Mr. Long

I was lucky to catch this film at Berlinale Film Festival and when the film ended, there was a sudden eruption of applause that went on for about a minute. Half the crowd stayed behind until the credits rolled and again another round of applause when the final curtain came down. It was THAT good.

The film was shocking at times of the brutality, heart warming, some really laugh-out loud moments mixed with gut wrenching sadness. All 3 leads playing Long, Jun and Lily were excellent in their portrayal of the characters and you do feel for each of their struggles.

When a movie really touches you it stays in your mind and I'm still thinking about the film even now after I saw the movie several days ago.

When you watch this Japanese 2017 Ryu san, you might suddenly remember there are many similar yet not quite similar storylines, scenarios, plots roughly close to what we have seen in Ajeossi (The Man from Nowhere), a Korean 2010 blockbuster.

The other similar but not quite similar part of these two movies: Ryu san was directed by Sabu, while Jeong-beom Lee directed Ajeossi, but both were also the writer of their own movie. But I am quite sure that Sabu's screenplay was influenced by Lee's movie, and Lee's screenplay was inspired by the French writer and director Luc Besson's Taken, a blockbuster of 2008.

The scenarios, plots and the storylines among these three movies are quite obvious:

Taken (2008): A retired CIA agent travels across Europe and relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, who has been kidnapped while on a trip to Paris. The locality is Paris and Europe. Leading role: An old guy.

Ajeossi (The Man from Nowhere) 2010: A quiet pawnshop keeper with a violent past takes on a drug-and-organ trafficking ring in hope of saving the child girl who is his only friend. But the pawnshop keeper was actually a Korean Special Force No.1 killer; a much younger secret soldier than the retired CIA in Taken. The locality is South Korea. Leading role: A loner around 30s.

Ryu san (2017): Professional hitman Long takes on an assignment in Japan. When things go awry, he has to flee. Badly injured, he takes refuge in a deserted part of a small town, befriended with a young boy. The localities: Taiwan and Japan. A loner around 35.

See the similarities and subtly changed revised or replaced racial, nationalities, backgrounds, localities, sets...?

Critics and reviewers often judged and or praised a good movie only by its director, but I have to say, without a good screenplay, no matter how great or talented a director would be, there's no way a good movie could exist. Directors are just persons who materialize, visualize, arrange screenplays to make them happen. If both the writer and director are the same person who made a movie great or good, then that director is the real deal and deserves the praise.

As to this Ryu san (2017), director Sabu obviously borrowed and changed a lot of stuff to distinguish it from the former two movie by adding many different ingredients too. But the pace is a bit too slow, the subplots also dragged its paces may be a bit too long.

There's a definite similar climax to these three movies: Fast, bloody, cruel and deadly. They all drive-you-nuts GREAT!!

I wasn't expecting anything and I didn't even know that it is a Sabu- film. What starts as a normal mafia killer movie turns into something way more profound and heartfelt, at times funny.

It's a total Japanese movie in the sense the way it is filmed and the characters are behaving. The quite killer ending up in a little Japanese town make for amazing scenes and often cute, awkward and funny situations.

I found this movie by accident in the basement of Amazon prime and it definitely deserves a lot better.

This is on the same level as some Kitano movies like kikujiro or hanabi. Sabu delivered a witty, cool story, the actors are great and the movie is great.

Some film festivals were definitely sleeping on this one....

This movie reminded me this quote from Apocalypse Now - and it is an excellent point!

Quickly labelled as an action movie - and despite really nicely made scenes, this is absolutely not an action movie. SABU twists genre movie and manages to create an art piece that can relate to other Japanese feats, like some of Kitano's movies. The start as genre movie and the violence inherent of that world and of the first 20 minutes is not free violence but necessary to act as a counterpart of the main part of the movie: the meeting of that lone wolf with humans, with solidarity and how it changes him, how he is actually enjoying such a life.

Of course we can feel a lot of influences, in the choregraphy of action scenes - worthy of asian action movies, in the burlesque comedy (Kikurijo), in the relationship between a child and a killer (Léon). But SABU really proposes a movie on his own, mixing tragic, harsh realities with beautiful moments and does not forget to show hope and good in the heart of men.

A great piece, go for it!

Mr. Long (Chen Chang) is a highly successful knife assassin working for a Taiwanese crime boss. A job in Japan goes sideways and he's forced to hide in the slums of the city to avoid capture by his would-be targets, psychotic criminals in their own right.

And from that we get one of the weirdest examples of the fact that it's not always a bad thing to straddle genre lines. Because this film goes from a straightforward Asian action blast to a nihilist drug drama to a sappy romantic comedy, and then all back again. And yes, it is jarring from time to time, but it's meant to be. Life goes from incredibly sappy to gut-wrenching sadness, and sometimes it does so with no warning whatsoever.

It also helps to have such a crew behind this genre hopping. SABU, the director, has a reputation as a storyteller of the bizarre, this film being a fine example of that. Chen Chang also shines as the silent main protagonist. Long is a man of few words, but this merely enhances his performance, affording him an aura of mystery, danger and solution.

Is the film for everyone? No, it's not. Is it a bit artsy? Kinda. Is it really good? Absolutely.