SXSW2003–Assassination Tango/Fulltime Killer

Like last night, tonight I had a theme night. It was assassin night for me! Assassination Tango is the new film from Robert Duvall. He wrote, directed and starred in this story of a hitman (John J) who is sent to Argentina to kill a public leader. He really wants to get home in time for his near-daughter’s 10th birthday (she’s his girlfriend’s daughter, but they love each other almost more than he and his girlfriend do).

While he’s in Argentina (the trip ends up being weeks instead of days–he misses the birthday) he meets Manuela (Luciana Pedraza, Duvall’s real-life girlfriend and Argentinean Sandra Bullock), a free-spirited tango dancer. John has always been a tango dancer (like Duvall), but he wants to do it like the originators of the dance. He takes some lessons and the two end up forming a bond that’s stronger than it really should be.

When he meets her family sparks really fly. Her sister is an even better dancer than she is (she’s played by one of the top tango dancers in the world) and her aunt is a very cool older woman who also dances and has a theory on everything in life.

It’s a pair of interesting stories going on here. You’ve got a hitman who is having problems with the job and his family AND you’ve got a man who really wants to learn about the tango. Now, here’s the problem. That’s two separate movies. They’re squished together in such a way here that they don’t always fit together. Oh well. It’s still kind of a cool (if a bit slow) movie.

The dancing is awesome. Luciana has only been dancing for about 5 or 6 years, but she looked like a fucking pro. Duvall’s been doing this for years and years. He’s great.

And speaking of Duvall, what was up with his character? Was he stupid? Obviously not, because he was one of the top guys for his boss. But he falls for the dumbest trick in the book. When he initially turns down the job, his boss tells him that he had thought of someone else for the job. Of course that gets his ego going and he takes the job because “it has to be done right.”

Dumbass. Just goes to show ya: reverse psychology does work.

And what was up with his hair? It looked like he was using Connery’s Zardoz toupee.

But anything that these things take away from the movie is given back anytime any of the Spanish actors are on screen. They were so real that it was hard to remember that they weren’t all related. The scenes seem to be improvised very well. But a lot of them were scripted. But some of the best ones actually weren’t.

The end was a little too neat, but it was almost open ended. Not for a sequel or anything like that, but just kind of unconcluded. Luckily, the second film of the night was much better. (I did like Assassination Tango, it just wasn’t as good as it could have been.)

Fulltime Killer is a fun little Hong Kong flick that was written by a guy from Austin!

Joey O’Bryan moved to LA from Austin a few years back because he wasn’t getting anywhere with his film career here. He had worked on Once Upon A Time In China And America here in Texas, so he got a job as Sammo Hung’s assistant on “Martial Law.” Sammo introduced him to Johnnie To (director of such latter-day HK classics as Running Out Of Time, A Hero Never Dies and The Mission). The two hit it off and decided to work on an adaptation of Ho Cheung Ping’s novel about two assassins competing for the number one spot.

O (Takashi Sorimachi) is a Japanese killer who is very calculating and precise. He goes in, gets the job done and leaves. Plenty of witnesses at times, but none who can identify him. (He even kills an old friend from high school because he saw him kill his target.)

Tok (HK superstar, Andy Lau) is just about the exact opposite of O. He is pretty much insane. He will go in, kill the target with a lot of flair and ceremony and basically scare the shit out of anyone around. He loves his job just a little too much.

In the middle of the fight is Chin (Kelly Lin), a young housekeeper who was hired by O to take care of his cover apartment. He hasn’t stepped foot in there in a few years, but he needs some place to send the cops if they catch up with him.

And Inspector Lee (Simon Yam) is after both of the guys since they’re hitmen and all. But he’s a little bit incompetent, so they’re never really in any danger of being caught.

Johnnie To really knows how to film this kind of over the top and weird action. His films tend to have some really strange twists to them that no one ever predicts. This one goes through all of the clichés of an action flick, but it turns them around just a bit to make them new. It’s a really cool movie. Not great, but cool.

The only problems I had were with the languages. They all seemed to just arbitrarily change languages. The cops all spoke English (the female cop actually seemed to have an Australian accent!). Why? Who knows? And Andy Lau’s English is so broken that you have to sweep it up to understand it. I still had to read the subtitles.

And of course there’s the problem with the film. At some point near the end the film suddenly went upside-down! They had spliced part of it in wrong. It took them 40 minutes (at least) to fix it while we all sat impatiently. But the wait was (pretty much) worth it. It’s a cool movie and I’m glad I saw it on the big screen with Joey (who is actually a friend of a friend) in attendance.