I think Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal is one of the best television shows to come out in a very long time. It’s funny, weird, interesting and a genuine attempt at trying to do something unique (especially for HBO). Everything that’s good that needs to be said about it has already been said over these last few years. We don’t need another review gushing over how great Nathan Fielder is. This isn’t a review or a critique of the show. This is just a random observation/coincidental connection I noticed after rewatching the last two seasons.
Much like my Joe Pera/Chantal Akerman post, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between Fielder’s work and the films of Peter Watkins. Specifically, his Edvard Munch biopic.
Edvard Munch / The Rehearsal
Peter Watkins is hardly the first director to utilize cinema-verite/mocu-mentary style zoom-ins or shots of characters looking directly in to the camera. But the fact that Edvard Munch and The Rehearsal both fall under that fake documentary style of filmmaking that we’re all so familiar with today (The Office, Parks and Rec etc), makes the coincidental connection slightly more stronger in my eyes.
If you’re a fan of recent stuff like The Rehearsal, How To with John Wilson or even Nathan For You, you might want to delve in to the cinema of Peter Watkins. I haven’t found any evidence that Nathan Fielder is familiar with the work of Watkins. He probably doesn’t even know who he is. I just think it’s kind of cool how similar some of the shots are and how Fielder could be a potential gateway to other lesser-known filmmakers…
Much like My Winnipeg and Cowards Bend The Knee, Brand Upon The Brain serves as a personal journal for Guy Maddin. On one level we’re watching him work out some unresolved childhood traumas. The basic premise of the film concerns a young man (“Guy”) returning to the orphanage he was raised in to confront his past. On another level, Brand Upon The Brain is another Guy Maddin cinematic collage in the vein of something like Pulp Fiction where he proudly and openly wears his cinematic influences on his sleeve.
As much as I love this movie, there isn’t much to say about it that hasn’t already been said in previous posts (click here & here to my thoughts on My Winnipeg and Cowards Bend The Knee). I’m just using this post as an excuse to share all the cinematic comparisons I’ve made that have been wasted on twitter over the years (I’m permanently shadowbanned so almost no one sees what I tweet anymore).
It makes sense that Maddin is so heavily influenced by David Lynch (click here to read more). If you watch Lynch’s early short films you can see a lot of premature ideas that would eventually turn in to features like Eraserhead, Lost Highway and Inland Empire. The same applies to Guy Maddin. Maddin will make a short film but will still cut & paste the same shots or lines of dialogue in to his features. Lynch revisits a lot of same territory over and over from a slightly different perspective. Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire are almost the same thing with different actors and slightly different approaches. Lynch has gone back in to the Twin Peaks universe multiple times over the last 30 years and the protagonist in The Grandmother looks quite similar to Robert Blake’s mystery man in Lost Highway.
The Grandmother / Lost Highway
Maddin is always referencing his childhood (My Winnipeg & Brand Upon The Brain), his loyalty to Canada (Cowards Bend The Knee and Saddest Music In The World), his not-so hidden sexual perversions and his love of David Lynch.
he [David Lynch] is kind of doing what painting has been doing for years, and I’m not saying that his images are painterly, but that he is doing with narrative what painting does - Guy Maddin, ScreenAnarchy.com
my first inclination was to kind of remake Fellini’s I VITELLONI - Guy Maddin, Slant Magazine
I Vitelloni / Brand Upon The Brain
I watch a movie and I pretend Luis Buñuel is sitting beside me - Guy Maddin, TheAVClub.com
The Criminal Life Of Archibald de la Cruz / Brand Upon The Brain
Un Chien Andalou / Brand Upon The Brain
Mexican Bus Ride / Brand Upon The Brain
The Criminal Life Of Archibald de la Cruz / Brand Upon The Brain
I feel kind of Buñuelian - Guy Maddin, Offscreen.com
The Criminal Life Of Archibald de la Cruz / Brand Upon The Brain
Un Chien Andalou / Brand Upon The Brain
I love Murnau more than anything - Guy Maddin, The Columbia Journal
The Haunted Castle / Brand Upon The Brain
Brand Upon The Brain is most definitely not an intro or even a mid-level Guy Maddin film. It's jumpy, chaotic, silent and intentionally schizophrenic. If you can make it through stuff like Saddest Music In The World or My Winnipeg, then this should be the next level.
