Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This was a productive week in One Piece writing, as I finally broke down the main thematic concerns of Fishman Island over on Crunchyroll. I’ve frankly wanted to write that piece ever since I first watched the series, so I was happy to use the recent Fishman Island “update” as an excuse for it, even if I’d caution against actually using that update to replace the original series. I frankly agree the arc could use some tightening, but they just cut too close to the bone here – the central flashback sequence desperately needs time to breath, and this version resultantly loses the impact of Koala’s presence. Nonetheless, it’s exciting to be back in Egghead as the anime jumps back into gear, and as usual, my weekly anime viewings were complimented by a fun scattering of films. Let’s break ‘em down!
With an Easter Sunday 4/20 to celebrate, I was scrambling to find an appropriately holiday-themed yet still fundamentally watchable film, and eventually landed on Night of the Lepus. In this improbable creature feature, a plan to stop an invasive swarm of rabbits goes terribly awry, as one hormone-injected rabbit ends up breeding an entire army of massive, flesh-eating bunnies. With an army of Peter Rabbits on their tail, humanity will have to come together to face the most adorable invading force the world has ever seen.
Night of the Lepus was apparently panned on release for its poor performances, unconvincing effects, and utter inability to make domestic rabbits seem at all frightening. As a modern viewer, my response to these complaints is akin to Luffy’s “why are you listing all its best qualities” – Night of the Lepus is almost categorically incapable of scaring anyone, but it is nonetheless an absolute divine time at the dollar drive-in.
The film’s great stroke of “brilliance” is that instead of making practical rabbit monsters or convincing rabbit prosthetics, its producers elected to build miniature towns and roadways for domestic rabbits to “rampage” over. The results are as charming as you might expect; the bunnies are adorable, their “violence” basically just consists of hopping playfully across train model sets, and the human actors’ histrionic responses to them only heightens the humor. Plus, any close-up confrontations between bunnies and humans are handled by actors in unconvincing bunny fur, in a manner extremely similar to this iconic knockout. An absolute gem of terrible cinema.
Next up was Ne Zha, a Chinese animated fantasy whose sequel has recently been blowing up all sorts of box office records. The film centers on a boy who is cursed from birth, his body imbued with a Demon Orb that ensures he will usher chaos wherever he goes. Not knowing of his cursed fate, Ne Zha works to prove himself a hero, until he ultimately must face off with both a celestial death sentence and the bearer of his opposing Spirit Pearl.
Ne Zha made for an altogether agreeable viewing, combining intriguing Buddhist folklore with an energetic, lighthearted style reminiscent of the better Dreamworks features. Ne Zha himself proves one of the film’s greatest strengths; as a boy predisposed towards violence who nonetheless looks for the best in both himself and others, he proves a satisfyingly layered protagonist, a character who convincingly appears as either hero or demon depending on your perspective.
The film’s humor is definitely hit or miss, relying heavily on scatological simplicity and frequently holding punchlines for an awkwardly prolonged half-beat. That comedy stands in stark contrast with the film’s moral conflicts, which are all satisfyingly thorny, and frequently leave the impression that it is the gods and their representatives who are entirely at fault for the suffering of both Ne Zha and the ostensible villains. Plus the action scenes are simply gorgeous, dazzling through active cinematography and lushly animated CG spectacle. On the whole, Ne Zha is simply an excellent family fantasy; it doesn’t break or reinvent any rules, but it marshals its resources skillfully, making strong use of both its compelling source material and dynamic combat choreography.
We then checked out Mr. Nice Guy, a ‘97 action-comedy featuring Jackie Chan and directed by his frequent collaborator Sammo Hung. Chan stars as beloved TV chef Jackie, who gets mixed up in a gang war between the Italian mob and the confusingly costumed “Demons” when a tape of his performance is switched for one revealing a bloody cocaine deal gone wrong. Chaos swiftly ensues, as Jackie is chased around Melbourne, does some chasing himself to save his girl, and ultimately confronts an army of ne’er-do-wells in a marvelously gymnast-friendly construction site.
Mr. Nice Guy’s origins as a would-be Police Story sequel are clear in its crime drama plot; just subtract two scenes of Jackie halfheartedly molding dough and you’ve basically already got a detective drama. But though features like this are relatively common in Jackie’s filmography, Sammo’s understanding of his friend’s talents and affinity for comedy give Mr. Nice Guy that special sauce, elevating it into the top shelf of Jackie films.
Crucial to Mr. Nice Guy’s success is its skillfully accommodating set design. Again and again throughout the film, Jackie is presented with buildings constructed like funhouses or jungle gyms, venues clearly designed to facilitate his mixture of physical dexterity and slapstick comedy. At one point, he is pursued by mobsters through a structure that’s seemingly constructed only of hallways and doors, all closely arranged such as to make it impossible to actually get anywhere. What purpose could this facility serve? None beyond making Jackie look good, and in that goal it succeeds marvelously: Jackie flips between and hides behind doors like a Scooby Doo character, fully embodying his role as the king of action comedy. A basically perfect Jackie spectacle.
Last up for the week was The Dark and the Wicked, a recent horror film written and directed by Bryan Bertino of The Strangers fame. Marin Ireland and Michael Abbot Jr. star as a pair of adult siblings returning to their family home, drawn back by the worsening condition of their bedridden father. Upon arriving, they find their mother is also seemingly threatened by some supernatural presence, and soon hangs herself under implausible, mysterious circumstances. The entity haunting their farm then swiftly turns its attention to the siblings, actively mocking them as it tears the slates and mortar of their decaying home.
The Dark and the Wicked is just a plain old-fashioned story of bad things happening to good people, and for that it has my respect. The film’s lush cinematography adds a sense of beauty and grandeur to its central farm, but the course of the narrative pushes back against any sense of this haunting being fated, earned, or really anything but unfortunate happenstance. God is called upon, but he does not reply; if there is some divine force meant to protect us, it has conspicuously missed this farm. Here, there is only the certainty of decay, and the hunger of a force beyond our understanding.
Ireland and Abbott Jr. both put in convincingly fatigued performances as siblings who’ve strayed from both their parents and each other, only brought together through the necessity of settling their parents’ affairs. Their small acts of selfishness and attempts to make right feel exceedingly human; it would be easy to frame the film’s conflict around attempted escape from rural life, but neither sibling has anything against either their parents or their old home. The lack of some explanation for the siblings’ troubles is one of the film’s greatest strengths; neither secular morality nor religion can explain the plague upon their home, and the very senselessness of their sentence makes it all the more frightful and terrible. There are larger forces in this world, but they do not care for us; all we can do is make the best of what we have, and hope not to attract the eye of something hungry and terrible.
