Young Yakuza

Since nowhere on its DVD box does it say, I spent the first half-hour or so of Jean-Pierre Limosin´s "Young Yakuza" silently debating whether it was a piece of fiction or a documentary.

If a fictional narrative, I wrote in my notebook, I really enjoyed the observatory approach and realistic nature of the film. It did an excellent job of introducing us into the world of the Yakuza (the Japanese mafia) through the eyes of its protagonist Naoki Watanabe, a layabout who gets involved with the organized crime outfit because his mother is worried about his development process. Apparently in Japan, having one´s son join a gang is a solution to that problem.

And what do you know, it is. Watanabe doesn´t get into any trouble with the law--there´s no time. He´s too busy cleaning the outfit´s office and preparing the boss´s meals to have time to do much else. Plus, it seems like the Yakuza don´t do much more than hold meetings, pontificate and go through their sock drawers. Seriously.

"Deep immersion into the narrative," I wrote in my notes, "I was worried I would have to memorize all of Watanabe´s responsibilities as well." As it turns out, the reason for the film´s smashing verisimilitude is that it is in fact a documentary. I was clued into when Watanabe´s boss, Kumagai, starting speaking to the camera directly.
It was about this time that the picture ceased to be as riveting as it once was, and not just because I realized it wasn´t fiction. After introducing Watanabe (and, by extension, the viewer) as a new member of the Yakuza community, nothing new or compelling happens. Watanabe jaw-jacks with his fellow errand boys and washes a few dishes and backs while Kumagai tells the camera about his personal philosophies and pines for the good old days, when being a Yakuza meant something.
Based on this documentary, it doesn´t mean much now. I have no idea what Kumagai does all day except drink tea, take meetings and air his thoughts. He may as well be in a retirement home. He seems wealthy, but the film never tells us how he makes his money. The police don´t like the Yakuza, but aren´t aggressively pursuing them. The reasons behind that are never explained. Eventually even Watanabe gets bored of the film and disappears for a half-an-hour of screentime. We´re never told where he went.

This leads me into the weakest element of the doc: a lack of context. As a stranger to this world, I was ready to drink up any information it divulged, but the bits and pieces provided by the film do not add up to a cohesive hole. When was the Yakuza´s heyday? What did they do? What contributed to its decline? Kumagai offers a facile explanation for this--hip-hop is to blame--but where is Limosin´s historical perspective? I can appreciate that he keeps his lens within the Yakuza community to an extent, but an outside view would have gone a long way to elucidate matters, particularly since the most exciting thing that happens within this particular crime circle is that we learn Kumagai likes his tea cup to face a certain direction. "Young Yakuza" is like the first episode in a special series on the Yakuza, only the remaining episodes never got made.

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Never Back Down

Never give up! Never back down! - Jean Roqua

Just recently I caught a documentary on the National Geographic Channel titled "Fight Science," which delved into the science aspect behind Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). The hour-long program studied the various techniques and fighting styles of MMA, but also focused heavily on expert researchers gathering and analyzing data from a variety of full contact athletes in a state-of-the-art gym-laboratory hybrid. Everything from the force of blows, stamina, and discipline were measured and compared across the board. The astonishing results were that in every single test, the mixed martial artist came out on top--besting boxers, kung fu masters, jujitsu artists, and more. Now I wouldn't call myself a fan of UFC, but after witnessing all of the complexities involved in the sport with my own eyes, I see it in a new light. "Fight Science" proved without question that the phenomenal jack-of-all-trades combatants are truly the greatest physical specimens in the world.

"Never Back Down" is what some have labeled as a retelling of "The Karate Kid," only over twenty years later, the theme is Mixed Martial Arts. Of course, the fights have been spruced up with more streetwise action and Hollywood flavor for the film, but the basic core structure of MMA still exists. Oh, and Daniel-san goes off the Ritalin.

