This week's Movie review......

[Jade]

Brokeback Mountain was beautiful, visually stunning, and emotionally resonant. Quite the return to form for Ang Lee, who is definitely one of the directors I most respect.

[ben]

I've also heard of good reviews of Brokedown Mountain. Would definitely watch when it hits the theater over here.

Oldboy, now I'm curious, what's it about?

[Ang Mo]

From what I have read Oldboy is about a man who is imprisoned by unknown captors for 15 years then released and given a cell phone and information to enact revenge on those who did this to him. It sounds kind of unusual but I haven't seen it. I thought for sure you would have since you seem to watch a lot of Korean films. I can't find "My Sassy Girl" at the store. I guess I will have to order it so I can watch the chick spinning in your avatar. She reminds me of the Tazmanian Devil with all the spinning, but I bet she is not always spinning in the movie....

This Cecilia Cheung has got me spinning with her quirky weirdness. She has a lot of tattoos and it reminds me of an old favorite song, before the dark times, before the empire.........would you like me to recite a scene from Jaws......? Anyway here is the song

Lydia, the Tattoed Lady

Lydia, the Tattoed Lady
(E.Y. Harburg)

Oh Lydia, Oh Lydia
Now have you met Lydia
Lydia the tattooed lady
She has muscles men adore-so
And a torso even more-so
Oh, Lydia, Oh Lydia
Now have you met Lydia
Lydia the queen of tattoo
On her back is the battle of Waterloo
Beside it the wreck of the Hesperus too
and proudly above waves the red white and blue
You can learn a lot from Lydia

There's Grover Walen unveilin' the Trylon
Over on the West Coast we have Treasure Island
There's Captain Spaulding exploring the Amazon
And Lady Godiva--but with her pajamas on
She can give you a view of the world in tattoo
If you step up and tell her where
Mon Paree, Kankakee, even Perth by the sea
Or of Washington crossing the Delaware.

Oh Lydia, Oh Lydia, now have you met Lydia
Lydia the queen of them all
She has a view of Niagara which nobody has
And Basin Street known as the birthplace of jazz
And on a clear day you can see Alcatraz!
You can learn a lot from Lydia!
--Lydia the queen of tattoo!

Lydia, oh Lydia, have you met
Lydia, the queen of them all!
She once knocked an admiral clear off of his feet,
The ships on her hips made his heart skip a beat.
And now the old man is in command of the fleet,
For he went and married Lydia!

That song always cracks me up.

[rahau]

"Brokeback Mountain" is also inspiring a lot of political cartoonists. One of the matchless advantages of living in the Bay Area is reading "The Bad Reporter" comic strip by Don Asmussen. Here is his parody:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... SSENBR.DTL

The man is a genius.

[ben]

@Ang Mo, My Sassy Girl might be under the title of Yupki Girl in your region.

Regarding the Oldboy, I think I have heard of that movie before, I mean the description you gave. I don't think I've heard of the title but I'd be on the look out for that.

[Ang Mo]

That cartoon you posted cracked me up Rahau. That was brilliant!

Ben, I will now look for Yupki girl and see if it is titled under that name.

[ben]

Was supposed to watch Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrove but I was late. It started 30 minutes ago, so I went for The Family Stone instead.

The Family Stone, starring Diane Keaton, Sarah Jesicca Parker, Claire Daines, Luke Wilson, Rachel McAdams. Despite a stellar cast, I wasn't expecting much of it. Partly because I didn't hear much about it... didn't even know it existed. So I went in. I came out very satisfied and entertained. It's such a wonderful movie, a feel good kind of movie. Very funny and just wonderful acting. It's about a son coming home for Christmas and to introduce his girlfriend to his family. Everyone hated her... well almost everyone. Partly because of her attitude and the fact that she did most of the things wrong. It's a heartwarming story and a nice comedy too. Despite the seasons over, it's still a nice movie to catch.

[Steve J]

I did go see Chronicles of Narnia on Sunday. It was good, but not like the greatest movie of all time. I have seen so many artciles in newspapers and magazines about it being written by Christian writer C.S. Lewis and all the allegories of Christianity in the move. I've been a Christian for 25 years, but I did not see those Christian symbolisms as much as I saw just a sort of typical imiginary story of good vs evil.

