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150-595: Only God Forgives is a 2013 action film written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and stars Ryan Gosling , Kristin Scott Thomas and Vithaya Pansringarm . It was shot on location in Bangkok , Thailand , and as with the director's earlier film Drive it was also dedicated to Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky . The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival . Only God Forgives

300-568: A brothel , saying he wants a 14-year-old girl, but the brothel-keeper refuses. Enraged, Billy attacks him with a wine bottle and breaks into the room where the prostitutes are on display and attacks one of them. At another location, Billy later assaults and kills an underage prostitute where he is cornered by Thai police. Chang, who is a vigilante -type police lieutenant , brings the girl's father Choi to identify his daughter's body and allows Choi to beat Billy to death. Chang later severs Choi's right forearm with his sword for allowing his daughter to be

450-458: A stock car for the Driver to race as a legitimate business for them all. The Driver grows close to his new neighbor, Irene, and her young son, Benicio, but their relationship is interrupted when Irene's husband, Standard Gabriel, is released from prison. Standard owes protection money and is assaulted by Albanian gangster Chris Cook, who demands that he rob a pawn shop for $ 40,000 to pay off

600-692: A "classic Los Angeles heist-gone-wrong story," that "isn't trying to outdo Bullitt or get the next assignment in The Fast and the Furious franchise ". O'Hehir also described homages to " Roger Corman 's B-movie aesthetic and the glossy Hollywood spectacles of Michael Mann ". Steven Zeitchik of the Los Angeles Times examined themes in the characters of "loyalty, loneliness and the dark impulses that rise up even when we try our hardest to suppress them". Reuters ' Nick Vinocur described

750-544: A 1980s atmosphere, underlined by the vehicles, music, and clothes, and by the architecture. The parts of the city seen in the Valley and near downtown Los Angeles are cheap stucco and mirrored glass; the film excludes buildings constructed more recently. Drab background settings include the Southern California commercial strip . As the Los Angeles Times pointed out, whenever gleaming buildings are shown, it

900-510: A Global release status of Chinese-language martial arts films, most notably Zhang Yimou 's Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004), Stephen Chow 's Kung Fu Hustle (2004) and Chen Kaige 's The Promise (2005). Most Hong Kong action films in the first quarter of the 21st century, such as those in Cold War (2012), Cold War 2 (2016) and The White Storm film series have their violence toned down, especially compared to

1050-405: A bad place. By making 'Standard' more specific and more interesting, we found that it made the story that more compelling. The film was made on a production budget of about $ 15 million and shot in various parts of Los Angeles, beginning on September 25, 2010. Locations were picked by Refn while Gosling drove him around the city at night. At the director's request, Los Angeles was picked as

1200-437: A balance between romance and violence. Using an Arri Alexa camera, cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel shot the film digitally . According to executive producer David Lancaster, the film has abundant, evocative, intense images of Los Angeles that are not often seen. "From the little seen back streets of downtown LA to the dry arid outposts on the peaks of the desert landscape surrounding it, Siegel has re-imagined an LA all

1350-606: A character portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone 's Dollars Trilogy , because he almost never speaks, communicating mostly non-verbally. The Driver's meager dialogue is not designed to present him as tough, but to soften him. Refn chose to give The Driver very little dialogue and have him drive around listening to synth-pop music, taking control when it counts. Peter Debruge of Variety opined that what The Driver lacks in psychology, he makes up through action and stylish costuming. The Driver's wardrobe, in particular

1500-493: A child, characters typically portrayed by Steve McQueen or Clint Eastwood . Hossein Amini adapted the novel for the screen. He felt it was a rare book to receive from a studio because it was short, gloomy, and like a poem. Since the novel does not present a linear story, but has many flashbacks and jumps around in time, Amini found the adaptation challenging. He felt the non-linear structure made it "a very tricky structure" for

1650-897: A feature film. A film adaptation of Drive was first announced in early 2008, with Neil Marshall set to direct what was being described as "an L.A.-set action mystery", planned as a starring vehicle for Hugh Jackman . Universal Studios , which had tried to make a film version for some time, was also on board. By February 2010, Marshall and Jackman were no longer attached to the project. Platt contacted actor Ryan Gosling about Drive early on. Platt explained: "I have this list that I've created of very talented individuals whose work inspire me — writers, directors, actors whom I have to work with before I go onto another career or do something else with my life." Despite having starred in films of diverse genres, Gosling had never starred in anything like Drive but had been interested in acting in an action-oriented project. Gosling said that he had been put off by

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1800-604: A field with Chang, offering him his hands voluntarily so he can cut them off with the same weapon with which he killed Crystal. Later, Chang performs a song in a karaoke club filled with fellow police officers. Refn has said that "[f]rom the beginning, [he] had the idea of a thriller produced as a western , all in the Far East , and with a modern cowboy hero." He originally planned to direct Only God Forgives directly after Valhalla Rising (2009), but he accepted Gosling's request to direct Drive instead. Gosling has described

1950-436: A fight sequence. In the 1980s, American martial arts films reflected the national move towards conservatism, reflected in films of Chuck Norris and other actors such as Sho Kosugi . The genre would shift from theatrical releases towards the end of the decade with the rise of home video, the lower box-office of American martial arts productions, and a significant portion of direct-to-video action films that first were made in

2100-500: A global audience of these films in the United States and Europe, but was cut short on Lee's death in 1973 leading the phases popularity to decline. Following a period of stagnation, Chang Cheh and Lau Kar-leung revitalized the genre with shaolin kung fu films and Chor Yuen 's series of darker swordplay films based on the novels of Gu Long . Kung Fu comedies appeared featuring Jackie Chan as martial arts films flourished into

2250-401: A half stars saying: "Refn's follow-up effort to the similarly polarizing Drive (which I thought was flat-out great) is even more stylized and daring. Drive star Ryan Gosling (who is clearly interested in carving out a career with at least as many bold, indie-type roles as commercial, leading-man fare) strikes a Brando pose playing Julian, a smoldering, seemingly lethal American who navigates

2400-405: A hallway and elevator that linked his unit to Irene's. Mickle also built a strip club set and Bernie Rose's apartment in an abandoned building. Turning a "run-of-the-mill" Los Angeles auto body shop into a grandiose dealership was one of the most challenging tasks. Painting the walls an electric blue color, she filled the showroom with vintage cars. While Drive is set in the present day, it has

2550-652: A heightened reality. It's a fairy tale." The film received a very divided response at its Cannes press screening; it was booed by many of the audience of journalists and critics while also receiving a standing ovation. It received a polarized response from mainstream critics: review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 41% based on reviews from 163 critics, with a weighted average of 5.30/10. The site's consensus states: "Director Refn remains as visually stylish as ever, but Only God Forgives fails to add enough narrative smarts or relatable characters to ground its beautifully filmed depravity." Metacritic assigns

2700-488: A man having a split personality, being a stuntman by day and a getaway driver at night, than the plot of the story. Believing that the director might be intimidated by the script, as it was unlike anything he had done before, Gosling had concerns about whether Refn wanted to participate. Refn took on the project without hesitation. When casting roles in his films, Refn does not watch casting tapes or have his actors audition for him. Instead, he meets with them and casts them on

