Babylon review

Director: Damien Chazelle
Cast : Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, Tobey Maguire, Max Minghella, Lukas Haas, Samara Weaving, Spike Jonze, Katherine Waterston, Eric Roberts, Olivia Hamilton, P.J. Byrne
Genre: Comedy/Drama/History
Run Time : 189 min
Opens : 19 January 2022
Rating : R21

In 2017, Damien Chazelle became the youngest person to win the Best Director Oscar at 32, for La La Land. If that film was a love letter to Hollywood, then Babylon is an epic drunk text to an ex, delving into Tinseltown’s past, partially set during the transition between silent movies and talkies.

It is 1927. Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) is an aspiring actress from New Jersey with an outsized personality and undeniable charisma. Manuel “Manny” Torres (Diego Calva) is a Mexican-American assistant who dreams of actually working in the movies. Both characters cross paths at a lavish party. Also present are dashing silent film star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), jazz trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) and Chinese-American cabaret singer Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li). The movie tracks their various paths over the following years as Hollywood is plunged into a turbulent, exciting period of change. The advent of synced sound causes silent movies to be phased out, with some silent movie stars struggling to make the transition. Meanwhile, the Hays Code is introduced, leading to strict censorship. Nellie becomes an overnight sensation and Manny eventually works his way through the studio ranks, and the film tracks them over the next several years as these former outsiders with a dream find themselves in the eye of the storm.

Babylon is an ambitious, sprawling effort, with a staggering 189-minute runtime to show for it. Chazelle has clearly thrown himself into making this movie, which is a plainly massive undertaking. There are times when Babylon handily sweeps the audience up along for the ride, and key to its hypnotic thrall is the way the movie works with the music. Oft-collaborator Justin Hurwitz creates a rousing, kinetic, jazz-laced score, which works hand-in-hand with the heady imagery. Babylon is long, but there is no shortage of outrageous events unfolding onscreen to keep audiences’ interest, with just enough to the main characters’ arcs to inspire a certain investment. 

In the opening scene, Manny and other characters attempt to haul an elephant up a hill, with disastrous results. This seems to be an omen for the following three hours. While there is much about Babylon that is engaging, it is also bloated, and Chazelle’s Herculean effort (mainly the fifth labour of Hercules)  in dragging this beast forward is often noticeable. Much has been made of Babylon’s depiction of Hollywood debauchery. The big party scene includes copious amounts of sex, drugs and jazz, with the aforementioned elephant tossed in for good measure. After a while, it feels like the gross-out shock humour, including all manner of bodily functions, is just there for the sake of it and it grows tiresome.

Babylon wants to be subversive and to shatter the idea of a time before the movie industry was wanton and depraved, but it winds up being a lot less insightful about its historical setting than it could have been. There’s a lot of movie here, but one can’t help but feel like not a lot is being said. The first two hours are more or less a knockabout farce, then the third hour careens hard into high drama and tragedy. It’s not like things aren’t set up, but it still is a jarring shift for a movie that is being billed as a comedy. Babylon owes a great deal to Singin’ in the Rain, but at least it isn’t trying to hide that. Comparisons have also been made to the porn industry drama Boogie Nights. By the time Babylon ends, it’s as if Chazelle is tearfully proclaiming “I just love movies!” but its ostensible awe at the magic of cinema is at odds with how gleeful it is about animal excrement and human vomit. 

Babylon has an excellent cast, with both Pitt and Robbie playing to their strengths as performers and leaning into their public personas as movie stars. Pitt’s character is an amalgamation of silent screen leading men like Douglas Fairbanks, John Gilbert and Clark Gable. He is a charming hard-partier and serial marrier who struggles with watching his star fade. A scene that Pitt shares with a withering entertainment journalist played by Jean Smart is especially affecting and well-acted. There is a goofiness that Pitt brings to the proceedings, but we also empathise with Jack as we glimpse the darkness beneath the glitzy surface.

