so he can tell the people of Earth, to which he gives a response which sounds like a lost verse of John Lennon’s Imagine – “I can’t tell where one country begins and another one ends, there’s no borders, it’ just one world”.
Under the direction of Sidney J. Furie, for the most part, Superman IV: The Quest For A Sustainable Budget is a very bland film for one’s viewing displeasure. Scenes look very flat, the blocking is uninspired and the lighting is often poor. As one of the film’s many, many, many cost-cutting measures, Superman IV was primarily shot in Milton Keynes, a city in Buckinghamshire, England, one of many planned settlements built in the post-war era. With these architecturally contemporaneous developments often looking more like American cities than traditional British towns, Superman IV does convincingly turn merry old England into downtown USA (and humorously so by simply throwing a lone fire hydrant prop here and a hot dog wagon there) but still not in a way that does anything the elevate the bland nature of the film’s visual aesthetic. Superman IV appears to take place in an almost corporate post-apocalyptic world of sterile conference centres. The sets and locations feel very condensed and repetitive and even the offices of The Daily Planet look very generic. You can’t just throw several decals of the newspaper’s logo onto a few windows and expect that to do the job. Additionally, the film’s set design is also subject to much anatopism from subway advertising using the name New York and not the fictional Metropolis to a Daily Planet newsstand using the British-English spelling of “Favourite” over the American “Favorite”. Likewise, the film’s low-budget recreation of the United Nations has the delegate for the United Kingdom whom has a sign on his desk which reads “England”. Oh, you silly Yanks. England is not a country within itself, it is a constituent nation within The United Kingdom Of Great Britain And Northern Ireland. There is no such title as the King/Queen of England or Prime Minister of England. Stop referring to the UK as England. We understand? Ok? Comprende? Capeesh? Regardless, the use of Milton Keynes as a location in Superman IV does appear to be a bit of a claim to fame for the city, with scenes from Superman IV being recreated by various fans and locals at their original locations for the film’s 30th anniversary in 2017. The Milton Keynes Superman IV location-tour anyone?
It takes only a matter of seconds until it is apparent this production is in deep trouble as Superman IV: The Quest For A Decent SFX Team has some of the cheapest-looking opening credits for a major motion picture. At least the title screen has the classic Superman comic book typography if that’s any consolation (these movies did become more pop art as they went along and even the film’s poster is superbly drawn just like a comic book cover).To create a list of all the SFX failures of Superman IV would be a gargantuan task – repeating that same shot of Superman flying towards the screen many times, the lame small-scale recreation of The Fortress of Solitude, the obvious wireframes, the use of the famous image The Blue Marble to represent the Earth or the subway scene in which they resort to using gimmicky edits to create an action scene. Although my favourite special effects failure would have to be the shot of The Statue Of Liberty flying at a 90-degree angle through the Metropolis skyline, I can’t help but chuckle.
Superman IV: The Quest To Occupy 90 Minutes Of Run Time can also lay claim to having the most pointless scene in the history of the art form that is the motion picture. In this scene, Lois visits Clark in his apartment to which Clark says he needs to go outside and get some fresh air. The two walk onto his balcony and Clark pretends he is going to commit suicide by walking off the ledge and taking Lois with him only to then turn into Superman and recreate the romantic flying sequence from the first movie but with the ugliest rear projection you’ve ever seen. Once they return to the apartment, Superman/Clark uses the memory-erasing kiss from Superman II on Lois as if the whole thing never happened. What on under God’s green Earth was the point of that sequence? What was Clark’s motivation for doing this? Was he just bored one day and wanted to use his Superman powers to screw around with Lois for a good laugh? More significantly, why did the filmmakers decide to recreate a bastardised version of one the most magical scenes from the first film and what relevance does this scene have on the rest of the film’s plot? In the words of every wannabe late-2000’s angry YouTube movie critic, “What were they thinking?!”.
But enough negativity! In what ways does Superman IV succeed in a legitimate, unironic way? There are some brief flashes of greatness and interesting ideas within Superman IV which show a movie which could have been. For starters, the legacy cast is as great as ever. Christopher Reeve puts his all into the role of Superman with the same level of sincerity as before (“Stop! Don’t do it, the people!”), not to mention Reeve hasn’t aged a day since the first film back in 1978. The chemistry with the employees at The Daily Planet is as always a joy to watch with that old-school screwball comedy vibe (even if Marc McClure is too old at this point to be playing Jimmy Olsen). While Reeve looks amazing, sadly the same can’t be said for Margot Kidder who is looking very rough this time around. Reportedly the woman has battled many mental health issues throughout the years and sadly the effects of this do show themselves on screen. Regardless, Reeve and Kidder still have that on-screen magic, with the scene in which Lois visits Clark in his apartment while he is suffering from a terrible case of flu being the most touching in the film (interestingly, this is also the first time in the series in which we actually see Clark’s Metropolis residence).