2850-554: A propensity for violent action, identified with the films of Chang Cheh . Violent female characters have been part of cinema since its early inception, with characters such as Kate Kelly brandishing a shotgun in The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). Women traditionally appear in action films as romantic interests, tomboys , or sidekicks to male protagonists. Violent white women would appear in other genres as well such as

3000-473: A prostitute. Upon discovering Billy's death, Julian and his crew confront Choi, but Julian spares his life after hearing his version of the facts. Meantime, Julian and Billy's mother Crystal arrives in Bangkok and demands that he kill the man responsible for Billy's death. Julian refuses, believing Choi's revenge was justified. After having Choi killed, Crystal learns of Chang's involvement, where she meets with

3150-403: A restaurant, causing the deaths of numerous customers and two of Chang's men. Chang shoots one and also tortures the other before killing him. The hitman leads Chang to Li Po, who has resorted to arranging hits to pay for his disabled son. Chang kills the hitman with his sword but spares Li Po. Chang finds Byron in a club and graphically tortures him to death but cannot find the person who ordered

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3300-430: A rival drug dealer named Byron and offers to cut him into her drug operation in exchange for a hit on Chang. Chang investigates Choi's murder and concludes Julian is not the killer. That evening, Julian brings Mai, a prostitute, as his girlfriend to meet Crystal at a restaurant. However, Crystal discovers the ruse, where she insults Mai and demeans Julian. Two hitmen hired by Byron attempt to kill Chang with machine guns at

3450-579: A series of comic gore, resulting in "a bizarre concoction ... reminiscent of David Lynch 's Mulholland Drive ... Quentin Tarantino 's Pulp Fiction , and [with] angst-laden love scenes that would not be out of place in a Scandinavian drama". Christopher Hawthorne, also from the Los Angeles Times , has compared it to the works of Walter Hill , John Carpenter , Nathanael West , J. G. Ballard , and Mike Davis . According to Refn, Drive

3600-432: A series of stunning visuals and graphic imagery – that's a prime example of how the film conveys so many ideas and emotions through images rather than words. Before shooting the head-smashing scene, Refn spoke to Gaspar Noé and asked him how he had done a similar scene in his film Irréversible (2002). Crossing the line from romance to violence, the scene begins with the Driver and Irene kissing tenderly. What they share

3750-745: A significant portion. These films include Taxi 2 (2000), Kiss of the Dragon (2001), District 13 (2004) and Unleashed (2005). Whan asked about the Americanization of these French films, Christophe Gans , director of Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) stated that "Hollywood ownership of certain elements [...] must be challenged, in order to show that these elements have also long been present in European culture." The most significant producers of French action films with international ambitions

3900-658: A similar level of popularity to that of the Western in the United States. The most internationally known films of this era were the films Kurosawa with Seven Samurai (1954), The Hidden Fortress (1958), and Yojimbo (1961). By at least the 1950s, Japanese films were looked upon as a model to be emulated by Hong Kong film production, and Hong Kong film companies began actively enlisting professionals from Japan, such as cinematographer Tadashi Nishimoto to contribute to color and widescreen cinematography. New literary sources also developed in martial arts films of this period, with

4050-406: A single genre and that streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix similarly dilutes what is marketed and received as action. In transnational cinema, there are two major trends in action films: Hollywood action films and their style being imitated around the globe and the other being Chinese-language martial arts films. The roots of action films extend into the beginning of film but it

4200-451: A three-act structure centered on survival, resistance and revenge with narratives where the physical body of the hero is tested, traumatized and ultimately triumphant. The third shift in action cinema, the postclassical, was defined by the predominance of Eastern cinema and its aesthetics, primarily the wire-work of Hong Kong action cinema from the classical era, through the convention of the increasingly computer generated effects. This saw

4350-594: A tough police officer protects society by upholding the law against systematic corruption. This extended into films which O'Brien described as "knee-jerk responses" to perceived threats with rogue cop and vigilante films such as Dirty Harry (1971) and Death Wish (1974) where the restoration of order is only possible by force and antisocial characters prepared to act when society does not. The vigilantism reappears in other films that were exploitative of southern society such as Billy Jack (1971) and White Lightning (1973) and "good ol' boy" comedies like Smokey and

4500-516: A true mother to him. Julian and his associate Charlie infiltrate Chang's home and plan to ambush him. After learning that Charlie was instructed to execute the entire family, Julian kills Charlie before he can kill Chang's daughter. Chang confronts Crystal in her hotel room, where she tells him about Julian's violent behaviour. Chang stabs Crystal in the throat. Later, Julian returns to the hotel and finds his mother's corpse, where he cuts open her abdomen and shoves his hand inside it. Julian later stands in

4650-416: A wider historical and cultural field. In their book Action Cinema Since 2000 (2024), Tasker, Lisa Purse, and Chris Holmlund stated that thinking of action as a mode is more helpful than thinking of it as a genre. The three authors suggested that action frames a certain manner of filmmaking and viewing exceed genre without eclipsing it stating that websites such as IMDb and Misplaced Pages rarely label films by

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4800-463: Is Luc Besson 's France-based EuropaCorp , who released films like Taxi (1998) and From Paris with Love (2010). EuropaCorp produced Transporter franchise starred British actor Jason Statham and made him an action film star, which led him to feature in The Expendables series by the end of the 2010s. The action film genre has been a staple of Bollywood cinema . In the 1970s,

4950-574: Is a generic term to refer to several types of films containing martial arts. The wuxia film is the oldest genre in Chinese cinema. Stephen Teo wrote in his book on Wuxia that there is no satisfactory English translation of the term, with it often being identified as "the swordplay film" in critical studies. It is derived from the Chinese words wu denoting militarist or martial qualities and xia denoting chivalry, gallantry, and qualities of knighthood. The term wuxia entered into popular culture in

5100-729: Is based on Twin Dragons (1992). Other films such as the martial arts film Bhadrachlam (2001), borrows from American cinema with the Jean-Claude Van Damme film Kickboxer (1989). SS Rajamouli 's RRR (2022) was among the highest budgeted films made in India, and became a rare hit film outside of Indian diaspora, where it broke box office records in Japan and performed exceptionally well in American box office. Japan

5250-413: Is based on James Sallis 's 2005 novel . The film stars Ryan Gosling as an unnamed Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. He quickly grows fond of his neighbor, Irene ( Carey Mulligan ), and her young son, Benicio. When her debt-ridden husband, Standard ( Oscar Isaac ), is released from prison , the two men take part in what turns out to be a botched million-dollar heist that endangers

5400-623: Is because they are being seen from a distance. Refn shot those scenes from a helicopter at night in Bunker Hill, Los Angeles . Thinking back, there isn't really all that much driving in Drive  – a couple of chase scenes here and there, staged efficiently, thrillingly. It's more about the questionable choices that drive people – and, ultimately, the ones that drive them away. — Associated Press reporter Christy Lemire Andrew O'Hehir of Salon magazine described Drive as

