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Wednesday, February 15, 2012 ( 2/15/2012 06:48:00 AM ) Bill S.  “WHY DO NASTY PEOPLE HAVE SUCH NICE MINDS?” I first remember noticing the prolific Martin Clunes as the amiable pothead PCP in Saving Grace, but for many Anglophiles, his defining comedy part has to be as the socially stunted title lead for the series Doc Martin. Somewhere in between these two roles, though, is his turn as a not-so-talented Mr. Ripley type in Dirty Tricks , a two-part mini-series based on a novel by mystery wrier Michael Dibdin. In it, Clunes plays Edward, an English-as-a-second-language teacher who we first meet running from the coppers for a Latin American banana republic to the right (geographically and politically) of Guatemala. “I’m in a bit of bother with the law,” he tells the camera, which proves to be a bit of an understatement.Edward is accused of multiple murders, but our unreliable narrator assures us that he is innocent. The whole sordid business begins when he’s invited to dinner at the home of a bourgie besotted accountant (Neil Dudgeon) and his sexually voracious wife Karen (Julie Graham). Karen pulls our gold-digging anti-hero into a series of comic sexual liaisons, the most memorable of which occurs right in front of her oblivious husband. From this follows: two accidental (at least as Edward tells it) deaths, more than one cuckolding, an intentional kidnapping and our narrator’s flight across the ocean for an unfortunate meet-up with one of his former students. Jauntily directed by Paul Seed, Dirty Tricks tells the tale of a self-absorbed underachiever who’s never half as clever as he thinks he is. He’s immediately seen through by the precocious daughter of a wealthy widow, while even the soused accountant Dennis characterizes him as a “perpetual student.” Snobbishly asserting, “I was born to believe in something called culture,” he fakes his way as a wine connoisseur with accountant Dennis but looks forever out of place as he tries to worm his way into moneyed society. The two-part black comedy proves broadly ribald in its first half, then swerves into violently darker territory in its second. The full package is filmed with an intentional flatness, which comically undercuts the sexy aspects of the storyline, in particular. Clunes makes his caddish would-be social climber appealing through all but his most loutish moments. While some viewers may be put off by the openness of its sex scenes, others (this writer included) will find the Clunes/Graham couplings amusing -- especially in contrast to their later work together in the rom-com series William and Mary. Acorn Media’s DVD package skimps on the extras -- a filmography of the primary players and a piece on author Dibdin, basically -- which is oddly suited to a character who spends his days bicycling to work at his “bucket shop” of a school. If you can see the story’s finish half an episode before our scheming lead reaches it, the voyage there is still a treat. Dirty Tricks may not be as much fun as watching Dennis Price knock off multiple Alec Guinesses, but it’s still a grand addition to the British comic tradition of wittily unscrupulous misbehavior. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: tv dvd # |Saturday, May 16, 2009 ( 5/16/2009 10:46:00 AM ) Bill S.  "HE BROKE THROUGH THE WALLS THAT EXIST INSIDE OUR MINDS." The Hunter Exam continues in the second boxed set of Hunter X Hunter. When we last left lead protagonist Gon Freecss and his would-be Hunter friends, they were still in the midst of matching wits and strength with a gang of hardened criminals charged with keeping them from climbing down a tower within a prescribed deadline. At the start of the set, blowhard Leorio is pitted against a game-playing mistress of psychological manipulation, while kid assassin Killua (featured in the die-cut center of the second set's front cover) next faces off against the "Meanest Mass Murderer in the History of Zabin City." (When we're shown a flashback of his misdeeds, one of the bodies has a toe tag labeled "Jean Luc-Picard.") It's not giving away too much to indicate that our central foursome ultimately makes it down the tower, though the Exam is far from over.In fact, Gen and company's participation in the grueling Hunter Exam comprises the whole of Set Two's fifteen episodes, though -- unlike the first set -- this 'un doesn't cut off mid-exam. Following their completion of the third test, the remaining candidates are flown via air ship to a small island surrounded by shipwrecks. All the wreckages provide a clue as to the nature of their next big test, though the first thing all our candidates need to do is find a way to pay for their prohibitively expensive stay at the "White Palace on the Ocean." During this initial part of the fourth test, we learn something about Kurapika, the third member of Gon's trio of friends: the eyes of his people, the