The review today is on Johnny K. Wu's "A Joker's Card", circa 2005. Check out his main website, www.mdifilm.com/ . By the title alone one could think of either a movie based on a card game or something to do with comics. Let's face it, most of us would prefer comics and that's what it's about. Actually, this short film is a parody of D.C. Comics, www.dccomics.com for those who are unfamiliar to catch up on things, and does a very decent job, but with a seriously large twist for such a comedic style. Before I get to the nitty gritty, here are some promotional images to look at.
Okay, the twist I mentioned is this. What if the Joker, you know...batman's nemesis, and gave him a kid? What would he be like? Well, this Napier kid, played by Kyle Znamenak, is a sore loser type who gets picked on and wants revenge by ruling the world and gets help from that crazy hospital always mentioned in comics and movies. Basically, Joker Jr. is lead to believe he has to wipe out all the superhero kids in order to clear the path to world domination. He also gets help from Mr. Big, an ex-henchman who worked for his father, the Joker. It would seem that even Mr. Big doesn't like the kid much, but helps him out by lending his lackies.
Gerry Keating plays Mr. Big, my favorite in this short film, as his presence and voice impresses me as a director to no end. Props go out to Johnny Wu for perfect casting on this character. Andy Schofield (Nightwing) versus Johnny Wu (Ekin Tzu) fight is a lot of fun, as this is supposedly the first time wire fight scenes were ever done locally in Cleveland. The fighting and costumes of this scene, which there is a backstory that we don't fully know, are pretty gosh darned good for independent, if not excellent, actually! There's a dominatrix style character Donna Isley, played by Dana Aritonovich, whom I've starred in my debut film, "Blood Donors". Her character gets around the crazy house and tries to get into Nick Grayson character's favor, played by David Milam, who actually seems to be gay, from the opening scene, but plays along with her needs in order to survive.
Other characters, like Wonder Woman's daughter make a fun appearance and use of visual effects. Plenty of liberties with D.C. Comic material in the form of parody are a plenty in this short. I like it more each time I see it, which is good. The Ekin Tzu character can disappear and reappear like the ninja type he is. I have no idea where his character comes from, but I don't keep up on comic characters as much as I should. Again, the wire work is cool and the Tzu character should have been given one or two more fancy things to do, but it's a short film! Yes, there is extreme violence in this parody!
Aryavarta Kumar, http://www.aryavartakumar.com/ , does a campy cool rendition of comic movie music that is sure to please even the most discerning listener. I only use campy as part description due to the parody it's being composed for and that the music relies on keyboards and synthesizers, which are my instruments of choice, as well. There's definitely talent here!
As in any review I do, there has to be something negative with an indie film. In this case, it's the same issue I have with almost all indie films, including my own. Directors want to give a lot of time onscreen to pull every ounce of talent from their actors and actresses. Perhaps it's to honor our cast's moments. The problem with this is that there is usually only one camera being used, making it hard to switch up angles and shots. This forces the shot to be from one vantage point and leaves the director and editor dwelling on the emotional emphasis the talent gives. When editing, the tendency is to stay too long on a shot and deliver that emotion longer than necessary for story and flow. Otherwise, that's it, really!
On the flipside of indie film, I think the short is very funny and enlightening in many places. I think the work William Johns does on camera is quite good and there are plenty of unique shots. Alan Tuskes does cool digital effects...Then again, he does work on Hollywood level projects. Everyone did their part well, though this review can't shed light on everybody involved. It's a fun parody that shows us how families feud, even in the comics. While Johnny K. Wu has gone on to many other projects since this one, I'm sure this one will remain close to his heart for many years to come. It's sure to be for many others.
Go with a smile, Kenny
Comments
I want to add, before writing an article on it, that what was thought to be a typical indie editing issue on cast moments is infact intentional and popular within asian film, pointed out by Johnny Wu, himself. It never occured to me he was playing to a larger and culturally varied audience. That's global thinking that you don't see in indie film very often. We should all take note as filmmakers.
Kenny, thank you for the review :) For anyone interested in the press-kit for A Joker's Card or use it as an example for your own, you can download it at www.mdifilm.com/joker
The press-kit however, is HUGE, which you should trim yours down to the essential. :)
The thought of making A Joker's Card was conceived after watching Teen Titans with Kyle, David and Dave, and we thought of doing a fan film at first, and then realized the cost of their costume would be too much, so we decided to go toward the offspring angle.
While making the planning of the script, I was starting to include Batman's blind son, Penguin's muscle build son, Superman's short son, etc and realized it was going a bit too much and too far. THus remembering what Peter Jackson said at one of his commentary for LOTR, I decided concentrate the story more on essential. Wonder Woman's character is actually there as 'extra'.
While writing the script, I put the actor's real personality in play, since these are friends I know that actually CAN possible BE the offsprings. Even Dana, Poison Ivy's daughter, we made her a chatty mouth (as she is also the same in real life).
THe next step was to make the film fun and a blend of 60s styled superhero show and the wire-fu of the 90s, so it became campy thanks to Arya's music (which I asked for, this was the first time he ventured into film scoring)
And because I also wanted add 'that' Anime flare, we went and study several Asian cinema, the main crew actually got together and watched a few movies like Casshern, Natural City and others to learn their angle/shooting style.
When the movie was done, we presented the film to 3 attorneys to make sure we still 'fall' under parody clause, since as filmmaker, we know that what you have on script is not necessarily is what the final product would be like. (Luckily they all agreed this is still under the parody clause) :)
Nevertheless, we decided to give the movie away free (we gave away over 2000 copies and it reached millions viewers at Undergroundfilm.com when debuted, making the month of April their highest visited months by viewers in their site's history).
The goal of A Joker's Card was to attract the comic book fans, as a filmmaker, I tend to go and do different type of movies to try to attract and retain that particular genre viewers, this would slowly increase my fan base. A Joker's Card worked.
Thanks again for the review and the opportunity to add these info :)
Johnny Wu
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