The Night Comes For Us (Timo Tjahjanto, Indonesia, 2018)

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An ultra-violent, slick, non-stop action-fest distributed by Netflix, The Night Comes For Us is another of the streaming company’s 2018 triumphs, and another jewel in the Crown of Indonesia’s Brand of brutal, kinetic and brilliantly choreographed action films. Directed by Timo Tjahjanto (Headshot) and starring three alumni of The Raid duology, Joe Taslim, Iko Uwais and Julie Estelle is a gore-tastic treat for action fans.

In the seas of Southeast Asia, the Triads enforce their ruthless grip over the illegal businesses (drug-dealing, gun-running, human-trafficking and other such enterprises) by sending six delegates to make sure things run smoothly in all the countries where the Triads have a hand in. Known as the Six Seas, these enforcers go as far as murdering entire villages if the locals are caught stealing from the Triads supplies. Jakarta gangster, Ito (Joe Taslim) is one of the Six Seas and very effective on his job, until one day he snaps. Facing down a little girl called Reina (Asha Kenyeri Bermudez), the sole survivor of the most recent victim of his purges, Ito decides to spare her and gun down his own men. On the run after his betrayal, he returns to Jakarta and with the help of his former best friend Fatih (Abimana Aryasatya) and fellow associates (including Zack Lee as the memorable “White Boy” Bobby) tries to get new passports and money to start a new life far away from the Triad’s reach. However, fellow Six Seas Chien Wu (Sunny Pang) sends his own army after Ito and Reina, and personally commands Ito’s ambitious former friend and up-and-coming enforcer, Arian (Iko Uwais), to liquidate the traitor.

What follows is setpiece after setpiece of bone-crushing, throat slicing, disemboweling, head smashing action, as Ito and company fight back against Chien Wu’s seemingly endless supply of blade-wielding mooks. Besides these disposable tin soldiers, Chien Wu has under his employ a pair of psycho lesbians, Alma (Dian Sastrowardoyo, with a bob haircut, Mia Wallace outfit, Anime villain contempt for inferiors and a razor-wire lasso) and Helena (Hannah Al Rashid, Caucasian with Viking-style long hair shaved on one side and a fondness for Kukri knives), who are among the most terrifying badasses you have seen. Complicating matters is the appearance of the also incredibly badass Operator (Julie Estelle), a bike riding lady with a spy catsuit and a leather jacket who also makes mincemeat out of a couple people and whose motives are completely different from those of Chien Wu’s.

Picking a favorite action scene in this film is quite difficult, for there are a ton of them. Personally, I quite enjoyed the onslaught on Fatih’s apartment before the halfway mark, and the badass fighting between the ladies. Joe Taslim is a force of nature here, bleeding copious amounts of blood while also serving some unbelievable destruction in a very mean manner. He goes toe to toe with Uwais, who gets to play a (conflicted) antagonist. The neon-noir backdrop in both Macau nightclubs and Jakarta’s docks plants this film aesthetically within the range of the Raid movies and Johnnie To’s brilliant films like Fuk Sau and Drug War, so needless to say that the photography and set design are gorgeous. The use of props is also terrific: if you see it on screen, it can be used as a weapon, even the net for the pool table. Fair warning to those accustomed to traditional, modern-day Western action cinema: this is an extremely gory movie that I do not recommend watching while eating anything. Every creative way of slicing and hacking in every part of the body is demonstrated here and with thorough realism.

The Night Comes For Us is an over-the-top heroic bloodshed film in which plotting, motivation and the distinction between the good guys and bad guys are defined by a very thin line: the good guys want to save a little girl, the bad guys want to kill her. Other than that, both sides are involved in awful criminal activity and have no problem slaughtering people in brutal ways in the midst of combat. Throw your silly expectations of realism and fully embrace the pulverizing, blood-drenched, yet very stylish and graceful power of Indonesian action.

P.S. It was released on my birthday. How cool is that?

Music Review/Essential Mexican Records: "Caifanes" (Caifanes, Mexico, 1988)

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Caifanes burst into the scene at the right moment. While Rock music had a moment in the sun between the mid-50’s and early 70’s, a government crackdown on the legendary musical festival Avandaro led to the suppression of stations and distribution of Mexican Rock, as part of the PRI’s attempt at quelching what they viewed as radical Left-wing subversion and the importation of foreign ideals into the pure cultural landscape of Mexico. The belief that the Mexican Rock bands were contaminating culture and society based on their street language, use of Spanglish (or just plain English in cases like that of bands like the Dug Dugs) and lyrics about every-day, gritty lifestyles was also an essential part of this onslaught. Mexican Rock musicians did not disappear between the early 70’s and the late 80s, but they went underground, their songs released independently and shows played at small or medium sized venues in the major cities. 