As for new faces, Mariel Hemingway is a welcome addition to the cast and showcases her gifts as a comic actress in the role of Lacy Warfield. The relationship between Lacy and Clark has no real development although Reeve and Hemingway do share a good chemistry making their attraction believable as the bad girl meets the boy scout. I do enjoy their quintessentially 80s scene as the two slide into their lycra and do some aerobics, while the double date screwball comedy sequence is amusing but does feel a bit comically stale (should have had the Benny Hill theme thrown in for good measure). A scene was also filmed in which Clark and Lacy go to a disco of which production photos do exist but sadly it remains unknown if the footage has survived. In the role of Lacy’s father is Sam Wanamaker as the media mogul and obvious Rupert Murdoch stand-in David Warfield. Wanamaker makes Warfield an entertaining caricature with his booming voice while his takeover of The Daily Planet and his attempts to turn the paper into a sleazy, irresponsible tabloid (“We can double our circulation with a good international crises”) is one piece of social commentary which Superman IV performs in a less ham-fisted manner. This plot thread is also visualised through the character of Lacy as she gradually comes to understand the power of journalism with this transformation being illustrated by having Hemingway wear suits with successively smaller shoulder pads. Sadly, this subplot in Superman IV has a very lazy, deus ex-machina conclusion in which Perry White simply announces he has secured a loan to buy a controlling interest in the newspaper thus taking it out of the hands of Warfield. There is no set-up and pay-off leading to this conclusion, rather it just lazily comes out of left field.
Likewise, another subplot which is raised (and this one doesn’t even receive a conclusion), is Clark’s adamant desire to sell the Kent farm to an actual farmer and not to a company looking to build a shopping mall (which does foreshadow The Daily Planet’s corporate takeover). The scene on the Kent farm near the beginning of the film is one of the better and more emotional moments in the film in which they surprisingly do make the English countryside where it was filmed look like rural USA. It has a real sense of reflection for times long gone as the place is no longer used or lived in (plus the baby crib with the broken wood at the foot’s end is a nice touch). Unfortunately, the fate of the farm never comes up again during the rest of the film. Correspondingly, a scene was filmed involving Clark visiting the grave of his adoptive parents in what sounds like could have been a real emotional highlight (Mark Rosenthal does speak highly of it in the audio commentary). Production photos of this scene do exist but sadly the footage has never seen the light of day.
The other major returning cast member in Superman IV: The Quest To Make Superman III Look Decent By Comparison (Well That Is If You’re A Hater of Superman III, I’m A Fan Of It Myself Personally But Whatever) is Gene Hackman as Superman’s most famed nemesis Lex Luthor. Hackman is as enjoyably hammy and charismatic as he was in the first two Superman films and Superman IV even allows him the opportunity to portray Luthor as a Dr Frankenstein-like figure in a scene that feels like it’s straight out of a Universal monster film. Luthor’s layer is even the most dynamic in the film with its art deco design in which he spends his time dancing with a woman dressed as Marie Antoinette (you know, like you do). Luthor’s sidekick this time around is his nephew Lenny Luthor (another original character not from the comics), portrayed by Jon Cryer. Lenny himself increases the movie’s 80’s factor to the most extreme, far out, tubular heights with his New Wave band fashion choices and California surfer dude speak. I get this character annoys many viewers but I get some laughs out of this male equivalent of a valley girl.
Aside from taking out Supes, Luthor wants to reignite the nuclear arms industry but like most aspects of Superman IV, this plot point (you guessed it!) doesn’t make any sense. The movie has already established that the entire world is in unanimous agreement with Superman in regards to him getting rid of the planet’s nuclear arsenal and the world’s governments even aided him in doing this. Thus just how is Lex Baby supposed to reintroduce nuclear arms? We can see him attempting to do so in a deleted scene in which Luthor speaks to the government of the USSR and convinces them that world peace is a capitalistic plot and then subsequently appears before the US government to claim that world peace is a communist plot. I can only speculate as to why this scene was not included in the film as it is fun to watch in isolation but in the wider context of the film it does make the people who inhabit this universe incredibly vulnerable to being easily swayed and manipulated. It’s like that scene in The Simpsons in which Skinner and Krabappel are each trying to convince the children’s parents on what’s more important, their children’s future or tax increases. What is included in the film is Luthor’s honest stated aim, “Nobody wants war. I just want to keep the threat alive”. Well, at least the movie has one pertinent quote concerning the military-industrial complex.