Robbie’s performance as the ingenue, inspired by such actresses as Mary Pickford, Clara Bow and Joan Crawford, is fearless and mesmerising. Nellie is as talented and magnetic as she is self-destructive, and while neither Nellie’s nor Jack’s arcs are original ones, not least in movies about Hollywood, both Pitt and Robbie are excellent.

Mexican actor Diego Calva, who had a role in Narcos: Mexico, is arguably the movie’s breakout performer. While Manny is not the most interesting of all the characters in Babylon, Calva does imbue him with an earnestness and we get invested in the characters’ journey, especially when he rises to the position to make some consequential, possibly devastating decisions.

Jovan Adepo’s Sidney Palmer doesn’t get a whole lot of attention but is quietly one of the more compelling characters in Babylon. Unfortunately, the movie seems ill-equipped to comment on the role of Black entertainers in early Hollywood. It makes an attempt at it, but seems too preoccupied with extravagant displays of bad behaviour to delve into the issue.

Li Jun Li’s Lady Fay Zhu, a thinly-veiled allusion to Anna May Wong, is a badass but ultimately still plays into fetishistic, Orientalist portrayals of Asian women in Hollywood. The inclusion of minority characters could have served as an opportunity to take a close look at what it was like for non-white people in early Hollywood, but Babylon misses that opportunity.

There are plenty of moments for the supporting cast to shine, with Eric Roberts getting a few memorable scenes as Nellie’s father/manager. Tobey Maguire pops up late in the movie as an impish, devilish crime boss.

Summary: Babylon is a sprawling and ambitious ode to Old Hollywood, pulling back the curtain on its anything goes chaos. Unfortunately, the movie seems altogether too preoccupied with being “extreme” and pushing boundaries in its depiction of sordid depravity. The gross-out shock value moments threaten to drown out some legitimately arresting performances, with the casting of Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie being especially canny. There are impactful, resonant moments here, but they’re buried in the cacophony. Writer-director Damien Chazelle is in full ‘cheeky film student’ mode, telling a historical tale laced with all the shenanigans and outlandish behaviour to earn it an R21 rating. Babylon is an overstuffed, 189-minute-long behemoth, but it is also never boring. With its mixed-to-positive critical reception, it remains to be seen if Babylon will live on as a bit of a curio, or eventually become something of a cult classic.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Śakra (天龙八部之乔峰传) review

Director: Donnie Yen
Cast : Donnie Yen, Chen Yuqi, Cya Liu, Kara Wai, Wu Yue, Eddie Cheung, Grace Wong, Du Yuming, Ray Lui, Michelle Hu, Tsui Siu-ming
Genre: Action/Drama
Run Time : 130 min
Opens : 16 January 2022 (sneaks on 14 and 15 January)
Rating : NC16

Louis Cha, better known by his pen name Jin Yong, was one of the most influential authors in the wuxia (“martial heroes”) genre. His works have inspired numerous adaptations, and Donnie Yen adds to that list with Śakra, based on the 1963 novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils.

It is the Northern Song dynasty in the 1000s. Qiao Feng (Donnie Yen) is the leader of the Beggars’ Sect, a local hero who has won the respect of his peers. He is suddenly framed for murder and accused of being descended from the Khitan people. Forced to abandon his position as the leader of the Beggars’ Sect, Qiao Feng vows to discover the truth of his own heritage and he is shunned by his former allies. Qiao Feng meets A Zhu (Chen Yuqi), a maid who serves the Murong family. After he rescues her during an attack, she becomes the only person to still believe him. Qiao Feng and A Zhu travel across the land, with Qiao Feng seeking to make a new, peaceful life far from the Beggars’ Sect. Murong Fu (Wu Yue), A Zhu’s employer, schemes behind the scenes to revive the former Yan Kingdom. Qiao Feng must regain the honour that was stripped of him as he attempts to get to the root of this treachery.