It seems like the dialogue surrounding the romantic relationships between Black men and White women are being negatively sensationalized more than ever. A professional athlete is seen with a White wife and everyone loses their mind and assumes this is not only the norm but something bad (fyi - 85%-88% of Black men that are married are married to Black women). A lot of prominent Black films and tv shows have some Get Out-ish subplot where a White woman tricks a clueless Black man in to ruining his life. There’s a very specific lane of chronically online White guys that deal with what appears to be Black male penis envy by going online to call White women with Black male partners or biracial sons things like “mud shark” or “race traitor”. As a Black man with a White wife and a biracial son, I sometimes find myself fascinated by this. When I have some down time I take a couple of minutes to comb through the comment sections of various tweets, tiktoks and IG posts thinking to myself; “I never come across these people offline”. It's weird.
On the opposite end of the bench is a very specific lane of pro-Black online pseudo activist who’s entire personality is dick-policing and penis-watching Black men in relationships with White women. They swear they don’t care who dates who but they always write some thesis-level explanation as to why they supposedly don’t care then constantly give their thoughts and opinions on interracial relationships that don’t concern them. That’s an interesting way to not care about something. And I as I stated in my review on Sinners, it’s almost always only a critique on Black men with White women but silence on just about any other interracial combination. Funny how that works. You’ve got meme-fied online figures like Dr Umar Johnson who has officially become the face of straight Black male dick-policing. Last time I checked, it’s odd behavior for straight men to concern themselves with who other straight men date. That’s something gossipy girls do. Men aren't supposed to do that. But perhaps I was just raised with a different set of values.
I say all this because Nicolas Provost's 2011 film The Invader addresses all of this and more. The basic premise follows an undocumented construction worker that becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman (it also isn’t clear if he has mental illness or is just really immature). I'm just not sure it succeeds at the end of the day. The signals are very mixed.
I saw this at the Toronto film festival 14 years ago and got so caught up in the overt racial commentary concerning Black men and White women that I completely overlooked the cinematic influences and the obvious commentary on the growing fear of African and Caribbean migrants (men specifically) entering Europe. The movie is literally called “The Invader”. I’m not sure how I missed that.
It’s been a long time since I watched this movie from start to finish but every once in a while a random scene from it will pop up in my head. Again - I don’t know if this movie is a success but there's clearly something thought provoking about it. I guess any movie that takes an unflinching and naive/borderline unrealistic look at interracial relationships and immigration is going to leave an impression.
A big chunk of The Invader is shot like a Hitchcock movie. The film's main character spends a lot of the movie stalking a woman like Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo...
Vertigo / The Invader
Vertigo / The Invader
Vertigo / The Invader
the people who brought me the most are Hitchcock, Lynch and Kubrick. To me they are the most important masters. They made me dream the most – Nicolas Provost, filmmakermagazine.com
Psycho / 2001... / Blue Velvet / The Invader
The Invader also shares a lot of coincidental similarities with Steve McQueen’s Shame and Lodge Kerrigan’s Claire Dolan. From a subject matter standpoint – The Invader would pair well with Claire Denis’ No Fear, No Die in that they’re both clearly about the fear of Black migrants coming over to Europe…
Shame / The Invader
No Fear, No Die is a much better execution of what Nicolas Provost tried to do with The Invader. A lot of the shots in Denis' film are Black migrants holding and man-handling the French national animal to represent the fear of outsiders taking over Fracnce/Europe. A little on the nose but it still works...
No Fear, No Die
No Fear, No Die
No Fear, No Die
I’m kind of glad The Invader came out in 2011 instead of today. If the right/wrong people caught wind of it, we would have gotten some of the most insufferable commentary from people who’d use this movie to fit their personal agenda. That’s sort of the problem with this movie. To be clear – it’s incredibly well-made and very thought provoking. But it’s one of those movies where the audience should be required to read at least one interview of the director so you could see where his head was at when making it. But that’s obviously unrealistic. Most people aren’t going to make the effort to read an interview with an obscure arthouse Belgian filmmaker. Nicolos Provost is incredibly liberal and anti-racist. He also doesn’t appear to be anti-immigration.