5550-493: Is dedicated to filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and includes shades of Jodorowsky's existentialism. Drive has been described as a tough, hard-edged, neo-noir , art house feature, extremely violent and very stylish, with European art and exploitation influences. Drive also refers to 1970s and 1980s cult hits such as The Day of the Locust (1975) and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). Other influences can be seen in

5700-442: Is itself empowering and, if not, whether a hypersexualized female character can still represent strength and autonomy. Hypersexualized female action leads had tight fitting or revealing costumes that Tasker identified as "exaggerated statements of sexuality" and in the tradition of "fetishistic figure of fantasy" derives from comic books and soft pornography . This originated in television with characters like Buffy Summers ( Buffy

5850-433: Is married to Irene and is released from prison a week after Irene meets The Driver. Finding the role somewhat unappealing, he developed the archetypal character into something more. He said of the role: As soon as I sat down with Nicolas, he explained this universe and world of the story, so we made the character into someone interested in owning a restaurant, someone who made some wrong decisions in his life, ending up in

6000-430: Is really a goodbye kiss. The Driver becomes a kind of "werewolf," violently stomping the hit man's head in. Irene sees the Driver in a new light. Of this scene, Refn said: Every movie has to have a heart – a place where it defines itself – and in every movie I've made there's always a scene that does that. On Drive , it was hard for me to wrap my head around it. I realized I needed to show in one situation that Driver

6150-402: Is that this is a guy that's seen too many movies, and he's started to confuse his life for a film. When Gosling signed on for the leading role, he was allowed to choose the director, a first in his career. He chose Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn . "It had to be [him]. There was no other choice." When Refn read the first screenplay for Drive , he was more intrigued by the concept of

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6300-472: Is the hopelessly romantic knight, but he's also completely psychotic and is willing to use any kind of violence to protect innocence. But that scene was never written. As I was going along, it just kind of popped up. In March 2012, Interiors , an online journal concerned with the relationship between architecture and film, published an issue that discussed how space is used in this scene. The issue highlights Refn's use of constricted space and his way of creating

6450-578: The femme fatales in film noir and horror films of the 1970s. Violent women were common in action films since the 1960s. These films featured working-class women exacting revenge. Films of the 1970s featured black women such as Pam Grier in films like Foxy Brown (1974). In the 1980s, a new symbolically transgressive character emerged in the form of Ellen Ripley in Aliens (1986) and Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and

6600-416: The 2011 Cannes Film Festival , where it received a standing ovation . Refn won the festival's Best Director Award . The film was praised for its direction, cinematography, performances (particularly Gosling and Brooks'), visuals, action sequences, and musical score; however, some critics were appalled by its graphic violence and found that potentially detrimental to the film's box office success. Nonetheless,

6750-550: The Bollywood action film consolidated with two films starring Amitabh Bachchan : Prakash Mehra 's Zanjeer (1973) and Yash Chopra 's Deewaar (1975). The box office success of these films made Bachchan a star and spawned the "angry young man" film in Bollywood cinema. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the action genre film declined considerably with new films predominantly featuring former bodybuilders failing to reach

6900-517: The Hong Kong action cinema , such melodramatic male bonding and marginalized women characters, while the Korean films also have greater elements of tragedy and romance emphasized. Most martial arts films made before the mid-1960s were Cantonese-language productions. In comparison, Mandarin-language films were an integral part of Hong Kong cinema due to the influx of Shanghai film talent in

7050-493: The Orson Welles film Mr. Arkadin . Drive would later serve as a major influence for many elements of the 2012 game Hotline Miami , including the minimalist plot, the protagonist, use of dialogue, portrayal of violence and musical style. Refn chose Johnny Jewel of Desire and Chromatics to score the film. The album consists of songs blended with electronic , ambient and retro music . Although Jewel's music

7200-507: The September 11 attacks in 2001, which suggested an end to fantastical elements that defined the action hero and genre. Following the release of Quentin Tarantino 's Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) revisited the tropes of 1970s action films leading a renaissance of vengeance narratives in films like The Brave One (2007) and Taken (2008). O'Brien found that Tarantino's films were post-modern takes on

7350-559: The September 11 attacks , a return to the early forms of the genre appeared in the wake of Kill Bill and The Expendables films. Scott Higgins wrote in 2008 in Cinema Journal that action films are both one of the most popular and popularly derided of contemporary cinema genres, stating that "in mainstream discourse, the genre is regularly lambasted for favoring spectacle over finely tuned narrative." Bordwell echoed this in his book, The Way Hollywood Tells It , writing that

7500-510: The xinpai wuxia xiaoshuo (or "new school martial arts fiction") coming into prominence with the success of Liang Yusheng 's Longhu Dou Jinghua (1954) and Jin Yong 's Shujian enchou lu (1956) which showed influence of the Shanghai martial arts films but also circulated from Hong Kong to Taiwan and Chinese communities overseas. This led to a growing demand in both local and regional markets in

7650-428: The 1960s with films like The Born Losers (1967) which was predominantly a drama, interspersed with martial arts scenes. American martial arts films predominantly came into production following the release of Enter the Dragon (1973), with the only higher-budgeted American film to follow in its wake being The Yakuza (1974). Lott noted the two films would lead to the two subsequent styles of martial arts films in

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7800-609: The 1970s. James Monaco wrote in 1979 in American Film Now: The People, The Power, The Money, the Movies that "the lines that separate on genre from another have continued to disintegrate." Tasker said that most post-classical action films are hybrids, drawing from genres as varied as war films, science fiction , horror , crime, martial arts , and comedy films . In Chinese-language films, both wuxia and kung fu are genre-specific terms, while martial arts

7950-784: The 1980s. Other films again modernized the form with gangster films of John Woo ( A Better Tomorrow (1986), The Killer (1989)) and the Wong Fei Hung saga returning in Tsui Hark 's Once Upon a Time in China featuring Jet Li which again revitalized the swordplay styled films. By the turn of the century Hollywood action films would look towards Hong Kong cinema and bringing some of their major actors and directors over to apply their style to their films, such as Chan, Woo, Li, Michelle Yeoh and Yuen Woo-Ping . The release of Ang Lee 's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) led to

8100-706: The 21st century have been comic book adaptations, which commenced with the X-Men and is seen in other series such as Spider-Man , and Iron Man series. Tasker wrote that despite the central characters in superhero cinema being extraordinary, occasionally even God-like, they often followed the traces of the central character becoming powerful of which is fundamental to action films, often dealt with origin stories in superhero films. Action films often interface with other genres. Tasker wrote that films are often labelled action thrillers, action-fantasy and action-adventure films with different nuances. Tasker later discussed that

8250-522: The Bandit (1977). This era also emphasizes the car chase scenes as moments of spectacle in films like Bullitt and The French Connection (1971). O'Brien described these films as emphasizing "the fusion of man and machine" with the drivers and vehicles acting as one, concluding with what he described as "the ultimate in apocalyptic modernity and social erasure" in Mad Max 2 (1981). O'Brien described