Śakra is an ambitious epic that unfolds on a grand scale. The movie’s big selling point is its action sequences, choreographed by Yen and oft-collaborator Kenji Tanigaki. These sequences combine the elegant wire-fu that is often associated with the wuxia genre with the punchiness and brutality of more contemporary action cinema. Multiple sequences involve hordes of combatants and plenty of destruction of surrounding property. While there is some noticeable use of computer-generated effects, especially when the characters use superpowers including summoning fire or creating clouds of dust, it is nowhere near as egregious as in many Chinese action movies. There still is a tactility to the proceedings and the camera proudly shows off that it is Yen and the other actors doing their own stunts.

Yen is as charismatic and dashing as ever, striking a youthful figure at 59 – though it is perhaps a stretch to believe that Qiao Feng is in his 30s, as repeatedly stated. Qiao Feng is one of Jin Yong’s most beloved creations, and it might take a while for viewers who already have a favourite existing portrayal of the character to warm to Yen’s, but he commands the screen whenever he’s on it.

Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils is a lengthy novel with three main characters: Duan Yu, Qiao Feng and Xuzhu. In a similar way to how the 1977 movie The Battle Wizard focused on Duan Yu, Śakra focuses on Qiao Feng, attempting to streamline the story while keeping open the possibility of a sequel that might introduce the other two main characters. Unfortunately, Śakra struggles to coherently lay out the complicated web of characters. As impressive as the action sequences are, the dramatic scenes are often unwieldy and awkward. Tonally, the movie wants to fit in with the grandiose, over-the-top theatrics and melodrama associated with the wuxia genre, but also wants to be a little more grounded and relatable for audiences who aren’t already dyed-in-the-wool Jin Yong fans, and it does not quite pull this balance off. The movie’s pace is sometimes halting, as if it suddenly realises that it has a whole bunch of plot to get to after a protracted action scene.

Jin Yong has been called “China’s Tolkien” and in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Yen refers to Jin Yong’s work as being akin to Shakespeare, and says “wuxia is Chinese Marvel, except it has a lot [richer] history and culture behind it.” There is an intent to set up a franchise, with the ending leaving things open for the continuation of the story. All of Jin Yong’s works, apart from Ode to Gallantry, are connected to varying degrees, but they also span centuries, so it remains to be seen how far Yen’s ambitions stretch.

Summary: Śakra boasts explosive, elaborate action sequences that are as elegant as they are brutal. The movie also features Donnie Yen in fine form, directing and producing in addition to starring. It’s clear that Yen wants to do justice to the source material, Jin Yong’s novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, which has inspired numerous earlier film and TV adaptations. However, this movie’s world-building falters, and there seems to be a struggle to stay faithful to the source material while making something that will appeal to modern audiences accustomed to blockbuster franchises. While the production values of Śakra are considerably higher than that of the average TVB series, this story seems more suited to a TV format.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Śakra Singapore press conference: Donnie Yen talks his adaptation of Jin Yong’s wuxia classic Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils

By Jedd Jong

Donnie Yen is an action star whose career has spanned four decades. Yen’s body of work includes the Ip Man movies, contemporary action films like Flashpoint, SPL and Raging Fire, and Hollywood movies like Blade II, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and XXX: The Return of Xander Cage. Yen’s work as an actor and action director has been influential in Hong Kong cinema and far beyond, and at the age of 59, Yen is far from slowing down.

Yen was in Singapore on 12 January 2023 to promote his new film Śakra, in which he pulls triple duty as star, director and producer. Based on the novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils by legendary wuxia (martial heroes) author Jin Yong/Louis Cha set in the Northern Song Dynasty, this version focuses on Qiao Feng, one of three protagonists in the book.

Singapore was the first stop on Yen’s publicity tour. He held a press conference, a public meet-and-greet session and a closed-door dialogue session about action films on the same day.

