Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Chase Scenes




Recently, I was watching The Bourne Identity, after like 8 years or so. I have very fond memories of it, as it really was first good action movie that I had watched. But what really stuck in my mind was the amazing chase sequence, Matt Damon ripping through the streets of Paris, in a Mini (the Mr. Bean car). This movie was also my first look at Parisian streets, buses all that. It came a full circle as I recently visited Paris and was really fun re-watching this scene after that. This made me think about the various nice chase sequences I had seen (or atleast the ones that I can recall), and the places that they were set in, so here goes-
1- The Bourne Identity- Matt Damon zipping around in a MINI, chased by police. Location is Paris.
2- The Bourne Supremacy- Another super chase sequence, this time in Moscow, Damon this time driving a taxicab, chased by police and the russian agent (karl urban).
3- The Bourne Ultimatum- This had a brilliantly tense foot sequence, in Tangier, where Bourne is trying to track a CIA agent, who is in turn tracking Julia Stiles.
4- Inception- A super foot sequence, set in Tangier (said in the movie to be Mombasa), short and sweet. Music is kick ass.
5- Black Friday- This is set in Dharavi, police chase a suspect through the slums of Mumbai, extremely realistic, and with pretty fun dialogues, typical of Indian Police (ai cheerkut, for example). My favorite is the part where the constable is imploring Imtiaz, the suspect to stop, both are tired and are barely walking, when the constable says abe imtiaz ruk jaa, tujhe kuch naheen hoga (imtiaz please stop, nothing will happen, dont worry!!)
6- Slumdog Millionaire- Starts off with a rollicking chase scene, police constable running after a bunch of kids who were playing cricket on the airport runway, shot in Dharavi, the Mumbai superslum, this scene was actually inspired by the Black Friday chase scene.
7- Chaser- This South Korean Movie has a number of great chase scenes, but the best one is the first one. Brilliantly realistic. Set in Seoul. Movie is quite an experience actually.
8- Violent Cop- This is Japanese, Takeshi Kitano's directorial debut, the chase scene is long and straight-forward, with a haunting jazz number playing. Set in Tokyo (?). The slo-mo fight sequence at the start is one of those scenes that remain etched in your mind.
9- Korosiya Ichi- This (in)famous Takashi Miike gorefest staring Tadanobu Asano has a typically nutty chase scene, in which the 2 brothers and Asano track down this one fellow and the 2 brothers chase him, this stops almost as soon as it starts, but what makes it special are the scenes preceding this and just after it, if these scenes doesnt make one say WTF, nothing else will, guaranteed! Set in Tokyo or maybe Osaka, not really sure.
10- Memories of Murder- Set in the (South) Korean countryside, this gem has a pretty chase scene. Once again, the start of this scene is quite something.

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