8400-754: The Bollywood press who reported on him in the headlines of Bollywood magazines for his public brawls and affairs with leading actresses. In Dabangg (2010), Khan continued with this public persona, which was repeated in several of his later films such as Ready (2011), Bodyguard (2011), Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and Dabangg 2 (2012). From the 1980s, generations of actors in Telugu cinema have invoked Hong Kong action films, such as Srihari who stated he wanted to become an actor after watching his first Bruce Lee film. Several films in Telugu cinema were remakes of Hong Kong films, such as Hello Brother (1994) which

8550-598: The Dragon briefly allowed an influx of Hong Kong films to Japan, but the trend did not last, with 28 Hong Kong films, mostly kung fu films, being released in 1974, and the number decreasing to five in 1975, four in 1977 and only two in 1978. Ryuhei Kitamura , director of Versus (2000), said in 2004 that he grew frustrated with the Japanese film industry as producers felt they couldn't make action films in competition with Hong Kong or American productions. Versus grew to become popular outside of Japan, and Kitamura said he

8700-602: The Hong Kong film industry after the handover in 1997. Anglophone action film scholarship has tended to emphasize bigger budget American action films, with academics tending to find films that fall out of Hollywood productions as not quite fitting definitions of the genre. By 2024, many national and regional industries were known for action films. These include international films such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam , South Korean, Japanese, Thai , Brazilian , Chinese , South African , French and Italian action titles. At

8850-807: The Red Lotus (1965) and King Hu 's Come Drink with Me (1966). In the 1970s, the Hong Kong martial arts films began to grow under the format of yanggang ("staunch masculinity") mostly through the films of Chang Cheh which were popular. This transition led to the kung fu film sub-genre at beginning of the decade and moved beyond the swordplay films with contemporary settings of late Qing or early Republican periods and had more hand-to-hand combat over supernatural swordplay and special effects. A new studio, Golden Harvest quickly became one of independent filmmakers to grant creative freedom and pay and attracted new directors and actors, including Bruce Lee . The popularity of kung fu films and Bruce Lee led to attract

9000-484: The United States, Europe and Japan had during this period. Yip described Japanese cinema as the most advanced in Asia at the time. This was showcased by the international breakthrough of Akira Kurosawa 's films like Rashomon (1950). The film genre known as the chanbara was at its height in Japan. The style was a sub-genre to the jidai-geki , or period drama with an emphasis on sword fighting and action. It had

9150-406: The United States, with films like Enter the Dragon about people who reveled in combat, often in a tournament setting, and The Yakuza which had several genres attached to it, but featured several martial arts sequences. By the end of the 1970s, the style was an established genre in American cinema, often featuring tough heroic characters who would fight and not think about their actions until after

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9300-591: The Vampire Slayer (1997–2003)) and Xena ( Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001)). These series popularity demonstrated a growing market for female action film heroes, in films of the 2000s like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Charlie's Angels (2000), Ultraviolet (2006), Salt (2010) and series like Underworld and Resident Evil . These series like their television series earlier, had their leads eroticized as active and physically capable while also being scantily-clad, hyper-feminized similar to

9450-553: The action heroine's dual status of an active subject and sexual object was overturning the traditional gender binary because the films "assume that women are powerful" without resorting to justify her physical aggression through narratives involving maternal drive, mental instability or trauma. Purse found that female leads in films like Elektra (2005), Kill Bill , Underworld , Charlie's Angels and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) did showcase women having expensive cars, clothing, travel, homes and often high-paying jobs, but that this

9600-521: The backstreets of Cairo. British author and academic Yvonne Tasker expanded on this topic, stating that action films have no clear and constant iconography or settings. In her book The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film (2015), she found that the most broadly consistent themes tend to be a characters quest from freedom from oppression such as a hero overcoming enemies or obstacles and physical conflicts or challenge, usually battling other humans or alien opponents. By late 2010s studies of genre analysis,

9750-435: The book Australian Genre Film , Amanda Howell suggested that this label was used to help distance Australian cinema from Hollywood films as it would be suggesting commerce over culture and that it would be "quite unacceptable to make Australian movies using conventions established in the U.S.A." Howell stated this to be the case with action films of the 1970s and 1980s with Brian Trenchard-Smith 's Turkey Shoot (1982) being

9900-439: The character. Albert Brooks plays the foul-mouthed, morose Bernie Rose. When Refn suggested him, Gosling agreed but thought the actor might not want to play a character who is violent and sullen or appear in a film that he did not work on himself. Brooks accepted the role to go against type , and because he loved that Bernie was not a cliché. There are six people you could always get to play this kind of part, and I like that

10050-486: The cinematography. Amini's script imposes "a kind of sideways moral code ," where even those who comply with it are almost never rewarded for their efforts, as seen when The Driver helps Standard because of concern for Irene and her son. In their vehicles, the characters not only make escapes or commit murder but try to find peace and search for romance. The Driver has been compared to the Man With No Name ,

10200-550: The classical form of action cinema to be the 1980s. The decade continued the trends of formative period with heroes as avengers ( Lethal Weapon (1987)), rogue police officers ( Die Hard (1988)) and mercenary warriors ( Commando (1985)). Following the continuity of the car and man hybrid of the previous decade, the 1980s featured weaponized men with who were either also carrying weapons such as Sudden Impact (1983), trained to be weapons ( American Ninja (1985)) or imbued with technology ( RoboCop (1987)). O'Brien noted that

10350-455: The debt. Cook threatens Benicio and Irene, leading the Driver to offer to act as the getaway driver for Standard and Blanche, Cook's accomplice. At the pawn shop, Blanche exits with a bag of money, but Standard is shot and killed by the store owner. Pursued by another car, the Driver and Blanche hide at a motel , where he forces her to admit that the bag contains $ 1 million, which she and Cook planned to take for themselves with Cook's henchmen in

10500-464: The decline of overt masculinity in the action film which corresponded with the end of the Cold War in 1991, while the rise of self-referential and parodies of this era grew in films like Last Action Hero (1993). O'Brien described this era as being soft where the hard bodies of the classical era were replaced with computer generated imagery such as that of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). This

10650-601: The difference between Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Die Hard (1988), that while both were mainstream Hollywood blockbusters with hero asserting masculinity and overcoming obstacles to a personal and social solution, John McClane in Die Hard repeatedly firing his automatic pistol while swinging from a high rise was not congruent with the image of Indiana Jones in Raiders swinging his whip to fend off villains in

10800-559: The direct-to-video field, or in similarly low-budget theatrical releases such as Bulletproof Monk (2003). While the American styled-films were predominantly made in the United States, productions were also made in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and South Africa, and were predominantly shot in the English-language. Heroic Bloodshed is a that originates with English-language Hong Kong action and crime film fan communities in

10950-454: The director found it difficult to have mobility with the camera, so he would switch the camera to two additional set-ups nearby. As downtown Los Angeles had been rejuvenated, Refn avoided certain areas to maintain the novel's gloomy atmosphere. The scene was shot at low angles with minimal light. The elevator sequence was shot without dialogue. Refn explained: A scene like the elevator sequence in Drive , for instance, has no dialogue, just

