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Chin gei bin II: Faa dou dai zin (2004)
Not so bad, really--
Okay, so it wasn't the best thing ever saved to celluloid, but it is not so terrible as some reviewers may claim. I was interested in seeing this film for two reasons: 1) Jaycee made his acting debut and I was quite curious as to what he could do and 2) Donnie Yen vs. Jackie Chan. Now, Jaycee has a ways to go yet, certainly... he had, I think, all of one expression for most of the movie, but he's riding in on dad's coattails (he's Jackie Chan's son) and it's his debut. I think he may have potential, he just needs some refining. There were also some problems within the set itself, i.e., Jackie nearly bowed out because his son starred in the film and he didn't want to cast any shadows on his boy's beginning. I'm glad that didn't happen, personally, but I do admit the anxiously awaited Yen vs. Chan fight was a bit of a disappointment; it had no real relevance to the movie at all and looks like the moral struggle Jackie faced (the 'should I even be in this movie?' problem) reflected here. Jaycee and Jackie are not in the same scenes and the guest appearance by Jackie ends up seeming more like a hand out than anything.
The Twins are the Twins- what did you expect? Despite that, I find myself actually liking these girls, against my better judgment. Daniel Wu plays the most interesting and tragic character in his usual style. The premise of the movie? A woman has her heart broken because she finds her boyfriend and identical twin sister cheating on her. Of course, the man (played by Wu) had been lied to by the twin and didn't know he was cheating (think they were just caught kissing, actually), but that means nothing. The broken-hearted woman magically imprisons her sister and has the man castrated. They both end up serving her and aid her rise to power. She becomes ruler of her own city where the men are enslaved and sold as beasts of burden. Loving relationships between the sexes are outlawed and it is up to Jaycee's character to free the city and restore balance and natural relations, where all are equal and no one sex is subjugated by another. I think he was a 'Chosen One' type, who's coming had been foretold or some such.
Lots of action, and it's not BAD, just noticeably CGI, which is distracting. We're used to being 'above' that kind of amateur special effects works by now. Makes me think the budget was used up by the starring cast. The movie had its moments, it's worth a rental at least, but it's not so terrible that it needs to be avoided upon pain of death as some might have you believe. If nothing else, it's colorful and lively; just don't expect an epic blockbuster, take the movie with a grain of salt (it is supposed to be a spoof), and you'll come out all right.
Rice Girl (2014)
Odd and amusing
The movie has a very good film quality not usually found in many indy productions... then again, this film obviously had some small budget. Being involved in the indy scene, though, it was nice to see something NOT filmed on a shaky digital camera and overexposed.
Not terribly well acted but definitely not the worst I've seen, the movie is a satire that pokes fun at Asian and Hollywood stereotypes, though not very convincingly. Instead of coming off as a satire, it comes off as simply over-the-top and cartoony, especially with the ANNOYING acting of the man who plays Eddy. This guy has a rubber face Jim Carrey would be envious of if it were not used to such poor effect.
Extras were in short supply here and the backdrops were very poor-man's-props, to the point that a donut shop looked like a tent. As I said, very indy, but the magic if indy film is using what you have on hand and making it look half-way plausible, so we'll overlook that. Characterization was shaky but not sure that was part of the 'satire' thing or not. The Christian overtones were unexpected but very welcome for their rarity. All in all, a cute film and worth checking out if you have some time to kill and appreciate independent cinema.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Smacks of 12 Monkeys...
...but mostly in the /feel/ of the movie, the atmosphere and the time travel aspects. And of course, because there's a crazy guy involved, but he's no Brad Pitt.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Looks like many other have already covered the story aspects of this film, so I'll not reiterate, but assume you, the reader, have read the descriptions and go on from there. First of all, it felt like a French film in the sense of a great big "HUH." at the end of the movie. It is somewhat open for interpretation, though not nearly as much so as the typical "I want to say something big but don't know how" French flick. Still, there is a very definite sense that the writer wanted to say something, wanted to make and/or argue a point and maybe in the screenplay he did... and when it was translated to film, it lost its eloquence. Now folks, weirdness does not a good movie make, just as big flowery words and descriptions do not a good poem make. What is makes is fluff... padding. And it's not needed. Donnie Darko is certainly interesting, I will give it that, but there's more than a few brow furrowers here.
