The Age of Shadows

A Korean resistance movement viscerally dissimulates to conflagristically adjudicate Imperial Japanese rule, as a conflicted police captain chants out between two antagonistically united worlds, his identity in flux, his loyalties confessing, cyclonically circumnavigating leveraged windswept extractions, comforts and crucibles psychologically contesting dignity, the oppressors intent on trumping, freedom fighters contacting hillside.

Indigo.

The Age of Shadows sticks to the point.

Betrayals and trusts exfoliating allegiances, time generally isn't wasted discussing the sociopolitical.

Rigidly focused on the goals at hand, it pulls you into its sidewinding struggle unfortunately without blending additional layers of historical commentary.

Its explosive immediacy contentiously compensates, although further insights into its temporal dynamics would have levelled the terrain when it hit bumps in the road.

The chaotic action's well-timed and some of its characterizations stylize penchants of the authoritative and/or the emancipatory, but it drags at points which likely held more meaning for domestic audiences (familiarity with the cast etc.).

Was Lee-Jung-Chool (Kang-ho Song) a brilliant strategist or simply someone who could remain calm under excruciatingly stressful circumstances?

Asylum.

Guts react.

Serpentine suspicions.

Active truth.

Proof of tyranny would have built-up the resistance, although its leader Jung Chae-San (Byung-hun Lee) still offers compelling synchronistic insights.

Nothing breaks his spirit.

Warm blooded will.

Sweetly flowing.

The Last Stand

From what I can tell, the cast and crew of Jee-Woon Kim's The Last Stand had a great time making this film. It's permeated with a congenial sense of professional camaraderie no doubt galvanized by Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to the big screen.

I had a lot of fun watching it.

There's a scene where Luis Guzmán (Mike Figuerola) ballistically and kick-assedly asserts himself. The (former) Governator (Sheriff Ray Owens) squares off with villain Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega) in hand-to-hand combat in the final moments. Johnny Knoxville's (Lewis Dinkum) eccentricities are serendipitously deputized.

And there's a cameo from film legend Harry Dean Stanton.

These components congeal to corporealize an active fast-paced frenetic yet shackled free-for-all, quaintly elevating the inclusive merits of a multicultural small town.

Fun. It's fun.

If it wasn't starring the aforementioned along with Forest Whitaker (Agent John Bannister) and Peter Stormare (Burrell) it may not have been so fun, however; it may have been painful to watch through to the end.

By had a great time making this film, I mean they didn't spend enough time on the script or even bothering to use standard editing procedures (the narrative flow is truncated and uneven [it doesn't seem to be using a truncated uneven narrative flow as a device, although I suppose when Cortez's crew arrives in Sheriff Owens's small town it does disrupt the pastoral harmony]).

The film is an interesting study of improbability nevertheless and in relation to its subject matter the myriad improbabilities do function as distinct complementary bemusements (I'm thinking mostly of the bumbling antics of Agent John Bannister's contingent. The film is meant to salute the strength and integrity of small towns so it makes sense that bureaucratic agencies with vast financial resources would bumble within, but the bumbling could have been handled differently).

It's possible that if it didn't have so much starpower The Last Stand would still be remembered as an oustandingly disorganized entertaining flop.

It might still be remembered this way, and it is fun, but I think fans of Arnold Schwarzenegger films deserve better outputs, a bit more time and care spent crafting the entire film, not just the action, especially at this stage in his career.

Thought Peter Stormare put in the best performance.