Kurta Clan, become red with intense emotions. It's in the next two tests that the competition between the Hunter candidates intensifies, though. In the first test, the candidates, who've all been assigned a number, are charged with stealing another's badge as they continue to hold onto their own. Our scrappy hero Gon is assigned the badge of one of the most menacing candidates, the sinister magician Hisoka. His participation in this test plunges our hero into a profound existential crisis, though we never really doubt the indefatigable Gon won't ultimately snap out of it. Good thing he does, since the final test is one of face-to-face combat with another candidate. This proves even more punishing for the lad since his first contest is against the chatty ninja ("You sure talk a lot for a ninja," more than one character observes) Tonpah. The resulting fight sequence is plenty brutal within the parameters of "Older Teen"-rated teevee anime. Though it provides plenty of fight sequences, the focus of this series still point remains on problem solving and psych-out mind games. Our young boy Gon proves particularly adept at thinking outside the box, though he's not the only one forced to use his little grey cells. In one particularly engaging trial, for instance, we're treated to an amusing discussion of the psychological nuances of rock/paper/scissors. At times, the second set's fifteen episodes get so focused on the characters' participation in the Hunter Exams that it has to momentarily halt proceedings and remind us of each major character's back-story. In the nether world of the long-running Hunter Exam, it's easy for our heroes and us to lose track of the outside world. Set Two concludes the Hunter Exam, though the ongoing testing of our callow foursome will doubtless continue into the next set's story arc. As with the first Viz Media boxed set, extras are limited to promos for other Viz product and a few selected storyboards. The set does include English and Japanese versions of the story, as well as subtitles where we once again can ponder the difference between the words written onscreen and the dialog read by English-speaking actors. Since the first set was released, Hunter X Hunter has found its way to American cable television via the recently launched Funimation Channel, though at this writing that particular channel appears to be available only in small pockets of the country. For now the prime outlet for admirers of this engaging boyish manga-turned-anime series remains the Viz Media DVD sets. Reportedly, there are two more sets of teleseries material available for eventual release (Set Three is already announced for August). If the anime series doesn't resolve any of the four main characters' personal quests by then, the truly hooked can always turn to Viz's book packaging of Yoshihiro (Yuyu Hakusho) Togashi's still ongoing manga series (currently up to Volume 25 in Viz's Shonen Jump series) to learn, for instance, what happens when Gon finally uncovers his absent Hunter father. I know I wanna know. # | Saturday, April 25, 2009 ( 4/25/2009 04:40:00 PM ) Bill S.  "GET HIP TO WHAT'S IN THE AIR. IT'S CALLED ATMOSPHERE." When we last left Jimmy Riordan (Ian Tracey), at the end of the first season of Intelligence, the Vancouver drug boss and family man was in a bit of a pickle. Standing in the middle of a Seattle roadhouse with a disabled gun, surrounded by American DEA agents, his wife and daughter taken into custody, our anti-hero was definitely not in a happy place. Fortunately for the second season, James escapes this carefully constructed ambush, though it takes four episodes for him to return to business as usual. First, there's the tiny matter of getting smuggled back into Canada and keeping the Americans from extraditing him on a pair of trumped-up murder charges.While Jimmy struggles to get back to business at the Chickadee Club, his handler and counterpart in the law enforcement community Mary Spalding (Klea Scott) has her own worries. Promoted to head the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, the ambitious policewoman finds the politics of her new position even more treacherous than undercover drug work. Both our leads face dangerous incursions from American interlopers: for Jimmy, it's American drug dealers eager to wrest the Vancouver pot selling market from the Canadians; for Mary, it's a shady financial group evocatively named Blackmire that is working to eradicate the U.S./Canada border for its own duplicitous ends. The plotlines merge as Jimmy, in his ongoing efforts to "go legit," becomes involved in an offshore banking set-up that the Blackmire Group is utilizing for money laundering. The imperialistic American drug dealers turn out to have connections to the CIA, while the primary player in Blackmire, George Browne, none-too-coincidentally also happens to be a "retired CIA agent." To learn more about the Group, Mary