Benedict Wong

  • Nine Days (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2022) Sparse and cryptic to the point of obtuseness, Nine Days still manages to distinguish itself through a heady fantastic concept, some maybe-profound observations on human nature and some good performances from genre actors we’re used to seeing in less-challenging fare. Much of the story takes place in a small desert house, where a man both watches people’s lives through disparate TV screens of VHS quality, and interviews various candidates for a chance at being reborn. This bardo-set film takes after a specific kind of fantasy – allusive to bigger truths, but debating issues around a kitchen table. It’s odd and will probably frustrate viewers looking for a strictly mimetic, logical narrative. But Nine Days is not that – you have to let yourself go (much like the characters) into a lack of comprehension, logic or consistency in order to appreciate what’s going on here. Moral dilemmas are sometimes explicitly stated (as part of the interviews between our arbiter and the candidates for rebirth) and sometimes become part of the fabric of the film. Few will be surprised to realize that our figure of authority may be in need of some guidance himself – the climax becomes his rather than giving it to another character. Some of the material is frankly pretentious and less effective than planned – there’s a whole discussion about the semi-magical nature of having lived that seems like pure useless nonsense – but some of the rest of the material is lively enough. Nine Days is also effective as an actor’s showcase: not only for lead Winston Duke, but fellow superhero-movie alumni Benedict Wong and Zazie Beetz as well. Beetz quickly gains centre stage – not just because she’s a remarkable beauty, but because she gets to play the character that challenges the authority of the arbiter in ways that supplicant candidates never do. I can see how some may view Nine Days as a profound film tackling big questions in a quirky, approachable format. I wouldn’t go that far – I felt that the script often went all over the place, often being too literal to present the elusive nature of universal truths, and at times too willfully obtuse to be effective – and making use of Whitman quotes shouldn’t count as a climax. But I have to respect the attempt: there is indeed something haunting to the set-up of the film that carries long after the flaws of the execution have faded, and writer-director Edson Oda’s Nine Days does attempt something remarkable.

  • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

    Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, December 2021) We’re at an interesting juncture in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, having concluded the first decade of the series with a climactic event. The focus right now seems to be on building a next generation of characters, burnishing the series’ progressive credentials and trying a few new things in the wake of a conclusion of sorts. As such, maybe a bit of sputtering is inevitable: Black Widow was a reheated plate of déjà vu, while Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is only notable if you’ve never seen anything in the Chinese fantastic martial arts tradition. (Which, admittedly, is probably the case for most western audiences.)  As someone who has watched a lot of eastern fantasy martial arts movies starting back in the early 2000s, I felt more antsy than anything else during much of Shang-Chi’s second half. The first one is clearly better: as an underachieving young man discovers his otherworldly pedigree, the film begins grounded in the here-and-now, with Awkwafina providing a sarcastic audience stand-in as things get weirder and weirder. Simu Liu is fine as the lead, although time will tell if he’s able to parlay this specific success into something more lasting. The top moment of the film has to be a fight aboard a 60-foot articulated bus — having ridden on near-identical buses for a long time, that sequence exceeded my wildest fantasies borne out of transit boredom. But as Shang-Chi’s action moves away from San Francisco to the Chinese supernatural underworld and then another realm entirely, everything felt increasingly familiar, and even Michelle Yeoh can’t make the entire thing stick together — as it went on, Awkwafina’s character felt duller and duller, absent her amazement on behalf of the audience. The final battle felt like a chore more than anything else. Links with the MCU so far are thin — other than Benedict Wong showing up briefly, a few references to the Snap and the usual credit teasers, Shang-Chi is a standalone film meant to launch a new character. In some ways, this lack of satisfaction is inevitable: the series is once again in build-up mode, but the expectations are much higher this time around. Next up is Eternals, although from the vantage point of being a patient viewer, I can already see the very bad reviews for the theatrical release…