I wanted to create a feeling where this story is not just an anti-hero story. It’s also about our projection on immigrants. It becomes the monster that we project on immigrants, sometimes. I’m not trying to judge anyone. That’s what I hope is clear with the film, that I’m not taking parts. I’m not trying to come up with a voice for the immigrants, and I’m not blaming the Western world. It’s a tragic situation – Nicolas Provost, filmmakermagazine.com
But without doing some quick research on the director and his personal views, one might think his film was an anti-immigration/anti-interracial relationship propaganda movie. This is potentially dangerous. That doesn’t necessarily make it Provost’s fault. Most people are either very stupid or disingenuous or a combination of both. Like I said earlier – people are way more in to making art fit or speak to their own personal agendas. Someone could watch The Invader and think it’s a nationalist tool to promote hatred towards Black men and their “invasion” of Europe. If you’ve been keeping yourself up to date with current events, then you know immigration is a hot topic all over the world (especially concerning darker-skinned migrants). Folks online, specifically the archetypes I laid out at the start of this entry, want to believe those negative stereotypes about migrants. They want to believe the taboos concerning Black men and White women. The Invader is the type of film that might give those people validation to go “I KNEW IT!”. The opening scene alone, where the lead Black male is ogling a naked White woman on a beach, is enough to fuel their insecure beliefs.
At the end of the day this movie kind of leaves you wondering “so…what was the point of all this? The message seems a little mixed.” Normally, a mixed message or something left up for different interpretations isn’t always a bad thing. But when you take the director’s own words and put them up against the movie itself – certain things don’t align.
No matter how much of a mixed message this movie sends, I certainly encourage any and all viewers with the ability to think abstractly to seek it out. If you’re able to find a digital copy and come out confused, I think that’s perfectly understandable. If you’ve seen this and think I’m off or missing something, please let me know.
Check out the latest episode of Within Our Gates to listen to myself and Mtume Gant chat about Sinners, American Fiction and the "Get Out-ification" of modern Black American cinema.
Over the last two years I’ve been struggling with the idea of homages and references in modern movies after an appearance on a movie podcast that will probably never see the light of day. If you’ve been following this blog for the last 15 years or keeping up with my Twitter/X activity, then you know homages and references are pretty much all I do outside of the occasional non-PINNLAND EMPIRE article. I will never hide the fact that I find similarities between films fascinating but at a certain point are modern directors getting carried away? Does anyone want to try and make something “new”? Is that even possible? At the end of the day everything is influenced by something but most new filmmakers aren’t even trying to find their own voice.
In the case of Joel Potrykus I guess this is to be expected. I’ve written about most of his films on here and he never hides the fact that his films are often heavily influenced by older filmmakers. His latest movie is no exception.
Potrykus pays homage to some of the same scenes he’s referenced in the past.
Some people hate the ending of ALCHEMIST COOKBOOK. I get it. Obviously, it's ripped from 400 Blows (and Body Snatchers remake). I stick by it - Joel Potrykus, twitter
The 400 Blows / Invasion Of The Body Snatchers / Alchemist Cookbook
we see the same technique/homage in Potrykus' latest film...
The 400 Blows / Invasion Of The Body Snatchers / Vulcanizadora
It doesn’t take much to realize I lift the openings to all my films from Clarke’s Made in Britain and Haneke’s Funny Games. The opening to those films make me want to punch someone in happiness. I want anarchy in character motivations and story structure - Joel Potrykus, rapportoconfidenziale
Made In Britain / Funny Games / Vulcanizadora
Gummo / Vulcanizadora
I’m also convinced there’s a few nods to Buffalo 66 (Potrykus has mentioned Gallo as an inspiration in the past)...
