I am a big fan of well-made Asian martial arts movies.  Here are several I’ve watched recently, with very short reviews.

The movie is extraordinary, as is the actor.  Tony Jaa has been announced to the world as the next Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan, etc.; but in my opinion his potential seems to far surpass those other greats.  That’s a pretty weighty statement, I know, just as I know I’m prone to exaggerate the positive qualities of the movies I most love.  I’m not a professional movie critic, and I have no desire to attempt a well-balanced review intended for a general public.  However, if you love this genre, you’ll almost certainly love this movie.

Tony Jaa is incredible. As advertised:  He uses no stunt doubles, no strings or cables, no CGI; and he performs moves that seem superhuman.  He’s extremely lightweight.  His trainer points out one key feature of Jaa’s abilities:  he’s able to “float” almost in air, or remain airborne with seemingly little effort.  Additionally, the fact that the movie, like the actor, is purely the product of Thailand adds special weight to its emergence on the world stage.  According to the special features included on the DVD, Tony Jaa grew up in a small village in the north of Thailand watching the cinematic martial arts masters (mostly from China) and decided he wanted to do the same thing; by all appearances, his love of the genre has translated well, and this movie justifiably stands as a tribute to Thailand.

I titled this post by referencing “Asian virtue in art.”  For this review and all reviews of movies in this genre, I would stress how I view the use of violence in these movies:  the forms, techniques, displays, stories, bloodshed and breaking bones — all of it — should be considered a metaphor for virtue.  The best are the most virtuous. This goes not only for the character development and each character’s proficiency in the martial arts, but also, I suppose, for the actor — especially in this case.  The villains lose because they are less virtuous.  Tony Jaa triumphs because he has loved the virtue of his art, with all his heart, and this shines through in the movie.  No other approach could have produced such a master.

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Unfortunately, the second outing is not as good as the first.  Tony Jaa is still extraordinary, and the ancient Muay Thai moves “rescued” from Thailand’s past are something to behold in the final major fight scene:  Essentially, Jaa and his trainer utilized ancient records of Muay Thai to create moves never before seen in a movie and long-lost in modern Thai Boxing; and believe me, they are terrifying moves if you are the type, as I am, to wonder what facing such a foe would be like.

In fact, the fighting in this movie is worth the price of the DVD.  I suspect I’d buy any DVD which has Tony Jaa as its star, just to see him move.  But the story, although endearing at first and occasionally afterward, is choppy, with many, many plot holes and a heavy dose of deus ex machina.  There is an overly sentimental voice-over at the end of the movie that must play well in native Thailand but does not translate well for our own cultural sensibility.

The endearing part of the story allows Jaa’s acting ability to shine, even with the very poor script.  In ancient Thailand, Muay Thai warriors were “protectors” who protected the Thai king’s elephants whenever he rode into battle.  For those who don’t know it, elephants are an important part of Thai culture.  Tony Jaa’s family in Thailand still raise elephants, and he grew up among elephants; so his love for his two co-stars, whom he must protect, is not faked.  (Or if it is, this only shows Jaa’s potential as a dramatic actor.  I do not believe it is, while believing in his potential.)

One extended action scene in the movie receives high marks from those in the field, for its technical complexity; watching the director’s and crew’s process in creating that extended scene, in the extras on this DVD set, would also be worth the price of the DVD, at least for those who are interested in the art of action cinema.  Within the movie, the scene is particularly good, because it’s much less “frill” and very authentic-seeming.  I.e., as with most of Jaa’s work, the fight is not a hyper-fantastical “Crouching Tiger” style of fighting/cinema. No, this fighting looks like it could happen on any backstreet anywhere — if, that is, the master Tony Jaa were present and in the thick of things.

Incidentally, this DVD set includes the original Thai cut — which I have not watched.  I’ve been delaying watching it, simply because I want to see it fresh without the American cut still in mind.  (I hadn’t realized the original cut was included, when I bought the movie, or I would have watched it first.  I’m a big fan of seeing these movies in their original aspect:  wide-screen, subtitles instead of dubbing, etc.  In fact, I scorn the sort of edits that would attempt to appease an arrogant cultural bias.)

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I absolutely love this movie. The movie is extremely well-made. Unlike the two Jaa movies, Seven Swords is more traditional, in that it is set in a somewhat mythical past in China rather than the present day — and also, vis-a-vis modern conventions of the genre, the fighting is more along the lines of Crouching Tiger.

I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never seen Akira Kurosawa’s masterwork Seven Samurai, to which this movie nods conspicuously. Perhaps that’s a good thing, since I also therefore did not have comparisons in mind as I watched this.

Seven Swords, like Seven Samurai, uses the now-conventional plotline (thanks to Seven Samurai) of a village beset by bandits and requiring the help of outside warriors to defend it.  However, the difference in this movie’s name is important; each of the swordsmen descends from the mythical Heavenly Mountains with a special sword, and each fights differently on the basis of that sword’s power.

The cinematic skill of the director, cast, and crew is obvious in the movie.  Despite the large number of primary actors, and the sometimes chaotic fight scenes, each character is well-formed and quite distinct, with plenty of dramatic development alongside the fight scenes.  The director could have had an easy time focusing merely on the various fighting styles and the fights themselves — some masterly, if often fantastical, moves and choreography — but he chose to develop the characters and utilize the scenery in spectacular ways; and this makes the movie more than a fight movie.  In fact, the characters drive the fight scenes, just as they drive the dramatic scenes, rather than the other way around, although you will recognize various conventions of the genre being met in full.

The surprising thing in the movie, wholly unexpected, was the way the movie would suddenly turn around and move in a direction you could not have anticipated.  This happens several times and gives the movie an organic feel that is not common for any movie, regardless of genre and culture of origin.

I suspect I might have more to say of this movie after a second viewing; it’s a bit complex and will take more time to digest.

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Azumi is a female assassin in a popular Japanese manga, and this movie is the cinematic adaptation.

Put simply: Imagine Quentin Tarantino, but truly Japanese rather than the American import variety found in his Kill Bill diptych, and set in Japan’s past rather than the globalized present.  Much of the fighting is well over-the-top — at one point, Azumi takes on 200 foes at once and wins — and highly stylized, with some nods toward the conventions found in contemporary Japanese manga.  For instance, one nod to manga/anime:  the main foe of Azumi, it turns out, is a fairly effeminate, yet quite deadly and quite insane, man dressed all in white who carries a rose around with him while he delights in the slaughter he is committing (often squealing like a girl!  As we would say it in America.)

Nonetheless, this movie will remain forever in my list of favorite movies of all time.  There is a complexity (again) which is rarely found in action movies made in America, and it involves the ways in which the characters interact with their environment, with each other, and within the exigencies of the storyline.  Difficult to explain beyond that.  I suppose I could return to the title of this post and write my impression of this complexity by saying that a very deep sense of virtue pervades this movie — but with never a direct statement of its outlines nor any attempt to clarify it.  You just feel it.

It is of course possible, I admit, that my sense of virtue is uncommon, maybe biased.