I also find it goofy, close-minded, ignorant, hypocritical, or something like those,... that many Christian groups have spoekn out against "Harry Potter", but they SUPPORT and FLOCK TO Narnia. That's weird.
They are both stories of good vs evil, they both have witches, they both have fighting/warfare scenes and in both,... good wins over evil.
They both reley heavily on imagination.
What's up with that critisicm stuff AGAIN from some groups? gggrrrrr.....

I liked all the "Harry Potters" more than Narnia..... and I see nothing harmful in them.

(Plus I'm glad I got to see "Harry" and "Hermione"
BOTH in person when I got tickets and went to the (silly) "Regis and Kelly" in NYC show last year. That was a blast. (Oh, Avril Lavigne and Dennis Quaid and a couple others were on that day too. We got to be in the live show audience that day, plus they taped the next day's show while we were in the audience too.) Fun and free..... yeahhhh...

[Ang Mo]

Watched the DVD of the documentary called: Enron: The smartest guys in the Room which was spectacular. All residents of California should watch this, in fact it should be mandatory. Fascinating how with the help of the Bush family including George W. how they deregulated the power companies in California and held the State hostage by creating these "false power outages and blackouts". Pete Wilson, the republican governor of California at the time was the one who helped enact the deregulation laws as well. When Gray Davis took office he was too weak to fight Enron because at that point in time he was planning on running for President and didn't want to offend the people on Wallstreet. He forgot about offending the people of California who had him recalled as Governor and of course dashing his hopes at ever becoming President of the United States. To think if he would have stood up to them he would have become a hero and probably would have had a real shot at becoming President. He put the State of California in massive debt essentially paying blackmail to Enron to turn the power back on. It was amazing to hear the actual audio tapes of the Enron traders talking about stealing millions upon millions from the State of California and laughing about it. You can listen to tapes over on the website for the movie. There is a lot of bad language on the tapes so if you have kids you might want use some discretion. It is another illustration of how evil people have become.


A very eye opening documentary with a warning to those watching that the very things being done at Enron are probably being done in other companies as well which is obviously true as more and more corporate scandals seem to surface every year.

[ben]

Watched a couple of movies last weekend. A Chinese and a Korean film. Both films are quite new, both released last 2005. And both blockbusters in their respective countries.

Chinese film, The Promise. Directed by Chen Kaige. Frankly speaking, I was disappointed with this movie. 4 stories of 4 people with different directions but I felt were somewhat forced to meet. Too many scenes that I felt were not necessary and does not really contribute to the story where there. However, those scenes where probably there because of the CGI effects. As for the CGIs, some felt out of place or not as smooth as it should be. Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer and Kung-Fu Hustle had much better effects. Cinematography, however, was great. I'm not really satisfied with the acting. The twist, (sigh) why did it have a twist at all? I really wanted to cry when "a twist" was suddenly revealed... I wanted to cry because I really felt it was a bit pathetic. While the film boast a lot of good things, like being nominated as one of China's Greatest 100 films, I'm actually thinking that it was a close fight for the #100th slot (I must be bad... and I don't dig Cecilia Cheung ). But then again, I'm outnumbered by the Chinese community... so you might want to watch it.

Korean film, Duelist. Directed by Lee Myeong-Se. If you are one who appreciate art, this is a must. The story was neither that deep or too shallow and best of all, no pretentious twist. The story is one that you'll either love or hate or simply won't linger on. You watch this film for it's artistic value. Great use of the pause, slow motion, speed up, and lighting. Despite not having any majestic outdoor scenery, the cinematography of this movie is simply wonderful. A simple alley with 15 foot walls on both side was converted into the location of a duel... a very artistic duel. Excellent combination of light and shadows. Colors where vivid and wonderful. The sword fight, sword play, and sword dance was just superbly choreographed. And the music that went with it were simply outstanding. As one site puts it, Duelist puts rhythm into action. Dialogues... sorry, I don't understand Korean, I'm dependent on the subtitles, which were quite good. Acting, I really loved the acting. Another good point of it's acting was the employment of facial expressions, a very very nice blend. Very loveable manga-like characters, you'll even love the bad guys. My only irk was that there are several groups of people and you'll sometimes get lost when trying to distinguish who was from which group. Bottom line, Ha Ji-Won was really cute... and did I mentioned that it was a light comedy too?

@Ang Mo, the guy who played the ranger and lone Koryo warrior survivor in the movie Musa, also stars in Duelist. And he had such a great performance too.

[Ang Mo]

(I must be bad... and I don't dig Cecilia Cheung ).

