Lucy Liu

  • Future World (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2021) I’m not sure that there’s another recognizable actor out there that has directed as many films as James Franco… to so little impact. I’m counting 18 movies (many of them shorts, documentaries or small-budget indies) in his filmography and the only one that earned some attention was the (admittedly good) The Disaster Artist. Franco, of course, has this weird reputation as an intellectual semi-pretentious artist in between sexual misconduct allegations, with some higher-education controversy blending with the allegations. But little intellectual pretension is on display in his Future World, a film that, at best, can be called a modern take on 1980s post-apocalyptic film. Modernity is relative, of course—the production can rely on far better cameras and more equitable diversity in casting and characterization than thirty years ago, but the stupefying mediocrity of the writing remains the same. I’m not sure what Franco did behind the lens—he has co-directing and producing credits, but Bruce Thierry Chung co-directs and co-wrote the film. Perhaps Franco’s biggest contribution was to help put together a recognizable cast. Aside from himself in a small role, we also get walk-on parts for Snoop Dogg, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, Lucy Liu (underused!) and Milla Jovovich (who seems to be the only one having fun in a dour film). As a post-apocalyptic film, Future World deals with the usual dumb clichés of the genre without questioning them, in a wasteland where motorcycles nearly outnumber humans. The cameras are far more mobile than in previous generations, but that’s roughly where the noteworthiness of the execution stops. The rest is just blander than you can imagine, with very little in terms of entertainment or interest. If that’s Franco in entertainment mode, it’s probably best that he remains in the arthouse world for a while longer.

  • The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)

    The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2013) Writer/director/actor RZA’s The Man with the Iron Fists is a welcome throwback to the historical martial-arts fantasy subgenre, with good performances from people you wouldn’t necessarily expect in that kind of film.  While the back-story of RZA’s historical universe is complex, the plot itself becomes a well-assorted series of fights between characters, often with super-natural powers.  RZA himself is a bit dull in the honorific title role, but the film’s most remarkable performances come from scene-stealing Russell Crowe (as “Jack Knife”, a hedonistic western knife-fighter) and Lucy Liu (as a bordello madam not to be crossed), alongside such notables as Rick Yune, Cung Le and Byron Mann.  It’s all meant in good fun, although the strong gore factor takes away a bit of the enjoyment for viewers who like their fighting action to be a bit cleaner.  While The Man with the Iron Fists isn’t all that special in its own subgenre, it’s an endearing attempt as a pastiche, and the American origin of the film doesn’t really betray its indebtedness to an entire genre of Asian cinema.  It may best be seen by viewers who, like me, used to like a lot of that stuff and are now looking for some more.