KILL ZONE 2 BRINGS MARTIAL ARTS SPECTACLE TO LIGHTBOX
Hong Kong director’s thriller with stunning choreography played Midnight Madness at TIFF 2015
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Kill Zone 2: Though the summer movie season may now be dominated by showdowns between the heroes and villains of the Marvel and DC universes, there’s another breed of viewer that demands a different kind of big-screen spectacle, like watching some of Asian cinema’s toughest martial-arts stars punch and kick their way through a Thai prison riot. That’s just one bruising highlight of Kill Zone 2, a two-fisted thriller by Hong Kong director Soi Cheang that played Midnight Madness at TIFF 2015 under its original title of SPL II: A Time for Consequences and opens for a run at TIFF Bell Lightbox this weekend.
It hardly matters that the plot — something about a terminally ill crime boss’ nefarious scheme to get a new heart — is so convoluted thanks to the non-stop barrage of top-notch fight scenes, often rendered in stunningly choreographed long takes. A Muay Thai fighter who clinched legendary status when Ong-Bak became a smash at Midnight Madness in 2003, Tony Jaa co-stars with Chinese action-movie vets Wing Ju and Zhang Jin. Kill Zone 2 opens Friday. ReelAbilities Film Festival: Originally founded in 2007 in New York as a showcase for films by and about people with disabilities, ReelAbilities has now spawned editions in more than a dozen cities in North America, including Toronto. Our own RAFF runs at a large array of GTA venues, including the Lightbox, OCAD University and the Abilities Centre in Whitby.
The Bloor hosts the fest’s first public event on Friday: a screening of Autism in Love, director Matt Fuller’s acclaimed documentary about the romantic lives of autistic adults. The RAFF’s slate of screenings this week also includes Touch of the Light (Saturday at the Al Green Theatre), a Taiwanese drama about a blind piano prodigy, and The Rainbow Kid (Tuesday at OCAD), an admirably unconventional Canadian road movie and coming-of-age story with a Down syndrome teen at its centre.
The RAFF runs until Thursday. The organizers have done their utmost to ensure that events are accessible to audience members of all abilities. Those measures include providing open captioning and/or subtitles at all screenings and presenting in venues that are fully wheelchairaccessible. Sign O’ the Times: Though Purple Rain was Prince Rogers Nelson’s most famous movie, many of his now-bereaved fans have long regarded Sign O’ the Times — a concert film devoted to his 1987 double-LP masterpiece of the same name — as his greatest big-screen foray.
Alas, the film — which combines footage shot live on Prince and the Revolution’s European tour that year with performances filmed at Paisley Park Studios — did poorly upon its original release and the mercurial Purple One never allowed a DVD release in the U.S. even though it was the most exhilarating long-form document of his stage prowess. (His guitar solo on “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” is pretty hot, too.) The Royal presents what its programmers promise to be a “stunning” 35-mm print on Sunday. A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream: Best known for directing The Lion King for the stage (and for surviving the debacle of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark), Julie Taymor maintained her reputation for visual splendour with her 2013 production of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream at Brooklyn’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center. Being a filmmaker in her spare time, Taymor made sure to capture the production for posterity and a suitably eyepopping film version debuted at TIFF in 2014. It plays the Bloor Friday, Monday and Thursday.
Goethe Films: Some of the scariest facets of life in the digital age come under scrutiny in Goethe Films’ latest series of recent German cinema at TIFF Bell Lightbox. A new doc that makes its Canadian premiere on Tuesday, Democracy reveals the inner workings of the EU as legislators, lobbyists and activists battle over whether big business or individuals will ultimately control the flow of data that rules our lives. Then on Thursday, Goethe Films presents Blueprint, a speculative drama about a young woman who discovers that she’s actually her mother’s clone. ( Run Lola Run’s Franka Potente does double duty in the roles.) Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse: Though surely some of history’s greatest painters had to cope with pollen allergies, a good many — Monet, Van Gogh, Pissaro and Matisse included — still loved painting gardens. The latest artcentric documentary in Cineplex’s In the Gallery program, Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse offers a big-screen tour of a like-titled exhibition by the Cleveland Museum of Art and London’s Royal Academy that delves into the long tradition of artists sticking easels in flower bushes and working their mojo. It plays Thursday and May 29 at participating Cineplex locations. In brief:
Toronto actor and filmmaker Nadia Litz’s new drama The People Garden shifts its hometown run from the Lightbox to the Carlton on Friday.
A new feature by Chris Boni and Melissa Fisher that boasts an original score by local avant-rock band Absolutely Free, Two Cares Due None plays Friday and Sunday at the Royal.
The weekend line-up of TIFF Cinematheque screenings at the Lightbox includes The Killers on Friday, a 2K digital restoration of Blade Runner: The Final Cut on Friday and Saturday, and Double Indemnity on Sunday.
Director Frank Tashlin’s exuberant rock ‘n’ roll musical The Girl Can’t Help It plays the Royal’s Ladies of Burlesque on Wednesday.
Michael McMahon’s doc The Falls plays the Discover Ontario series at the Bloor on Wednesday.
The MUFF Society meets When Harry Met Sally at the Carlton on Wednesday.
A new Canadian doc on schizophrenia and the societal stigma of mental illness, Dan and Margot plays the Bloor’s Films Changing the World program on Tuesday — the directors, their subject and Dr. Sean Kidd of CAMH all take part in a post-screening discussion.