Caifanes (at this time made up by singer/guitarist/main composer Saul Hernández, bassist Sabo Romo, drummer Alfonso André and keyboardist Diego Herrera) was influenced musically, lyrically and fashion-wise by the alternative British music scene of the time, and they named-checked Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, The Cure and Bauhaus as some of their influences. The album’s cover serves as an unequivocal proof of this: a black and white photograph of the band in moody poses, all dressed in black, three of them with Robert Smith-style manes of hair, their pale skins contrasting with their eyeliner. They looked like British exports and a lot of people were turned off by their appearance. Little did they know that the band was made up of lower class Mexican kids who grew up listening to the same music as most Mexicans did: Agustín Lara, Pérez Prado, Javier Solís and Los Panchos. Their debut album, which features many of their most famous song, is testament to these mestizaje, a manifestation of Mexico’s dual nature: equally European and Amerindian. The band's name is a reference to the classic 1966 Mexican film, one of the first films of that decade's burgeoning counterculture.

A droning sound. Heavy breathing. A drumroll. A victorious cry. That’s the beginning of “Matenme porque me muero” ("Kill Me Because I’m Dying"), Caifanes’ blistering, no hostages taken opening track to their self-titled 1988 debut album. The song’s cheeky title recalls Tin-Tan’s farcical 1958 comedy film and perfectly encapsulates the band’s ethos: bridging its Goth, Post-Punk influences with the Mexican tradition of romantic fatalism. Drenched in an atmosphere of melancholy, it’s lyrics speak of the sweet embrace of dying while issuing a declaration of devoted love for the ages: “When I’m dead and they have to bury me, I want to be buried with one of your photographs/So I’m not afraid to be down there/So I don’t forget your face/So I can keep feeling a little bit alive”.

Caifanes redoubles their efforts while doing a slight tempo change. “Te estoy mirando” (“I’m WatchingYou”) starts up as an up-tempo bopping beat with some Calypso influences, and then it shifts into a straightforward Goth ballad, with its nighttime piano tinkling and driving bass. The third track is “La Negra Tomasa”, Caifanes’s first single and monster hit that turned them into a household name. A cover of a song written by Cuban composer Guillermo Rodríguez Fiffe, it  sold 600,000 pressings. The song was picked by Caifanes and crafted as a Rock-Cumbia to show their connection with their lower-class Mexico City upbringings and as an amusing reminder that, while influenced by Joy Division and the Cure, they were capable of tapping into the fun, festive side of Latin American popular music without missing a beat (they open their concerts with the song as well, originally because they thought it was fun to throw people off with their most un-Rock song). Rock purists in Mexico were furious and called them sell-outs, but the song introduced them to a wider audience and remains one of their most loved. The bouncing beat that doesn’t leave your ears for days, Hernandez’s lovelorn delivery and an epic three minute musical breakdown that included a flute and a very sexy saxophone sound makes it one of the definitive Rock Cumbia songs ever made in Mexico.

They return to their darker side with the gothic paean to heart-break induced depression in “Cuentame tu vida” (“Tell Me About Your Life”), a song that conveys a universe of jagged sounds, man-as-a-sick-crawling dog (comparisons between dogs/wolves and men are a recurring Caifanes motif and eventually became the band's logo), alienated street-living and overwhelming obsession. Typical of Caifanes, the chorus sounds upbeat, but the verses bring them back to a purgatory of their own making. It’s a song that packs more hooks and musical changes in four minutes and twenty-five seconds that a lot of artists can do in their musical careers. “Sera por eso” (“Maybe That Is Why”) ups the ante and is the song that sounds more like a straightforward Post-punk ballad. The song’s narrator (singing in a graver, more downbeat tone than usual) is an alienated man and it’s a touching song by way of its lyrics and music. It’s imagery of electroshocks (given to him, sings the narrator, partly because he refuses to shave) and dissociative reality was unlike anything heard in mainstream Mexican music at the time, and one wonders how 1988’s nascent Caifanes fans took this song in.  The killer saxophone outro and Hernández's enigmatic, chilling laugh at the end close the track in great fashion.

