The Eagle Huntress (2016)

20 Monday Feb 2017

Tags

Adventure, Aisholpan, Altai Mountains, Daisy Ridley, Documentary, Eagles, Kazakh, Mongolia, Otto Bell, Review, Rys Nurgaiv, True story

D: Otto Bell / 87m

Narrated by Daisy Ridley

With: Nurgaiv Aisholpan, Rys Nurgaiv, Kuksyegyen Almagul, Boshai Dalaikhan, Bosaga Rys

In the Altai Mountains of Mongolia, there is a nomadic tribe who for centuries have used eagles in their hunt for food. A tradition that has survived for generations, an eagle hunter is usually male, usually an existing eagle hunter’s son who takes on the same mantle, and usually looked upon with respect. What is not supposed to happen – at least as far as the tribal elders are concerned – is the mantle of eagle hunter being passed on to a girl. Women, they believe, are “weaker and more fragile”, and should be “at home preparing tea and water”. Their attitude is unsurprising, but one thirteen year old girl is determined to prove them wrong.

Her name is Nurgaiv Aisholpan, and she wants nothing more than to be Mongolia’s first eagle huntress. Encouraged and supported by her father Nurgaiv, and her mother Almagul, Aisholpan takes her first step towards achieving her dream when she goes in search of an eaglet that she can train. Travelling into the nearby mountains with her father, they spot an eagle’s nest high up among the rocks. Nurgaiv lowers her down to the nest and Aisholpan is surprised to find there are two eaglets nesting there. While their mother circles overhead she manages to secure one of the eaglets and get it, and herself, back up to her father. The first hurdle is overcome, and Aisholpan is on her way to achieving her dream.

She trains the eaglet to do a variety of things, including flying to her on command. And she maintains her focus on the upcoming, annual Golden Eagle Festival, intending to enter the competition to find the best eagle hunter (an award her father has won twice himself). Aisholpan works hard, and her efforts pay off; she wins the competition, becoming the first female ever to do so. But she still has more to do to prove herself as a proper eagle huntress. In order to fully win over the tribal elders and their conservative attitudes, she must venture into the mountains during the winter months and with her eagle, hunt and capture the foxes that help sustain the tribe until the spring. It’s a perilous task, one fraught with danger, but Aisholpan gladly takes up the challenge, and with her father at her side, determines to claim the title of eagle huntress all for herself.

The Eagle Huntress introduces us to a world that most people will have little or no awareness of. As the movie opens we see wide Mongolian vistas that are breathtaking in their beauty and majesty. Awe-inspiring aerial shots of the Altai Mountains and the plains that spread out from their foothills show us a vast land that is both inviting and deadly. As we discover, Aisholpan and her family (and the rest of the tribe) live in yurts during the summer, but wisely, retreat to houses when the winter arrives. As Nurgaiv says, sometimes the winter temperatures can drop to as low as -40°. It’s against this chilling backdrop that the tribe source the animals that allow them to maintain their existence in this remote part of Mongolia.

That Aisholpan is aware of all this and still wants to follow in her father’s footsteps, shows both a commitment to her family, and her heritage. The tribe’s way of life, unchanged for generations, is important to Aisholpan, but there’s enough of an appreciation for wider issues involving sexism for the viewer to grasp the notion that, in her own way (and probably without her consciously doing it), she is standing up for women’s rights. It’s not the most obvious theme that the movie promotes – that would be the challenge to entrenched tradition – but it’s there nevertheless; in the background perhaps, but making its presence felt at various times throughout the movie. Once Aisholpan has won the Golden Eagle Festival competition, the camera returns to the tribal elders who have dismissed the idea of an eagle huntress with such easy disdain. For a minute or so, all is silence and embarrassment. It’s a lovely moment – a little predictable perhaps – but if you’re a practicing feminist, you’ll be punching the air in triumph.

Aisholpan’s fearlessness and tenacity in the face of such opposition – best exemplified by the looks she receives when her fellow competitors become aware of her intention to challenge them – is made delightful by Aisholpan’s straighforward manner and open, smiling features. She seems unperturbed by the antipathy that surrounds her, and at times appears to be ignoring it completely. What also makes Aisholpan a pleasure to spend time with is the sheer joy she radiates when she’s with her eagle, their bond one of the most affecting seen in recent cinema. Her confidence, and her ease around such a deadly predator, is startling for how quickly that bond is established. Every time she strokes its head or holds it close to her, the majority of viewers will no doubt be wondering if it’s all going to go horribly wrong.

But it doesn’t (thankfully). Instead, Aisholpan and her father journey into the unforgiving mountains together to hunt for foxes, and to complete the rite of passage that she’s embarked upon only a few months before. Once again proving the tribal elders wrong by enduring the hardships of winter life, Aisholpan’s persistence and courage win out, but not at the expense of her character or personality. Away from being an eagle huntress, Aisholpan is still a typical thirteen year old, chatting and giggling with her friends, and getting excited when she gets a chance to visit a department store in the nearest large town, Ölgii. There’s no contradiction between Aisholpan the grade-A student, and Aisholpan the eagle huntress, and that’s as it should be. If you watch this movie looking for some psychological insight into why Aisholpan does what she does, then you’ll go away empty-handed.

In the director’s chair, Otto Bell combines the natural splendour of the Mongolian steppes with the simple lifestyle led by Aisholpan and her family, and provides a familiar yet otherworldly environment for audiences to fall in love with. If there are times when things seem to go Aisholpan’s way a little too easily, then it’s a minor criticism when the movie is this enjoyable and this heartwarming. This is one of those occasions where the phrase “If you only see one documentary movie this year…” is entirely appropriate.

Rating: 9/10 – beautifully shot and edited by Simon Niblett and Pierre Takal respectively, and with a tremendous sense of its surroundings, The Eagle Huntress is a stirring, magical exploration of a world rarely seen by outsiders; it’s a movie that leaves you wanting to see more of the enchanting world it portrays, and to learn more about its intriguing, and quietly determined, central character.

Skiptrace (2016)

16 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Bingbing Fan, China, Comedy, Con man, Crime, Drama, Drugs, Eric Tsang, Eve Torres, Hong Kong, Jackie Chan, Johnny Knoxville, Macau, Mongolia, Renny Harlin, Russia, The Matador, Thriller

Original title: Jue di tao wang

D: Renny Harlin / 107m

Cast: Jackie Chan, Johnny Knoxville, Bingbing Fan, Eric Tsang, Eve Torres, Winston Chao, Youn Junghoon, Shi Shi, Michael Wong, Kuo Pin Chao

Here’s a question for you: when did you last enjoy – really enjoy – a Jackie Chan movie? Was it Dragon Blade (2015)? Or Chinese Zodiac (2012) perhaps. Or was it even further back? The Karate Kid (2010) maybe. If it’s been even further back, don’t worry, it’s likely you’re not on your own.

Back in 2012, Chan told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival that Chinese Zodiac was going to be his last action movie. He was getting too old, and he felt the world was “too violent”. And for a whole year it seemed that Chan was sticking to his word… and then he went and made Police Story: Lockdown (2013). So much for that, then. And now he’s back again with another action movie, Skiptrace, and this time, it’s… practically dead on arrival.

Let’s try another question: when did you last enjoy – really enjoy – a Renny Harlin movie? Was it The Legend of Hercules (2014) Or Devil’s Pass (2013)? Or something from the time when his name on a picture was reason enough to see it, say back in the Nineties. Unlike Chan, Harlin has never announced his “retirement” from action movies, and now he’s back with Skiptrace, and this time… well, you get the picture.

There are many, many, many movies that are made because somebody somewhere thought they would be a good idea. Movies like Skiptrace, which are made both for a domestic market (in this case, China and Hong Kong) and a wider, international market, show up each and every year. Some succeed in gaining that wider, international success the makers hope for – the Internal Affairs trilogy, for example – while the majority barely make an impact. In between are movies such as Skiptrace, with its bankable, internationally famous star; less bankable but still well-known co-star; even less bankable but still fairly well-known director-for-hire; country-hopping locations; uninspired action set-pieces; and a patience-testing script that has no intention of making any kind of sense at any point in the movie.

The plot, such as it is, has Chan’s dogged cop, Bennie Chan, still trying to avenge the death of his partner (Tsang) at the hands of criminal mastermind the Matador. Nine years have passed since that terrible event, and Bennie has spent the years since in trying to prove that high-profile businessman and philanthropist Victor Wong (Chao) is the Matador. Of course he’s been unsuccessful, and his latest attempt leads to the kind of property destruction that warrants his being told to take a month’s leave of absence. In the meantime, his deceased partner’s daughter, Samantha (Fan), has infiltrated Wong’s organisation in an attempt to find some evidence against him… but she’s drawn a blank too. It’s not until con man and gambler Connor Watts (Knoxville) turns up at a casino run by Wong and witnesses a murder that Bennie has a solid chance of bringing Wong to justice.

So far, so straightforward. But the script, already over-complicating things by having Bennie as Samantha’s guardian, introduces us to Connor by putting him in jeopardy in Russia thanks to an ill-advised relationship with a mobster’s daughter. A series of non-linear flashbacks to the previous twenty-four hours reveals Connor’s actions at the casino (including winning a large amount of money), his meeting Samantha, trying to avoid the Russian mobster’s goons (out to bring him back to Russia so he can be put in jeopardy), witnessing a murder in the process, and coming into possession of a mobile phone that will reveal the identity of the Matador. Too much already? Don’t worry, there’s more – much more.

What follows is a tortuous road movie that sees Bennie and Connor eventually learn to respect and admire each other, and which takes in such locations/developments as the Russian bowling alley where Connor finds himself in peril, a train that both men jump from as soon as they hear the ticket inspector approaching, buying the slowest vehicle in Mongolia without ensuring it has enough petrol to get them anywhere, an encounter with a group of Mongolian tribespeople (more of which later), a game of bluff and double bluff at the Chinese border that sees them arrested, their opportune “rescue” by the Russian mobster’s goons, a whitewater raft ride, and eventually, a zipline escape from Wong’s men.

There’s more still, but it’s all too tiring, a series of desperate attempts by the screenplay – step forward writers Jay Longino and BenDavid Grabinski, whose first collaboration this is – to keep viewers from nodding off or asking themselves why they’re still watching after the first half an hour. If the events listed in the previous paragraph sound exciting, don’t be fooled: even handled by Harlin, not exactly a slouch when it comes to action movies, those sequences lack energy and are shot through with the kind of slapstick humour that Chan’s movies are famous for. And it needs to be said: Chan is getting on. His decision to “retire” back in 2012 should have been followed through, because in Skiptrace you can see just how slow he’s become. The speed and intricacy of his past fight scenes are absent here, with blows and parries signposted well in advance and Chan being given more than enough time to get into position for each.

And then there’s the encounter with the Mongolian tribespeople. It’s a standard sequence to begin with, a misunderstanding leading to Connor and then Bennie squaring up against the tribe’s best fighters. The misunderstanding is resolved and the tribespeople take to the pair as if they were long-lost relatives. A feast ensues, and after a few too many drinks, Bennie begins to sing a song. A young woman joins him, and soon everyone is singing along as well, word perfect and in perfect harmony. The song is Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, and it’s possibly the most bizarre moment you’ll ever see, and hear, in a Jackie Chan movie. It’s also the best example of how haphazardly the script has been assembled, with sequences obviously arrived at and decided on before a plot was actually dreamt up.

Like so many of these productions, the editing is the worst aspect of all, leaving the movie looking like a cinematic patchwork, with shots truncated and poorly framed, and the performances (such as they are) suffering as a consequence. Chan is his usual amiable self, unstretched by the material, while Knoxville’s comic relief portrayal of Connor serves as a reminder that when a script is this bad the actor doesn’t have a way of countering it. Elsewhere, the supporting cast do what they can with their underwritten roles, with only ex-WWE wrestler Torres standing out thanks to her impressive physicality. Harlin is a bland presence in the director’s chair, his regular visual flair absent from the mix. It’s hard to believe that this is the same man who directed Die Hard 2 (1990) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996). But then, it’s hard to think of anyone who could have made something even halfway decent from the material on offer.

Rating: 3/10 – not the finest moment in Chan’s career, Skiptrace is hard to sit through and barely acceptable as entertainment; with all the vitality of a contractual obligation, the movie crams in a surfeit of incidents that, ordinarily, would keep at least another two movies happy – but ultimately, it doesn’t have any idea of what to do with them.