‘Broken Rage’
Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.
The director Takeshi Kitano’s “Broken Rage” might be the most original action film I’ve ever seen. A witty parody of the genre, it follows an older Japanese hit man named Mouse (Kitano), who’s forced by detectives to inform on a gangster by becoming the goon’s bodyguard. Mouse is what you expect of a hired gun: quiet, efficient and accurate. Kitano’s keen script, however, is anything but predictable.
The 66-minute film is split into two tidy chapters, with the second part replaying the events of the first, with one exception. Now Mouse is bumbling fool who can’t shoot straight and makes bad choices like drowning the wrong target. The score’s operatic swells further lampoon Mouse’s incompetency, and at points the screen goes totally blank, revealing a livestream of comments angrily decrying the shoddiness of the film. “Broken Rage” stuns as a cunning meta-action movie that strips the genre down to its essentials.
‘Clone Cops’
Another wonderfully silly actioner is the director Daniel Dones’s futuristic adventure “Clone Cops.” The film follows a group of assassins led by the hacker Cipher (Allison Shrum) holed up in a warehouse surrounded by a legion of replicant cops created by a blowhard scientist named Frank (Henry Haggard). Among this group of outlaws is Kinder (Schyler Tillett), an overly eager and clumsy teammate with a secret that will further raise the stakes.
Without spoiling the film completely, let’s just say “Clone Cops” and “The Truman Show” have quite a bit in common, except the former is grimmer and far more violent. Wacky shootouts and an immeasurable body count both entertain, and like “Broken Rage,” cause viewers to question their part in consuming and enjoying such carnage.
‘Desperado’
Years ago, the formidable Chinese hit man Zhou Ke (Chen Guokun), saved his best friend from a drug den owned by Ruan Hao (Banke), the gangster who had murdered Zhou’s wife and child. While the friend escaped, police arriving at the scene captured and imprisoned Zhou.
Nearly a decade later, living as a street clown called Li Fei, Zhou befriends a little girl, Ling Ling (Wang Baotong). His quiet life and their friendship are interrupted when goons sent by his gangster nemesis come after Ling Ling, intent on seizing an incriminating USB drive hidden in her teddy bear.
As you can probably tell, there are plenty of twists and turns in Cheng Siyu’s “Desperado,” and they are supported by stylistic fights reminiscent of the films of John Woo. In the opening, blood-soaked raid, for instance, Zhou Ke mows down a barrage of gangsters with lightning-quick efficiency. The playful camera that crash zooms on most of his bruising hits and quick movements is contrasted by slow motion sequences that savor his best punches. The rest of “Desperado” has a similar tenacity, offering the kind of meat and potatoes Hong Kong action that’s still a joy to see.
‘Demon City’
In the opening scenes of Seiji Tanaka’s “Demon City,” an adaptation of Masamichi Kawabe’s series “Onigoroshi,” the soon-to–retired Japanese assassin Sakata (Toma Ikuta) fresh from his final job, arrives home to find masked killers. They’ve come to murder his wife and child and, in the belief that he is a fabled demon, shoot him in the head. Miraculously, Sakata doesn’t die. Like Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill: Volume 1,” he lives in a vegetative state for years before reawakening to seek revenge.
Despite its last-act twist, the action itself is straightforward and physical. When a crooked cop comes to murder the newly conscious Sakata in his hospital bed, Sakata makes his body rigid, engaging in a robotic tussle that feels true to the character and yet thrilling. Later, when he is fully limber, he raids a mansion belonging to Sunohara (Matsuya Onoe), the mayor of Shinjo City and the head of the masked bandits. Here Ikuta’s character becomes unstoppable, taking a metal pipe to the face, big hits and gushing stab wounds to power a gnarly freakout that matches the film’s demonic name.
The director Jason Krawczyk’s home invasion thriller “Don’t Mess With Grandma” is a fun take on the genre. Here Michael Jai White portrays J.T., a hulking but tender grandson working to protect his unassuming Granna (Jackie Richardson) from a team of incompetent thieves led by Stan (a delightfully cartoonish Billy Zane), who’ve come dressed in pig masks to steal her valuable taxidermied bear.
As you’d expect “Don’t Mess with Grandma” doesn’t take itself too seriously. The film relies on slapstick action comedy, buoyed by tumbling pratfalls and sidesplitting blows that feel ripped from “The Three Stooges.” Equally hilarious is J.T.’s determination to keep his Granna from finding out about the increasing number of thieves flocking to her house. White is unflinchingly rugged in Krawczyk’s film, doling out broken limbs and bruised egos — and lots of love for Granna.
