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| From http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/w500/kgFihiZdCqFYcvkc2udZ4BeTOz0.jpg |
Dir. Tsui Hark
USA
Film #15 of The ‘Worst’ of Cinema
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| From http://www.thefancarpet.com/uploaded_assets/images/ gallery/1011/Double_Team_11980_Medium.jpg |
An assessment needs to be made on
nineties action films like this. A film like Street Fighter (1994) is in no way near as awful and reprehensible
as the critical view on it is, as are many other examples like the movie I’m
covering today. I am spending my twenties to slowly dissect the 1990s I grew up
in, starting with cinema, and I truly do not remember the decade the way it
actually was. It was a decade in hindsight that was completely chaotic, a fin
de siècle decade that involved decadence, pre-millennium, millennium bug fed,
anxiety and Vanilla Ice. In
seriousness, it was the decade where post-modernism was felt in mainstream culture
as well, something you could see especially in cinema of the time. Quentin Tarantino’s rise in popularity
is pretty much the flagpole to this attitude of the era, in his breakdown of
genre and self reflection, but the mindset could be seen in numerous areas of
filmmaking, from Iranian art house cinema to videogame adaptations. American films
of the nineties, especially the critically reviled genre franchises and
adaptations of videogames, comic books etc., are a misunderstood, howling mass
of gaudy colours, tonal shifts and pop cultural objects that are utterly
fascinating and weird at the same time. Even by the end of the decade, where we
view it through films like Titanic
(1997) to Fight Club (1999),
there were films like Batman and Robin
(1997) and this. No one thought twice about making the immortals in the
second Highlander film aliens. No one realised the giant platform jump of
making Super Mario’s Mushroom
Kingdom into a grubby Blade Runner-like
environment with Dennis Hopper, in Frank
Booth mode, as King Koopa. And no one realised the pop cultural contusions Double Team would cause by putting
together Van Damn, director Tsui Hark, in an era where Hong Kong
cinema would drastically American action films from then on, Mickey Rouke and basketball star, and occasionally
WCW wrestler, Dennis Rodman within the same film.
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| From http://www.imcdb.org/i057066.jpg |
Double Team is one of the closest things I have seen to a live
action Japanese manga made entirely in the US, with the great influence of
Asian and Chinese martial arts cinema, not just in Hark’s direction but an action choreography that was done by the
legendary Sammo Hung. Bear in mind
that manga is for all ages and genders in its home country, and of all genres
and uses, so I am referring to stereotype of men’s manga that flooded the West,
and I know of more through all the anime adaptations of them or within the same
mindset, that were made, before the drastic change in audience after the 2000s.
Action packed, a protagonist or two fleshed out enough to push forward the
plotline, a twist or incident each chapter or page to keep the reader on their
toes and show anything is possible in the story, and a bending, or complete
abandonment, of physics to allow the author to create any imaginary set piece
they can come up with. This is less bloody than this sort of material, and has absolutely
no sex despite having the requisite fetish and gimp clothing from a cyberpunk
anime in certain scenes, but the sprinting, delirious tone of them is clearly
seen in Double Team. When he fails
to capture the terrorist Stavros (Rourke),
Jack Quinn (Van Damme) is sent to an
island known as the Colony for spies and counter-terrorists that are too
dangerous to set free but too valuable to kill off. With Stravros still on the
loose, who has a personal vendetta against Quinn and targets his pregnant wife (Natacha Lindinger), Quinn has to escape
the Colony and get the help of the unconventional gun dealer Yaz (Rodman).
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| From http://watchesinmovies.info/img/f/Double-Team-JCVD01.jpg |
Van Damme’s filmography, while not thoroughly cleared through by
myself, is far more fascinating than almost of his action star contemporaries
that became big in the eighties, working with legendary Asian action directors
like Hark and John Woo, able to suddenly star in, and act his heart out within,
an abstract meta-film on himself in his home country of Belgium called JCVD (2008), and make utterly insane
films like this. It is impossible to take the film seriously, and despite the
negative lambasting it still gets now, this film was clearly designed to be as
ridiculous as possible. That it has a serious strand to it, of Stavros having a
justifiable reason to hate Quinn, fleshed as much as possible in this goofy
film by having Rourke act in your
film in any role, just adds a peculiar dark edge to a film that is full of
elaborate tangents that are completely unexpected every time. The aesthetics of
Hong Kong cinema, in its elaborate and complicated set pieces, is brought here
with an even more comic book-like logic to everything that takes place.
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| From http://i4.minus.com/iblvPqLdpNYdEX.png |
Van Damme does well, and despite being a little lost at first onscreen,
Dennis Rodman at least has the visual
appearance and charisma to really get into the swing of the film by its later
action scenes. Even his puns based on basketball seem to have a cheesy coolness
to them that is far from abhorrent. The aspect that makes Double Team work even more and makes its absurdity more distinct is
Hark’s direction, very solid and made
with great skill, using the camera movements and visual images to heighten the
action and the lunacy. Knock Off (1998)
would go even further in its experimenting – including a first person of a foot
going into a shoe – but it’s easy to tell how talented Hark is even if his films I’ve seen aren’t always the best. I won’t
spoil anything in the film as everyone who hasn’t seen it should go into it
cold, so that the effects of the abrupt moments stand out more when you see
them. It is amazing how tarnished it is even more so for me on this rewatch. It
is insane, silly and comedic both intentionally and not, but far from mindless garbage
when it has great action and fight scenes, looks great compared to films from
the era like Double Dragon (1994)
that, while I enjoy wholeheartedly, are a day-glo mess, and is trying as hard
as possible to entertain the viewer. There is a sense that, not only was this
not viewed within its own bubblegumish context back then, but that even now films
like it don’t have the legacies of Rambo:
First Blood Part II (1985) and its ilk, and have to deal with an internet
culture that is far too hipsterish and ironic to view films like Double Team as sincerely ridiculous, especially
when the films that are praised are self mocking or taking themselves too
seriously. Thankfully people do love this sort of cinema too, and I won’t take
back how much I love this film as well. I won’t call it a guilty pleasure
either; I enjoy this film as a well crafted and great piece of cinematic bright
coloured cinema.
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| From http://cdn2.screenjunkies.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/double-team.jpg |
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