Customer Reviews

Drummer, The (aka: Zhan Gu)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Do you like percussions? Are you interested in Chinese traditions? Would you like to see how Zen drummers devote every breath of their life to help the drum sound? Have you reached all your potential? If you're interested in these themes, "The Drummer" will speak to you.

The story

"The Drummer" confronts two societies: a powerful triad empire in Hong Kong and a community faithfully devoted to austerity and tradition.

Sid (Jaycee Chan) is a boy of a triad leader and also a modern drummer; he is a talent but haughty youngster who lives on the edge of danger. Sid defies triad authority and gets emotionally involved with the girlfriend of Stephen Ma (a top executive of the organization), who sentences a severe penalty for the disrespectful kid. Sid's father (Kwan) and Stephen Ma, negotiate a punishment for the boy. Despite being in debt with Chief Ma, Kwan assumes a high risk and sends his son to Taiwan to save him from the terrible sentence.

Hidden in the mountains, Sid observes a practice session of Zen drummers. As a percussionist himself, Sid recognizes the high class performance of those consummated artists. In a display of arrogance, Sid promotes himself to join the group. Despite the disagreement of some members, Lan Jie (the supervisor of the band) allows Sid to adhere the community, because she perceives with compassion a sad kid who is asking for help.

Once accepted, Sid undergoes a tough but beautiful process of transformation through Zen practices. The film sequences in the mountains of Taiwan are inspirational; the Director (Kenneth Bi) drives the audience to a unique journey, fulfilled with remarkable values of the Zen society; this passage reveals the physical and spiritual activities Zen drummers follow to help the drum sound. At the same time, in the contrasting world of triads, Kwan must face the consequences due the alternative plan he executed to protect his kid.

Several months later, the destiny moves Sid to Hong Kong, he is still in the process of redemption, and the circumstances force him to face the crossroad of his life: Take care of his father's business or to continue his inner journey through drumming.

The performers

The actors of The Drummer don't act, they are the personages.It is impressive the way they got involved in the characters. In my opinion, their performances reach the zenith in the final sequence, which is quite difficult, because the actors express themselves with every resource they have, except with dialogues. For information about the cast & crew members, visit the drummer's website.

The artwork

The amalgamation of the soundtrack of Andre Matthias and cinematography of Sam Koa is truly exciting. The artwork reaches the summit in the final sequence with the outstanding performance of the U Theater troup.

Chinese's insights.

The Drummer enlightens many Chinese thoughts, I'd like to comment two of them:

"We practice Kung Fu, no to conquer others, but to conquer ourselves". The traditional practice of Kung Fu (work & dedication) doesn't include a ranking system to assign grades of expertise to its practitioners. In this discipline, students start as beginners and -no matter how long they train- they will always consider themselves as beginners. To overcome the lack of external recognition, the pupils of Kung Fu track their progress in terms of the internal benefits they receive, for instance: health, emotional stability and vitality. That means, the baseline of their development is their own performance, that's why their goal is: to "conquer themselves"

"Drumming without drumming". An interpretation of that phrase goes beyond the acoustic level. It can be identify three stages in drumming process, a) the drummer learns the methods to conquer the instrument, b) when the drummer dominates the techniques, the drum becomes his extension; at this point the artist starts to express his emotions trough the instrument, and c) the drummer "forgets" his techniques, loses his ego and becomes one with the drum, that's when the musician doesn't play with his hands; his heart beats along with the drum, so, at this phase the artist: "drums without drumming".

This film offers a different take on growing up. Sure, many recognizable story elements are in place, but for me, this movie provided many different opportunities to relate, and appreciate, the growth and maturation of the characters.

I've watched this several times, a luxury towards film that has diminished over time. As I get older, my days have become more full and my values have changed; to want to watch a movie more than once strikes me as peculiar for a variety of reasons. Thus, I'm a bit reluctant to share details to a new viewer.

I will say this, purposefully dancing around details. There's a quality to the film that I can best describe as "authenticity". Yes, dramatic license is taken, and this _is_ a storybook tale, but if you're willing to walk with the film at its own pace, to hold back on assigning expectation or judgment, I think you may find that this movie will touch you.

I wish I could have a conversation with each of you that watches this. I cherish this movie in some ways, and sharing a story like this with others is a lot of fun for me.

I encourage you to watch this movie, and I hope you enjoy it as I did.

While the story line was a little bit unbelievable in places, the emotional impact and the characters carried the movie. I highly recommend this movie for its story of transformation and redeption.

The Drummer is a story about the power of individual determination. The story may not be the most original: guy is on the wrong track in life, goes through a transformation, and then his old life catches up with him and he has to choose between the two paradigmn. But the execution is just so damn good that it doesn't matter that the vehicle may a bit on the refurbished side.

One of the reasons that director Kenneth Bi is able to pull off this concept is the quality of his actors. When you're playing the part of the reformed-upstart in training it is easy to drift into the campy terrain of exasperating impertinence and incredulous reversal, but Jaycee Chan honestly constructs a believeable, consistent character.

For me, though, the narrative wasn't even my favorite part of the film. I really enjoyed the mood that pervaded the entire experience. This effect is heightened by the contrast between the bleak, industrial prologue and the verdant mountainside of the monestary. Once the story arrives at the drumming commune it really blossoms. Bi really lets you indulge in the gorgeous scenery of the Taiwanese countryside, and the scenes cataloging the lives of the drummers allow the viewer to unabashedly yen for the life that Chan has stumbled upon.