The crowning jewel of this album, as far as I’m concerned, is the amazing “Viento” (“Wind”) a song that stands out because it sounds different from the rest of the album, for it is neither a Latin-influenced number nor an example of British post-punk, but a thrilling, romantic song about devotion towards a loved one. The lyrics are beautiful and so vulnerable, greatly aided by Hernandez’s soft-delivery, a rhythm section that evokes a feeling of hopefulness and longing in equal measure and a chorus that plainly states that love knows no limits: “I want to orbit around the planets/Till I come across one that's empty/For I wish to live there/Just as long it is with you/Time, bind us together/Time, stop for many years”. In here you can tell the influence of Javier Solís, the greatest interpreter of beautiful romantic imagery that sometimes bordered on the psychedelic.

The following two tracks foreshadow the band’s direction in their following album, a sound that can only be described as “Pre-Hispanic Rock”, since the arrangements and soundscape sound like what Aztecs would have played if they have dabbled in Rock music, an apt description for the signature style that Caifanes is remembered for. “Nunca me voy a transformar en ti” (“I’ll Never Turn Into You”) is a forceful, defiant statement about being influenced by negative forces around us, be they society, family or broken relationships. “Perdí mi ojo de venado” (“I Lost My Deer’s Eye”) is a reference to a folk remedy from southern Mexican Indians, and has a very fun chorus that is based off a very Mexican series of rhyming prayers to Catholic saints and a great flute sound coming from Herrera’s keyboards.

The last three tracks that close the record are my least favorite, and they are still terrific pieces of work. “Amanece” (“It’s Dawning”), “La Bestia Humana” (“The Human Beast”) and “Nada” (“Nothing”) close the musical statement that is “Caifanes” with moody, but highly charged statements of independence, yearning and embracing the alienation and loneliness of the human condition. Of these three songs, “La bestia humana” is a standout for two reasons: the singing narrator’s angry statement that the manipulations and cruelty of his beloved are turning him into a jaded, angry human beast; and the fact that none other than Gustavo Cerati, that Argentinean giant of Latin Rock music, is featured playing guitar with that unmistakable sound that made Soda Stereo one of the all-time great Rock bands in Latin America. His influence can be felt in the arrangements and in the precise, funky work of Sabo's bass and André's drumming.

“Caifanes” is one of the best debut albums I’ve heard and with not a single track I could call “weak” and definitely one of the most momentous records in Mexican musical history. The whole band is on fire, and Sabo, Romo, Herrera and Hernández mesh together fantastically. It was one of the albums that kicked off the mainstream revival of Rock music in Mexico and it would be followed by many other terrific bands during the 90s. A great musical statement, it was also the first and last album in which Caifanes would wear their British influences up their sleeves. They were a band that changed their style with every record, and their following album has more of moody folk-Nahuatl influence than a lot of the moody British influence that’s present here. As a work of fusion between different genres and musical sensibilities, “Caifanes” remains unmatched and is my personal favorite of their four albums.

5/5

Runtime: 45:56 (note: the CD edition I own, courtesy of the “Recupera tus clásicos” line, includes three bonus tracks: an alternate version of “Matenme porque me muero”, the radio version of “La Negra Tomasa” and mono versions of “La bestia humana” and “Matenme…”)

Tracks Ranked and Rated:

1.      Viento (5/5) (.5+ because it's one of my all-time favorite songs)

2.      Matenme porque me muero (5/5)

3.      Sera por eso (5/5)

4.      Cuentame tu vida (5/5)

5.      Perdí mi ojo de venado (5/5)

6.      Te estoy mirando (4.5/5)

7.      La Negra Tomasa (4.5/5)

8.      Nunca me voy a transformar en ti (4.5/5)

9.      La bestia humana (4/5)

10.    Amanece (4/5)

11.    Nada (3.5/5)

Emotions: moody, romantic, yearning, alienated, introspective, defiant, melancholy, angry, hopeful, playful, cheeky.

Nemesis (Albert Pyun, Denmark-USA, 1993)

 

When I first saw this film’s poster I thought to myself “I needed to watch this movie like yesterday.” It took me more time to get around to it, and by that time I had seen the trailer and became aware that it was directed by that B-movie genre maestro Albert Pyun. I confess that I have only seen Pyun’s “Captain America” when I was so much younger than today, but I had read enough about his reputatio: directing an unholy amount of films per year, a lot of story and technical ambition and a sensibility that skews towards cyborgs and sword and sorcery. So, my kind of guy. Reading bits and pieces about “Nemesis” (released in Japan in 92 and in the rest of the world in 93) I discovered that the film’s visual effects supervisor was Gene Warren Jr., who was also the visual effects for “Terminator 2”, a heavy influence on this movie. These reviewers said that the effects felt really short compared to T2, but I don’t see them as detrimental to the film as they do (I’ll get back to that in the end of this review). However, the convoluted storyline and confusing character motivations do a bit of damage, overpowering what I felt was a cracking shoot-em-up with some awesome stylish elements.

