Seriously, this is the worst movie I have ever seen. And I have seen a lot of movies. Thousands of them. And this is the worst. Ever. Worse than Exorcist 2. Where to begin. It is illogical. Scenes in one part of the movie could be inserted anywhere in the film. This is because there is nothing resembling a coherent plot. And it has an incredibly stupid ending. And those are its strong points. This film insults the viewing audience. I wasted nearly two hours on my life on this. The only benefit to all of this is if I can possibly prevent others from wasting their precious time on this film. If I could give it a zero or a number in the negatives, I would.
Reviews
7 Reviews
Mei wan mei liao
(1999)
Worth seeing, but just barely
19 December 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Feng Xiaogeng is one of my favorite directors, or at least "World without Thieves" and "BuJian BuSan" are a couple of my favorite Chinese films. These films combine comedy and drama in interesting ways, utilize unconventional love stories and fail to provide pat, feel good endings. Almost the exact opposite can be said about this film. The plot seems in large part borrowed from the Danny DeVito/Bette Midler film RUTHLESS PEOPLE, about a couple who kidnap the wife of a rich man only to find he really does not want to pay the ransom. MEI WAN MEI LIAO involves an employee who is so angered at his boss not paying him that he kidnaps his girlfriend from a tuberculosis asylum. But in fact the boss is more than a little ambivalent about paying the ransom. And when the girlfriend finds out, she decides to collude with the kidnapper to get back at the boyfriend. Like I said, sounds familiar. An added touch is that the man actually needs the money to take care of his comatose sister. When the two end up to together at the end of the film, it is not only unexpected but unbelievable. Still, there is enough humor and humanity to recommend this film, but just barely.
Sigh
(2000)
A sigh is not just a sigh
19 December 2007
Warning: Spoilers
The Sigh tells the story of an affair between a struggling Chinese screenwriter and his young female assistant, its effects on his marriage and the impact on the man himself.
The couple is thrown together at the start of the movie when the assistant is dispatched to the writer's plush digs outside of Beijing where he has gone to work on a script for a new television series. As soon as the writer notices his attraction to his beautiful assistant, he calls off the session and heads home to Beijing, only to have the affair start up upon their return to the city.
The writer, who was supposed to be home first thing in the morning, only arrives home at supper time, telling his wife that his agent took him to schmooze with some investors. (In order to facilitate the lie, the man buys a small bottle of booze before entering his house and takes a few sips). Thus begins the deception that will tear apart the family (the couple have a young daughter) and the man himself.
When the wife discovers the affair while visiting a hotel room where the man has been working, she asks for a divorce, which he accedes to. Ultimately, however, they decide only to separate. During the separation, while the writer is living with his lover, the wife falls from a ladder while painting and is hospitalized, an event which seems to bring the affair to its end. The man cuts off all contact from the woman as he cares for his wife. But as he has does several times in the course of the film, he always finds himself back with the other woman. He cannot leave her and he cannot leave his wife. He is truly a torn, unhappy man.
Just when you think things have finally cooled off--the end of the film shows him happy and laughing with his wife and childhe receives a phone call. And we can see from the look on his face that the man is still interested. (In an interview, Feng Xiaogeng has said the film originally contained a scene where the man rushes out to meet his lover but that this was cut by the censors.)
It is a story that has been told countless times and will doubtless be told as long as there are humans. For me, what sets this film apart is the depiction of the impact of the affair on the man himself. To anyone who has been on this end of things, you will know that there is nothing pleasant about it. In one of my favorite lines in any movie, the writer tells his friend/agent not to follow his lead and that if he should ever meet a goddess, to just walk away. And remember, he adds, there are no goddesses.
But just as the writer cannot for the life of him get over this other woman, so humanity must it seems eternally be faced with situations such as Feng XiaoGeng has so masterfully depicted.
The couple is thrown together at the start of the movie when the assistant is dispatched to the writer's plush digs outside of Beijing where he has gone to work on a script for a new television series. As soon as the writer notices his attraction to his beautiful assistant, he calls off the session and heads home to Beijing, only to have the affair start up upon their return to the city.
The writer, who was supposed to be home first thing in the morning, only arrives home at supper time, telling his wife that his agent took him to schmooze with some investors. (In order to facilitate the lie, the man buys a small bottle of booze before entering his house and takes a few sips). Thus begins the deception that will tear apart the family (the couple have a young daughter) and the man himself.
When the wife discovers the affair while visiting a hotel room where the man has been working, she asks for a divorce, which he accedes to. Ultimately, however, they decide only to separate. During the separation, while the writer is living with his lover, the wife falls from a ladder while painting and is hospitalized, an event which seems to bring the affair to its end. The man cuts off all contact from the woman as he cares for his wife. But as he has does several times in the course of the film, he always finds himself back with the other woman. He cannot leave her and he cannot leave his wife. He is truly a torn, unhappy man.
Just when you think things have finally cooled off--the end of the film shows him happy and laughing with his wife and childhe receives a phone call. And we can see from the look on his face that the man is still interested. (In an interview, Feng Xiaogeng has said the film originally contained a scene where the man rushes out to meet his lover but that this was cut by the censors.)
It is a story that has been told countless times and will doubtless be told as long as there are humans. For me, what sets this film apart is the depiction of the impact of the affair on the man himself. To anyone who has been on this end of things, you will know that there is nothing pleasant about it. In one of my favorite lines in any movie, the writer tells his friend/agent not to follow his lead and that if he should ever meet a goddess, to just walk away. And remember, he adds, there are no goddesses.
