The saga of my foot injury continues. Lately I have had two nuclear medicine tests. The first was a bone scan, which required a shot of radioactive dye. Three hours later I had to return to the hospital for the actual scan. This follows two sets of x-rays (negative results) and an ultra-sound on the injured foot, which did show some activity going on in there. The bone scan revealed that no tendons were affected, but perhaps there was an infection. Which brings me to my 2nd nuclear test, a white blood test. Blood work at 8 am at the hospital. Return two hours later for the dye injection. Return three hours later for the scan. Await the results. On it goes. My limping has mostly gone away except when walking on cement, though I still have a very slow pace.
In weather news, winter has arrived quite suddenly. Howling winds, falling temperatures and blowing snow give clues that Autumn has left the building. Ironically it was an unprecedented November heat wave in the American Midwest last week that caused this very early polar vortex to come crashing down upon us. The heat worked itself all the way up to the far north and disturbed the cold air circulation, thus inviting to come south for a visit. As bad as it is right now, things will worsen over the weekend. There are indoor plans here at the Homestead.
In movie news we completed a six part French-Belgian SF series called Transfers. In the near or distant future one's consciousness can be transferred to a different body, thus enabling a type of everlasting life. Now outlawed, organized crime has a strong foothold in getting new bodies for rich customers. The media has turned ordinary people against all transfers, and they are hounded, rounded up and kept in special encampments. Sound a bit too familiar? A married and quite peaceful woodworker dies on a family vacation and wakes up in the body of a one time ruthless cop who hunts transfers with great relish and lots of violence. Sound a bit too familiar? Adding some interest to the plot is the fact that religion plays a major part in society, and while seeming to be against transfers, they do get major funding from questionable sources. Adding some stupidity to the plot, a dangerous escaped transfer is hunting down the cops that killed his family. Can you guess who that cop was? If you guessed it was the peaceful woodworker now in that dead cop's body, then you guessed correctly. This transfer who is out for revenge is himself being hunted high and low by the police, so he takes the body of a 12 year old girl. A really strong one, apparently, and one who shoots really well with a gun. Anyway, we watched it. Wouldn't watch it again. There was no season two.
We are amidst a mini-film festival watching films by the Hong Kong director Johnny To. We began with one of his best films, a 2003 film called PTU (Police Tactical Unit). A plain clothes officer loses his gun when he slips and falls in a back alley while tracking some some hoodlums. When he wakes up his gun is missing. The patrol sergeant agrees to help him find it, but they must do it by sunrise. The entire film takes place over one long night of chaos and suspense. With a good solid plot, likeable characters (especially the cop with the missing gun), great location shooting, neon galore and a lot of humour and irony, this is a must see film. Most enjoyable. His movies are leaving Criterion Nov. 30th. We have already seen three, with at least one more to go.
The second film we watched by To was far less enjoyable. Breaking News is from 2004, and despite its opening 7 minute tracking shot during an all out gunfight between five cool bad guys and a hundred inept cops, Somehow the police only manage to hit one of them, despite the fact that they are standing out in the open firing at the police. Anyway, four of them escape and lead the Keystone Cops of Hong Kong on a continuous merry chase. The characters are all pure cardboard, and more bullets are fired in this movie than in all of WW II. The premise of the film is that as the events are filmed live for TV news, the police have the upper hand since they control what can be said about their efforts to capture the bad guys. However, the cool crooks, who barely sweat despite being surrounded by a thousand or so police, turn the tables. They take hostages and use their computer to let the media know that things aren't quite the way the police make them out to be. The film would likely make a very good graphic novel, but as a film it doesn't really work that well. There are too many coincidences and lucky breaks for the crooks, who seem to have a secret Lara Croft bag of unlimited ammunition and grenades. Not really a great film unless you like lots of fairly mindless shooting.
Coming in between the two above films in quality is Election from 2005. The film digs deep into the mythos of the Hong Kong Triad (Mafia) and the tradition from whence it came and how that tradition is maintained in the present day through a strict code of brotherhood. With a hothead upstart not caring at all about tradition, when it is time to elect a new godfather he will do anything to become the next one. Though his rival won the election (he will be head man for two years), the young punk commits kidnapping, murder, bribery and direct confrontation to gain his foothold in the upper echelons of power. The older and wiser (but no less cruel and bloodthirsty when needed) man who won the election decides he will make things work according to tradition, no matter what it takes. There isn't a lot of shooting, and there are some much better characters here. There is some stomach wrenching violence, however, and some characters switch allegiance so that it's hard to maintain who is on who's side some of the time. The violence is often comic book variety, such as having a man's head smashed with a large rock over and over again about ten times. Yet when we see his face afterwards there is but a trickle of blood around his mouth. Slower paced, this is a chess match pitting tradition against modernization. A pretty decent film overall.
From the freezing corner of the southern-most county in Canada, see you next time.
Mapman Mike
P.S. Watch here soon for the upcoming November reading summary.
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