The film is set in Los Angeles, 2027. It is a cyberpunk hellscape, with enhanced humans, people who use their bodies to smuggle data and very human looking and behaving androids. Cyborgs also exist, including our film’s morally ambiguous protagonist, Alex Raine (Olivier Gruner) an LAPD agent/assassin who is really good at his job. He is introduced in the middle of a violent standoff with members of a terrorist group called The Red Army Hammerheads. He is more machine than man now, as pointed out by the leader of the cell of Hammerheads he mostly succeeds in killing, before she shoots him down. Repaired and reconstructed, Raine later leaves the service and tries his hand in the black market in Brazil, only to be captured and compelled into service for the LAPD (which has way too much power and jurisdiction here) once more by his old superior, commissioner Farnsworth (Tim Thomerson) who plants a time bomb in Raine’s heart to convince him. Raine has to track down the leadership of the Hammerheads and his former superior/lover, Jared, an android, who has smuggled some data about the security of a meeting between the United States and Japan, who are planning on merging into a single country. But once Alex is in Java, he uncovers more twists and turns.

The plot, like I said, is ridiculously complicated and the film shifts character motivations at the drop of a hat. What’s worse, named characters are introduced and killed or dropped in a flash (including the hero’s dog, which seemed to be more important at first). There are also some really odd choices, like having a white female character speak in pidgin Japanese with no discernible reason or textual justification. The script definitely needed some paring down, because following these people around is a bit frustrating. It is obvious that the film is bursting with some great ideas such as the nature of humanity, the effects and possibilities of trans-humanism, duty, etc. On the flip side, I greatly enjoyed the atmospheric, golden-hour look of the film and the image of badasses in suits and ties (and even a mini-dress!) and hi-tech sunglasses firing Desert Eagle pistols (and similar heavy and futuristic variants), shotguns, machine guns, rocket launchers and so forth. This is a futuristic Heroic Bloodshed film and the choreography is great and it has some delightful over-the-top moments: two bad guys shoot through a wall by drawing silhouettes with their machine guns, something I’ve only seen in cartoons; Alex does the “shoot the floor” trick to get away from some baddies a whopping five or six times in a row (we watch him go down while he keeps firing through every floor). The bullets never run out. There’s every combination of weaponry, martial arts and kickassery imaginable. And the women are all jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The actresses include Marjorie Monaghan, Deborah Shelton, Jennifer Gatti, Merle Kennedy and Blair Valk, most of them regulars of 90’s Star Trek TV Shows. The supporting cast includes Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brion James (doing a bonkers German accent), Yuji Okumoto and brief appearances from Sven Ole-Thorsen, Thomas Jane and Jackie Earle Haley.

The visual effects are pretty good for a film of a lower budget than Hollywood (it was produced by Imperial Entertainment, but it had been on Pyun’s head since working for Cannon in the mid-80’s, although in different versions than this one) and the final confrontation with an exoskeleton is pretty well done. Actually, I find it even more commendable, considering the budget. There are a lot of splendid set pieces that involve an insane amount of explosions (everything explodes when fired at in this movie, kind of like in 90s videogames) and even an industrial chimney falls down and almost crushes our heroes. Pyun is also good at staging conversation scenes in a manner that you don’t even see nowadays, with some really nice tracking shots throughout. There’s also body horror galore (cybernetic eyes and pulled out to be inspected) and lots of gore: cyborgs and androids, when they get shot, turn into awful messes, and we see disembodied torsos and faces torn apart, half muscle, half metal, and really bloody. The film takes a lot of elements from a wide variety of movies like “Robocop”, T2, “Blade Runner” and “Escape From New York”, and it mostly works, although I think Pyun got confused because the terms cyborgs and androids are used interchangeably (that is to say, androids, which are robots with human skin and blood, are called cyborgs, which gets confusing, especially because they are also capable of sexual activity). Another fascinating aspect of the film: male characters have traditionally female names (Michelle, Angie, Marion) and female characters have traditional male names (Jared, Max, Julian).

All and all, a film that, despite some frustrating aspects, is a lot of fun to watch, and at its thrilling speed you don’t even feel the time go by. For fans of cyberpunk, heroic bloodshed, corporate/political warfare, retro-futuristic fashion and the human form. Recently released on Blu-Ray by MVD Visual, which includes 3 different cuts. Also, the poster really is a gorgeous piece of work that I want on my wall.