There are new breed of foreign films finding their way into our video stores, cinemas and onto our TVs. I recently watched THE RETURNER, a Japanese sci-fi action film that blew me away. It starred Takeshi Kaneshiro who also starred in TOO TIRED TO DIE. Now before you assume that TOO TIRED TO DIE was an action film let me lay out the plot. Takeshi Kaneshiro plays a rich Japanese brat slumming it in New York that has a strange dream about a man running away from Death (Mira Sorvino). One day while he's awake and sitting in a coffee shop he sees the man running past. So he chases the man to ask him why he was in his dream. Unwittingly he helps Death catch the man and as a reward she tells him when he's going to die which just happens to be the following night. Needless to say things only go downhill from there for our hero. It's an excellent film that could be considered a bit bizarre and arty so I was surprised to find Takeshi Kaneshiro in THE RETURNER but I digress. THE RETURNER is about an assassin who is blackmailed by a girl from the future into helping her prevent an alien invasion. She attaches a micro-bomb to his neck and if he doesn't comply kaboom. There is more to the story though. The assassin is on a mission of revenge and the girl has to kill the first alien that has crash-landed on Earth to prevent the invasion. The crime boss our assassin is after also happens to be in possession of the alien the girl is after so our heroes are thrown on the same path. What makes the film worth watching is the excellent Hollywood size budget FX, the cool gun play, slick cinematography, the actor playing the villain does a brilliant job and a great soundtrack (with Lenny Kravitz on it of all people).

Cool action foreign films have been around since Luc Besson's NIKITA, which spawned the TV series LA FEMME NIKITA, and a hideous American re-make POINT OF NO RETURN a.k.a. THE ASSASSIN. Which is about a drug addict who is sentenced to die but her sentence is commuted in exchange for her working as an assassin for a covert government organisation. Though there has been an onslaught of brilliant action packed foreign films hitting the video stores. Such as SHIRI, which is a Korean film about a South Korean secret agent tracking down a North Korean assassin. What makes this film worthwhile is the performance of the two leads and the brilliant use of metaphor in the film. The tragic love story is used as a metaphor to illustrate the relationship between North Koreans and South Koreans. It hits a chord even if you know nothing about the politics, it's that powerful. 

Then there is THE DUEL that mixes genres. It brilliantly mixes action, comedy, romance, who-dunnit and martial arts into one cohesive whole. The storyline is a bit more complex than the average action movie because there are sub-plots running in the background that only come to the fore once the climatic ending is reached. Our hero Dragon 9 is supposed to find 7 people worthy of watching the duel at the forbidden palace between the two of greatest swordsmen in China. We follow him ticket scalping, gambling and visiting brothels while trying to find a murderer, and buyers for tickets to the greatest duel in history. The plot twists keep coming till the shocking conclusion.

Explosions, random gun play and off-centre plotlines. Foreign films are definitely not what they used to be and thank heaven for that.

Punjabi_Goth

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