The Good Fairy (1935)

The Good Fairy (William Wyler, 1935)

William Wyler's The Good Fairy, adapted from Ferenc Molnár's play by legendary screenwriter and director Preston Sturges, is basically about Luisa Ginglebusher (Margaret Sullavan), an orphan girl who is picked by a theater owner (Alan Hale) to be his theater's usherette. Luisa, fresh from the orphanage and thus naive in the ways of men, skirts from the insistent prodding of the men (the most humorously insistent of which is played by Cesar Romero) waiting outside for the usherettes to get out by pretending to be the wife of theater patron and hotel waiter Detlaff (Reginald Owen), who then invites Luisa to a posh party hosted in the hotel he works for.

In the party, Luisa gets acquainted with Konrad (Frank Morgan), a wealthy meat trader. When Konrad loses control of himself and starts promising Luisa luxurious things, Luisa, in order to again skirt men's advances, tells Konrad that she is married. Konrad thinks of a way to resolve the deadlock and proposes that he makes Luisa's husband rich so the husband can shower her with expensive things. Luisa randomly chooses a name from the phonebook: Dr. Max Sporum (Herbert Marshall), an impoverished lawyer whose only dream is to purchase a state-of-the-art pencil sharpener. Luisa, in turn, becomes the good fairy (of the story she often tells the other orphans in the asylum) to Sporum, who, because of her fabricated representations to Konrad, becomes appointed the very well-salaried general counsel for Konrad's meat company.

The Good Fairy is a film that shines because of sheer charm. Margaret Sullavan, from the first time we see her relating the story of the good fairy to the other orphans to her weepy apologies when her innocent ruse has been discovered, possesses undeniable charisma that carries the picture from beginning to end. She literally transforms from tomboyish waif to lovelorn maiden in a matter of an hour and a half, and loses none of the appeal she started with. Later in the film, Luisa tries on one of the "genuine foxines" that are on sale in the department store while waiting for Sporum to finish his shave. She looks at herself in the mirror, beautiful and sophisticated and aware of it (the shot is framed in such a way that we see Luisa reflected in endless layers of mirror reflections, dancing as if she had an entire troupe behind her). It's a gorgeously shot scene, one that aptly visualizes Luisa' transition from innocent orphan to a damsel in love for the first time, with Sporum absent his unsightly beard.

The film's innate charm carries over to the supporting cast. Morgan's Konrad, who is initially seen as lecherous predator, sheds that particular image and becomes one of the picture's more lovable characters: bumbling, generous, loony, lonely, and at times aloof. Marshall's Sporum also transforms, from pathetic loser, a victim and recipient of life's circumstances and dumb luck, to a dashing leading man, infusing the picture with delirious romance although belatedly.

Wyler's direction is competent, with a few moments wherein he complements Sturges' screenplay with clever touches, like in the flashy scene with the mirrors in the department store or Luisa experiencing her first movie (a melodrama of some sort where it seems like a woman is begging her man to forgive her, with the latter unaffectionately throwing the line "Go!" over and over again), drowning in the emotions of the unintelligible sequence that happens in the silver screen. Sturges' screenplay makes most of the material. The film is essentially light, a breeze to watch from start to finish, enjoyably sprinkled with gregarious conversations that are sure to enchant.

The Warlords (2007)

The Warlords (Peter Chan, 2007)
Mandarin Title: Tau ming chong

The Warlords is something of an anomaly in Peter Chan's career. Chan is most famous for charming romances and comedies like Comrades, Almost a Love Story (1996), a love story between two Mainlanders (Leon Lai and Maggie Cheung), both of whom migrate to Hong Kong and later to New York, that spans several decades and Perhaps Love (2005), which details a love triangle that arises in the set of a musical film. Going Home, the episode he directed for Pan-Asian horror triptych Three (2002), is about a father (Eric Tsang) and his son who moves in a dilapidated residential building where longtime resident (Lai) keeps a gruesome although ultimately heartbreaking secret. Chan's films have always featured strong female characters (Cheung in Comrades, Zhou Sun as feisty movie star in Perhaps Love, Kate Capshaw as forty something divorcee who gets intimate with a younger man in The Love Letter (1999), or even Eugenia Yuan as Lai's dead wife in Going Home).

Thus, The Warlords, which Chan claims as his attempt to bring back themes of male camaraderie and loyalty of 80's and 90's Hong Kong cinema, is a totally different creature in Chan's growing filmography. In fact, The Warlords features no strong female character. Lian (Xu Jinglei), the object of desire of both General Pang Qingyun (Jet Li) and Zhao Erhu (Andy Lau), is treated more as a plot device rather than a definite character. She indistinctly beds with both men, with her motives and aspirations conveniently overshadowed by the men who dominate the picture.

Notwithstanding this evident departure in themes, Chan succeeds in crafting a genuinely engaging picture. Inspired by Cheng Cheh's The Blood Brothers (1973) which is based on a historical event wherein a governor was assassinated in the late nineteenth century, The Warlords is about three men, Pang, Zhao and Jiang Wuyang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) whose fraternal pledge is tested under the pressures of surviving starvation and violence dealt upon by the Taiping Rebellion (whose death count supposedly outnumbers that of the second World War) and later on, the political ambitions and intrigues that accompany their wartime successes. Chan indulges in detailing the three men's intricate relationship, starting from explicating their personalities, differentiating their goals and motivations, inevitably leading to a clash of gargantuan egos, especially of Pang and Zhao's, who nearing the end of the film have come into a deadlock in their objectives.

More gargantuan than the clashing egos of the film's main characters are the battle scenes, choreographed, directed and shot with masterful precision and an exquisite attention to detail by Chan and his crew. The battle scenes do not have the operatic flourish of Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002) and Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) or the theatrical affluence of Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet (2006). Chan approaches the battles with a grittier and more realistic tone, with dust and grime filling up the frames and severed limbs and fallen bodies punctuating the action. The battle scenes are simply spectacular. There's an undeniable visual splendor and energy beneath the pandemonium and violence that Chan adeptly orchestrates.

The Warlords also features one of Li's best performances. His embattled general, the lone survivor of a failed campaign where all his soldiers died, is vulnerable and emotional, traits that Li's usual cinematic personalities hardly possess. He performs alongside Lau and Kaneshiro, actors who have earned acclaim from more dramatic roles, and gives the most memorable performance of the three. Above everything, The Warlords, proves that Chan is a formidable filmmaker, with the ability to stage stunning and sweeping battle scenes without sacrificing characterization and storytelling.