Don't Fear the Subs: Heartbreaking 'Nana,' Avenging 'Heroes Two'

You might not think that a heartbroken Japanese girl and an avenging Chinese boy would have much in common, but a closer look at two films released on DVD earlier this week reveals an unexpected connection.

Nana, directed by Kentaro Otani, features two young women that share the same name but little else. Nana (Aoi Miyazaki) is preternaturally cheerful, a bundle of naive joy. She strikes up a one-sided conversation with a quiet seat mate on a snowbound train headed to Tokyo and is delighted to learn that the other girl (Mika Nakashima) is also named Nana. Cheerful Nana is moving to the big city to be with her boyfriend; the quieter Nana is nursing a prolonged case of heartbreak. The two meet again when each is searching for an apartment and decide to room together on the spur of the moment.

Cheerful Nana has no goal in life other than marrying her boyfriend. Quieter Nana is a singer and musician who rediscovers her goal of making her rock group, The Black Stones, successful. The two 20-year-old women develop a strong friendship, which helps each of them deal with romantic adversity. Based on a popular manga series, Nana rides the emotional turmoil of their lives like an expert surfer, embracing a few cliches while eschewing many others, keeping the appealing melodrama pleasantly off-balance.

At a certain point in the story, one of the women is told that her troubles are her own fault: "You only think of yourself." It stings, but she knows it's true. A similar sentiment strikes 19-year-old Fang Shih-yu (Alexander Fu Sheng) in director Chang Cheh's Heroes Two. The cheerful, righteous Fang has been misled to believe that Hung Hsi-kuan (Chen Kuan-tai) is a villain, and so has been cooperating to help local authorities capture him.

The truth is that Hung is a fellow fighter trained at the Shaolin Temple. (Why the two don't recognize each other when they first meet is never explained.) Hung escaped when the Shaolin Temple was burned by Manchurian invaders and is marked for death. When Fang finally realizes that he was tricked and is responsible for Hung's imprisonment, his happy countenance falls, his body collapses upon itself, and he accepts his fate; he knows he can only blame himself.

Of course, Hung is even more righteous than Fang, and immediately forgives the younger man. The two then team up to defeat the evil Manchurian leader in an extended, glorious fight sequence involving four red-robed master warriors from Tibet, and all is right with the world. Heroes Two is longer on talking than fighting, but the action scenes are incredibly intricate in a more realistic style than most previous martial arts flicks, all under the expert direction of choreographer Liu Chia-Liang. The two heroes returned in numerous sequels.

Both Nana and Heroes Two were previously released on DVD in other regions -- which is how I saw them -- but are now available for the first time in Region 1 editions. The DVD for Nana from Viz Pictures includes director and cast profiles, as well as the original Japanese trailers. The DVD for Heroes Two from Media Blaster / Tokyo Shock includes an audio commentary by Asian film historian Linn Haynes (who was tragically killed in an automobile accident recently), plus various other goodies. Ian Friedman's helpful site, HK and Cult Film DVD News, has all the details.