2021 Blow Out: Giants & Toys, Running Against the Wind, Menace II Society, The Millionaires’ Express (REVIEW)

Here at Geek Show Towers we don’t always get the time to cover everything we’re sent. In the interests of greeting the new year with a clear desk, here’s a round-up of some of the most noteworthy discs we didn’t get round to. Each of them is from a different country, each of them is from a different label, and each is a demonstration of how committed those labels are to giving older, obscure, cult or unchampioned films the royal treatment – this, during the supposed death of physical media.

Anyone looking for something truly unusual to kick off another year’s movie-watching with could do a lot worse than Arrow Video’s Blu-Ray of Giants & Toys, a wild advertising industry comedy from Yasuzo Masumura. Better known for controversial and harrowing dramas like Red Angel (which is due to be released by Arrow in January), Masumura proves to be equally adept at the kind of eye-bogglingly colourful Pop Art satire then being practiced by American directors like Frank Tashlin and William Klein. It is, perhaps, more energetic than it is funny, but it’s full of memorable images, and its essential moral – manufacturing an image is easy, but controlling it is hard – rings just as true in the social media age. Japanese cinema scholars Tony Rayns, Irene Gonzalez-Lopez and Earl Jackson appear in the extras.

For all its originality, Giants & Toys does perhaps fit a certain Western image of Japanese movies – all broad strokes and mad invention – so it’s nice to see Eureka’s Montage imprint continuing to introduce us all to the cinema of countries we don’t have a lazy stereotype for yet. Running Against the Wind is a film from Ethiopia, a coming-of-age drama about two childhood friends with very different dreams – one wants to be a runner, the other a photographer – reuniting in later life. For all the hardships they’re subjected to, this is pleasingly different to the Comic Relief image of Ethiopia, taking place mostly in the country’s bustling capital Addis Ababa. It’s slightly too long at two hours and the disc is bare-bones, but sports fans should get a lot of enjoyment out of it – not least during the cameo by Ethiopia’s legendary long-distance runner Haile Gebrselassie.

Running Against the Wind goes to some dark places, but it always maintains a hope that escape is possible – something notably absent from the most famous film in this list, Menace II Society. Once the cause of much controversy, Albert and Allan Hughes’s debut film is now canonical enough to be released on Blu-Ray by Criterion UK, but don’t assume time has made it less confrontational. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a film that makes guns look so dangerous – the murders in this film are so indiscriminate and so casual that you get a cold feeling of absolute dread every time someone pulls a piece. That does, of course, mark it out as a more moral film than its initial detractors would allow. You’re always tempted to describe Menace II Society as a nihilistic film, but the nihilism unquestionably comes from the characters’ twisted values and aimless rage, rather than the directors. The usual question surrounding gangster films – does it glamourise the lifestyle? – is barely worth asking here; anyone who joins a gang because they saw Menace II Society is already a psychopath.

There is a certain influence from the white gangster canon detectable in the film – remarkable to think that Goodfellas was less than three years old when this was released, though – but it’s never derivative, and always convinces as a response to a social situation rather than a response to the directors’ favourite movies. Despite being roped into a general moral panic about gangsta rap, Menace II Society was made early enough in that cycle to have a very eclectic soundtrack: Ice Cube and DJ Quik, yes, but also Al Green, George Clinton and Marvin Gaye. Credit, too, to its extraordinary, utterly committed cast, who disappear so completely into their roles that you might get to the end credits before realising you’ve been watching a pre-“Smith” Jada Pinkett. No mistaking Samuel L Jackson, though, who even before Pulp Fiction was a name formidable enough to give a real showcase of a cameo to.

It’s a great film, but it’s nobody’s idea of light viewing. Fortunately our last film is The Millionaires’ Express, proving once again that there is no more straightforward joy than a Eureka Blu-Ray of a 1980s Hong Kong martial arts comedy. Directed by Sammo Hung, it’s a wild mish-mash of Western parody, sex comedy, crime caper and, of course, truly unforgettable stuntwork. There are probably sketch comedy films with a more consistent tone and plot – but who cares when the opening scene offers you the sight of a near-naked Sammo rolling down a snowy hill while fighting actor, singer and Hou Hsaio-Hsien regular Kenny Bee, eventually rolling themselves into a massive snowball that they have to punch their way out of? The presence of American action star Cynthia Rothrock in a cameo role, as well as the rising profile of Hong Kong cinema in general, prompted the creation of several international cuts, no less than four of which are assembled here, absolutely none of which will make the film any less dazzlingly insane.

THANKS FOR READING GRAHAM’S REVIEWS OF MENACE II SOCIETY AND MORE IN THIS 2021 BLOW-OUT. SEE YOU ALL IN 2022!

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