No.308 : Wolf Totem (2015)

Wolf Totem at the IMDb

Who’s up for some Chinese language period cinema? Just me then!

Made in 2015, ‘Wolf Totem’ is set in 1967, two years after the cultural revolution in China. Two students are sent from Peking to teach the Mongolian natives Mandarin for two years. Could have been worse, they might have gotten Port Glasgow.

A guy from the Ministry of Production dumps our lads with an old guy from a nomadic tribe. He tells him to put them to work and he’ll be back in a couple of years. And he doesn’t even leave the wi-fi password.

We flash-forward six months with our guys settling in and becoming able horsemen. One gets a bit cocky and goes off the path only to be confronted by a pack of wolves. He gets away by clanging his stirrups, but we’re pretty sure that lead wolf gave him a pass.

Our man develops a fascination for wolves and resolves to find a cub that he can rear and study. The locals are not so keen, what with the wolves eating all their sheep. The fine balance between people and wolves is disturbed when the tribesmen steal all of the wolves’ food. I don’t know if this is true, but it was a good scene where the wolves stash all their dead gazelles in a snowdrift to eat later in the winter. This has happened from generations and the humans have always left enough for the wolves. This doesn’t suit the man from the ministry however, and he orders the people to grab the lot, despite warnings from the wise old man in charge.

Of course the old man is right and the wolves get their own back by driving a herd of prize horses into a freezing lake where they all drown. Despite it being tit for tat the ministry sets out to kill all wolves by hunting down and killing the cubs. Our hero manages to save one and starts to bring it up, despite local hostility.

The nomadic tribe are ordered to work with another more settled group and things start to go badly wrong. The old man is injured by a bomb set to kill wolves and a child is hurt when he gets a bit too close to the slowly growing cub. With the wolves now starving all out war is declared (not literally) and when the wolves have a sheep eating party , the ministry resolves to kill off the wolves for good.

Can any survive and can the symbiotic relationship between man and wolf be restored?

This was an excellent film with cracking cinematography and animal action. It was almost like a Disney film, but with more killing and death. It is subtitled but you’d probably manage without them as the plot is a pretty simple progress v nature narrative. The wolves were shown sympathetically and they are wonderful creatures. That said, I could see why the villagers thought them to be a pain in the arse.

There was a tacked on romance story that I didn’t buy into but the Mongolian grass people getting royally shafted at every turn was an interesting watch. Real wolves were used in the production but they did look a bit stage school in some scenes. You could tell they slowed the film down and adjusted the lighting to show them at their best. And why not? It was their show and they provided great entertainment and a bit of learning too.

I wasn’t keen on the cub killing, which involved them being chucked them in the air, and the cornered wolf committing suicide rather than being caught seemed a bit daft.

There was a lot of focus on the spiritual, with the God Tennger getting most of the credit, with some fancy cloud work letting us know that everything will be all right.

The production was lavish with some cracking set pieces including a lake of frozen horses which was fantastically realised.

Overall, not one for the squeamish but an interesting parable on the age old ‘man v beast’ issue with plenty of scenes that will stick with you.

Best Bit : Horse Lake 20/23

No.268 : Win it All (2017)

Win It All at the IMDb

Eddie Garret is a gambler, and not a very good one, in this Netflix film.

We see him losing his cash in a low rent poker game in the back of a Chinese restaurant leaving him so broke he has to cadge his breakfast from the local shopkeeper. It’s clear that this is not an unusual event.

It makes it back to his modest apartment and is met by a criminal acquaintance who has let himself in. He has a proposal for Eddie : watch a holdall for him for the six months that he’ll be in prison for and, when he gets out, Eddie will trouser $10k. This seems a mental thing for the friend to ask given Eddie’s gambling addiction is well known, but we need a plot so let’s go with it.

Eddie doesn’t immediately rifle the bag to see what’s in it but after a bit of deliberation he dives in and it’s no surprise to anyone apart from Eddie that it’s full of cash. The amount isn’t spoken but it’s about $100k. It also contains some pretty nasty kidnap tools but that aspect is brushed aside as are any moral questions, never mind the legal ones, about being caught with a bag of contraband.

You can probably guess the rest. Eddie thinks he can dip into the cash and make a profit before returning the stake money ahead of the felon getting out of jail. Initially things go well with Eddie winning $2k which he immediately invests in a night down the pub with his pals. He meets meet Mexican lovely Eva who gives him a sight of what a better life could look like. Before he invests in that there’s more reckless gambling to do and Eddie finds himself $27k in the hole.

With a rare bit of clarity Eddie decides to get his life in order and takes a job with his brother’s landscaping company. The deal is that if Eddie can work for 6 months with no gambling, his debts will be paid. It goes well for a while but when the gangster calls and advises he has been freed early, Eddie has to make some decisions - stick, twist or run away?

This was a decent Netflix offering, starring, written and produced by Jake Johnston. I didn’t know him but he has a decent CV of mainly small roles on TV. Obviously if you make a cheap Netflix film it’s a good chance to show your leading man chops. He does well with a slightly tiresome character who keeps making the same mistakes. It’s hard to root for him when he keeps pissing his cash away but his quest for redemption is well realised and although a bit easy, it’s a fun ride. He’s a bit like a less buff Ant Middleton and is likeable in a ‘glad he’s not my friend’ kind of way.

It must have been a deliberate choice not to show any of the poker hands with only the bets being announced. This is probably so that non-gambling types don’t feel excluded but how many of them are watching a gambling film? It would have been good if the reality of poker was shown, with two deuces beating an Ace high rather that the full house beating the flush that poker films usually show, but it probably helps the editing if we don’t see the cards on the table.

The love interest was well played by Aislinn Derbez and she must have had good chat as our man had to wait weeks before sealing the deal!

I liked the captions showing the money ups and downs but they didn’t appear after every win or set back which grated a little. The supports were good  with the brother and the gamblers’ anonymous sponsor both being in the ‘I know his face’ category. The sponsor was the worst ever, suggesting a game our man could play in when the money started to run dry.

The film has a ‘cinema verite’ style which is probably meant to look gritty and realistic but it just looked like they were filming some scenes in a boat as the characters bobbled about on the screen. It was obviously low budget but how much is a tripod?

The running time was less than 90 minutes - even if you include the mid credits sequence- so it doesn’t outstay its welcome. Some of the gambling behaviours were well observed and it was a million miles for the glitz of Vegas or even The House.

Best Bit : We’ve got an hour… W Rating 16/23