MOVIE-BLAST SAMURAI!: "THE HAUNTED SWORDSMAN" CUTS TO THE GENRE QUICK - by CEJ

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VAULTED TREASURES: MOVIES YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT, YOU FORGOT, 

... OR YOU FORGOT TO LOVE MORE THE FIRST TIME AROUND!

THE HAUNTED SWORDSMAN 

Directed by - 
Kevin McTurk 

Produced by - 
Sultan Saeed Al Darmaki,
Heather Henson, 
Lisa Henson, 
Elias Savada, 
Jason Speer
Written by - 
Tab Murphy
Story by - 
Tab Murphy 
& Kevin McTurk

Dir. of Photography - 
Bennett Cerf

Editor - 
Michael Fallavollita 

Music - Will Thomas

Run Time: 16 mins. / Release: Sept. 2019 (Portugal / France) Fall / Winter 2019 - 2020 (Festival Circuit) / Production Company - The Spirit Cabinet

GullCottage rating

(***** on a scale of 1-5)

__________ “I have seen horrors no mortal ever should” __________

     In medieval Japan a lone ronin (masterless samurai) swordsman forces the cursed severed head of an undead warrior to lead him to the mountaintop lair of “The Black Monk” - a supernatural oracle whom the swordsman believes possesses information which will allow him to hunt down and destroy the powerful soul-eating demon who slaughtered his shogun master as part of a plan to raise an army of the dead to conquer the world. Before reaching the Monk, however, the swordsman must hack his way through a gauntlet of bloodthirsty monstrosities including a cadaverous witch with mind-bending abilities, a colossus-like gatekeeper who seems to feel no pain, and - most terrifyingly - his own sense of guilt, remorse and failure. Oh yeah, this epic tale is told in 16 minutes, … and with puppets! 

     I was fortunate enough to catch the bunraku-style puppet-animated short THE HAUNTED SWORDSMAN, and … . Nah, that’s not entirely accurate. I was fortunate enough to be efffin' blown away! by THE HAUNTED SWORDSMAN. Yeah, that's more-like-it right. Scripted with old-school brio by Tab Murphy (of GORILLAS IN THE MIST, LAST OF THE DOGMEN and Disney’s HUNCHBACK, ATLANTIS and TARZAN), and directed with the stylish grimoire gloom of a kaidan ghost story (by way of a jidaigeki actioner) by Stan Winston Studios alum Kevin McTurk, the crowdsourced HAUNTED SWORDSMAN proves that less is more as it elicits more grins, chills and grindhouse-style viewer shouts (at least from me!) during it’s brief running time than many studio tentpole blockbusters dole out in a self-importantly stretched out three hours. 

     What are some famous quotes about brevity? “The more you say, the less people remember”. “If I’m to speak ten minutes I need a week to prepare; but if for an hour I can speak right now” (hold onto that one, we’ll come back to it). There’s Shakespeare’s “Brevity is the soul of wit”. And of course that chestnut from junior high English.  Remember, when you had to get up in front of the class to deliver a book report? - and your teacher reminded you “If it can’t be said in five minutes, it can’t be said”. BOOM! Well, one can argue (or at least I will) that the filmic equivalent of brevity is even more important than it‘s printed prose counterpart because when reading, one’s more subjective “personal mental movie screen” will subconsciously speed up or slow down things as it sees fit. But when committed to the more objective medium of film, where every audience member is forced to experience everything at the same exact pace, what may be “leisurely” and “involving” to one audience member can be downright boring to another. 

     And for this reason, sorry, but as much as we all want our money’s worth when shelling out jacked-up dollars for IMAX-type screens, most films - especially lighter genre fare - just don’t need to clock in at near 3 hours. Okay, we’ll let ENDGAME slide because it was the summation to what essentially was a ten year Republic cliffhanger serial. And THE LORD OF THE RINGS … . Well, they’re the THE LORD OF THE RINGS - taken from three sprawling literary tomes. THE HOBBIT films though? Nah, you definitely felt the padding there. And this is why the narrative short film is an artform unto itself.  

Director Kevin McTurk (left) and Screenwriter Tab Murphy (right)

     Far too many filmmakers make the mistake of (and, yeah, actually win awards) following the erroneous “creative” edict that the narrative short is simply the READER’S DIGEST CONDENSED BOOKS version of a feature length film. And as such many tend to just “lop off” the time consuming ends of a story by easy-peasy front-loading too much info via voiceover narration, falling back on excessive STAR WARS-like backstory text, or the all-too-obvious “Hail Mary” trope of too damned many flashbacks at the most narratively inopportune moments with the result of grinding things to a halt like a series of stop signs every half-mile on the autobahn. With THE HAUNTED SWORDSMAN, however, the film version of “If I’m to speak ten minutes I need a week to prepare ...” (oh, and that was Woodrow Wilson who said that, by the way) is in full evidence as Tab Murphy’s “reveal one narrative and character layer of the onion every few minutes” script obviously took more than a little time to craft. 

 __________ “Come closer, Samurai” __________ 

     THE HAUNTED SWORDSMAN opens with a bang - visually and viscerally blasting us into an entirely “other” dreamscape setting via a widescreen, multi-plane animated zoom through a high peak mountain range underscored by poundingly bad-assed taiko drums thundering across the soundtrack. Within seconds we find ourselves accompanying The Swordsman (voiced by DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY’s Jason Scott Lee) as he does a Tom Cruise MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2-like free climb ascent towards the cavernous lair of The Black Monk - all the while the caged and constantly chattering cursed head of The Navigator (voice of the irrepressible James Hong of BLADE RUNNER and BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA) swings back and forth in a basket slung over his shoulder. Speaking of voice work … . 