All of this lets the complex themes of the movie arise organically. I won't color your experience of the film too much, but I just thought that it was interesting that the hands which Bi nearly loses in the opening of the film are the key to his percussive redemption and his ability to choose between the two lives.

(special thanks to Film Movement for providing me with a screener!)

The Drummer tells the story of a young man on the run from organized crime who ends up hiding out by joining a bunch of hippies at their drum circle commune.

Well, at least that's what we'd call it if everyone were white, but since they're Chinese it's all mystical and wonderful and, at least somewhat to my surprise, makes for a pretty darn good movie.

The story centers around Sid, played by American actor Jaycee Chan, son of a certain other famous Chan. He looks rather like his father, especially in the face.

Sid is something of a good-for-nothing young man. He's a constant embarrassment to his father, a local crime lord. This embarrassment becomes especially acute when Sid starts sleeping with Carmen, the girlfriend/concubine of a rival crime lord. Things get ugly when the rival finds out about this and demands Sid's hands as payment. Sid's father instead exiles his son to Taiwan.

It's in Taiwan that he finds a group of taiko drummers and falls in love with what they do. He also falls in love with a rather pretty young drummer, but that's incidental.

The drummers live in a temple-like area where Sid winds up getting training that includes more contradictory koans than an entire Zen monastery. He also clearly hasn't seen any movies or he'd realized he's getting the Miyagi treatment with a bunch of what he has to do during training (you know, chop vegetables so that he builds arm strength and the like).

The plot is pretty cliche and you can basically predict from start to finish exactly where it's going to go. It is, however, very well-done cliche, with great performances all around, and moments of great wonder and beauty, even beyond the incredible scenery of Taiwan. There's a spectacular small-scale scene where Sid plays a solo concert for his father that can't help but touch the heart of anyone who has been on either end of the situation the two find themselves in at that point.

All in all this is a fine movie. I've never seen any of Kenneth Bi's other movies, but merely on the strength of this one, I want to seek out more.

The film is unrrated, but suitable for pretty much all audiences. There's a bit of strong language and some violence, but nothing too far beyond the PG rating.

Extras include the usual trailers for other Film Movement movies and a special "making of" featurette.

-- The Short Subject --

The short subject on this disc for this month is "Love and War", a strange little Swedish opera starting puppets. The plot is pretty basic: bunny meets bear, bear doesn't eat bunny, they fall in love, bear goes off to war.

Nothing special plot-wise, but the majesty is in the details. This is a lovely film to look at and the music and singing are great. I defy anyone to not get at least a little choked up at the end (it is opera, after all). It's a great little film and a wonderful addition to the disc!

With all the hollow movies being churning out of Hollywood's bad taste cookie cutter, this movie is a wonderful gift to the art of directing and acting along with the "way of life". Highly recommended to those who like to travel off the beaten path to find meaningful movies enriching our lives. Enjoy!

Zhan Gu (The Drummer)

This film was shot in the mountains outside Taitung, on the east coast of Taiwan. The Drummer is a beautiful film with an excellent story.

Sid (played by Jaycee Chan yes Jackie Chan's son), the son of a Triad gang leader, is a troubled young man. He's a drummer playing in Clubs. He is full of rage, disrespect and admiration for his father (Kwan played by Tony Leung Ka Fai). Sid insults his father's business partner (Stephen Ma played Kenneth Tsang) who then asks for Sid's hands to be delivered, as retribution. Sid is whisked off to Taiwan with his uncle (Ah Chiu played by Roy Cheung) and the story then gains momentum.

Sid decides he wants to join a drumming group. The group practices Zen drumming, mediation and kung fu. Lan Jie played by Ruo-yu Liu, and Sifu played by Chih-chun Huang are real life drummers, from U Theatre in China, as are the rest of their troupe. Sid also meets a young woman there who is very determined and full of fire (Hong Dou played by Angelica Lee). Through a series of events, young Sid eventually is renamed Tao by the Master or Sifu. He undergoes transformation and maturation in this intriguing film.

Kenneth Bi (Rice Rhapsody/Hainan ji fan) wrote and directed this well-researched and well-executed film. The Drummer is a "must see" film, and brings to light that this is what film making is all about. One perk to the DVD is the featurette: The Making of the Drummer. This makes this film preferable on DVD rather than the theatre; you'll really get a stronger feeling for what went into making this extraordinary film.

This has nothing to do with percussion or drumming like some of these elaborate reviews are talking about. Bottom line is, it is simply a journey of a spirit within one man who found drums as an outlet for his inner voice.

Thoreau said: "If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away."

So true in this case. Sid, the son of a gangster, comes to a fork in the road, and chooses a path far from where he expected his life to take him.

This is a film about discovery and redemption, and well worth a watch.

It's a refreshing musical journey.

This is a very unusual film from Hong Kong / Canadian filmmaker Kenneth Bi. As with the drumming beats, it speeds up and thrills you and then slows down and falls into the reflective mood. A well-balanced genre mix with a very captivating plot.

The rebellious son of a controlling boss in Hong Kong, has to flee to Taiwan upon enraging his father's adversary. Hiding out in the mountains, Sid encounters a group of Zen drummers whose mesmerizing art attracts the young man and encourages him to join the group. A twist of fate awaits him back home in Hong Kong and forces him to choose between loyalty to his family and his new found faith in himself.