recruits an escort named Juliana (Pascale Hutton) to cozy up to Browne. Unfortunately, Juliana proves to be far less stable as an informant than Jimmy. Both Mary and her new second-in-command Martin (Eugene Lipinski) are forced to baby and manipulate the émigré informant -- as they also try to shield her identity from the way-too-curious American agents. As with its first season, Intelligence devotes a lot of time to parsing the shifting allegiances within its two shadowy realms. Jimmy and Mary both align with men who were actively working against them in Season One: in Jimmy's case, the threat of the Americans has him allying with brutal biker dealer Dante Ribiso (Fulvio Cecere); for Mary, it involves promoting snaky alcoholic copper Ted Altman (the ever-watchable Matt Frewer) into her old position, even after Altman's repeated efforts to undermine her chance at a promotion. The strategy seems to bring both former enemies in line, though we certainly don't trust either of 'em to not betray their "friends" when given the opportunity to do so. Writer/creator Chris Haddock continues to balance his convoluted espionage storylines with the personal lives of an expanding family of cops and criminals. Jimmy's borderliney ex- Francine (Camille Sullivan) continues to give him grief, especially after he hooks up with a younger woman. Chickadee Club manager Ronnie (John Cassini) learns he's going to be a father with one of his dancers, though his happiness is tempered by the fact that he's lied to the lady about his divorce going through. The one M.I.A. player proves to be Jimmy's screw-up brother Mike (Bernie Coulson), who basically stays out of the storyline once he's helped Jim cross the border. Guy finally does something right, and he gets shoved out of the picture. Much as David Simon's The Wire moved beyond its initial drug-focus to incorporate city politics, urban gentrification, union corruption and the struggle in inner city schools, Haddock pushes the parameters of his story into broader areas. The sinister Blackmire Group, we learn, is invested in eliminating the border between Canada and the U.S. -- with an eye toward gaining control of Canada's fresh water rights. At one point in the series, we see Mary reading a report entitled "The War Over Water," and it's later revealed that the Group has purchased several prominent Canadian politicos to promote this process of "deep integration." Would have been interesting to see where the show would have taken this provocative plotline in its next season, but, unfortunately, the Canadian Broadcast Company, citing poor ratings, refused to renew the show for a third outing. Smartly acted (Lipinski's deceptively soft-voiced handler Martin particularly comes into his own this season) and meticulously scripted, Intelligence is the kind of ambitious, complex adult crime drama that garners critical plaudits and a fiercely loyal fan base without ever quite grabbing the big ratings. Acorn Media is promoting its Season Two 12-episode boxed set as the series' "concluding episodes," though it's clear from the way that Haddock winds up his final violent entry (tellingly titled "We Were Here Now We Disappear") that he had much more story to tell. The set also contains a series of behind-the-scenes featurettes, character descriptions and actor filmographies (I forgot Klea Scott had a regular role on Millenium!), but, unfortunately, carries on the first set's practice of not including closed captioning for its sporadically muttery dialog. Still, that's what the DVD remote is for, eh? Back when I reviewed the first set, there was word in the air that Haddock had interest from Fox for an Americanized version of Intelligence. As much as I enjoy this series -- and would love to know where a third season would've taken us -- I'd hate to see the characters taken out of Vancouver. The specificity of its Northern setting is a much a part of Intelligence as troubled Baltimore was to The Wire. Here's hoping Haddock is some day given another opportunity to take us into that particular urban landscape. Labels: tv dvd # |Thursday, March 26, 2009 ( 3/26/2009 08:51:00 AM ) Bill S.  "I'M IN CRISIS MANAGEMENT." With the fourth season (third boxed set) of ITV's Blue Murder, tough-but-matronly Detective Chief Inspector Janine Lewis (Caroline Quentin) and her crew have settled into a comfortable routine. Our single mom DCI no longer looks to be searching for a nanny for her children (an ongoing subplot in the third season), while the two longest-standing members of her team seem to have settled into an easygoing mock antagonistic relationship after perennial butt DS Butchers (Paul Loughran) had it out with his smart-ass partner DS Shaps (Nicholas Murchie) in the middle of Season Three. Even the Manchester Murder Squad's newbie, Rhea Bailey's Lisa Goodall, has found a place for herself in the room.Which is not to say that our crew of coppers don't