Film Friday: Pulgasari, Angel, Devil, Hero

To everyone who has seen The Wrestler, we always have the same advice: "see Beyond The Mat." The clear influence behind the story of Randy "The Ram" Robinson, it displays the very highs and lows of "sports entertainment" that The Wrestler fictionalizes. Vampiro: Angel, Devil, Hero (which plays tonight at 9:30 p.m. and tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Royal) isn't quite as successful. Concentrating on Ian Hodgkinson, a Canadian wrestler who reached superstar status within Mexico while being largely ignored outside, the film intertwines stories of his past, a world tour (fighting in some astonishingly dingy locations) and the preparation for the first big show from his own wrestling promotion, "Revolution X." While certain stories are amusing (such as his time as a bodyguard as Milli Vanilli!) and the wrestling scenes edited well (often to juxtapose the setting up of a match with the performance) the film doesn't feel especially illuminating. The set-up ("will Revolution X succeed?") is concluded with an (uninformative) title card, and Vampiro's time as a star is taken for granted, with few details and no archive footage. Unlikely to fully satisfy Vampiro fans or those who want to know more about the wrestling business, Vampiro: Angel, Devil, Hero is at least vaguely entertaining for those who lie between the two.

The majority of the interesting films out this week are similarly indie—we've covered a few in our Urban Planner already, such as Ron Mann's Know Your Mushrooms—but it's also more than worth mentioning that Of Time and the City plays the Bloor starting Sunday after its showing at Cinematheque Ontario (showing Canada's Top Ten stuff this week) and in fact, we would be remiss to not note that facing off against tonight's screening of Vampiro: Angel, Devil, Hero at the Royal is Pulgasari, playing the Bloor. It's a North Korean take on Godzilla! Surely it'll be better than the British take on Godzilla, Gorgo (although, actually, we have kind of a soft spot for that one).

Other than that, the "big" film of the week is Taken, which NOW's Barrett Hooper describes as "80s action classic Commando field-stripped of its cartoonish violence in favour of a more Bourne-like identity." That sounds terrible! There's also New in Town, starring Renée Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr. We really don't think we need to say anything more.