By RACHEL LOI

THE Twilight and Underworld fran-chises might share the rivalrous vam-pire-werewolf trope but there’s nosappy love triangle to be found in thelatter.

Instead, there’s plenty of blood-thirsty action – the way traditional(read: male) horror movie fans like it.And despite the films’ relatively simi-lar and thin storylines, it’s the relent-less video-game-style violence andKate Beckinsale in spandex that haveboth kept the near-decade old seriesgoing strong at the box office.

In its fourth outing, Underworld:Awakening, the vampiress DeathDealer Selene (Kate Beckinsale) findsherself waking up 12 years in the fu-ture.

She’s held in a research facility af-ter being captured during the purg-ing of the vampire and Lycan (were-wolves that can return to humanform at will) infection from the hu-man race.

But being held captive is the leastof Selene’s worries. She learns shehas a powerful hybrid daughter, Eve(India Eisley) who has been kid-napped by a Lycan scientist bent onusing the girl’s genetic material to de-velop a vaccine to make his kind big-ger, stronger, and immune to silver.

Wasting no time, Selene embarkson a search-and-rescue missionwhere the 3D and special effects takeover the job of the screenwriters asthe film rockets from one action se-quence to another.

Clocking in at just 88 minutes, Un-derworld: Awakening is the shortestfilm in the series and has relativelysparse dialogue. The overly simple

plot leaves plenty of questions unan-swered – possibly to leave room foryet another sequel.

But whatever it lacks in the sto-ry-telling department, it makes up forwith fantastically choreographedstunts and over-the-top action setpieces.

The 3D is the icing on the cakeand fans of the series will be in for atreat as you will find yourself right inthe middle of the battle between Se-

lene and super-Lycan Quint (KristenHolden-Ried) with blood splatteringand flesh exploding right before youreyes.

The best thing about Underworld:Awakening is that it’s easy to follow,even if you’ve missed the previousfilms. But with all that gore, one thingthing you might want to consider leav-ing out while watching this is the pop-

corn.

Rating: B+

By DYLAN TAN

A DOCUMENTARY which explores thestigma of palliative care and limited me-dicinal use of opiates to tackle a globalpain epidemic has received a surpris-ing M18 rating here.

“The medicine these patients needare restricted drugs – they’re narcotics– and that’s a dirty word in most coun-tries,” explains Mike Hill, the Austral-ian writer-producer-director behindLife Before Death. “The use of opium inAsia in particular comes with a wholevariety of taboos.”

“However there’snothing to be fearful of– they’re just medicinesfor treating pain; weneed not fear them andit’s not very controver-sial unless we deter-mine it to be andthere’s no good reasonfor that.”

In his home coun-try, the award-winningfilm is rated PG for mildthemes and drug use.The 81-minute filmwas shot across 11countries, and held itsglobal premiere in Singapore onWednesday.

From here, it will go on to have over150 screenings in 11 languages across30 countries in the lead up to WorldCancer Day tomorrow. The film can al-so be purchased and viewed online, to-gether with additional footage thatdidn’t make the final cut of being part ofa series of 50 short films.

Life Before Death takes an unflinch-ing look at how, despite the advance-ment of medical science, inadequatemanagement of pain, especially due tocancer, continues to be a serious healthproblem around the world. Statisticsshow that only 15 per cent of the worlduses 94 per cent of opiods available totreat pain. The problem is worsened bythe fact that despite strong painkillerslike morphine being on the WorldHealth Organisation’s (WHO) list of es-sential drugs, it remains unavailable inmore than 150 countries.

The film shares the same name asan initiative started by the Lien Founda-tion – which was also involved in theproduction – to raise public awarenessabout palliative care.

As part of the foundation’s missionto advocate and improve care for theterminally ill, it will make a donation ofUS$100,000 (S$124,700) to Pallium In-

dia, an organisation thathas successfully pioneeredthe community model ofhospice care in Kerala.

Half of the money will go to buying painrelief medicine for the underprivilegedwhile the rest would be used to traindoctors and nurses in pain treatment.

A 2009 WHO report which said thatfour out of five people today are unableto get adequate access to pain treat-ment and medicine was what spurredHill to make the documentary.

“Almost immediately, it becamevery clear that this is an incredibly pow-erful landscape for storytelling; thestakes are very high and this is a matterof life and death,” he says.

About 25 per cent of the film wasshot in Singapore and one of the sub-jects featured is local cancer patient Ber-nard Ng. The 67-year-old ex-senior po-lice officer was diagnosed with nosecancer about 10 years ago but his will-ingness to embrace palliative care anduse pain management medicine hasdramatically improved his quality oflife. No longer suicidal like he waswhen he first learnt of his illness, Nghas now turned into an outspoken andactive campaigner on the issue so othervictims like him need not suffer unnec-essary pain.

While Hill says he’s fortunateenough to not personally know anyonewho has suffered unnecessary pain,meeting and filming some of the termi-

nally ill patients in the film was heart-breaking, albeit one with a silver lining.

“It’s challenging to go into an envi-ronment where people are sufferingbut there’s a flip side to this – the storywe are telling is about the services thatdeliver pain relief as well as the healthcare professionals that are providingthis service to people in the most diffi-cult times of their lives so that’s incredi-bly life-affirming and inspiring,” hesays.