Buffalo 66 / Culcanizadora
Buffalo 66 / Culcanizadora
Outside of those moments, the movie itself is sort of an unofficial/loose remake…
So I love Gerry. The first time I watched it, I misinterpreted it and thought it was about something other than two guys lost in nature. And I was like, “Oh I thought they had a mission in that movie!” I thought Gerry missed it, and I was going off on what it could’ve been and where Gerry could’ve gone after the main event happened. I was like “I’m going to make that movie” - Joel Potrykus, Hammertonail.com
Gerry / Vulcanizadora
In addition to being a sequel to his 2014 film; Buzzard, Vulcanizadora is Potrykus doing his iteration of Gus Van Sant’s Gerry. Much like how Rick Alverson wanted to make his version of Two Lane Blacktop with Entertainment (2015) or how Steven Soderbergh wanted to make what he felt was a more digestible version of Tarkovsky’s Solaris, Potrykus is doing something with Vulcanizadora that I’m sure a lot of filmmakers want to do but wouldn’t want to be disrespectful to their heroes. I’m sure most cinephiles (especially filmmaker cinephiles) have those movies that they wish they could tweak or change to benefit their own personal taste. That’s what Joel Potrykus is doing. Personally, I enjoy this unofficial retweak of Gerry and he approaches Van Sant’s material with the utmost respect.
Gus Van Sant is no stranger to this either. Not only did he have the balls to remake a classic like Hitchcock’s Psycho, but years after it bombed he brought up the idea of remaking his remake as an experiment.
Every few years I get on a heavy Van Sant kick.
I rewatched Gerry and I had kind of forgotten all about it. It ended at a place where I thought it started to really get interesting. I was like, "I thought these guys were going out there on a mission. I should write that movie instead." That's what this movie is - Joel Potrykus, Variety
Both films follow two friends out in the wilderness on a vague mission that ends with a fatality. The difference is Potrykus really delves in to what happens when the credits roll. Van Sant was never interested in that. Some might think remaking a film just so you can resolve something that was never meant to be resolved is a little arrogant. That’s perfectly understandable to think that. Are you really interested in seeing what happens when Jeanne Dielman finally gets arrested for murdering her john? Do you want to know what’s in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction? Do you want a more literal explanation of Mulholland Drive? Probably not. But there is some serious grief and self-reflection that would come along with the actions that take place in Gerry/Vulcanizadora (strangely enough, the average person that does want an explanation for open-ended/abstract movies probably wouldn’t like this).
Potrykus also seems to pull from the final moments of Van Sant's Last Days...
Yeah, I love, I love the Gus Van Sant death trilogy of Gerry, Elephant, and Last Days (2005). Man oh man, every time I watch one of those… I’m always trying to make a movie like Gus Van Sant’s death trilogy. He’s a master - Joel Potrykus, theseventhart.org
Last Days /
Vulcanizadora
At the end of the day it’s really up to you if you want to sit through another loose remake/homage-heavy new movie or not. It’s understandable if you don’t, but I found this movie and its approach interesting and it sort skates around my growing cynicism towards comparisons, similarities and references.
Captain America: Brave New World is one of those Marvel movies that you sit through just to get to the mid and post-credit scenes. I know that sounds harsh, and it’s not like it’s bad, but this is one of those movies that feels like a minor puzzle piece for the next ensemble Avengers movie rather than a memorable standalone story (it makes perfect sense that this was released in February instead of the summer). This isn’t exactly disposable but it’s one or two levels away from that.
This movie had some minor/medium-sized issues out the gate thanks to the “anti-woke” and so-called “woke” audiences. It’s unfortunate that movies with Black actors in them cause so much reactionary nonsense from both sides because there is some worthy dialogue and critical analysis to be had about this movie. Instead, you have some people on one side mad because a Black guy is playing Captain America while folks on the other side of the argument are disingenuously invested because they’re motivated by antagonizing racist people. You know the type - the ones that care more about upsetting hypothetical Maga Bros than enjoying a piece of art and/or entertainment. This is a bigger issue that extends beyond the MCU. Everyone is motivated by disingenuous reactionaryism now more than ever, and it has spilled over in to art like never before. Instead of people deciding on their own if they genuinely like or dislike something, they wait and see what their opposition thinks and then they base their decision on that. Art is suffering because of this. Everyone is putting nuance and intellectualism aside in favor of poking at people that already don’t like them. It's like everyone is still stuck in this Jr. High mentality...