11100-419: The director was thinking outside of the box. For me, it was an opportunity to act outside the box. I liked that this mobster had real style. Also, he doesn't get up in the morning thinking about killing people. He's sad about it. Upset about it. It's a case of, 'Look what you made me do.' Nino, a key villain, is portrayed by Ron Perlman , one of the last actors to join the cast. Refn said, "The character of Nino

11250-422: The earlier script when Jackman and director Neil Marshall were attached to it. He said: I think that might be the original one I read. I read a few drafts. I read one as well where he wasn't a stunt driver at all, which was a newer draft – maybe that's the one Hugh Jackman had; I'm not sure exactly. Basically when I read it, in trying to figure out who would do something like this, the only way to make sense of this

11400-487: The earlier work of directors like Woo and Johnnie To . Antong Chen, in his study on the Hong Kong action film, wrote that the influence of China and the amount of Chinese co-productions made with Hong Kong created a shift in these films, particularly following the release of Infernal Affairs (2002). Harvey O'Brien wrote in 2012 that the contemporary action film emerged through other genres, primarily Westerns , crime and war films and can be separated into four forms:

11550-432: The early 1960s and saw a surge in production of Hong Kong martial arts films that went beyond the stories about Wong Fei-hung which were declining in popularity. These new martial arts films featured magical swordplay and higher production values and more sophisticated special effects than the previous films with Shaw Brothers a campaign of "new school" ( xinpai ) martial arts swordplay films such as Xu Zenghong's Temple of

11700-433: The elevator, not realizing the assassin is in it. Noticing the man's gun, the Driver kisses Irene before brutally stomping the assassin to death. Irene is horrified. The Driver confronts Shannon, who reveals that he called Bernie about the money and unwittingly mentioned Irene. Furious, the Driver tells Shannon to flee, as Nino will surely hunt them both. Nino reveals to Bernie that a low-level Philadelphia mobster stashed

11850-491: The end of the 1990s. Films such as Chunhang (2000) and Memento Mori (2000) and action films Shiri (1999) and Nowhere to Hide (1999) received commercial releases in North America, Asia, and Europe. The success of the latter two films was unprecedented, and was followed by other South Korean action films in the early 2000s reaching the top of the local box office. These South Korean films mimic some traits of

12000-471: The face of coherence and flicks at the earlobes of good taste". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it five out of five stars, calling it gripping and praising the "pure formal brilliance" of every scene and frame, though he notes that it will "have people running for the exits, and running for the hills" with its extreme violence. In an alternative review published in The Guardian , John Patterson

12150-532: The female leads in implausible elements, such as in Charlie's Angels , Fantastic Four (2005) and My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006). The fighting styles of women also tend towards more traditionally feminine fluid movements of martial arts, over using guns or directly punching. Purse wrote that the contemporary female action film lead's sexualized brand had her in close proximity of post-feminism discourse about choice, power and sexuality. Marc O'Day interprets

12300-540: The film a weighted average rating of 37 out of 100 based on the reviews of 39 professional critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph reflected concerns over the film in a three out of five star review. "The film's characters are non-people; the things they say to each other are non-conversations, the events they enact are non-drama," he wrote. But he praised Refn for following up his commercially successful film Drive with "...this abstruse, neon-dunked nightmare that spits in

12450-496: The film more "grounded" and authentic, he also avoided the use of computer-generated imagery (CGI). Budget restrictions were also a factor in this decision. Although many stunt drivers are credited, Gosling performed some stunts himself after completing a stunt driving car crash course. During the production, Gosling re-built the 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu used in the film, taking it apart and putting it back together. Filming concluded on November 12, 2010. Beth Mickle

12600-718: The film was still a commercial success, grossing over $ 81 million against a production budget of $ 15 million. Several critics listed Drive as one of the best films of 2011, including the National Board of Review . Its honors include a nomination for Best Sound Editing at the 84th Academy Awards . A man in Los Angeles (billed as "The Driver") works as a mechanic, stunt double, and criminal-for-hire getaway driver. His jobs are all managed by auto shop owner Shannon, who persuades Jewish-American mobster Bernie Rose and his half-Italian partner Nino "Izzy" Paolozzi to purchase

12750-414: The following films were voted the top ten best action films of all time. In Hong Kong, the "new school" of martial arts films that Shaw Brothers brought in 1965 featured what featured what Yip described as "strong, active female characters as protagonists." These female-centered films were challenged with the rise of a new male heroic prototype marked by a strong sense of youthful energy and defiance and by

12900-448: The formative trends at this point had become "identifiably generic" as film industries began to reproduced these films during the decade producers like Joel Silver and production companies like The Cannon Group, Inc. began to formulate production of these films with both high and low budgets. The action films of this era have roots in classical story telling, specifically rooted from martial arts films and Westerns, and are built around

13050-610: The formative, the classical, the post-classical and neoclassical phases. Yvonne Tasker reiterated this in her book on action and adventure films , saying that action films became a distinct genre during the New Hollywood period of the 1970s. The formative films would be from the 1960s to the early 1980s where the Anti-hero appears in cinema, featuring characters who act and transcend the law and social conventions. This appears initially in films like Bullitt (1968) where

13200-551: The former was one of the highest-grossing movies of the year in Japan. Following LoveDeath , Kitamura's next directing work was in the United States. The action cinema of South Korea mostly existed on the margins of the film industry in South Korea. The genre was initially called the Hwalkuk ("living theatre") was a term that indicated plays and films driven by action scenes, while this term has not been used regularly since

13350-528: The genre. David Bordwell in The Way Hollywood Tells It wrote that audiences are "told that spectacle overrides narrative" in action cinema while Wheeler Winston Dixon echoed that these films were typified by "excessive spectacle" as a "desperate attempt to mask the lack of content." Geoff King argued that the spectacle can also be a vehicle for narrative, opposed to interfering with it. Soberson stated that Harvey O'Brien had "perhaps

13500-430: The ground. While heroes in kung fu films often display chivalry, they generally hail from different fighting schools, namely wudang and shaolin . American martial arts films feature what author M. Ray Lott described as a more realistic style of violence over the Hong Kong wuxia films with more realism and are often low-budget productions. Martial arts began routinely appearing in fight scenes in American films in

13650-451: The hit. After recognizing Chang as the man from his visions and failing to follow him, Julian eventually finds Chang and challenges him to a fight at his boxing club. Chang quickly defeats Julian, who cannot land a single blow. Afterwards, Crystal tells Julian that Chang has figured out that she ordered the hit, where she pleads with Julian to kill Chang. Crystal promises that after Julian eliminates Chang, they can go back home and she will be

13800-520: The late 1920s. These films were popular during the period, which comprised almost 60% of the total Chinese films. Man-Fung Yip stated that these film were "rather tame" by contemporary standards. He wrote that they lacked the kind of dazzling action choreography as expected today and had crude and rudimentary special effects. These films came under increasing attack by both government officials and cultural elites for their allegedly superstitious and anarchistic tendencies, leading them to be banned in 1932. It