“Jin Yong is very difficult to do,” Yen admitted during the press conference at Marina Bay Sands moderated by deejay Kenneth Kong. “To me, it’s almost impossible to tell a Jin Yong story in a movie format, which is only two hours or maybe two and a half hours. The duration of a movie is unlike a TV series; [with] a TV series you have 20 episodes where you can illustrate each character because in the Jin Yong world, you have so many colourful characters, especially Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, it’s one of the most popular,” Yen explained.

The project was brought to him by veteran director and producer Wong Jing, who was also present at the press conference. Yen recently collaborated with Wong on the comedy Enter the Fat Dragon. Yen revealed that he and Wong were gearing up to make a film with Andy Lau, but scheduling conflicts put that on the back burner, so Wong presented Śakra to Yen as an alternative.

“I told Wong Jing, ‘I need some time to tackle this project,’” Yen said. “Then I found an angle, and that was the very beginning.”

Yen reasoned that a literal adaptation of the novel would not be feasible given the limitations of a movie’s runtime. He decided to focus on Qiao Feng, a tragic hero who is one of Jin Yong’s most popular creations. “I said, ‘what is so special about Qiao Feng? Why is everybody mesmerised by this character? What are his characteristics? What are some of the classic lines?’” Yen recalled.

As a director in addition to an actor, Yen sought to make a film that would retain and capture everything fans love about the Qiao Feng character, while also appealing to audiences who might be unfamiliar with Jin Yong’s work. “I want to make an wuxia film that appeals to even those who’ve never [seen] any Jin Yong stories,” Yen said.

Tackling the sprawling story meant some restructuring. Yen said he split Qiao Feng’s arc in two, leaving the door open for a continuation. “By all means if the market enjoys this movie, then we think about maybe a sequel to it, right? But when you watch this movie, it doesn’t feel like part one of two, it’s still a complete, whole movie, so that was the most difficult part,” he said.

Yen has always pushed Hong Kong action cinema onto the world stage, with some comparing his contributions to those of Jackie Chan or Jet Li. Yen allowed himself to take some credit, saying “I believe as…a veteran action filmmaker, I’m very fortunate that a lot of my films have already influenced many action movies, not just in our Chinese action movies industry, but as well as in Hollywood.” Yen will soon be seen in the fourth installment of the Keanu Reeves-starring John Wick series. “I finished John Wick and when I came back, I realised that you know what? All along, Hollywood films have been not only influenced by our movies, but [have] also [been copying them] shot by shot,” Yen said candidly. “We should take pride in what we create, and I think I give myself credit, for the little part that is created by me,” he added.

Jin Yong’s novels are a goldmine of compelling plots and characters that have been explored in numerous film and TV adaptations across decades. Yen sees the potential for movies based on Jin Yong’s stories to be international successes on the scale of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “Everybody loves Hollywood pop culture. I do too, my kids do too. We watch the Marvel movies; we watch the great Disney [movies]. I was in Star Wars. That’s great. But have we ever [stepped] back and look at our own culture and what we have to offer for this industry?” Yen mused.

“If you look at all the Marvel movies, all the big Hollywood productions, all the action and artistic direction and creativity, a lot of them are influenced by our movies, right?” Yen asked rhetorically. “Marvel is Hollywood’s wuxia, but our wuxia movies are richer, more colourful,” he asserted. “There’s so, so [many] possibilities in our own literature and in our own materials. And as a filmmaker and as someone who still has a little bit of influence in the action industry, I’d like to continue to contribute and to have that type of recognition in the world,” Yen proclaimed.

Śakra opens in Singapore theatres on 16 January 2022, with sneaks on 14 and 15 January.

M3gan review

Director: Gerard Johnstone
Cast : Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis, Ronnie Chieng, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jen Van Epps, Stephane Garneau-Monten
Genre: Horror/Sci-fi
Run Time : 102 min
Opens : 4 January 2022
Rating : PG13

What are three things with immense potential for creepiness? Dolls, kids and technology. M3gan might not be the first film to fuse the three, but it might be the first to fuse the three and go viral for a dance its titular character does while in the middle of a killing spree, and that’s worth something.

