"Kung Fu Panda" & "Flight of the Red Balloon"

I have wanted to write about Hou Hsiao Hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon for some time.  I knew the idea that I wanted to use to connect the film to its pair (see below) but I could not think of a film that shared this idea (if you have better suggestions I would be glad to hear them!).  In Flight of the Red Balloon, Hou brings his ever steady gaze to a small family in Paris made up of Puppet theater artist Juliet Binoche, her son and the Chinese nanny who takes care of him.  The film is worth seeing if only for Binoche, whose performance as a loving and creative single mother verging on a mental breakdown is real and nuanced.  

The criticism of Hou's work has often been that his films don't go anywhere and are boring. That too often, his camera merely documents.  His cinema is the cinema of flies on walls and therefore not worth watching.  While it is true that conventional plots and three act structure do not appear in Hou's Work, I thoroughly reject this criticism.  

Yes, Hou does not often pass judgement on his characters or inject his own opinions into their lives.   Yet it is clear in Flight of the Red Balloon, that Hou is aware of the fact that the director and camera is a lens through which we see the world that is presented and that watching a film of a family is not the same as being a literal fly on the wall.  Shot after shot involve action that is seen reflected in mirrors, or through glass.  Whether that be a mirror, a car window or the window of a restaurant.  The action occurs through the filtering of different surfaces, leaving the audience with the question of how the filtering has affected what we see.  How does the surface change our perception?  

So while the film is still quiet like his earlier works (check out Millennium Mambo, my personal fave), it is almost as if he is addressing this constant criticism of his work and presenting many different lenses.  However, these lenses do not necessarily create different opinions.  Ultimately it is as if Hou is saying, no matter how much the camera moves and how much is reflected and filtered, the action does not change and it is the audience who should interpret what occurs.

So how in the world does Hou Hsiao Hsien, darling of the independent international cinema world connect to Jack Black, Angelina Jolie and the 60 Million $$ opening weekend film that is Kung Fu Panda?  In many ways, it doesn't at all.  I can't even say that Kung Fu Panda is a particularly good film.  Certain scenes, especially one in which Po the Panda, voiced by Jack Black, and Master Sifu, voiced by Dustin Hoffman, fight over one last dumpling, are whimsical and well drawn, but for the most part the film is just a nice way to spend a hot summer afternoon.  Seeing films like Kung Fu Panda make you realize just how amazing Pixar is (I am really looking forward to WALL-e later this month).

I had pretty much shelved writing about Flight of the Red Balloon by the time I went in to see Kung Fu Panda so imagine my surprise to find a meditation (well sort of, in a kids movie big lesson kind of way) on the idea of surface and perception!!  (SPOILERS AHEAD!!)  In one crucial scene Po opens the infamous dragon scroll only to find it blank(!!!).  The magical secrets of kung fu are in reality only a piece of shiny paper.  This is of course, a disappointment, but not unpredictably, Po realizes by seeing his reflection in the shiny paper that he already has all the skills he needs to succeed.  The message here is simple and heartwarming: you are what you are and that is all you need to be.

Here, the crucial surface produces a simple reflection.  The reflection does not lie or distort. And yet, this simple reflection is the key to the message of the film.   The exact and undistorted reflection of the reality Po already knows is what changes everything.  So the surface even though it changes nothing, changes everything (so in Flight of the Red Balloon, is there in fact a change in our perception after viewing he undistorted reflection?). 

I sincerely doubt that the directors of Kung Fu Panda (Mark Osborne and John Stevenson) were thinking about the effects of cinematic surfaces when creating Kung Fu Panda, but the wonderful thing about film is the ability of two completely different films to unconsciously inform the other.  So when you walk out of Kung Fu Panda, don' be too disappointed, I'm sure you were just watching it to compare it to Fight of the Red Balloon later. :P 

"The Forbidden Kingdom" & "Kill Bill Vol.1"

Yes, the pairing of Martial Arts powerhouses Jet Li and Jackie Chan is extremely gimmicky. And yet, as a kung fu movie fan, I have to admit that seeing the pair fight each other on screen was exhilarating and fulfilled a dream I did not realize I had. The Forbidden Kingdom features Chan as a drunken immortal, an homage to his earlier Drunken Master films, and Li as a fighting monk, a nod to his roots in the famous Once Upon a Time in China series (he even gets to exercise his substantial and underused comedic acting chops as he doubles as the character of the Monkey King). After enduring so many mediocre Li and Chan films in the past few years (Shanghai Knights, Cradle to the Grave... to name two) it is a relief to see director Rob Minkoff letting his two stars do what they do best. In essence, The Forbidden Kingdom sees the return of two great masters of the kung fu genre to their roots. The following video from the Spill.com (my new favorite film site) really sums it up:


However, as happy as I was to see this return to form, the film will probably bore anyone who does not still live with their parents. If Praying Mantice style vs. Tiger style does not intrigue you/ make you smile gleefully, go see Iron Man (which by the way is 15 dollars well spent [$10 for the movie $5 for the slushy]); for The Forbidden Kingdom is truly a film made for fans. Not only are the characters nods to themselves and the roles that made them, but the entire story is about a fan who saves the day for his heroes.

The film centers around Micheal Angarano, who plays a nerdy Boston Kung Fu fan who gets improbably transported into the world that he worships. The boy becomes man/kung fu master plot is predictable, but nevertheless warms your heart; for a fan is necessarily the little guy, the worshipper or groupie. And to see the little guy become what he has always dreamt of being is a plot that never gets old.

It is this idea of the fan as hero which led me to pair the film with Kill Bill Vol. 1. Quentin Tarantino is (despite what you may think of him), the film fan (cult film fan would perhaps be a better description) made good. And no film of his better shows off his fan-ness than Kill Bill Volume 1. In the first 30 seconds of the film alone you are treated to a Klingon Proverb and an homage to the Godard Film Band of Outsiders (blech!). Tarantino is the film junkie actually allowed behind the camera (for better or worse in some cases but I'll save that discussion for another time.) The casting of Gordon Lui (of 36 chambers fame) in the film is no coincidence. Wouldn't we all, if given the opportunity to work with our idols, take the chance? Tarantino is a man, similar to Angarano's character in The Forbidden Kingdom, who is allowed to play in the land he has worshiped. In this case the world of film. Viewed through this lens, Kill Bill Vol 1. does not dissapoint, there is black and white, split screen, anime, saturated color (subtitles even!!). There are few style stones left unturned.

That is not to say the film is a stylistic mess. Tarantino successfully pays homage without losing the film's individual identity, embodied by revenge minded Uma Thurman. Somehow all the quirky parts taken from other films blend together to become more than the sum of their parts. They become Tarantino style. Fan boy enters hero's world and becomes his own man. Lets hear it for the little guy!