go through some rough patches. Young Goodall muffs a collar in the first episode and receives a royal chewing out from Lewis' second-in-command, DI Richard Mayne (Ian Kelsey). Mayne, in particular, has his hard moments in two of the season's three episodes. In the first, "Not A Matter of Life and Death," he's snappishly waiting for the results of a medical exam. In the third episode, "Crisis Management," Mayne struggles to tamp down his feelings of jealousy and suspicion over his boss' obvious attraction for a rugged Red Cap during a murder investigation on a military base. "That suits you, the moody look," Janine jokes, noting her second's displeasure, though later she'll take back her little joke. Janine's family life appears to be running fairly smoothly at this point (though there are hints that our working ma will be having more troubles with her teenage daughter in Season Five). The biggest crisis this season revolves around her ex-husband's no-shows at scheduled family visits. His new young wife is currently in the throes of post-partum depression, but for the series' purposes, the primary purpose of this plot detail is to provide Mayne a brief opportunity to step into the teaching father role with his boss' son Tom. Lewis' attempts at balancing work and family are thematically reinforced by the season's three murder mysteries, which all hinge on issues of dysfunctional family life. In the third season episode, "Crisis Management," for instance, a single military mom's disrupted family life in the midst of wartime winds up being the key to two killings on the North Lance Artillery base. In the opening episode, "Not A Matter of Life and Death," sibling rivalry proves a major factor. No matter what her own family issues may be, they pale in comparison to her suspects'. As the centerpiece of her series, Quentin remains appealingly watchable: her time spent doing more openly comedic roles on series like Men Behaving Badly and Jonathan Creek gives her the backing to juggle the series' lighter moments of squad room camaraderie with more serious scenes of homicide interrogation. Unlike, say, the writers' treatment of Kyra Sedgwick's Brenda Leigh Johnson on the American lady cop series The Closer, the writers (including series creator Cath Stainhope) avoid broader comic moments in favor of smaller sly character interactions. The approach suits this solid Brit cop series. Acorn Media's boxed set includes a forty-five minute "Behind the Scenes" feature, which looks like it was filmed by ITV as a part of advance promo for the season. The most amusing moment in the feature is a blooper sequence devoted to actor Kelsey's repeated attempts to nail a line featuring an unfamiliar bit of local slang. Each of the series' main actors are also provided time to reflect on their particular characters, with clips from across the whole series to provide context for their comments. This includes one of the season's murkier moments -- a scene where old cop Shaps advises rookie Goodall to lie instead of admitting to a mistake, which I suspect will also have repercussions in the season ahead. The show's newest season, which has been reworked into hour-long episodes instead of previous seasons' ninety-minute blocs, has been filmed and is reportedly scheduled for June DVD release in the U.S. Since the series still, puzzlingly, hasn't found its way onto any of the major American channels airing Brit works, Acorn's set remains the way to go. For us Yanks who occasionally struggle with culling the meaning through English dialects, the disc also includes unadvertised close captioning, so we can read the slang expression that was giving Kelsey so much trouble. Many thanks, Acorn Media. Labels: tv dvd # |Monday, March 09, 2009 ( 3/09/2009 05:54:00 PM ) Bill S.  "IF YOU DON'T MOVE, NOTHING WILL CHANGE." For those who mainly think of anime as a vehicle for boyish action fantasy and/or children's adventures, the upcoming DVD release of I"s could prove a revelation. Adapted from a 15-volume manga series by Masakazu Katsura, I"s is a "Mature"-rated romantic serial devoted to a teenage love triangle. The American DVD release, courtesy of Viz Media, contains two OVA (original video animation) features, From I"s and Pure I"s. The first is a two-episode original story featuring I"s characters: the second is a six-episode adaptation/summation of Katsura's original fifteen-volume manga.The set-up of the series is fairly basic. Ichitaka Seto (English voice: Darrel Guilbeau) is a wishy-washy high school senior with a major crush on Iori Hazuki (Erika Weinstein), a would-be actress and model. Ichitaki struggles to reveal his feelings for his classmate, but his own uncertainties and a series of complications and misunderstandings keep delaying that moment. Adding to the confusion: his perky childhood friend Itsuki Akiba (Carrie Savage), who clearly has feelings for Ichi herself. The six-episode