Lucy Liu - A Career Retrospective

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2010 Nomads
2009 Dirty Sexy Money (TV)
2008 Cashmere Mafia (TV)
2008 The Year of Getting To Know Us
2007 Watching the Detectives
2007 Rise: Bloodhunter
2007 Ugly Betty (TV, Guest spot)
2007 Code Name: The Cleaner
2006 Lucky Number Slevin
2005 Domino
2005 Three Needles
2005 Joey (TV, Guest spot)
2004 Maya and Miguel (TV, Guest spot)
2003 Kill Bill Vol.1
2003 Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
2002 Chicago
2002 Cypher
2002 Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever
2001 Hotel
2000 Shanghai Noon
2000 Charlie's Angels
1999 Play It to the Bone
1999 The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human
1999 Molly
1999 True Crime
1999 Payback
1998 Love Kills
1998 Ally McBeal (TV)
1997 City of Industry (Stripper)
1997 Gridlock'd
1997 Flypaper

Afro Samurai: Resurrection

USA/Japan 2009
Director: Fuminori Kizaki
Voices: Samuel L. Jackson, Lucy Liu, Mark Hamill
IMDB: 8.0

Afro Samurai is a great concept that made its first appearance on SpikeTV a few years back. Since then a mini-series was made, and this is the sequel to that. Although I haven't seen the first series, this did not seem to be a hindrance to understanding the plot.

Afro Samurai, voiced by Samuel L.Jackson, is an african-american dude with an outrageous afro and sideburns who looks like he's straight out of a 1970's blaxploitation movie. Sauntering around the place with a joint dangling from his mouth, he also has the stoic cool of a Japanese Samurai, striking appropriate samurai stances at every opportunity.

Unfortunately his arch-nemesis, Lady Sio (voiced by Lucy Liu) intends to bring him to justice for all the killing he did (presumably in the first series). She digs up his father's skull and with the aid of a mad-scientist re-animates and tortures him in order to draw Afro into a fight. In order to fight her however, Afro must first find and kill the holder of the #2 Headband... which will in turn give him the right to fight Lady Sio, as she is the holder of the #1 Headband.

My assumption is that this whole headband thing is a samurai code of honour and ranking system, likely explained in the first series.

The movie is an interesting blend of Japanese and African-American cultures ... the samurais sporting gold bling and a pumping rap soundtrack put together by RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan. Involving RZA on the soundtrack was a great idea, although he's certainly done better work. Still, this movie will give your sub a nice workout.

Although I've yet to become a fan of Japanese anime, I have to say that the artwork, created in Japan, was of a very high quality. The styling looks straight out of a graphic novel, with some amazing scenes and a very colourful palette.

While the story is fairly basic, the unique blend of cultures is a great idea, and often quite funny. Of course being a samurai movie it is also very violent, and the overall theme is thankfully adult in nature - even though I have only seen the tv edit. I look forward to seeing the unrated cut which apparently features a lot more sex and violence. The only letdown for me was the annoying side-character of Ninja Ninja, who had a propensity for spouting cliche jive talk bordering on the inane.

Its interesting to note that even though you don't see the voice actors in the flesh, they chose actors who could easily be cast in their roles if this was a live action movie. In fact, I hope they decide to do that. Samuel L Jackson and Lucy Liu facing off in an Afro Samurai Live Action epic would be awesome!


Rating: 7/10

Screenshots - click to enlarge

Lucy Liu - City of Industry

Back when Lucy was a struggling actress, she made ends meet by taking on the type of roles that most good-looking young actresses take on early in their careers - the 'Eye Candy' roles - stripper, prostitute, mistress etc.

In 1997, Lucy landed the role of Cathi Rose, a stripper, in City of Industry. The film is notable today chiefly for containing one of her rare topless appearances. While not a great movie, it's far from a bad one. Starring Harvey Keitel, Steven Dorff and Famke Janssen, it is a solid urban action film and worth checking out. Great soundtrack by the likes of Massive Attack, Tricky and Death in Vegas too.

Lucy gets two short scenes and a few lines of dialogue.

Scene 1: Bare Elegance Strip Club

Lucy's first scene starts 47:14 into the movie, when Roy (Harvey Keitel) visits the strip club to follow up a lead. She performs a slow pole-dance to the laid back vibe of Tricky's 'Overcome'. Wearing sexy thigh-high leather boots and associated bondage-themed accessories, Lucy looks pretty damn hot. As you'd expect, its not a long scene.

Scene 2: Cathi's Apartment

Starting at 49:22, Roy follows Cathi's taxi back to her apartment and grabs her as she's going inside. He forces her into the lounge and asks her a few questions. As a minor character, she's not exactly given the choicest of lines, ranging from "I don't know" to "I don't fucking know".




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Lucy Liu - Watching the Detectives

Lucy gets to break out of type and play a quirky weird chick in this indy romantic comedy from 2007. Lucy has the main role here, and her performance almost single-handedly carries the movie.

There's very little pretense or glamor here, and her looks are played down in favor of personality. Her clothes are eclectic and ill-matched, and her hair shabby ... quite the opposite to her usual ultra-polished appearance. What we get instead is a lot of cute faces, cheeky grins, and of course that huge, infectious smile.

The movie is based around her character Violet, who wanders into a video store and tricks Neil the owner into taking her out. She then plays a series of practical jokes on him as their relationship develops. Violet is a real firebrand, with a love of adventure and wicked sense of humor.

Although a bigger budget may have allowed more visual spectacle, the story really doesn't require it. Its just a lot of fun with an emphasis on characterisation and comedy. While at its heart a romcom, its quirky enough not to feel sickly-sweet, and more interesting and smart than most in its genre.










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Lucy Liu - Code Name The Cleaner

God only knows what attracted Lucy to this role, unless it was a calculated effort to increase her bankability in the urban demographic. Admittedly, her role as a secret agent is not such a big stretch, and channeling her Charlie's Angels character once again was probably an easy paycheck. It's a mindless and insipid film, and the only thing it has going for it in my one-eyed opinion is the fact that it features Ms Liu.

Starring Cedric the Entertainer, there wasn't much entertaining going on unless you find the tired cliche of african-american jive talk amusing. And even if you find it amusing when delivered by an an african-american - would you say the same when delivered by an asian? Yes that's right, Lucy actually speaks and adopts the gestures of an african-american, and if this was meant to be funny then I must have missed the humor. To be fair to Lucy, lines such as "That's where you do your business, fool" and "Trust me you ain't hittin' nothin yet. You would've remembered hittin' mama." can't be pulled off by anyone. Ever.

On the upside, Lucy sports a sexy waitress costume in her first scene along with the obligatory slow-mo sequence - and looks memorably hot while doing so. And later in the film gets to kick some bad-guy ass, running around with a gun and using her martial arts skills. As always Lucy looks great in either role, being one of the few Hollywood actresses who can do 'sexy' and 'deadly' equally effectively.

I suspect most film-lovers (as opposed to film-goers) will find this a pretty hard film to sit through. I know I did, but then I'm certainly not in this film's target audience. Still, Lucy deserves much better roles than this bilge.










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