But just as the writer cannot for the life of him get over this other woman, so humanity must it seems eternally be faced with situations such as Feng XiaoGeng has so masterfully depicted.
Not One Less
(1999)
Movie with a message
23 September 2007
I am generally not a big fan of movies made only to send a message, tending to agree with the Hollywood director who famously said, If you want to send a message, go to Western Union. And make no doubt about it: this is a message movie. And in case you might miss the message, the director flashes it across the screen at the end. That said, this is a beautiful and heart warming story about an aspect of Chinese culture one generally does not hear much about in the West: the situation at rural schools. As Zhang Yimou lets us know at the end, more than one million students drop out of schools in rural China because of poverty. From what I understand, this is a pretty accurate picture of the situation in many places in the Chinese countryside. Forget about having a computer in the classroom; this place has to worry about having enough chalk. To add to the authenticity, Zhang Yimou used real people from the Chinese countryside to play the roles (although to clear up one misperception, this is not a true story). It is certainly a different China than the economic superpower we hear about in the news. But for anyone wishing to get a more complete picture of China, this film provides a vivid depiction of the plight of rural schools in a very moving if somewhat contrived story and is highly recommended.
The Sun Also Rises
(2007)
Don't expect to figure everything out
16 September 2007
The movie basically revolves around two interconnecting stories. In the first story, the mother of an 18 year old boy in the countryside of revolutionary China 1976 begins acting strangely once she falls out of a tree trying to retrieve a pair of her shoes that a mysteriously appearing bird, which was repeating "I know, I know, I know," had stolen. In the second story a teacher at a university in Shanghai (same time, 1976) is falsely accused of groping a female doctor at a film (where he is chased down and beaten by a crowd). The final segment of the movie connects the two tales.
I left the theater with several plot questions unanswered and was glad to find out the Chinese audience I watched it with (in Chengdu, China) were equally as puzzled but just as enraptured with the film. You will definitely leave asking questions that I would assert are not possible to answer from the information provided in the film. But you also soon discover that it is really o.k. and the unanswered questions leave you thinking and talking about the film long after you have seen the movie. The film has a magical quality to it, even though it takes place during that most unmagical of times, the Cultural Revolution, with everything except for one scene at the end being set in 1976. The director, Jiang Wen, has only made three films in 15 years, and this is the only one of his that I have seen. But it definitely makes me want to see his other films.
I left the theater with several plot questions unanswered and was glad to find out the Chinese audience I watched it with (in Chengdu, China) were equally as puzzled but just as enraptured with the film. You will definitely leave asking questions that I would assert are not possible to answer from the information provided in the film. But you also soon discover that it is really o.k. and the unanswered questions leave you thinking and talking about the film long after you have seen the movie. The film has a magical quality to it, even though it takes place during that most unmagical of times, the Cultural Revolution, with everything except for one scene at the end being set in 1976. The director, Jiang Wen, has only made three films in 15 years, and this is the only one of his that I have seen. But it definitely makes me want to see his other films.
The World
(2004)
See the world without leaving Beijing
16 September 2007
The story of young people at a world theme park in Beijing called The World (Shi Jie Gong Yuan).The park contains scale models of the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Leaning Tower of Pisa etc. The motto is that you can see the world without leaving Beijing. The film details the lives of the young workers there, focusing in particular on the ups and downs of a couple of relationships. Other events: a group of Russian girls arrives to work there; a couple of young men from the countryside come looking for employment; petty corruption and the tragedy of those at the lower part of the economic scale are part of the mix as well. Like other Jia's films, there is not a lot here in terms of plot. But you are nevertheless drawn into the lives of the characters. Just like you can see the world without leaving Beijing, so you can go deeply into the lives of these characters without needing a lot of action to occur. Some don't like Jia's work because of its slow pacing. But I find his work engrossing. His "Still Life" ("San xia hao ren") is my favorite Chinese film. I don't want his movies to move any faster than they do.
A World Without Thieves
(2004)
Beautiful film, highly recommended
15 September 2007
World without Thieves (Tian Xia Wu Zei) is a film by director Feng Xiaogang. It involves a romantically involved pair of thieves. As the film begins they are extorting money from a rich man they have filmed trying to seduce the woman. Soon after this, the woman decides she has had enough of this kind of life and wants a normal existence. Her partner in crime, however, has no intention of quitting the business. She stops at a Buddhist temple to pray and there is befriended by a worker on the temple. The man, whose friends call him Dumbo, is returning home with his five years wages from working on the temple, 60, 000 RMB. Although his friends tell him to wire the money home and warn him about thieves he insists he is fine taking the money on the train with him and that they are too distrustful of people. In an attempt to prove to his friends that there are no thieves on the train, the young man has announces to the entire train that he has the money and that any thieves should show themselves. When they don't, Dumbo says, "see,there are no thieves here." On the train, he hooks up with the thieving couple, and the woman makes it her mission to try to protect the gullible young man from those who would steal the money, in particular from a gang of thieves on the train, and perhaps from her own partner. Like Bu Jian, Bu San, this film is not a light comedy, although it seems to start out as such. Instead, it is a serious and emotionally taxing film that can be alternatively thought provoking and hilarious, with the contrast between the gullibility of the young man and the sophistication of the world weary thieves providing the central moral focus Feng is a major Chinese writer/director. He traditionally releases movies around the Chinese New Year. A beautiful movie, highly recommended.
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