Spy Sorge - spoilers

[mark schilling]

John asked for comments on "Spy Sorge." My "Japan Times" review is at

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?ff20030618a1.htm

A few points concerning the casting of Iain Glen:

1) Shinoda spent years trying to cast the "perfect Sorge" -- and Glen fit
the image he was looking for. Glen's bankability vis-a-vis the competition
probably had little to do with the choice -- how many people out there,
gamers or otherwise, are going to line up to see the star of "Lara Croft:
Tomb Raider"?
2) The vast majority of the Japanese audience could care less if Sorge is
speaking German, English or Serbo-Croatian.
3) English is a much more marketable language internationally than German.
Given that the film cannot recoup without significant foreign sales, this is
important.

I've been hearing foreigners complain about (or laugh at) the cheesy effects
in Japanese movies for umpteen years, with the yardstick always being the
latest Hollywood SFX extravaganza. Shinoda spent $20 million on "Spy Sorge,"
James Cameron spent $200 million on "Titanic." Which film is going to do a
better job of fooling the eye? No contest, right? But the producers of
"Sorge" had a choice: either use effects that, by today's Hollywood
standards, are not quite up to snuff -- or not make the movie at all.
Reproducing 1930s Shanghai and Tokyo on a back lot was not an alternative.
(Of course, they could have used the method of Lars von Trier in "Dogville"
and drawn chalk marks on the stage to indicate streets, etc.)

Also, the entire film is set in a "nostalgic" dream world, in which
everything looks newer, cleaner and more glowingly lit than reality -- i.e.,
the same approach Shinoda has used for his historical films going back
years. The artificiality of the effects is thus less jarring, I think, than
if he had tried for a grittier "Gangs of New York" realism. In my JT review
I compared "Sorge" to a museum diorama; given the tools he had, I think
Shinoda built a fairly good one. My quarrel with the film lies elsewhere.

Mark Schilling
schill at gol.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Dougill" <dougill at mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp>
To: "kinejapan" <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 9:32 AM
Subject: Spy Sorge - spoilers


> I wonder if anyone else has seen Spy Sorge?  I was shocked at how bad this
> expensive film was in parts.  Some of the reviews suggested that it was
> overlong and uninspired: that's true.  But they hadn't prepared me for
just
> how embarrassing some of the film was.  What I don't understand is how
come
> the studio allowed it to pass as it is....
>
> For one thing this was clearly a film with a huge budget and location
> shooting all over the place with expensive sets.  Huge amounts of money.
> Yet there were places where the digital effects were so false and
artificial
> that they distracted from involvement in the film and actually made one
want
> to laugh at the amateurishness.  One scene I remember clearly had what
> looked like a painting stuck on a window to recreate a period building
next
> door.  Spectacularly bad special effect.  And many of the backdrops
dripped
> with as much inauthenticity as Hollywood films from the 1950s - oh, look
> planes flying past digitally recreated scenery.  It's a damning indictment
> of Japanese film if that is the best they can come up with...  "This
> country's film industry has been reduced to almost nothing. The only hits
we
> make seem to be animated ones," producer Masaru Koibuchi told me on the
set
> in Moji. "I see this film as a way to link our present with our great film
> culture of the past. (Article in the Japan Times
> http://homepage2.nifty.com/uesugihayato/ispy.htm)
>
> Indeed, much of the film looked like the work of an amateur rather than
the
> final grand finale of a respected professional.  What on earth was the
point
> of choosing a Scottish actor to play a German master spy?  Simply to
pander
> to the US so they don't have to read subtitles?  These days even Hollywood

> gets native Indians to play native Indians in their own accents.  It's not
> as if there aren't any German actors in the world.
>
> Some of the music choice was downright embarrassing.  Having the
> Marseillaise when the French appear, the American anthem when US troops
> arrive, and the Internationale when Communists were shown is hardly a sign
> of sophistication.  And bizarrely this overlong film about a Communist in
> World War Two finishes with a trite Beatles song, as if that would somehow
> make everyone feel nice at the end.
>
> The script was also downright embarrassing in parts.  When master spy
Sorge
> is going to be hung, he wonders if his faith in communism has been all in
> vain.  Absurdly he is comforted by his Japanese captor who tells him that
> Moscow has beaten Hitler so faith in communism is not misplaced.  About as
> likely a piece of dialogue as Buster Keaton smiling...   And what was the
> point of splicing films of the end of communism into Sorge's execution -
to
> show his activity was pointless?  Then what was the point of the film?
And
> though Sorge's story was shown at great length, there was a far more
> interesting story in the Japanese spy Ozaki... what was his motivation?
It
> seemed he had far more to lose, and far less connection or knowledge of
> communism.  At one point he even appeared not to know where the
information
> he was providing was going - 'You don't want to know,' Sorge tells him,
> (despite having mentioned to him earlier in the film that it was for
> Moscow).
>
> By the end of the film I was angry at having forked out money for such a
> badly edited film.  An 'earnest three hours of exposition with wooden
> acting,' said the International Herald Tribune.  I wish the reviewers in
> Japan had been more honest.  I'd be interested to hear from reactions from
> others who have seen it.....
>
>
>
>