The story kicks off with a high school football brawl after Jake Tyler (Sean Faris) tackles and clobbers another student for dissing his deceased father. Jake has built up quite the reputation for being hot-tempered, and this last straw causes him to be permanently ejected from the team. It's not really a big deal to him, though, as his younger brother, Charlie, has won tennis scholarships which is relocating the Tyler family from Iowa to Orlando, Florida.

It was supposed to be a fresh start, but at his new school, Jake doesn't make a good first impression. Most of the other teenagers have much deeper pockets, and the snobs tease him about his rather plain attire. But through the modern technology of the Internet and video streaming, clips of his football brawl begins to surface on the iPhones of his fellow classmates and the news spreads like wildfire. Rising in popularity, Jake catches the attention of a few students, including the gorgeous but somewhat shallow blonde named Baja (Amber Heard).

One evening, Baja lures Jake to a high-octane party where brutal fights are the norm, and this is where we meet the reigning jerk in the movie, Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet). Ryan has also seen the video footage and challenges Jake to a one-on-one match in front of the whole crowd. Jake respectfully declines at first, but eventually accepts the offer after Ryan once again pushes the dead father button. Unfortunately for Jake, he learns the hard way that he's outclassed, outmatched, and ends up getting the beating of his life.

Battered and bruised, Jake becomes closer with another student named Max (Evan Peters), who takes Jake to the 365 Combat Club where he works out to meet his instructor, Jean Roqua (Djimon Hounsou). Roqua sees strong potential in Jake and admires his determination, but also senses that something isn't quite right, so he informs Jake that he'll take him aboard with the only stipulation being that he doesn't fight outside the studio. Jake agrees, and begins training for his eventual climatic rematch with Ryan.

There's no clever slave work of waxing cars, painting fences, or sanding the floors that suddenly transforms a scrawny weakling into a lean mean fighting-machine. Jake was already in pretty good shape to start, his only real problem was that all of his fight know-how was tied to one general area. But through training with Roqua, he's able to pick up a few more tricks and breathing techniques that help mold him into a much more versatile fighter.

On one hand the script is a little predictable, although on the other hand these types of films aren't exactly designed to have twists and turns around every corner. Come to think of it, the only sport film I remember having a shocking upset was the original "Rocky" movie where Rocky Balboa actually loses to Apollo Creed. So, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Jake is probably going to break Roqua's golden rule, make it up somehow, and then continue training to turn the tables on the local prick. Would we really want it any other way?

Even so, writer Chris Hauty did manage to slip in one or two surprises that I wasn't expecting. I also have to give him at least some credit for crafting the story to focus on Jake's personal growth and overcoming demons from his past, rather than strictly being about the fights. From that point of view, I'm able to forgive the predictability and the multitude of clichés, especially since his only other writing credit was for "Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco."

The movie could have been easily forgettable and might be for some people, but for me, the fight sequences and most of the actors' performances is what kept it afloat. Faris was great as the heart of the film, plus he wasn't incredibly whiny like Ralph Macchio. Gigandet made an excellent cocky and sadistic villain the viewers' love to hate, and Hounsou delivers dedication similar to what we've seen from him in "Gladiator" and "Blood Diamond." All three also went through intensive training for months to get in prime shape and make the fight scenes as close to reality as possible. I was a little disappointed with how things unfolded with Amber Heard, though, who seemed to be just a shell of beauty with no real substance.

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Parking Wars: The Best of Season One

I´ve only gotten one ticket from the Philadelphia Parking Authority, but I remain bitter about it today. I was parked on Rittenhouse Square where I attend a two hour meeting once a week. Naturally, and for no reason other than spite and greed, you cannot pay for more than two hours at a time on the parking meter. At 7:03, I fed eight quarters into the beast to get my measly two hours. The meeting ran just a bit long, and I wasn´t able to get back to the car until 9:05. All of two minutes late, I already had a violation on my windshield.