Now let’s get to the real fun part and talk about my boy, Nuclear Man! The poorly thought out and unintentionally hilarious villain in Superman IV, portrayed by Dolph Lundgren lookalike Mark Pillow in his only screen role (an actor with three IMDB acting credits and no Wikipedia page). I’m not going to lie, I love Nuclear Man. Everything about the character screams 1980s with his dripped out black and gold spandex outfit, the lightning animations that travel over his figure, the Southern California hairdo and the most tubular animation of his birth from foetus to a fully blown Adonis. Like Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, every one of his lines is memorable (“If you do not tell me, I will hurt people”, “Destroy Superman!”, “First, I have fun!”), with his booming voice (roars and all) provided by Gene Hackman himself. Due to the sheer enjoyment I get from watching this bombastic bad guy, I can forgive the fact that power-wise, Nuclear Man’s one major weakness is so easily exploitable since he loses his power when he is not in direct sunlight. Likewise, Nuclear Man also has the most glaring non-motivation in the entire film. Due to the sheer amount of material from Superman IV that ended up on the cutting room floor, in the final cut of the film Nuclear Man just randomly looks at a copy of The Daily Planet and sees a picture of Lacy (whom he has no established knowledge off) and thinks “yeah, I want some of that!” and proceeds to kidnap her. Superman tries to stop Nuclear Man and tells him “Give it up, you’ll never find her” in response to Nuclear Man asking “Where is the woman?”. How does Superman know the woman Nuclear Man is talking about? His motivation for kidnapping Lacy is explained in the film’s deleted scenes but it appears someone or something must have thought,” Let’s just skip all the character motivation mumbo jumbo and just get straight to the action scenes!”. Speaking off…
Not the crossover event I was expecting.
Superman IV offers viewers two fights between Supes and Nuclear Man, with both being very slow and mundane. The first is a world-spanning bash of unintentional hilarity as Superman essentially follows Nuclear Man, repairing all the damage he creates from plugging up a volcano in Italy with a giant rock to using his laser vision to repair The Great Wall of China (a random power that came out of nowhere but the stop-motion special effect of the repairing wall looks cool). Likewise, various international cuts of Superman IV also include a sequence in which Nuclear Man creates a tornado which Superman must eliminate, in which the special effects are actually not too shabby. The fight nonetheless concludes in the most pathetic manner, as Nuclear Man uses his fabulous, long, manicured nails to take out Supes. But never fear, as Supes gets his revenge in round 2 as they fight on the Moon in agonising slow motion- It’s so tedious to watch! The two barely even fight, they more so just push against each other – it’s like watching two geriatrics go at it. Regardless, decades on Mark Pillow himself has no embarrassment regarding the character, as evidenced by his entertaining Instagram profile in which he celebrates the bizarre cinematic creation that is Nuclear Man. However, when delving into the treasure trove of deleted scenes for Superman IV: The Quest For What Didn’t Make Into The Final Cut, arguably the most prominent aspect which didn’t make it into the final cut was another Nuclear Man (portrayed by Clive Mantle) originally created Lex Luthor (and subsequently defeated by Superman). I have no love for this Nuclear Man and I fail to see why having two, very different versions of Luthor’s creation was necessary. On top of that, the design of the character is just very unpleasant, looking like an ugly version of Billy Idol and whom bizarrely is born with a metal plate attached to his crouch (an image I’d rather burn from my mind).
The music for Superman IV is actually the one aspect in which the film entirely exceeds…well almost. The rendition of the Superman theme during the opening credits is a very weak, low-energy version, however, the rest of the score features the best original work since the first film alongside some top-notch reworking of previous music. The reason that the new material is so good, is that while he is not credited, it is written by none other than John Williams himself in his first involvement in the series since the first film (with Alexander Courage composing the score). The first of these is Lacy’s Theme (aka Someone Like You), a delightfully cheesy saxophone piece which is accompanied by some lush orchestrations which would easily fit in with a Fred Astaire dance number (the full score also includes a great variation titled the Disco Version). Likewise, Jeremy’s Theme is suitably innocent and childlike but it’s the Nuclear Man Theme which absolutely slaps with its cartoonish villainy (alongside the more epic, drawn-out rendition which is played during the first fight). It goes without saying Williams is the GOAT of film composing but Courage does a fine job reappropriating William’s earlier compositions and the film does feature some relaxing and breezy variations of the iconic Superman theme. Although If I were to pick one original highlight from Courage it would have to be the piece United Nations which is suitably grandiose (just a shame it’s used for such a ridiculous scene).
Superman IV: The Quest For the Non-Existent Box Office would be the last time Christopher Reeve would dawn the red cape and blue spandex of Superman (Superman V: The Quest For Embryonic Stem Cell Research would never see the light of day). Yet despite everything that is wrong with the film, I can’t bring myself to call Superman IV a film I hate. It does remain at the end of the day, a fascinating demonstration of how not to make a motion picture (why else would I have just written a 4,100-word review analysing it within an inch of its life). Superman IV can stand alongside the bad movie greats such as Batman & Robin, The Room and Troll II for its moments of unintentional hilarity and sheer quotability. Honestly, if I were given the choice between watching Superman IV and some Ikea furniture-style assembly superhero movie that Hollywood regurgitates these days, give me the former. With all said and done as I complete my journey extensively reviewing all four Christopher Reeve Superman movies, I can still find some love in my heart for Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.
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Sat In Your Lap 