(The cast, clockwise from top) Jason Scott Lee - The Swordsman, James Hong - The Navigator,
Christopher Lloyd - The Black Monk, Franka Potente - The Onibaba Witch

     Any director worth his or her salt knows the perfect cast can work narrative miracles with and for an audience. John Huston’s casting of Sean Connery & Michael Caine in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975), DePalma’s selection of Costner, Connery, Garcia and Martin-Smith for THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987), and Walter Hill’s bringing together Nick Nolte & Eddie Murphy in 48HRS. (1982) made the audience forget how information-heavy the plots of those films actually were as the performers made the viewer feel more like they were eavesdropping in on random and naturalistic conversation, and less like they were (in reality) being spoon-fed narratively necessarily plot “breadcrumbs“ which lead them from one scene to the next and the next. 

     Director McTurk carries off a similar act of subtle “plot compression” with a dynamite cast of voice talents smoothing over even more the already sleek and streamline script. This they accomplish by tossing themselves headlong (without any of that cloying “wink wink” / “nod nod” crap to the audience) into their characterizations. And in this regard, in addition to the aforementioned Lee and Hong, sit back and dig RUN NOLA RUN and THE BOURNE IDENTITY’s Franka Potente as “The Onibaba Witch”, and BACK TO FUTURE and TAXI’s Christopher Lloyd as “The Black Monk”. Fun is contagious. It infects the viewer. And it’s obvious here that Lee, Hong, Potente and Lloyd are having a grand 'ol time with these characters. The same can be said for THE HAUNTED SWORDSMAN’s creative crew. 

     __________ “We have work to do” __________ 

"The Witch" preproduction concept designs

     From a technical standpoint the puppetry, similar in it’s bunraku style execution to McTurk’s previous short, the Lovecraftian / Hammer-style THE MILL AT CALDER’S END (2015), is so smooth and “non puppet”-like it actually takes a couple of minutes at the beginning of the film for the eye to determine exactly how the characters are being realized. Look closely enough and you’ll find the physical craftsmanship of McTurk’s mini-epic so minutely detailed that the Swordsman’s face has fine skin blemishes, the background foliage wafts in an apparently random breeze, and the campfire light actually flickers across the faces of our hero and his severed head companion. While most likely achieved via a “color wheel” - not unlike what Ray Harryhausen and associates used during the “Pegasus escape” and “Medusa” sequences of 1981’s CLASH OF THE TITANS - the intervening years of advanced technology, digital cameras and more have here made the classic animation lighting technique practically indistinguishable from that of live action. 

       Kudos to McTurk’s HAUNTED SWORDSMAN creative team which includes Production Designer Guy Davis (of CRIMSON PEAK, THE SHAPE OF WATER and Dark Horse Comics’ THE MARQUIS), Puppet Sculptors Arjen Tuiten (PAN’S LABYRINTH), Paul Komodo (a former associate of the legendary H.R. Giger) and Mitch Devane (who worked on BRAM’S STOKER’S DRACULA and THE RING); Puppeteers Ron Binion (CRANK YANKERS, DISNEY'S THE BOOK OF POOH) and Eli Presser (THE MILL AT CALDER’S END); Animatronic Designer Peter Abrahamson (MEN IN BLACK 2, HELLBOY), Designer Luke Khanlian (STARSHIP TROOPERS, THE GREEN MILE), Painters Jim Gore (THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK, LADY IN THE WATER) and Miyo Nakamura (X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, THE THING); and Mike Elizalde’s Spectral Motion crew - the gang responsible for many of the visual wonders of PACIFIC RIM and STRANGER THINGS. 

     A huge shout-out too to composer (and former Roger Eno collaborator) Will Thomas, whose bellicose score conjures musical memories of past epics like Jarre’s SHOGUN and TAI PAN, Zimmer’s THE LAST SAMURAI, and Hayasaka’s Akira Kurosawa classics. And the entire filmic endeavor is tightly threaded together by the producing team of Elias Savada, Sultan Saeed Al Darmaki, and Heather Henson & Lisa Henson. Yes, of that Henson family of legendary puppeteers. 

     Grand in thematic scope and visual splendor, yet intimate in characterization, THE HAUNTED SWORDSMAN has been wowing audiences the last few months on the festival circuit - where it recently stopped off in Austin to snag honors at Alamo Drafthouse / Ain’t it Cool News’ FANTASTIC FEST 2019. Keep an eye peeled for when it swings it’s way into your neck ’o the woods. And be sure to make a bee-line, and Bogart yourself a fifth row center seat in front of the biggest damned screen you can find.  Kinda / sorta feeling like the fourth chapter of an ongoing weekly adventure serial, when THE HAUNTED SWORDSMAN ends … as all good things must … there’s a 12 year old part of you just a'Jonesin’ for the next installment so we can learn what the hell happens next. 

    If successful enough McTurk and Murphy promise us more. Please, oh, please, let it be so! 

     Hai! 

                                                                                                   

                                                                                          CEJ    

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