The ingredients were there for a potential fresh new chapter. Part of the new Captain America story picks up with the Isaiah Bradley/O.G. super soldier storyline from the Falcon & Winter Soldier show from a years back. All that stuff along with the inclusion of Giancarlo Esposito’s portrayal of the mid-level villain; Sidewinder should have been the sole focus. In the same way that the Doctor Strange sequel was it’s own standalone attempt at a fun horror movie or Shang-Chi was an attempt at a martial arts movie, Captain America: Brave New World could have been it’s own standalone action genre movie with Sidewinder as sole the villain. But for some reason Marvel felt the need to tie up the loose ends to a 17 year old movie that I’m pretty sure most people forgot about. As I stated in my last entry on the Thunderbolts, Brave New World is an unofficial sequel to The Incredible Hulk (2008) except without The Hulk. The storylines concerning Thaddeuus Ross’ Red Hulk and the re-emergence of Samuel Sterns/The Leader certainly deserved to be explored but why not just do that in an actual Hulk movie? I get the sense that Marvel studios isn’t interested in making another solo Hulk movie (they haven’t done one since Ed Norton). If that’s the case – just leave it alone. Sure there will be some unresolved loose ends but I don’t recall too many people asking about the return of Tim Blake Nelson’s Leader over the last 2 decades. The present-day MCU has far too many characters and storylines. I try to keep to up with all of the Marvel movies and shows but I’m not a comic book reader or too involved with all the MCU internet discourse. I'm a casual fan. Maybe I’m in the dark on this but were people really clamoring for Shang-Shi on the big screen or the Marvels or a post-mortem Black Widow solo movie? The problem is for as uninterested as I am with those projects, they are connected to other projects that I did find interesting like Thunderbolts* or Wandavision. So I guess you have to take the good/somewhat interesting with the bad/uninteresting.
The storylines concerning Isaiah Bradley and Ross/Sterns are connected in a clever way, but with a few easy changes to the script they could have been two separate movies. The writers managed to craft a clever way for Cap to defeat Thaddeus Ross/Red Hulk, but at the end of the day that isn’t an interesting matchup. A big part of the new Captain America storyline is that Sam Wilson/Falcon isn’t a super soldier or a mutant. Yes he has a special suit with wings and vibranium upgrades, but it’s nothing on the level of Ironman's suit. He’s an exceptional soldier but still has regular abilities at the end of the day. A showdown with someone like Red Hulk seems like a bit of mismatch. But that’s just my opinion.
It would have also been nice if Giancarlo Esposito embraced his loud goofy side when playing Sidewinder but I guess we have to accept that fact that he'll be playing some slight variation of "Gustavo Fring" for the rest of his career.
Captain America: Brave New World is kind of two movies in one which is unfortunate because the load has been blown. I was never totally opposed to revisiting the loose ends from the 2008 Hulk movie but they should have started on a smaller scale with Sidewinder/Isaiah Bradley and worked their way up to a bigger film with Thaddeus Ross/Red Hulk in a buddy film with the new Captain America teaming up with David Banner/Hulk.
The most interesting thing about the present-day Marvel cinematic universe is that as long as a character doesn’t die, there’s a chance they’ll be back at some point for one scene or an entire movie (even if a character does die, they’ll find some silly way to bring them back). After 15 years we saw Tim Roth’s Abomination brought back for She-Hulk. Ben Kingsley reprised his role as the fake Mandarin in Shang-Chi. Even the most recent Captain America film is a continuation of the (17 year old) Ed Norton Hulk movie. It’s honestly a Hulk sequel without Hulk. Thunderbolts* is the culmination of all this. Outside of Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier, I didn't have any emotional investment in supporting characters from the Black Widow solo movie or the Ant Man sequel or Wyatt Russell’s unlikeable “U.S. Agent” from the Falcon & Winter Soldier show, but Thunderbolts* managed to make me care about them for two hours.