Pure I"s tells much of its story through flashbacks -- as Ichi and his bespectacled chum Teratani window shop on Christmas Eve and our man thinks back to all the opportunities he's missed. We see how our hero first hooks up with Iori, exposing a voyeuristic fellow student who's been videotaping the young actress as she changes for a photo shoot, then watch the comic complications that arise when Itsuki temporarily stays at Ichi's place after a fire has rendered her homeless. Our hero, feeling an understandable attraction towards his shapely childhood friend, ping-pongs between Iori and Itsuki, much to Teratini's comic irritation. Being unfamiliar with the source manga, I wasn't certain which girl Ichitaki would ultimately gravitate toward, though there are times in the series when you can't help thinking that the big dope doesn't deserve either one of 'em. Pure's final third discards flashbacks to the present where Ichi is a high school grad struggling to get into college and Iori's acting career is on the verge of blossoming. The actress is being stalked by a not-so-mysterious figure named the "Marionette King," while Ichi comes up against a hostile agent and theatrical producer, who see the boy as a pernicious influence on their property's acting career. The final episode pulls in some seriously melodramatic moments -- a fight between hero and stalker, a hospital coma scene -- that I suspect were more successfully presented in the original manga. Forced to collapse the events of fifteen tankobon into six thirty-minute cartoons, Pure I"s can come across scattered in it storytelling, a little too sketchy. On more than one occasion I also found myself getting more befuddled by flashbacks than I suspect the storytellers intended. More effective is the hour-long feature From I"s, which is subtitled "Another Summer Day." Set in the middle of the series' continuity, it depicts a perilous day in the country wherein Itsuki is menaced by a murderous gang of bikers and Iori nearly drowns on a flooded island during a torrential rainfall. Ichi arrives on both scenes, of course, to aid both damsels in distress, though one of their friends (unseen, as far as I can tell, in Pure I"s) isn't so lucky. Viz Media's two-disc set is frills-free: just the two series, which you can watch in English or Japanese, with or without subtitles. Though the set is packaged to present the two-episode side story first, I'd recommend that newcomers follow the fuller six-episode Pure first, since the shorter tale works best if you already know its back-story. First time I played From I"s, I initially thought my cranky DVD player was acting wonky. The opening moments, which are meant to cue familiar fans where we are in the continuity, are dialog-free, just music and background sounds -- so I half wondered whether the disc was missing an overlay. Once the dialog proper started up, though, my worries were banished. Both I"S features contain a few bloody moments, but what earns the DVD set its "Mature" rating is the series' relative boldness regarding teenaged horniness. The anime regularly provides lingering looks at both Iori and Itsuka's curvy bodies and even features some hints of nudity (most notably in a bath house scene). At the end of Pure I"s' first five episodes, there's even an appended feature entitled "Ichitaka's Delusional Diary," comprised of one-minute depictions of the adolescent's sexual fantasies. Though clearly comic in tone, they also display a level of frankness that some newcomers may find disconcerting. We're a long way from Pokemon here, folks . . . # | Sunday, February 08, 2009 ( 2/08/2009 11:13:00 AM ) Bill S.  ALCHEMY SKIRTS The first question for any newcomer to Nobuhiro Watsuki's manga and anime is "Who the heck is Buso Renkin, anyway?" Turns out the eponymous subject of this popular shonen series is a magical device, a catch-all name for a series of tactical weapons powered by a paranormal alloy containing the "concentrated essence of alchemy." Said alloy, called the kakugane, takes the possessor's "fighting spirit" and manifests it into a personal weapon.Our entry into the world of Buso Renkin -- where alchemist warriors battle evil creatures known as homunculi -- is a high school sophomore named Kazuki Muto (English voice: Steve Staley). Kazuki is temporarily killed by a homunculus in the "haunted factory" (shades of Scooby Doo!) near his school. He's rescued and brought back to life by a female warrior named Tokiko Tsumura (Tara Platt), who revives our hero by inserting a kakugane into the teen's lifeless body. Because the device is in sync with his fighting spirit, Kazuki is reborn into a new life as a warrior trainee. His Buso Renkin weapon: a giant Kirby-esque lance that he ultimately calls Sunlight Heart. Tokiko -- a tough dame with a red scar across her face and a predilection for spitting out the phrase, "I'll splatter your . . . guts!" in the heat of combat -- feels responsible for our hero, so she takes charge of training him. Decked in a schoolgirl outfit, she shows up at Ginsei Academy, where Kazuki, his giggly freshman sister Mahiro and three goofball friends live and study. The concentration of young spirits in the Ginsei dorms, we're told, proves an irresistible lure for the homunculi, who get their strength from devouring human energy. Tokiko, who would otherwise be a high school senior, is devoted to killing the monstrous creatures, so she's clearly in the right place to ply her trade. One of the students, a sickly rich kid named Koshaku Chono (Spike Spencer), has himself been experimenting with creating homunculi from various animals. Chono hopes to become a homunculus, so that he can live forever. Theatrically, he christens himself "Papillon" and wears a butterfly mask, sending out his creations in search of his own kakugane. With this, he believes, he can achieve immortality. Much fighting follows, natch, with Matsuki and Tokiko shouting out their Buso Renkin battle cries before charging against their monstrous enemies. The woman warrior's weapon is a "Valkyrie Skirt," a series of robotic limbs that sprout from her thighs and good work, well, splattering the enemy's guts. Midway into Viz Media's 13-episode box set, a third alchemist warrior enters the fray, the comically deep-voiced Warrior Chief, who both takes on the role of house parent and the responsibility for further training Matsuki. The homunculi prove to be arresting visual creations. Born of both animals and humans, they can take on a variety of both monstrous and amusing forms, their original host heads periodically popping out of their bodies for horrific/comic effect. The monsters are created when an embryo attaches itself to a host body; when they attack the brain, the transmutation is nearly instantaneous, but if they connect anywhere else, the process takes more time. We see the latter occur when Tokiko gets attacked by one of the slithery embryos in the second episode, setting up a race against time as Matsuki attempts to find the hidden Papillon and retrieve the antidote. Buso Renkin's animation is limited in the familiar TV style. With the exception of one character's outlandish pompadour, it's fairly straightfaced, though it can turn more brazenly cartoony when any of its characters do a comic reaction take. While the first box set hides its rating on the bottom of the box, the series is aimed at "Older Teen," which makes some sense. In addition to some mildly graphic violence, there's a sexual dynamic to the series that may be inappropriate for some younger viewers. Early on, we're given a scene where Matsuki ogles short-skirted Tokiko's thighs and ass, while, even more strikingly, we're later shown a bath house sequence where boy and girl students compare each other's (unseen) "size." This leads to several follow-up jokes that I suspect might throw some parents. Too, there's a subtext of sexual outlandishness to the series' major villains that more than once got me recalling the old movie version of Diamonds Are Forever. Main nemesis Papillon is as flamingly campy as you can get (at one point, one character even calls him a "pervert"), while a moon-faced homunculus baddie speaks, in the actor's words, "like Julie Child telling you how to cook a pot roast." In the latter half of the set, we're introduced to a "married" brother and sister team who themselves wish to become homunculi, though the English language version at least dilutes the incestuous undertones once we're provided the characters' history. Viz's DVD set provides both dubbed and subtitled versions of the thirteen episodes plus audio commentaries by the team responsible for Americanizing the cartoons. Play the English language version with closed captioning, incidentally, and you can see the difference between dialog that more closely reflects the original and the colloquialized dubs. There's also a documentary in the final disc, "Behind the Scenes of Buso Renkin," which interviews many of the American actors and shows the process of producing the dubbed series. It's a definite kick to see actress Platt talk about and deliver Tokiko's signature line, though Kazuki's hero voice is conspicuously absent from this feature. If nothing else, the feature depicts how much fun it can be working with this stuff. As an anime series, Buso Renkin may lack the emotional resonance of another boyish fantasy anime like Hunter X Hunter -- on more than one occasion the elaboration of story mythology comes at the expense of the storytelling -- but it has its high points. In Episode Eight, "A Night in the Dorm," for instance, one of Papillon's homunculus henchbeasts attacks the school dorm with a sound wave that turns Kazuki and Tomiko's classmates into shuffling living zombies. The resulting zombie sequences are enjoyably mounted, with more than one visual nod to classic horror movies. In the box set's cliffhanger episode, an army of homunculi that ultimately merge together into one giant Homunculus Super Adult Form attacks the school. Just that name got me chuckling. Adults: they spoil everything! # | Sunday, January 04, 2009 ( 1/04/2009 06:30:00 PM ) Bill S.  "DAD, I'M COMIN' TO SEE YOU!" To begin with the "x" in Hunter x Hunter does not appear to be spoken aloud -- as either "ex" or as "times," which is how I first read it. But from the way, the voice artist playing Gon reads each "x"-strewn chapter ("Encounter x Hesitation x Departure," for instance) on the first boxed set of HxH's anime series, the letter in the title of Yoshihiro Togashi's manga-turned-anime series is just a place marker between the two "Hunters."So now that we've gotten that important matter out of the way, let's take a look at the boxed set collecting the first fifteen episodes of the ten-year-old anime series based on Toshihiro Togashi's still-ongoing manga series. Released by Viz Media, the three-disc set is primarily devoted to introducing the quartet of characters who take up the opening credits. The central figure, the one peering out at us through the die-cut "x" on the front of the box set, is a young village boy named Gon Freecss. A skillful fisherman with a pole and line capable of supporting his own body weight, Gon also possesses a preternatural affinity with the creatures of the woods, particularly the large hybrid creatures called fox/bears. Gon lives with his sad-eyed Aunt Mita and believes he is an orphan, but, none-too-surprisingly, it turns out that his father Ging really is alive. Gon's old man is a Hunter, perhaps the "greatest Hunter in the entire world;" true to his profession, he travels the world in pursuit of "mysteries and hidden treasures." Once Gon learns that his father is out in the world plying his dangerous trade, he vows to find him. Best way to do that, he figures, is to himself become a Hunter. The primary story path of the first fifteen eps, then, is of young Gon making his way from his isolated village to Dulle Island, where the Hunter Exam is conducted, and beginning the grueling series of tests designed to weed out unworthy applicants. Along the way, he hooks up with three other would-be Hunters, each with his own reason for wanting to pass the exam: Leorio, the oldest, claims to only be in it for the money, though this mercenary claim later proves to be untrue; blond Kurapika wishes to become a Hunter so he can avenge the death of his family at the hands of bandits called the Phantom Troupe; while lavender-haired skater-boi Killua is striving to make up for the misdeeds of his own family of professional assassins. Of the four, the most dynamic character proves to be hot-tempered Leorio, who frequently is used as comic relief in the series. Both Kurapika and Killua come across as equally grim, though the former does get off an occasional wisecrack at Leorio's expense. Our hero Gon is open and altruistic, if more than a bit boyishly reckless: his ability to commune with "magical beasts" is a sign that he has it in him to become prime Hunter. "More than anything," we're told, "a good Hunter is loved by animals." The quartet's examination begins before they even reach Dulle Island, but, once there, they meet many of the competing applicants. Foremost among these are Hisoka the magician, a kill-crazy Joker type who wields a deadly deck of playing cards, and Tonpa, a perpetual candidate who delights in undermining his fellow contestants. The candidates are subjected to a series of grueling and mind-taxing tests (in the most lighthearted one, they're told to make sushi, a dish only one of them has even seen). The first boxed set concludes with our heroes still in the midst of Phase Three of the exam, matching wits with a group of hardened criminals who've been charged with preventing them from climbing down a tower within a prescribed time limit. At some point, presumably, our foursome will be complete their exams, though since we're never told how many phases there are, the testing could continue through a whole other set. Hunter X Hunter's animation -- as is typical for teleseries anime -- is limited, though some of the imagery can be quite evocative. Though its characters are rendered fairly seriously, in a few instances you can see manga visual conventions sneaking into the work -- as when Leoria gets a softball-sized lump on his head or angry Kurapika temporarily becomes more cartoonish. As with most Western dubs of Japanese 'toons, the young boys in the series are primarily dubbed by actresses (Gon, for instance, is done by Elinor Holt), though blustery Leorio is amusingly vocalized by Jonathan Love. As a series lead, Gon is a mite bland, particularly when placed against his more colorful peers. If he's meant to be a gateway for younger viewers, the Viz set rates the series as suitable for "Older Teens," though I've gotta admit that nothing in the first fifteen episodes struck me as too intense for a PG-13 viewership. Viz's boxed set doesn't offer much in the way of extras: a few promos for their upcoming DVD sets, an ad for Shonen Jump magazine and their line of paperbacks, plus a series of storyboards that didn't show up all that well on my twentieth century 26-inch teevee screen. No explanation anywhere on how that "x" got in the title, though. I guess if you have to ask, you don't deserve knowing . . . # | Sunday, October 05, 2008 ( 10/05/2008 07:43:00 AM ) Bill S.  "SHAGGERS HAIR AND THE SAME SHIRT AS YESTERDAY" With the news that crotchety Edinburgh D.I. John Rebus is on the verge of retirement in the 17th entry of Ian Rankin's popular mystery series (Exit Wounds), it's a good time to do some catch-up with the teevee version of this irascible homicide detective. Acorn Media's newest frill-free Rebus set, number three in the series, features four 66-minute mysteries (originally broadcast on ITV in 2007), all of based in varying degrees on Rankin's novels. How close these adaptations hew to the books has long been a bone of contention for many fans of the written series, though it's my suspicion that the further they stray from the plot specifics of the novels, the better they work as teledramas.This has long been an issue with televised mysteries, of course: a good twisty mystery novel should be too detailed to comfortably fit within the confines of ninety-minutes-with-commercials. In America, for instance, Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason lasted eleven years on television as an hour-long teleseries, and in most cases the least successful entries were those based on one of the eighty-plus novels featuring the character: the books' plots were too dense to compress into a single hour of commercial television. As a result, they frequently came across as a series of disconnected events with only a tenuous connection to the characters. You can see this occurring in the first of the new Rebus set's episodes, "Resurrection Men." It opens with a scene where our hero throws a fit (and a tea cup) at his superior DCS Gill Templar (Jennifer Black) in the middle of a briefing. The tantrum sends him to "retraining" with two thuggish fellow coppers, but since we never accept the act that sent him to the class in the first place, we instantly recognize it as a story ploy to send our hero undercover. More believable are the "The First Stone," which pitches Rebus against the Church of Scotland, and "Naming of the Dead," wherein our man knocks against sinister security types while investigating a suspicious death at the World Trade Summit. In both cases, Ken Stott's Rebus remains his bulldoggedly tenacious self. In a way, he could be considered the Anti-Columbo: where the former wheedled his moneyed and high-profile murder suspects through his ineffectual seeming mannerisms, Rebus bullies and pushes his upper echelon suspects with a willful disregard for social niceties. In the fourth episode, "Knots and Crosses" (fast-and-loosely based on the very first Rebus novel), his approach derails a trial after his reputation as a rough interrogator gets a murder case thrown out of court. Throughout it all, our hero remains his unapologetic hard-drinking, hard-assed self. He's abetted - and in the last episode rescued from the machinations of an arrogant prosecutor (Nicholas Farrell, best known to Americans from Chariots of Fire) - by his young partner DS Siobhan Clarke (Claire Price). Their relationship remains a tricky one throughout the series: at any given point, he can be her mentor and guide into the convincingly grubby world of Edinburgh policing or a liability on Siobhan's own career. Observing it all from above is DCS Templar, who sees herself in Rebus' young partner and hovers over each case with a mixture of protectionism and jealousy. As mysteries, the offerings in Set Three are fairly straightforward and not too difficult to suss out ahead of time. When we see the poster for a Shakespeare play in the background of one character's questioning, for instance, it clearly cues us to the real motives behind what appears to be a drug-related murder. But Stott's lived-in take on the alienated police detective keeps you watching even when you think you've figured all the facts behind the case. You believe his irritation and his anguish: there's a moment in "Resurrection" where the character's role undercover puts him in a moral bind that is particularly devastating. Reportedly, the actor has announced his retirement from the character that he has so made his own. Perhaps this is apt, given the book Rebus' own forced departure from policework, though this fan would like to at least see the character's swan song adapted to the teevee screen. It's the least they could do for the old bastard . . . Labels: tv dvd # | |
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