13950-570: The late 1970s, with "action movie" becoming the more familiar term. The Korean action films came from Japanese cinema, James Bond series , and Hong Kong action cinema. As North Korea borders China, it block access to the continent from a South Korean perspective, the Cold War allowed South Koreans to substitute deferred travel beyond the border through films with locations shot in Hong Kong. While melodrama and comedy were staples in South Korean cinema, most action films were sporadic and tied to

14100-508: The late 1980s and early 1990s. In the Chinese language, the term used for these films is jinghungpin , literally meaning "hero films". Academic Laikwan Pang asserts that these gangster films appeared at a time when Hong Kong citizens felt particularly powerless with the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China set for 1997. The key directors of the genre were John Woo and Ringo Lam , and producer Tsui Hark , with

14250-513: The late 1980s and early 1990s. Author Bey Logan stated that the term was coined by Rick Baker, in the British fanzine Eastern Heroes . The term is used broadly. Baker described the style as Hong Kong action films which feature gangsters and gunplay and martial arts that were more violent than kung fu films and academic Kristof Van Den Troost described it a term used to distinguish Hong Kong gun-heavy action films from period martial arts films from

14400-431: The late 1980s in the United States were martial arts films. Towards the end of the 1990s, production of low-budget martial arts films declined as no new stars in the genre developed and older actors such as Cynthia Rothrock and Steven Seagal started showing up in less and less films. Even internationally popular films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) had negligible effects in American productions in either

14550-450: The lead, as he wanted to star in an action-oriented project. Gosling played a pivotal role in the film's production, which included hiring Refn as director and Beth Mickle as production designer . Newton Thomas Sigel oversaw the principal photography , which started on September 25, 2010, was shot on location in Los Angeles , and ended on November 12. Before its September 2011 release, Drive had been shown at film festivals, including

14700-411: The lives of everyone involved. The film co-stars Bryan Cranston , Christina Hendricks , Ron Perlman , and Albert Brooks . Producers Marc Platt and Adam Siegel optioned the source novel after Siegel read a review from Publishers Weekly . Adapting the book proved to be challenging for Amini, as it had a nonlinear narrative . Gosling, one of Platt's top casting choices, eventually signed on for

14850-404: The many current action genre films that focused more on stunts instead of characters. He responded to Platt about two days later, as he was strongly attracted to the plot and the leading role. He thought the story had a "very strong character" at its core, and a "powerful" romance. In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes , Gosling was asked what had attracted him to the film, and whether he had read

15000-487: The money at the pawn shop to set up a new operation. Anyone tied to the robbery must be killed, as they could lead the East Coast mob to Nino and Bernie. Bernie murders Cook. When Shannon refuses to divulge the Driver's whereabouts, he fatally slashes Shannon's forearm with a straight razor . The Driver discovers Shannon's corpse at the auto shop. He disguises himself with a rubber stuntman's mask and follows Nino from

15150-416: The money behind. Irene knocks on the Driver's apartment door and walks away when no one answers. Severely wounded, the Driver drives into the night. I felt that the way the world was presented in the book demanded that its true grit be retained in the script. The grit comes from seeing the world from the point of view of the driver in the car. —Marc Platt, producer The novel Drive by James Sallis

15300-425: The most convincing understanding of the genre", stating that the action film was "best understood as a fusion of form and content. It represents the idea and ethic of action through a form in which action, agitation and movement are paramount." O'Brien wrote further in his book Action Movies: The Cinema of Striking Back to suggest action films being unique and not just a series of action sequences, stating that that

15450-624: The most notorious. Smith had previously released films like Deathcheaters (1976) and Stunt Rock (1979) when financial incentives were available for overtly commercial projects. She commented that action films did tell identifiably Australian stories such as the Sandy Harbutt 's biker film Stone (1974) and Miller's post-apocalyptic film Mad Max (1979) derived from Australia's social and cultural realities, as well as how George Miller 's later Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) derived from Australia's long-standing cinematic fascination with

15600-508: The neon-bright opening credits and the retro song picks – "a mix of tension-ratcheting synthesizer tones and catchy club anthems that collectively give the film its consistent tone". Drive ' s title sequence is hot-pink, which was inspired by Risky Business (1983). Refn has also indicated that the film's romance was partly inspired by the films of writer-director John Hughes . Refn's inspiration for Drive came partly from reading Grimms' Fairy Tales , and his goal

15750-604: The notion that traditional marks of masculinity are not exclusive to men and that musculature was not natural, but something to be achieved. Accusations of these muscular women of the era were levelled at that them by 1993 were that they were "men in drag" and that the films generally have to "explain" why their female leads displayed physical aggression and why they were "driven to do it." As the 1990s went on, Hollywood films began having more conventional looking women in their action films such as The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996). A vibrant debate exists about whether hypersexualization

15900-508: The other car. Ambushed by the henchmen, Blanche is shot in the head. The Driver kills both gunmen. Shannon offers to hide the money, but the Driver declines. He tracks Cook to a strip club and forces him to reveal that Nino was behind the robbery. The Driver calls Nino, who dismisses an offer to return the money and be left alone. Nino instead sends a hitman to the Driver and Irene's apartment building. The Driver tells an angry Irene about his involvement with her husband's death, and they enter

16050-435: The physical effort required to completing a task and the abilities and skills acquired over time. Films from the period reflected on the cultural and social climate from the period, as seen in invoking Japanese or Western imperialist forces as foils. The kung fu film came out of the wuxia films. In comparison to the wuxia , film, the focus on the kung fu film is on the martial arts over chivalry, The martial arts films

16200-531: The pizzeria to the Pacific Coast Highway . He rams Nino's car onto a beach, then drowns him in the ocean. He calls Irene and tells her that he will not return, explaining that she and Benicio were the best part of his life. The Driver meets with Bernie, who promises that Irene will be safe in exchange for the money. At the Driver's car, Bernie stabs him in the stomach, but he stabs Bernie to death and manages to drive away, leaving Bernie's corpse and

16350-574: The popularity Bachan had. These films predominantly earned their revenue through longer runs at B-grade theatres. A cycle of action films came from these films in the 1980s and 1990s called the Avenging Woman film, where female protagonists seek justice for a rape victim, where the protagonist seeks revenge through violence. In 2009, the action genre was re-popularized with the box office success of Wanted (2009) starring Salman Khan . Khan reinvented his screen persona with that of his image in

16500-543: The postwar period. These films were targeted at the more educated and more refined middle-class audiences who saw themselves as above the contemporary martial arts films. Scott Higgins wrote in 2008 in Cinema Journal that Hollywood action films are both one of the most popular and popularly derided of contemporary cinema genres, stating that "in mainstream discourse, the genre is regularly lambasted for favoring spectacle over finely tuned narrative." Bordwell echoed this in his book, The Way Hollywood Tells It , writing that