Life Before Death took two years tomake but Hill says he’s not done eventhough the film is out now.

“We’re not finished with telling sto-ries like that,” he says. “We don’t thinkit’s a situation that will go away quicklyand we’re inspired by the people whoare working in this field.”

He adds, “The story ultimately pro-vides hope that this is one global healthproblem that can be solved with a littlehelp from the audience.

“What we’ve learnt in our journey isthis is actually a very universal problem– pain is not culturally specific; it’ssomething that we all have in common.But this is a situation that can besolved. Our goal for the film is to makesome grounds towards the World Can-cer Declaration Goal which is universalaccess to pain relief by the year 2020.”

For more information on the issue aswell as to view or purchase a copy of

Life Before Death, log ontowww.lifebeforedeath.com

WITH great powercomes greatirresponsibility,especially whenhigh-school kidswith newfoundsuperhumanabilities – and a

blatant disregard for established socialnorms – are involved. In Chronicle, awildly inconsistent yet undeniably in-vigorating science-fantasy film fromfirst-time director Josh Trank, viewerswill get to witness just how extreme thedamage can be when emo-tions and events spiral out ofcontrol.

When it comes to moviesof this nature, it’s best to sus-pend disbelief so that logicwon’t get in the way of yourviewing pleasure. Initially,Chronicle has the standardlow-budget, home video lookof an indie project – its hum-ble opening sequence involvesa shy teenager who conven-iently decides to film every as-pect of his dreary daily lifewith a handheld camera –sharing each frame with theaudience – but then Trankups the ante progressively and impres-sively, until he ends up in blockbusterterritory.

It’s the sort of point-of-view ap-proach that films with a found-footage,quick-cuts style like Cloverfield (2008)have introduced in the past, but thereis still something fresh and originalabout Chronicle, which is based on thesimple premise that when left to theirown devices, ordinary people who sud-denly acquire special powers can usethem to do good, bad and extremely ug-ly things – convention and consequenc-

es be damned. Andrew Detmer (DaneDeHaan) is a shy, geeky kid (read: Los-er) who gets picked on by bullies andpitied by others at school.

The only things he can look forwardto at home are an abusive father, a bed-ridden mother and tinkering with hisvideo camera – it is his sole comfortand constant companion, recordingevery embarrassing moment of his sor-ry life.

We are treated to close-ups of hispasty complexion, anti-social behav-iour and generally depressing outlook

on life. He’s a little more upbeat whenhanging out with his philosophy-spout-ing cousin Matt (Alex Russell), but theneverything changes during a party one

night when they, along with studentleader Steve (Michael B Jordan), stum-ble upon a mysterious hole in the

woods.Naturally, they are reckless enough

to go down the deep, dark hole – cam-

era still recording, of course – only todiscover a large crystal-like object,emitting a blinding white light. It soonbecomes apparent that the experience

has transformed their lives. The cam-era records them making baseballschange direction in mid-air and con-ducting schoolboy pranks like gettinggirls’ skirts to billow without warningand moving a parked car, much to theconsternation of its owner. Andrew,who is given to uncontrollable fits of an-ger, alarms the others when he wills arude driver to crash into a river.

As their skills develop and the boysdiscover that the sky is literally the lim-it, they graduate from the cheap juve-nile pranks.

At a school talent show, An-drew performs tricks with gus-to and he is suddenly The Guy– with great power comes newfriends, hot chicks and otheruniversal delights. At thispoint the moviemakers couldhave chosen to take the easierroute and turn Chronicle intoa lightweight tale but to itscredit, it’s not that kind ofshow, and Andrew is not thatkind of kid.

Something goes terriblywrong, a major characterdies, and the movie takes adark, delicious turn – givingnew meaning to the term

“throwing a teenage tantrum”. By thistime the audience is fully invested inthe characters and game for just aboutanything – to a certain extent, Chroni-cle delivers.

The transitions may be a little roughand the narrative isn’t always coher-ent, but the movie has decent entertain-ment value and is destined for successat the box office – particularly amongyoung males with over-active imagina-tions. Let’s hope they don’t try this stuff

at home, though.

Rating: C+

Baying for Beckinsale bloodsport

Debut director Josh Trank turns the trite-and-tested superhero premiseon its head with a sobering dose of reality, reviews GEOFFREY EU

Tryst with teen titans

A life less painful

SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

Fang frills: In the 88 minutes of Underworld: Awakening, the shortest filmin the series, Kate Beckinsale wastes no time with hardware and ammo

PHOTOS: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

Volte-face: For three young men, (from below left) Matt Garetty (Alex Russell), Steve Montgomery (Michael BJordan) and Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan), the chronicle of their ordinary lives takes a super about-turn (above)

PHOTOS: MOONSHINE AGENCY

Silver linings: Poignant scenes from Australianwriter-producer-director Mike Hill’s documentary Life BeforeDeath showing a performance by an African dance troupe inKampala for All Against AIDS (above) and Singaporean cancerpatient Bernard Ng, singing at an event (left), and talkingabout how palliative care helped him cope with nose cancer

The Business Times, Friday, February 3, 2012 CINEMA 39Source: The Business Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Reproduced with permission.