SXSW2004–Hair High/Azumi

HAIR HIGH If you love twisted animation you have to love Bill Plympton. He’s fuckin’ awesome. He’s completely silly and over the top gross at times, but that’s his charm.

The problem with his full length features is that he can’t keep his momentum going for more than about half an hour or 45 minutes. All of them drop off after that.

Hair High is his new effort. It centers around a pair of young lovers in the 50s who start off as bitter enemies. (Of course. What young lovers don’t?) Spud (Eric Gilliland) accidentally insults Cherri (Sarah Silverman) who happens to be dating the quarterback in their high school. He forces Spud to be Cherri’s personal slave for as long as she deems fit. Of course the two eventually fall in love and all hell breaks loose.

This movie is a lot sweeter than other Plymptoons. The message is basically that love conquers all and not even death can keep true lovers apart. It’s not nearly as graphic or pain inducing as his other films, but, unfortunately, it has all of the same problems. It slows way down about half way through. And, considering the fact that it’s probably his weakest full length feature, that makes it all the worse.

Don’t get me wrong. It is certainly not a bad movie. In fact, it has a lot of really funny moments. It’s just not as good as I Married A Strange Person, The Tune or Mutant Aliens. If you’re a fan you have to see it. If you don’t know the first thing about Bill, check out any of his other stuff first.

He does have a great cast for this one, though. Not only Silverman, but Martha Plimpton, Dermot Mulroney, modern animation great Don Hertzfeldt, Matt Groening, Ed Begley, Jr., Craig Bierko, Keith and David Carradine and Beverly D’Angelo all have at least small roles in the film. Of course, I didn’t recognize a single one of their voices, but they’re all there.

AZUMI

A couple of years ago a buddy of mine and I were walking through a local video store and we kept reading a lot of recommendations saying, “This movie is no Versus, but it’s pretty damn good.” Well, damn! We gotta get this Versus flick!

Nearly two years later I was finally able to find a copy of Versus and gave it a spin. It’s a Samurai-zombie-romantic comedy-gangster flick. While I liked it alright, I thought that it really lost its steam after about 15-20 minutes. After a while it was just a bunch of zombies killing people and themselves with katanas. Nothing too special. And the story was just kinda dumb.

Luckily Ryuhei Kitamura found some real writers for this feature.

During the Tokugawa Era ten young people are called together to be Samurai for the Shogun. They are ordered to train and then run off and kill the leaders of the anti-Tokugawa forces. Azumi (the lovely and talented newcomer Aya Ueto) is the best of the ten. She knows it and so do the other nine.

When they are finally given their mission they set out on a trip that will take some of their lives and make all of them better swordsmen.

The story is great, but the action is what we came to see. Whatever promise that Kitamura may have shown in Versus has finally matured for this one. It has to be one of the best of the modern Samurai films. The blood doesn’t just spurt, it splashes. And the swordplay is amazing. Especially that final fight scene. (Check out the camera work on the bridge! I nearly wet myself.)

Actually, pretty much everything about this film is amazing. The action, costumes, cinematography, acting, characters…everything. When a character was killed, I cared. When an arm was lopped off, I believed it. When the Samurai were forced to pull a Battle Royale, I didn’t want them to do it. Even the anachronistic speech worked because it helped us remember that these characters were just kids and it’s all the more tragic when they die.

Azumi herself was cute as hell and kicked more ass than Uma.

I can’t wait to own this film. Between this, the awesome (and more traditionalist…sort of) Samurai Fiction and the Oscar nominated Twilight Samurai, I guess the Samurai film is coming back to Japan.

As Napoleon Dynamite would say, “AWESSSOME!!”