a_chinn
Writer Michael Crichton wrote the part of Captain Connor with Sean Connery in mind and Connery absolutely shines in the role. Connery plays a police detective with an expertise in Japanese culture who's called in to assist on a murder case that took place at an LA high rise owned by a Japanese multinational corporation. Connery is partnered with a very American of detective, Wesley Snipes, which unfortunately gives the film a disappointingly conventional buddy-cop-film vibe that was wisely absent from Crichton's novel. Crichton (a film director himself) and "Rising Sun" director Philip Kaufman reportedly clashed over changes to the script Kaufman made regarding making Connor's partner black, which I'll side with Kaufman that it added an interesting new element in this clash of cultures murder mystery, but I'll side with Crichton in that it was badly done. The scene where Snipes take Connery to a black neighborhood and Captain Connor suddenly becomes the most uncomfortable whitest white person of all time, seemingly to have forgotten all his skills and control previously demonstrated up to that point. This could have been an interesting scene if it was done in a more subtle manner, but Connor is suddenly becoming a buffoon seemed out of place. It's as if Sherlock Holmes for a few scenes became Inspector Clouseau. I'll also side with Crichton on the change of murderer at the end of the film, which seemed completely unnecessary and also went against much of what the book and film had to say about the nature of culture and culture clashes. Despite these deficiencies, there is much to enjoy. Connery has one of the best roles of his career (minus the Inspector Clouseau scenes). Director Phillips Kaufman bring style and atmosphere, crafting a slick modern day noir, while also bringing a surprising amount of sensuality to a mainstream film, rivaling his more art-house of features like "Henry & June" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." Director of photography Michael Chapman also gets kudos for his moody photography. The film also features a strong supporting cast that includes Harvey Keitel, Kevin Anderson, Mako, Ray Wise, Stan Shaw, Tia Carrere, and Steve Buscemi. Overall, despite it's deficiencies, this is a stylish mystery that borders on erotic thriller and is centers around an interesting (though not so subtle) subtext about culture.
The_Film_Cricket
Michael Crichton is the king of details when comes to his books. His stories go down to the absolute detailed mechanics of their subject so that we arise knowing a little more about it then we did when we started - This is a guy who does his homework. Rising Sun was about eccentricities of a competitive Japanese conglomerate. He really got inside this world and gave you a feel for what it must be like on the inside.What aggravates me about 'Rising Sun' as a movie is that it seems to have been adapted by someone who learned by watching cop-buddy movies. It takes place in Los Angeles where a new Japanese conglomerate is just getting started. A woman is found dead in a conference room strangled to death and the killer seems to be the girl's lover Eddie Sakamura (Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa) who is a shrewd businessman with some ties in the criminal underworld. But in order to keep the new conglomerate from looking bad right from the start, they decide to call in a crime expert.Enter John Conner (Sean Connery), a worldly-wise detective who is able to figure things out just by observation the way Sherlock Holmes might have. His Watson is Web Smith (Wesley Snipes) one of those slick movie cops who constantly insults his partner and throws out a stream of glib one-liners because well – he's a black movie cop.This combination is what sets the movie on the wrong track. For most of the movie Connery uses his knowledge of Japanese culture and motives to gather information while Snipes stands by and tosses out a joke and gives the wrong information. Why was this necessary? Why does the sidekick have to be wrong all the time. Why isn't he able to counter Connery's information with his own knowledge? I could imagine a good sidekick being played by, say Giancarlo Giannini. You would have two very intelligent men working together instead of the approach of having Snipes say something stupid and Connery countering it.And what about the dead girl? There is never an attempt to give us much emotional interest in her. She is just a sexy model, killed in a kinky murder to be the movie's McGuffin. There is actually more time spent on the video of the murder then on the victim. A video disk was taken of the killer with the face blotted out and covered with the image of someone else, but who cares? This is a movie with so little emotional interest.
videorama-759-859391
Here's another film that cops too much flack. It's an underrated movie, which at times loses it's punch, but it becomes such an engrossing movie that gets with the times. It's set around a big computer organization, where everything's not black and white. We have a beautiful high priced girl/mistress, who's been accidentally strangled, or was she murdered, while engaged in a session of rough sex that got out of control. All evidence, instantly points towards Eddie Sakamoto, the son of the original owner of the business, I think, as he was in a relationship with the dead lass, and they had argued at the start while singing "Don't fence me in" at karaoke, where she just stormed out, where he gives chase. The exterior trick shot, outside the bar where the sports car is made to look really small as it takes off, outside the park, was a cool shot on Kaufman's part (this is the dude that made The Wanderers). Enter Connery, a cop was a mysterious past and Snipes who's assigned with him. The teaming up of these two is interesting. Like the Seagal characters, Connery's here is kept pretty secretive, as if almost boxed up. He's flawlessly great, disposing of tight situations, with a hand to the throat, when muscle bound geezers, give him trouble. We learn too about Snipes's background some, but this film really opens our eyes, to the deception in computer graphics, and the falsity of misrepresenting images, where's Eddie's may of been planted, preferably by the killer and his goons, possible employees of the business. RS is a nice cool mixture with the just the right of amount of sex, (it's hot, especially, naked sushi scene, much alike to the one in the dreaded, Showdown in Little Tokyo). There's nice looking broads, and some action, but on the surface, it's a drama thriller, but it's a very good drama thriller, right to the end, that has you wondering, if the supposed killer that dies at the end, is really our guy. These thrillers, who's victim is killed right at the start (Saigon, Basic Instinct) where the rest of the movie you're left to guess the killer, I love. RS has it all, = one big surprise, plus some of those great actors from Reservoir Dogs, Buscemi, playing a pussy character in this too. We even have a car chase, where at Snipes request, these homeboys stall these not so happy Asians. The interrogation scenes with Snipes, the interrogated set in before or after scenario's, I liked too which really gave it an interesting and serious angle. These after scenarios could have you thinking they took place after the end of the story, which is rather cool. After all poor Snipes has got enough personal problems. Also we have same real racial hatred going, thanks to a conflict of opinions, and ill favour. Don't believe the bad hype on this. Rent it today.