Now that´s not the part I´m bitter about: well, not entirely. I mean, technically I was late to feed the meter so I can´t really complain about the ticket. The thing that steams me to this day is that the PPA ticketer was nowhere in sight. Now mind you, Rittenhouse Square is an extremely long block surrounding a park. It takes more than a minute simply to walk around the corner from where my car was parked. In order to have ticketed me and then disappear from sight, the ticketing agent must have been greedily watching my meter like a child predator eyeing a grade school playground and writing the ticket the very second it ticked to zero. Then, having done his or her nasty business on my windshield, this drooling sadist sprinted away at full speed, perhaps to hide behind a tree in the park to laugh as I picked up my $26 ticket.

"Parking Wars" proves that there is never a shortage of ideas when it comes to reality television, only a shortage of good ideas. The show tracks the employees of the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) as they worm their way through the city, raising funds for the mostly dysfunctional city government. Cameras follow workers from all aspects of this fascist organization, from the ticketers who walk the street, to the people who put boots on cars, to the clerks at the impound lot.

As loathsome as the PPA is, many of its employees, unsurprisingly, are quite likable, and the show´s producers do their best to portray them all in a positive light. This highlights the dual and dueling appeals of the series. First, it´s easy to sympathize with the workers as they are constantly abused by irate drivers who always have excuses for why they have been illegally ticketed or booted or towed. On the other hand, it´s equally as easy to root for the citizens who jeer the employees as they enforce the city´s Byzantine and inscrutable parking laws. The signs in Philadelphia are not designed to be comprehended: arrows point in directions that have only a tangential relationship to the areas they are intended to indicate. Cars must be moved constantly throughout the day as rules change almost by the hour. Parking is absurdly expensive in the city and incredibly difficult to come by in virtually every section, so tempers understandably run high.

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Slave Widow

From an aesthetic standpoint, it is difficult to appreciate the softcore pornography of today. Most of it is TV quality, features substandard acting by humans that have been artificially enhanced, and tells a story that appears to have been thought up five minutes prior to shooting.

For softcore with some filmic value, we can turn to the Japanese "sexploitation" of forty years ago with filmmaker Momoru Watanabe's "Slave Widow." I have put sexploitation in quotations because although that is how it is billed by the studio Cinema Epoch, it is a term I suspect was used to describe the movement after the fact. (I've just learned that these types of movies were known as "pink films" during their heyday in Japan).
Fact is, titillation and cinema have been happy bedfellows since the medium was born. Genres are mostly a handy classification for later discussion and marketing. "Slave Widow" can be described as softcore, or grindhouse, or sexploitation, but like the best of the films in those genres, it can be appreciated by those other than the prurient thanks to some fine acting, cinematography, and an emphasis on characterization rather than skin.
All is hunky dory for Mitsuko Fuji (Noriko Tatsumi) when the picture opens. She is married to an ostensibly successful man and has just hired a new maid named Maya (Mari Iwai) to keep her company and clean up around the house. However, not ten minutes of screen time passes before all that changes.

Turns out her hubby wasn't doing as well in his field as she thought, and his untimely death has left her with a large debt. One of her husband's creditors, Kito (Tadashi Oizumi), is willing to help her financially provided she service him sexually--and there you have your title.

It's interesting that what separates non-consensual sex and consensual sex is courtship. Kito isn't necessarily a bad man; he just skips the most vital part of a relationship--its construction. All right, anyone capable of doing what he does is a bad man. But surely his position of wealth and power has made him feel entitled. Power corrupts.

So instead of earning her affection, he goes straight for Mitsuko's private parts, without her permission, and that's what makes him a bastard. Had he kept up his pleasant façade, he might have evaded (or at least postponed) some of the ill feelings the viewer bears toward him once he rapes and continues to manipulate Mitsuko.

For a sexploitation film, it's interesting that Watanabe chose to include a rape scene as one of the earliest moments of sex. I would wager (and hope) that most people are turned off by such a scene and not turned on. But Watanabe handles the scene adroitly, employing a deep, ominous music score to underline the dreadfulness of the situation. Later scenes show an equally smart use of sound during the bump and grind sessions: birds chirping, mellow music and sometimes dead silence except for the occasional moan and heavy breathing.

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