Chiwetel Ejiofor commented that male directors often approach action as a "slightly stoic engagement with violence," while here it was viewed "as part of storytelling, as part of engagement with narrative and engagement with character."
I think this is why I enjoyed it so much more than any other "action" movie. You could see the way the action served the characters and the story, instead of the other way around, such as Joe and Nicky smoothly handing off weapons to each other, speaking to their long history together. This is a character-driven movie with action in it.
Which is not to say the film is suddenly all perfect because a woman directed it. Charlize Theron is great, but the decision to cast her as a west/central Asian character, especially when the other characters were even altered to match the ethnic background of their actors (Quynh was changed to Vietnamese from Japanese), altered some of the dynamics of the story, and not for the better.
But even if it has a few flaws, it's still something different, and in a world of cliches and remakes, I appreciate it.
This is not an action movie. This is a story with action
Chiwetel Ejiofor commented that male directors often approach action as a "slightly stoic engagement with violence," while here it was viewed "as part of storytelling, as part of engagement with narrative and engagement with character."
I think this is why I enjoyed it so much more than any other "action" movie. You could see the way the action served the characters and the story, instead of the other way around, such as Joe and Nicky smoothly handing off weapons to each other, speaking to their long history together. This is a character-driven movie with action in it.
Which is not to say the film is suddenly all perfect because a woman directed it. Charlize Theron is great, but the decision to cast her as a west/central Asian character, especially when the other characters were even altered to match the ethnic background of their actors (Quynh was changed to Vietnamese from Japanese), altered some of the dynamics of the story, and not for the better.
But even if it has a few flaws, it's still something different, and in a world of cliches and remakes, I appreciate it.