16650-490: The rather staid choices made by actual director Nicolas Winding Refn , he would have walked away from Cannes 2013 with yet another Palme d'Or, another notch in his already sizeable artistic belt, and the kind of critical appreciation that only comes when a proven auteur once again establishes his creative credentials." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave this film a positive review, giving it three and

16800-476: The reception to the genre as being "the emblem of what Hollywood does worst." In the Journal of Film and Video , Lennart Soberson stated that the action film genre has been a subject of scholarly debate since the 1980s. Soberson wrote that repeated traits of the genre include chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work while other scholars asserted there were more underlying traits that define

16950-402: The reception to the genre as being "the emblem of what Hollywood does worst." Tasker wrote that when action and adventure films secured awards, it is often in categories such as visual effects and sound editing. Time Out magazine conducted a poll with fifty experts in the field of action cinema, including actors, critics, filmmakers and stuntmen. Out of the 101 films ranked in the poll,

17100-417: The rise of anti-heroes appearing in American films of the late 1960s and 1970s drawing from war films , crime films and Westerns . These genres were followed by what is referred to as the "classical period" in the 1980s. This was followed by the post-classical era where American action films were influenced by Hong Kong action cinema and the growing using of computer generated imagery in film. Following

17250-441: The road and cars and a history of cultural anxiety towards a bleak and forbidding outback landscape opposed to the optimism of American action films. France is a major European country for film production and has made co-production commitments with 44 countries around the world. Around beginning of the 21st century, France began producing a series of films explicitly intended for international markets, with action films representing

17400-458: The satin jacket with the logo of a golden scorpion on the back, was inspired by the band Kiss , and Kenneth Anger 's 1964 experimental film Scorpio Rising . Refn sees the former as the character's armor, and the logo as a sign of protection. According to reviewer Peter Canavese, the jacket is a reference to the fable of The Scorpion and the Frog , mentioned in the film, which evokes its use in

17550-493: The screenwriter. This enabled them to be immersed in the film. Refn and Amini made significant changes to the original script during this time. Bryan Cranston plays the role of Shannon. Refn knew he wanted to cast Cranston, as he was a fan of his work in the TV series Breaking Bad . Knowing Cranston had other opportunities, Refn asked the actor how he would like to develop the role. After not hearing back, Refn called him; Cranston

17700-466: The script of Only God Forgives as "the strangest thing I've ever read and it's only going to get stranger." Like Drive , the film was largely shot chronologically and scenes were often edited the day they were shot. Footage was screened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival . Refn drew a connection between Only God Forgives and Drive , saying that "[ Only God Forgives ] is very much a continuation of that language"—"[i]t's based on real emotions, but set in

17850-539: The seediest sides of Bangkok." In 2015, the film was included in The Guardian ' s top 50 films of the decade so far. The film won the Grand Prize at the Sydney Film Festival . Action film While the term "action film" or "action adventure film" has been used as early as the 1910s, the contemporary definition usually refers to a film that came with the arrival of New Hollywood and

18000-529: The serialization of Jinaghu qixia zhuan (1922) ( transl.  Legend of the Strange Swordsmen ). In wuxia , the emphasis is on chivalry and righteousness and allows for phantasmagoric actions over the kung fu film 's more ground-based combat. The Kung fu film emerged in the 1970s from the swordplay films. Its name is derived from the Cantonese term gong fu which has two meanings:

18150-481: The shooting location due to budget constraints. Refn moved into a plush Los Angeles home and insisted that the cast members and screenwriter Amini move in with him. They would work on the script and film all day, then watch films, edit, or drive at night. Refn asked that the editing suite be placed in his home as well. With a shooting script of 81 pages, Refn and Gosling continued to trim dialogue during filming. The opening chase scene, involving Gosling's character,

18300-497: The spot if he feels they are right. Drive was the first film that British actress Carey Mulligan signed to do after being nominated for an Academy Award for her role in An Education (2009), which was directed by Lone Scherfig , also a Danish filmmaker (Scherfig used to babysit Refn when he was a child, and they have become good friends). At the time of Mulligan's casting, Refn had not seen An Education . However, his wife

18450-485: The starting point of the genre being traced to Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986) make a record-breaking HK$ 34.7 million at the Hong Kong box office. The style of these films would influence American productions, such as Michael Bay 's Bad Boys II (2003) and the Wachowskis ' The Matrix (1999). Korean media recognized the more fatalistic and pessimistic tone of these films, leading to Korean journalists to label

18600-433: The style as "Hong Kong noir ". The influence of these films was evident in early Korean films such as Im Kwon-taek 's General's Son (1990) and later films such Song Hae-sung 's A Better Tomorrow (2010), Cold Eyes (2013) and New World (2013). Postcolonial Hong Kong cinema has struggled to maintain its international identity as a provider of these types action films because the talents involved had abandoned

18750-434: The term "genre" itself is often replaced or supplemented with the words "mode" and "narrative form" with all three terms often being used interchangeably. Johan Höglund and Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet said that the difference between these concepts are elusive, but stated that genre could be defined as belonging to specific historical and cultural moments while "mode" and "form" can refer to a larger pattern that operates across

18900-450: The term action film genre and adventure are often used in hybrid, and are even used interchangeably. Along with Holmund and Purse, Tasker wrote that the action films expansiveness complicates easy categorization and though the genre is often spoken of as singular genre, it is rarely discussed as singular style. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing a film as " crime /action" or an "action/crime" or other hybrids

19050-445: The themes that rescinded irony to restore " cinephile re-actualization of the genre's conventions." The genre went into full circle resurrecting films from the classical period with Live Free or Die Hard (2007) and Rambo (2008) finding the characters navigating a contemporary world while also acknowledging their age, culminating into The Expendables (2010) film. The most commercially successful action films and franchise of

19200-529: The title character in China O'Brien (1990) who were physically muscular and or enacted more extreme violence that was usually reserve for male action leads. In her book Contemporary Action Cinema (2011), Lisa Purse described the media response to female leads in action films reveal a discomfort about their presence and are often described with hesitant terms of women moving into territories that are perceived as masculine. Revealing woman in this form deconstructs

19350-539: The turn of the millennium, Australian genre films have gained increasing acceptance in the Australian feature film industry, while the action genre represented a small percentage of its output in the 21st century. Scholars of Australian genre film generally used the term "action-adventure" which allows them to apply it to various forms of narratives such as tongue in cheek heroic posturing stories like Crocodile Dundee (1986), road movies or bush/outback films. In

19500-422: The use of locations such as Hong Kong. These films often featured one-legged or otherwise handicapped action characters similar to those of Japanese films ( Zatoichi ) and Hong Kong films ( The One-Armed Swordsmen ). These included Im Kwon-taek's Returned Left-Handed Man (1968), Aekkunun Bak's One-Eyd Park (1970) and Lee Doo-yong's Returned One-Legged Man (1974). In the 1990s, the country's national cinema

19650-422: The way down to the rocky cliffs by the sea." Car scenes were filmed with a "biscuit rig," a camera car rig developed for the film Seabiscuit (2003). It allowed stunt driver Robert Nagle to steer the car, freeing Gosling to concentrate on acting. Consistent with Refn's usual visual style, wide-angle lenses were used extensively by cinematographer Sigel, who avoided hand-held camera work. Preferring to keep