Yeah, I know what you mean. I sent Cecilia a fax telling her she was being dumped by me. After all I made my grandmother smoke 800 packs of Camels so I could purchase her that Joe Camel jean jacket and now I find out she is hanging out with some guy named Nic Tse and having a jolly good time smoking with him in his sports car. Ungrateful is what she is. You can tell it's them since the inside of the car is so filled with smoke you can't see into it.....not to mention the fact she owns a pitbull, and I am absolutely terrified of them especially when the fur is covered with second hand smoke........Now I am not sure if I actually sent that fax or not due to the fact I was drinking a slurpee and went into hypothermic delirium from the brain freeze it gave me. They say .00000001 percent of the population can die from getting a brain freeze so people might want to be careful when drinking a slurpee..................

It sounds like "The Duel" was a much more entertaining film then "The Promise"

[ben]

It sounds like "The Duel" was a much more entertaining film then "The Promise"

Personally, yes. I'd choose Duelist over The Promise any time.

Nic (Nicolas) Tse, was Cecilia Cheung's co-star in The Promise.

I just found out that the director of Duelist (not The Duel) was the director of an old blockbuster called Nowhere To Run. He is also considered as one of South Korea's premier directors. And Duelist was his first movie after a 6 year hiatus. I think I've seen Nowhere To Run but I simply can't remember much of it, must have watch way back then.

[ben]

It's been some time since somebody posted a review. Continuing my Korean affairs, here a few...

Welcome to DongMakGol - set during the North and South Korean conflict. It tells a story about of 3 Nokor, 2 Sokor, and an American soldiers who got separated from their army and accidentally found their way to a small village called DongMakGol. People in DongMakGol had been separated from civilization for several decades and had no idea of the war... or technological advancement. It's a very nice comedy/light drama film. Most of the comedy lies with the exploitation of the villagers naivess. Unlike most of the other Nokor-Sokor film that ends up with the "we're still enemies after all" atmosphere, this one provided hope. This was actually one of the only 8 S. Korean films to ever sell more than 4 million tickets in S. Korea. I recommend this movie if you like to laugh.

Princess Aurora - I've seen the DVD of this for quite some time but never really gave it a chance until I read somewhere that it was underrated. I gave it a try and I have to agree that it was underrated. It's a film about vengeance. A mother's wrath. She kills people at random and in different ways that police could not connect them... until they saw the sticker of Princess Aurora (a cartoon character). To complicate things, the detective assigned to her case turned out to be her ex-husband. It's a nice story, and I really loved it. The reviewer who's writtings have prompt me to see this one positions it at the same level with Sympathy of Lady Vengeance... which was the next film I've watch.

Sympathy of Lady Vengeance - The third and concluding chapter of Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance trilogy, the other 2 being Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy. About this film, WOW. Princess Aurora was just appetizer. What would you do if your kid was kidnapped and killed, and 13 years later, the person convicted for that crime captured the real killer and gives you the option of "turning the killer to the law" or "taking the law into your own hand"? I don't want to say more than what I have already posted above except that I am really looking forward to the other 2 of the Vengeance trilogy.

[Ang Mo]

I watched several Hong Kong films this last weekend. I started off with One Night in Mongkok which starred Daniel Wu and Cecilia Cheung. It was an interesting film to a certain degree. I predicted the usual sad ending and was not disappointed.......other then the fact I hate sad endings. This Daniel Wu gave a pretty good performance and thought he could become successful here in the States. I laughed when I researched him on the net and discovered that he is Asian American and graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Architecture. He also sings in some hip-hop band. Anyway he is going to be in a film called Night Banquet with Zhang Ziyi and Zhou Xun. Based on a Shakespeare play. Maybe one day he will appear in a film over here.

Also saw Running on Karma with Andy Lau and Cecilia Cheung. It was entertaining to a point and then kind of went downhill in the third act. Andy Lau did a pretty good job for a guy who had to wear a fake muscle suit for his body. Had some funny moments in it of course and some over the top action bits that were fun to watch. Too bad they had to ruin it with the depressing and goofy ending.

[Jade]

Finally saw Memoirs of a Geisha because it came to the UK. In following the previous discussion I'd have to posit that the Mother character was the Yoda of the series. She was the shrewd and experienced but older character who has significant influence on the others despite looking quite different from them, and she has no qualms or fears about whipping other characters into shape when they need it.