Heaven's Burning

All Music Guide:

The rock and alternative pop band Heaven's Burning is an all-female threesome that can hold its own with most of the talented boys of rock. The band is made up of vocalist, bassist, and guitarist Angela Santiago Chung, vocalist and guitarist Kristy Jones, and drummer Myrna Trevino. The girls offer rock tunes seasoned with punk-pop, noise pop, and alternative pop all stirred together with groove and a few guitar riffs. Heaven's Burning formed around the beginning of 1998. Chung and Trevino came together first, then did a little searching to find the group's third member, Jones. All three girls bring plenty of musical training and experience to Heaven's Burning. Chung began her musical study when she was only five years old, on the piano. She was 18 when her interest turned to the guitar. Jones also took piano lessons as a child. Later she switched to the flute, and then at 16 purchased her first guitar, which quickly became her favorite instrument. Trevino grew up with a brother who played drums. Of course, she had to try them out. It was love at first pound. Lessons helped the pounding become beating rhythm, but the love stayed. Over their time together, the girls have called it quits a number of times, dousing the flame on Heaven's Burning. But something seems to keep pulling them back together. The band has performed at clubs across California. In between live gigs, the girls put in a lot of work on their self-titled debut. It hit the market in 2000, and carries tracks like "Death Is the Truest Love," "In the Stillness of My Soul," and "The Box."

Wikipedia:

Heaven's Burning is a 1997 Australian film directed by Craig Lahiff and written by Louis Nowra.

Plot

Midori Takada (Youki Kudoh) arrives in Sydney with her new husband Yukio (Kenji Isomura). She believes her marriage is a mistake and uses the honeymoon as a means to escape by walking out of their hotel room. She goes to a bank but a robbery takes place.

Colin O'Brien (Russell Crowe) is an experienced getaway driver. He is hired by an Australian-Afghani family who plan to rob a bank. During the robbery one member is killed by being crushed by the banks security screen. They grab a hostage (Midori) and escape.

In some wasteland outside the city they decide to get rid of their hostage. Colin will not stand by and watch her be killed. He shoots one of the brothers and threatens to shoot the other - Mahood (Robert Mammone). Colin and Midori escape. Colin wishes to travel to his father's farm (Ray Barrett as Cam). Midori sees this as her opportunity to continue on her plans to escape and chooses to stay with Colin. Over the course of their trip they form a bond.

Mahood returns home with the news of the death of his brothers. His father Boorjan (Petru Gheorghiu) swears revenge and they set out to track Colin and Midori. The police, watching the family also set out to track down Colin.

Yukio is also told of his wife's involvement but he knows she had walked out. His honor is injured and he also sets out to find her to pay her back.

The film then becomes a road-movie as we see the two soon-to-be-lovers venture across New South Wales followed by the police, Yukio, and the Turkish family all seeking to catch up with them, but for different ends

Cast

Reception

The film earned $55,780 from its limited release in Australian theatres.

The film received mixed reviews. David Stratton from Variety gave a favourable review, calling the film "an energetic road movie that keeps careening off in unexpected directions". Movie-vault.com gave the film 5 out of 10, commenting that for an 'action/drama' film, the film had little action and did not perform well as a drama. Time Out's review stated the film took a while to take off, and had some criticism of the plot and acting, but noted the director "manages to balance the action and human interest".

DVD release

The film was released on DVD on 7 November 2000. It was presented in 2.35:1 widescreen. Reviewers complained of the amount of grain in the footage, also not impressed by marks and spots on the film. It featured Dolby Stereo 2.0 sound however the sound was criticized for being mixed in too low, and being difficult to understand at times. The DVD did receive praise for the amount of extras it included.