19800-475: The woman of exploitation films of the 1970s such as Caged Heat (1974) and Big Bad Mama (1974). While characters like Frank in The Transporter series are permitted to visibly sweat, strain and be bloodied, Purse found a reluctance for filmmakers to have their female leads have any appearance warping injuries to ensure a perfectly made-up face. Comedy is often used in films of this period to place

19950-448: Was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir (2013) said that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews who are rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine. Film Studies began to engage generic hybridity in

20100-408: Was a difficult market for Hong Kong action cinema to break into. Prompted by the success of Enter the Dragon and the popularity of Bruce Lee, Toei made their own Bruce Lee-style martial arts films, with The Street Fighter and its two sequels starring Sonny Chiba as well as a spin-off with a female lead similar to Hong Kong's Angela Mao called Sister Street Fighter . The success of Enter

20250-567: Was a fan of the film and Mulligan's performance, and she urged him to cast her. In the original script, the character was a Hispanic woman named Irina. The character was changed to Irene after Mulligan was cast; Refn said that he "couldn't find any actress that would click with [him] personally". While working on the film, Refn had some cast and production members move in temporarily with him, his wife and two daughters in their home in Los Angeles. This included Carey Mulligan and Hossein Amini,

20400-466: Was aiming for the foreign audience, as he was disappointed with the current state of Japanese films. Kitamura's characters have been described as "a careful combination of the maverick independence of 1980s Hollywood action heroes and the calmness and acceptance of Japanese samurai, a consistent criticism of Japanese people today." Kitamura followed up Versus with two manga-inspired big-budget action films, Azumi and Sky High . Both released in 2003,

20550-417: Was displayed in corresponding with corresponded with millennial angst and apocalypticism showcased in films like Independence Day (1996) and Armageddon (1998). Action films of mass destruction began requiring more overtly super heroic characters with further comic book adaptations being made with increased non-realistic settings with films like The Matrix (1999). The fourth phase arrived following

20700-405: Was filmed primarily by Refn within the car's interior. In an interview, he said he intended for this scene to emulate the feeling of a "diver in an ocean of sharks," and never left the vehicle during the car chase so that the audience can see what's happening from the character's point of view. To economize money and time, he shot the scene in two days. With two different set-ups prepared in the car,

20850-496: Was highly critical of the film, citing its lack of originality and the low degree of focus on plot: "Somewhere in here is a story that Refn can hardly be bothered to tell... I feel the ghosts of other movies—his influences, his inspirations—crowding in on his own work, suffocating him, and somehow leaving less of him on screen." Bill Gibron of PopMatters wrote " David Lynch must be laughing. If he had created something like Only God Forgives , substituting his own quirky casting for

21000-430: Was hired as the film's production designer on Gosling's recommendation; they had worked together on 2006's Half Nelson . Prior to filming, Mickle supervised a crew of 40, routinely working 16- to 18-hour days. This was her most expensive film to date, and Mickle felt freer since "there was another zero added to the budget," compared to that of Half Nelson . The crew built the Driver's apartment building, which included

21150-469: Was in decline by the mid-1970s in Hong Kong in relation to the stock market crash which went from over 150 films in 1972 to just over 80 in 1975, which led to a downfall in martial arts films produced. When the economy became to rebound, a new trend of martial arts films, the Shaolin kung fu films emerged and sparked a revival of the genre. Unlike the wuxia , the kung fu film primarily focuses on fighting on

21300-509: Was in decline leading to Hong Kong gangster films filled in this void leading to large commercial success at the national box office. Early Korean heirs to Hong Kong action films include Rules of The Game (1994), Beat (1997), and Green Fish (1997) involving men who gain confidence and achieve personal growth as they embark on journeys to protect national state and meet devastating ends. South Korean cinema only received international attention in both art film and blockbuster formats towards

21450-458: Was just then writing the pros and cons of doing Drive for himself. Moved by Refn's interest, Cranston accepted the part. Christina Hendricks plays the small role of Blanche. "Trying to work in a more reality arena for a character like that," Refn originally auditioned porn stars for Blanche. He was unable to find anyone with the necessary acting talent. After meeting with Hendricks, he decided to cast her, as he felt her persona would click with

21600-599: Was not until the base of Chinese commercial filmmaking was relocated from Shanghai to Hong Kong in the late 1940s that martial arts cinema was revived. These films contained much of the characteristics of the previous era. During this period, over 100 films were based on the adventures of real life Cantonese folk hero Wong Fei-hung who first appeared in film in 1949. These films primarily on circuited within Hong Kong and Cantonese-speaking areas with Chinese diaspora . Yip continued that these Hong Kong films were still lagging behind in aesthetic and technical standards that films from

21750-504: Was only in the mid-20th century when action films developed into their own recognizable genre instead of being a collection of other types of films such as Westerns, swashbucklers or adventure films. Films have been described "action films" or "action-adventure film" as early as the 1910s. Only by the 1980s was the term action as its own unique genre used routinely in terms of promotion and reviewing practices. The first Chinese-language martial arts films can be traced to Shanghai cinema of

21900-572: Was only shown as being applicable to white middle-class women. Purse found that these women were empowered at the price of women of other ethnicities. This is seen in Aeon Flux (2005) where Sithandra dies protecting Aeon and Rain's death to make way for Alice in Resident Evil (2002). Drive (2011 film) Drive is a 2011 American action drama film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn . The screenplay, written by Hossein Amini ,

22050-416: Was originally not particularly interesting, so I asked Ron why he wanted to be in my movie when he's done so many great films. When Perlman said, 'I always wanted to play a Jewish man who wants to be an Italian gangster', and I asked why, and he said, 'because that's what I am – a Jewish boy from New York', well, that automatically cemented it for me." Oscar Isaac portrays a Latino convict named Standard, who

22200-501: Was published in 2005. Producers Marc Platt and Adam Siegel of Marc Platt Productions optioned the novel after Siegel read a review in Publishers Weekly . The Driver intrigued Siegel because he was "the kind of character you rarely see anymore — he was a man with a purpose; he was very good at one thing and made no apologies for it". The character interested Platt, because he reminded him of movie heroes he looked up to as

22350-412: Was released at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival to polarized reviews from critics who praised its soundtrack, action sequences and Refn's traditional style, but was heavily criticised for its screenwriting and characterization. Julian and Billy are brothers and American expatriates , who run a Muay Thai boxing club in Bangkok as a front for drug dealing. One night, Billy goes looking for sex and visits

22500-563: Was to make "a fairy tale that takes Los Angeles as the background," with The Driver as the hero. To play with the common theme of fairy tales, The Driver protects what is good while at the same time killing degenerate people in violent ways. Refn said Drive turns into a superhero film during the elevator scene when The Driver kills the villain. The director said he was also inspired by films such as Point Blank (1967), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), The Driver (1978), and Thief (1981). Jean-Pierre Melville 's crime productions influenced

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