Feel the THUNDER…taste the RAGE

I’ve managed to catch a pair of films yesterday – KUNG FU PANDA and – hold your breath – THE INCREDIBLE HULK!!!

Initially I was skeptical at Big Hollywood’s latest attempt to milk the Chinese wuxia genre for multiplex megabucks (for every bloodthirsty Quentin Tarantino, we get Balls of Fury and Chris Walken in pigtails). After reading the glowing reviews (and arming myself against the imminent aural innundation of Sam Concepcion’s fag-boyband take on Carl Douglas’s camp classic “Kung Fu Fighting”), I prepared for the awesomeness of jack Black and co.

Now…this is the way to do wuxia!!! Take it from the Shaw Brothers!

The mighty Gordon Liu schools ‘em in Return to the 36 Chambers!!

Lo Lieh in Five Fingers of Death – this shit is sho’ mad!

Mo’ Lo Lieh madness!!!!

The film is quite good, somewhat, in paying respect to classic Chinese martial arts films – the sheer defiance of gravity, the animal characters (I especially love Lucy Liu’s Viper, Seth Rogen’s Mantis and Randall Duk Kim’s Master Oogway) and even the unbrindled enthusiasm exhibited by the titular Po the Panda (Jack Black, not as OTT though as in Nacho Libre). I guess many viewers – I included – could see themselves in a lot of the scenes where Po tries to prove himself to the inhabitants of the Jade Palace, particularly a skeptical Master Shi-Fu (Dustin Hoffman).

I especially loved setpieces such as Tai Lung’s escape from the maximum security prison and its rhino army (look for them to turn up in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, heheh), not to mention Po’s eventual showdown with Tai, a former protege of Master Shi-Fu. It may have helped having Jackie Chan on board (as Monkey)…he must’ve had quite a lot of input in scenes like these, preserving the eye-candy appeal of all these Chinese martial arts movies while making it all kid-friendly at the side (no sounds of bones cracking, no Drunken Masters).

Jackie Chan in top-notch form as the Drunken Master

The crisp, fluid animation of the fight sequences manages to capture the frenzied, gravity-defying sequences of classic Chinese wuxia epics. Even the strains used in the film’s music score shows that the animators have definitely done their homework in making sure they capture the essence of these masterpieces of fight cinema.

Makes me want to scour the alleys of Chinatown to stock up on all these wonderful Shaw Brothers and Lo Lieh titles…

Take it from the Master – this is the way to do Kung Fu Fighting!!!

As for the latest incarnation of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s homage to Beauty & the Beast, Edward Norton does manage to show significantly more depth in his portrayal of Bruce Banner than Eric Bana (in Ang Lee’s version, which is referred to in the opening montage).

The origin of the Hulk – first episode of the 1966 animated series

As the previous movie ended with Ol’ Mean Green somewhere in South America, we see Edward Norton’s Bruce Banner trying to find the peace he has long sought in a Brazilian favela, working at a beverage bottling plant. Soon enough, it turns into a combination of City of God and The Bourne Ultimatum as Gen. “Thunderbolt” Ross manage to track him all the way over there, so he sends over a crack commando team of operatives led by Russian-born British SAS official Emil Blonsky to flush out the fugitive. A wonderfully-executed Parkour chase ensues (yep, they were choreographed by Cyril Raffaelli, who also did the set-ups for the Casino Royale remake)

Soon enough, the despondent Banner makes his way back into the USA, where he manages to find Betty Ross (who has found a new love in the guise of some psychiatrist or something) while moonlighting as a delivery boy for Stanley’s (hehehe….we get it *inner fanboy chuckling*) Pizza Parlor. Betty risks her tenure at the prestigious Culver University to join Banner as a fellow fugitive – much to the the consternation of her estranged father, Gen. “Thunderbolt” himself. Meanwhile, as Blonsky meets up with a particularly savage beating in the hands of an enraged Hulk, he gets himself irradiated with the same gamma rays as the Mean Green One (with Ross’ encouragement). Transformed into an even stronger, more brutal and twisted version of The Hulk, Blonsky gets his comeuppance on a savage, balls-out brawl on the streets of New York.

Well….

• Stan Lee cameo – check!
• Fanboy nods to both comic book and TV series – check check!!!
• Tony Stark – check check check!!!
• Lou Ferrigno – what check? HULK SMAAAAAASH!!!!!

Ed Norton does quite an okay job in injecting greater depth in his role as Bruce Banner, notwithstanding rumors of undue script interference. Casting him is an even greater masterstroke as he provides the very unassuming that befits the Banner character – who could have thought that someone with his mild-mannered demeanor could also be the savage CGI-enhanced green-skinned beast that is the Hulk? On the other hand, Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross comes of as supportive (especially when their circumstances are severely compromised at the risk of easy detection) but she is even worse-written than Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts character in Iron Man.

Classic Hulk – “Where Strikes the Behemoth”

Classic Hulk – “Lair of the Leader”

Louis Leterrier’s direction befits the quickened-up adrenaline-pumped take on this character (something that followers of the Ang Lee film have somewhat scored in said adaptation). He does have an innate feel for capturing high-speed chases and the visceral thrill of clanging, twisted metal – at the expense of providing a more sympathetic insight to the turmoil beneath Bruce Banner’s character. For instance, I would admit that the scene where Hulk and Betty hie away to a cave amidst a torrential rain is a tad too close to Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake (I can imagine Jackson getting his solicitors to go after Marvel Studios). It is easy – and quite cheap, IMHO – to draw comparisons between the styles of Letterier and Iron Man’s Jon Favreau (but at least the former doesn’t engage himself in an acting cameo), but for capturing the sheer ferocity of the Hulk, the former also gets the edge.

As the fanboy that I am – catching the midnight screening – I can say that this is the Hulk that Ang Lee should have made.

Movie reviews