Now…this was far from perfect. Enjoyable and fun but there were a few things that bothered me. I get that the underlying theme with this movie was self-doubt, insecurity and depression, but that doesn’t mean the color palette had to convey that for the entirety of the movie. I don’t know why so many comic book-based superhero movies refuse to take on a fun & colorful aesthetic. I make a point to say this because when I saw this in the theater, they showed the very colorful trailer for James Gunn’s Superman beforehand. The visuals from that trailer were so fresh in my mind that is made Thunderbolts* looks a little drab in comparison.
Sidenote - I'm not exactly sure who James Gunn pissed off but everyone seems to suddenly dislike him and they're taking it out on his latest movie (before even seeing it). Last time I checked, between the new Suicide Squad, Peacemaker and The Guardians Of The Galaxy, I thought everyone liked him.
The drabness is also highlighted when you compare scenes from Thunderbolts* and the movies that it borrows from…
The Matrix / Thunderbolts*
Ghost In The Shell / Thunderbolts
I also don’t know why so many post-End Game Marvel films refuse to commit to a full-time villain. Someone completely evil in the vein of early bad guys like Ironmonger, Red Skull or Abomination. There are some obvious exceptions but these days, Marvel always feels the need to give a sappy backstory to the villain or put in some subplot or flashback that makes them sympathetic or an anti-hero more than a full villain. Namor certainly did unforgivable things in Black Panther 2, but his reasoning sort of made sense and by the end of the movie he only ended up being kind of a villain. Thaddeus Ross/Red Hulk absolutely broke the law but by the end of the movie he’s reunited with his daughter and we kind of feel bad for this pitiful old man with a weak heart. Between Age Of Ultron, Wandavision and the Doctor Strange Sequel – they can't seem to decide what side Scarlett Witch is on from one story to the next. The same applies to Loki. I understand that the source material does this with characters from time to time but I just think the movies are going a little overboard. Strangely enough, Thunderbolts* is a collection of “almost-villains” and anti-heroes from pre-existing Marvel stories that finally get to do good and/or fully redeem themselves.
Taskmaster (R) got the Slipknot in Suicide Squad (L) treatment
Without spoiling too much, I’m not exactly sure why Olga Kurylenko was brought back if they were going to make her character so disposable. But again – this is Marvel. Maybe we’ll see her again.
This might be extra nitpicky but there’s also no excuse for the some the background inconsistencies. At the end of the movie there’s a big showdown where the Thunderbolts drive a truck through the ground floor of a building and have a shootout with a s.w.a.t. team in the middle of Manhattan. If you pay attention to the people in background – everyone is going on about their day as nothing is happening. No onlookers, no screaming no panic or anything. This becomes inconsistent because minutes later Sentry terrorizes the city and suddenly the same background players react in terror. To me, there’s no excuse for that.
Complaints and criticisms aside, this was a fun movie with a consistent tone that allows humor and wittiness at the right time in comparison to something like Thor Love & Thunder which felt like three different unrelated movies mushed together. It’s unfortunate that we’re in a lengthy period of Marvel fatigue because there are a few exceptional movies from the last few years that are good/fun/entertaining, but get lost in the shuffle (I still think Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is really good). I’m not fully sold on the Thunderbolts* ending or the way the film’s actual villain was let off the hook. But, like the final scene with Namor in Black Panther 2, I guess we’ll have to wait and see how the relationship between our heroes and the “almost villain” will play out.
Julia Louis Dreyfus’s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is, in my personal opinion, the perfect comic book villain performance. Unfortunately they don’t fully commit to her being completely bad (even though, according to what’s presented in the movie, she is indirectly responsible for the deaths of lots of innocent people).
While there is of course a post-credit scene that sets up a much bigger story for the future, Thunderbolts* did feel like it’s own individual movie instead of a feature length means to a 60 second post-credit scene like a handful of recent/semi-recent Marvel movies. I’m not too excited for the next big Avengers movie but I do look forward to the next Thunderbolts*/New Avengers chapter.
