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Giri/Haji (2019)
A series of two halves. First half good, second half not so much.
Having something of a fascination with Japan I was looking forward to Giri/Haji from the moment the BBC began its trailers, a month or so before the series' first episode aired.
Sadly after a strong start it falls away episode by episode, with a far-fetched storyline and a lack of likeable characters.
The scenes filmed in Japan with the Japanese cast are far more enjoyable than those filmed in London, as other than Kelly McDonald most of the British cast is annoying, poorly acted or both. Jamie Draven's attempt at a London accent is particularly jarring (is it that difficult for a Mancunian to learn?!) and Charlie Creed-Miles is an amalgam of all the 'Lock Stock and Two smoking barrels' cockney gangsters we've overdosed on since the late '90s, but even less convincing.
A few reviewers have praised Will Sharpe's performance and he does indeed do a memorable turn as half Japanese/half English rentboy Rodney. Why I should actually care about the fate of a cocaine-addicted hedonist that is such a self-centred b*stard that even the love of his life kills himself, is never made clear though.
Kenzo's daughter Taki also gets plenty of screen time, but is a much less engaging character than any of the other Japanese players. The young actress playing her seems to have two emotions, boredom or joy, and very little in between.
Less of Rodney, Taki and entirely superfluous characters like black hitwoman Donna or Taki's girlfriend (BBC PC box-ticking seems the only reason either of them were included) and more of Kenzo's portly detective partner or long-suffering wife Rei would have made the whole thing more focussed and engaging. As others have said it feels like the creators have tried to cram in too much and the series is much less cohesive for it.
Re-make it and set it entirely in Japan with the Japanese cast and it would go from a 7 out of 10 to an 8 or 9 for me, but then I doubt the BBC would have been interested in making it?
A missed opportunity.
The Substitute 2: School's Out (1998)
So bad it's... very very bad
I started watching this on TV tonight and after being amazed that even a TV movie this bad would make it on to the BBC ended up watching nearly the whole thing.
First of all, how many high schools anywhere have their own guard and barbed wire above the entrance to the third floor? And kids whose main purpose for being in school is to take out their History teacher?!! When they're not car-jacking and bringing their new wheels into school to have them modded in 'shop' that is. Then there's the guy who takes Shop, played by BD Wong. Now if you want a bloke who's meant to be so evil that when one of his pupils gets killed (whilst stealing a car for him) he says 'that's the first piece of good news i've had today', why cast a camp bloke of 5'4' as the said baddie?! His tight jumpers and muscular physique make him look more like the barman from the local gay bar than some evil car-jacking mastermind who dabbles in CDT, but there you go.
The shoot-outs (inside the school?!) are classic in their own, badly choreographed, pump thousands of bullets at a target ten metres away and miss, then finally take out the target and mutter something witty like 'one down, three to go', way. Then our hero Treat Williams finally gets cornered by four gun toting bad guys and guess what saves him? A couple of canisters releasing what looks like slowly wafting dry ice so that he can make his escape. Then there's the Vietnam vet janitor who has his own war-chest of old military weapons in the basement, and a semi automatic rifle in the cupboard?!! This film teaches that if you want to get the respect of your knife wielding, car-jacking, substitute teacher killing pupils, then the best way to do so is kill a load of their mates and then knock off their 'shop' teacher for good measure. Then you can walk off, laughing weakly with your adoring niece, as the pupils who have just watched one of their teachers get killed by another stand around mouthing 'wow'. I really hope that whoever wrote this doesn't go into politics.
Oh and Treat Williams, although he does a good job of spouting forth diatribes whilst messing around with a yo-yo, is as wooden an action hero as I've ever seen.
If you want to see a really, really bad film that shouldn't even have made it to 'TV Movie' status then you must watch this. Otherwise avoid it at all costs.