Gemma (Allison Williams), a brilliant roboticist, works for the toy company Funki. Funki manufactures the Furby-like PurrPetual Petz, but Gemma and her team are developing a secret project: a hyper-realistic robotic doll named the Model 3 Generative Android (Amie Donald, Jenna Davis), or M3gan for short. When Gemma’s sister Ava (Kira Josephson) and her brother-in-law Ryan (Arlo Green) die in a car accident, Gemma becomes the guardian of her niece Cady (Violet McGraw). Gemma introduces M3gan, still in the prototype stage, to Cady, and they soon bond. However, M3gan becomes unpredictable, displaying sinister tendencies. With Gemma’s boss David (Ronnie Chieng) about to unveil M3gan to the world, Gemma realises she might have created a monster.

M3gan is supremely entertaining. From its first moments, the movie demonstrates that it knows what it is. Director Gerard Johnstone, working from a screenplay by Akela Cooper, has a handle on the tone at all times. M3gan sees producers Jason Blum and James Wan, both veterans of the horror genre, putting together a crowd-pleaser and a half. Wan also gets a “story by” credit. M3gan’s trailer prompted some to fear it might be unintentionally funny in the way some horror movies are, but when M3gan is funny, it’s intentional. When M3gan is unsettling, it’s intentional too. And M3gan even succeeds at being genuinely emotional at times. The audience at this reviewer’s screening lapped it all up, laughing and screaming unreservedly. The movie’s PG13 rating means it isn’t aiming for outright gory terror, but it does manage to be effectively unnerving at times. The rest of the time, it’s a roller coaster in the best way. The movie has such an anarchic sense of fun to it and it never lets up, even in its quieter moments.

Crucially, both Allison Williams and Violet McGraw are playing it completely straight, and they give genuinely affecting performances. Williams is convincing as a career-driven woman who is not necessarily cut out to be a guardian, and as such hands the parenting off to a third party. Meanwhile, McGraw feels like an actual kid and not a precocious movie kid, and the moments of conflict between Gemma and Cady, some engineered by M3gan, are uncomfortable to watch. Ronnie Chieng is also a hoot as Gemma’s boss, an arrogant tech bro. The movie’s observations about the dangers of becoming overly reliant on technology, and the false promises and hype of the tech industry, are not especially new, but they work in the context of the story.

M3gan is very formulaic and owes a lot to everything from Child’s Play to Annabelle to the Terminator series. It wears all its influences on its sleeve. There may not be enough here that’s truly original, and horror aficionados looking for something genuinely scary will likely not find it here, but it’s very good at being the thing it’s trying to be: an entertaining time.

Key to M3gan working is its titular character, who became an internet sensation from the moment the first trailer dropped. The character is realised by way of a physical performance by dancer/stunt performer Amie Donald (who was just 11 at the time of filming), the voice of Jenna Davis, and animatronic effects by Wētā Workshop. This comes together to create a character who’s funny, scary and always watchable. Donald’s physicality is impressive, selling M3gan’s uncanny, inhuman quality. Davis’ overly chipper, children’s TV presenter-esque vocal performances effortlessly slides into something more menacing. Meanwhile, the costume design by Daniel Cruden, which Empire Magazine calls “yassified Victorian chambermaid”, adds to the characters distinctiveness. Her old-fashioned dress sense is deliberately at odds with the cutting-edge tech that comprises her.

Summary: M3gan is much more than that one clip of the character dancing in the middle of killing people in an office hallway. The movie is a finely calibrated entertainment machine. It’s funny at times and unsettling at others, and the tonal balance on display is masterful. Allison Williams and Violet McGraw give genuinely affecting performances, playing things completely straight. Meanwhile, a combination of physical performer Amie Donald, voice actress Jenna Davis and animatronic effects bring the title character to vivid life. M3gan is far from particularly original, but it is, if one will pardon the cliché, more than the sum of its parts.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong