Asian Action Thrillers

coming soon!!!!!!!!!!!

Michael Mann (thriller director)

Michael Mann is a really good American director who has made a number of thrillers over the last twenty years, such as 'Heat', 'Collateral', 'Manhunter' and 'Thief'.

He has a number of techniques which make his films original and interesting to watch. One of my favourite techniques he uses is his use of colour to signify different emotions. For instance in 'Heat', the colour blue is used to signify lonelieness and isolation. This can most easily be seen when Neil returns back to his empty house at night and it is bathed in blue light.

On the other hand red is used to signify danger in the film. For example Hanna finds his dying daughter in a bath full of bright red blood. The most interesting use of colour is in the heist shootout. The cops when they are trapped hide behind a red truck, but use a blue bus as cover.

Grey and white on the other hand represents authority. This makes the scene in Rogeer Vans Sant's office poignant as the walls are striped white and black, showing that the character is neither good or bad and his mixed conformity.

Here's a link for the Shootout

http://youtube.com/watch?v=J7exsa3zXI8

Psycho Shower Sequence (and why its a thriller film landmark)

The main reason why I think the film is so effective as a thriller is the fact the central protagonist is killed halfway thorugh the film. It is something the audience is not expecting and thus is twice as shocking. As the Bloch (The author of Psycho) said:

'It occurred to me to do something not generally done in fiction: establish a heroine, give her a problem, amke her more or less likeable so that the reader would have some kind of empathy for her, then kill her off about one third of the way through the story. Redaers would say 'My God, now what?''.

This is again twisting the audiences expectations to make a thriller more captivating and suspenseful.

The other real success of the film in my eyes is the shower scene (http://youtube.com/watch?v=sdrDpELNbks), as not only is it extremely well shot, but it is alsoplays on the audience's fears. As Bloch said:

'I had a notion that a person is never more defenceless than when taking a shower . . . a sudden intrusion is a very shocking thing'.

The whole sequence starting from when we take Norman Bates's perspective as he watches Marion undressing, we imediately feel she is trapped and vulnerable. This shot is especially good in making the audience feel unerved. The the use of frames within frames makes the shot feel voyeuristic, while the extended shots of Marion undressing are uncomfortable to say the least as we see the film from the POV of the killer.

The killing itself is also extremely well shot as the killing is shocking even though we do not see it clearly on screen. There are very quick cuts (literally as well!), as we switch between reaction shots of the predator and his prey. The camera also doesn't linger on Marion's dead body, instead cuuting away to the blood swirling down the plughole and the curtains ripping. This leaves the killing to the audiences imagination, something which doesn't really happen in modern thrillers/horrors.

Another good thriller to see which is in a similar vein to 'Psycho' is 'Peeping Tom' (http://imdb.com/title/tt0054167/), which deals with the theme of voyeurism really well and is a classic of the genre.

Here's a trailer for it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=GzcTp28GFNk

REALLY FUNNY HITCHCOCK PARODY!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is from the film 'High Anxiety' http://imdb.com/title/tt0076141/ by Mel Brooks and it is a parody of all Hitchcock thrillers. It references to nearly all of his films from Vertigo to North By Northwest and is really silly.
After seeing psycho this particular scene is twice as funny, especially because of the final line!!!!!!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5wljKgVgzf4

Ed Gein the Inspiration For Psycho

Ed Gein was the original inspiration for 'Psycho' and has inspired a bunch of other thrillers/horrors as well (eg Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chainsaw massacre,...). Heres a link for what he his actual crimes on Wikipedia so you can see the how they inspired the films http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein

These events then inspired Robert Bloch to write a novel based on this, and the rest is film history. But it clearly goes to show that one of the best places to look for inspiration for a thriller is in fact real life events and people's true fears.

Park Chan Wook (REALLY good thriller director)

Hes a south korean director, and has only been making films for like five years but his vengeance trilogy (Oldboy, Sympathy for mr vengeance, lady vengeance) is really worth seeing. All the films (obviously) have the central theme of revenge, but each film seperately incorporates other themes into the thriller genre. Sympathy for Mr Vengeance incorporates the themes of illegal oragan donors, terrorism and kidnap, while Lady Vengeance looks at redemption and child abduction.

Oldboy is probably the best example of a thriller of the three. The story has been clearly lifted from the count of monte cristo, but it has been twisted to create something much more sinister. This shows it is possible to take a cliche story and twist it to confuse the audiences expectations. Not to give the ending away but it is really diturbing as it destroys the audiences perception of the rest of the film due to the shocking twist. The film itself has the typical thriller urban setting, but it is shot beautifully with steadicam and a lot of artificial light giving a kind of kubrick clinical feel which is really contrasts with the shaky cam used in the bourne films. The film although is a thriller it sometimes borders on horror due to the extremity of some of the violence, but it never quite pushes the boundary due to the clever use of cutaways.
They are REALLY worth seeing but not for the faint hearted!!!!!!!
Heres a link for the trailer of oldboy

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YLn1y9v6yno

Welcome

Welcome to the Latymer School Thriller Video Project!!!

From the Media Team.....