Now that the Venn Diagram crossover between professional wrestling and cinema has reached an all-time high, perhaps it’s the perfect time for a re-evaluation of Kim Jee-Woon’s Foul King. It’s completely understandable that this movie isn’t as well known as something like The Wrestler or The Iron Claw. Generally speaking, foreign films still have an unfair stigma attached to them when it comes to English speaking audiences. There’s a good amount of mainstream English speaking audiences that consider anything with subtitles to be “slow” or “artsy”. We see it every day on social media - An actor or filmmaker are asked to name their favorite movies during a press tour and when they list something that isn’t Star Wars or Pulp Fiction they’re called pretentious simply because they like movies where people have accents or something. Not every movie with subtitles is slow or hard to follow. And not every English-speaking film is easy to digest. The Foul King is silly, goofy, sometimes explosively violent and full of heart. Another reason this movie is so niche is because it references non-American wrestling. There is one quick moment that shows a match between Steve Austin and The Undertaker, but for the most part this movie focuses on Japanese wrestling. At the time this movie was made, we were in the throws of the Monday night wars between the two biggest wrestling companies at the time (WWE & WCW). It wasn’t easy to keep up with foreign wrestling in 1999/2000 so it’s understandable that casual wrestling fans would have no idea who’s being referenced outside of crossover stars like Jushin Thunder Liger or The Great Muta. Even the most hardcore wrestling fans couldn't keep up with watching foreign wrestling on a consistent basis outside of reading newsletters & dirt sheets. Instead of Hulk Hogan, Sting and The Rock, The Foul King references wrestlers like El Hijo Del Santo, Tiger Mask and Vader (Vader certainly had a solid career on U.S. soil but he was a mega star in Japan).
Vader's entrance / The Foul King
Tiger Mask's backstage entrance / The Foul King
Masked wrestling plays a huge part in Foul King. The importance and lore behind the masked wrestler, made popular by Rey Mysterio, didn’t really reach American audiences until way later. Prior to that it was more of a novelty compared to wrestling in Japan and Mexico. There’s a scene towards the end of Foul King where our protagonist is partially unmasked in the ring which causes the audience to gasp similar to the classic Rey Mysterio/Eddie Guerrro Halloween Havoc match (it should be noted that while Foul King certainly gets in to the predetermined/"worked" aspects of Pro-wrestling, all of the in-ring scenes are made to feel real).
Halloween Havoc '97 / The Foul King
It isn't identical, but the mask worn by our protagonist in Foul King is similar to the Great Zebra's mask...
The Great Zebra / The Foul King
The film even opens with archived footage of what appears to be a New Japan or All Japan wrestling match.
Wrestling aside – Foul King pulls from the likes of The Coen Brothers and Shinya Tsukamoto. It would actually make for a great double feature with Tsukamoto’s Tokyo Fist. Both movies have incredibly similar plots: an unmotivated office worker finds his calling inside of a ring. The only difference is Tokyo Fist is boxing and Foul King is wrestling. As silly as wrestling can sometimes be, it can be a motivation for some. Teachers incorporate it in their lesson plans for elementary school kids. The physical element behind it, when done right, can improve your health. It also just provides an escape.
As far as filmmakers that I respect and like - Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers - Kim Jee Woon, Indiewire.com
Raging Bull / The Foul King
Barton Fink / The Foul King
There are lots of little coincidental shots throughout Foul King that are reminiscent of Scorsese. The basic premise kind of owes a little to After Hours. Imagine if instead of going out for a night in the city, Griffin Dunne's "Paul" joins a wrestling school to cure his lack of motivation in life...
After Hours / The Foul King
After Hours / The Foul King
Taxi Driver / The Foul King
And if you have the stamina, the ultimate triple feature would Foul King, Tokyo Fist and Raging Bull…
Raging Bull / The Foul King
I have seen almost all Scorsese's films and I continue to be amazed. I'm astonished by his capacity to produce great films. He pushes forward the boundaries and potential of cinema - Shinya Tsukamoto, Variety
Raging Bull / Tokyo Fist
Now that both international films and international wrestling is way more accessible, Foul King could be a double gateway to new alternative lanes of cinema and professional wrestling.
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