My biggest gripe, oddly enough, is with Drew Barrymore, one of the many executive producers. Whether she actually WAS a producer or was given that title as a means of coaxing her into the movie (sometimes it's a form of 'payment'), I don't know, but what DID her character have to do with anything?? We watch her get fired. Do we care? NO, because we don't know why she's even there. Well, her most poignant 2 words, "Cellar Door" is, I think, her only meaningful lines besides the fact that she is the evil, free-thinking teacher who introduced the book that was the cause behind the school flooding. That could have been handled differently and given to a more important character. She is totally unnecessary. Patrick Swayze's character... again, I suppose added in there only for some incredibly minor plot points that could have been handled differently, too. He was a very weak link, much like Barrymore, and there just was no reason for them at all. If you watch this movie, pay close attention to their parts in the film. Maybe I'm missing something, but they were some seriously big pieces of fluff. The fat little girl who says only "Shut up!!" twice in the movie and nothing more, though I did like her little talent show dance routine... why was she there? I thought maybe that, while she was sitting outside after the dance, she would look out and be the one to alert SOMEone that Jim's (Swayze's) house was on fire or something... anything that made her being there actually have a modicum of sense. No... nothing unless it was deleted. I didn't bother with the special features. The more I think about it, the more I realize that almost ALL the characters were unnecessary, redundant, and fluff only and maybe that was the writer's statement... but then, we get into the French attitude there and there's a reason I don't watch French films.
The whole Frank thing was fascinating. He of the injured eye, the one line of cryptic "I'm so sorry" in the theater. (They were watching Evil Dead and making danged sure they never showed Campbell, but I have to give them kudos for the movie choice.) Around that time, I was getting flashbacks of "American Werewolf in London" where the main character sees the undead souls of this victims and talks to them. It was kind of like that but not. And Frank tells Donnie to do things like burn down houses for no apparent reason. Oh thank goodness mister "Fearlove" was actually a child porn baddie, but not like anyone knew, so it made no sense to burn down his house in any kind of righteous anger or anything. And there was no righteous anger, Frank just said do it, so Donnie did, for no particular reason. We find out much later than Frank and his bunny suit is actually the killer of Gretchen and gets shot in the eye, but you know, it's not really fair of the writer, because the guy who plays Frank is not important to the storyline except as the bunny. There is no foreshadowing, there is no hint, it's like a poorly written mystery novel where we, the viewer, don't get enough to figure it out, we're not privy to what the detectives know, and /that's/ the big mystery. Of course, it doesn't have to be linear. Obviously, this movie was going against linear things, but whenever time travel is involved, I have to cringe: it always makes such a mess of things.
So there's the jet engine that ends up being the engine of his mother and sister's plane 28 days in the future. It crashes through Donnie's room, he's out cuz the bunny told him to be, so he lives, and the movie happens. In the end, it all happens all over again except that Donnie is in his room and dies, thus creating a new reality where the bad things that happened to people like Gretchen don't happen. Except it's his mom's jet engine and she may or may not have gone on that trip 28 days in the future now that Donnie's dead and none of the stuff ever happened. Weird, yes, but it's not a mind bender in the smart sense since anything to do with time inescapably gets warped, ruined and twisted in a way that wouldn't happen if time travel were possible. It's the grin and bear it syndrome. So be it.
Summary: It's a good movie and worth a watching. Some people swear by this flick and more power to them. But I say strip away the fluff and fancy words and see what's underneath, look at the base. Does it stand on its own? Donnie Darko is a bit wobbly, but it manages to spin a fascinating tale and should be rented, not bought, and viewed at least once if you're in the mood for something French but that makes more sense.
On the technical side, good camera work, rich filming, decent directing and an eerie atmosphere. The acting is pretty solid. The main character was creepy and scary, yet we could sympathize with him and his love interest. It is a well-made movie.
Peiseu (2004)
Pretty, even interesting, but conventional.
I watched this film for the first time last night and I have to say it was as lovely as it was disappointing. One of the reasons I watch Asian films is to get away from the conventional pacing and 'scares' of American movies. "Face" has incredibly American pacing and predictable attempts at frightening the viewers. And I do mean predictable. Allow me to illustrate.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD
It was not long after the movie started... oh, about 3 minutes or so... where I started calling the action and fright spots from my chair. Not that I'm great at that kind of thing (though I've been getting better at it), it was just THAT easy to predict. Every conventional spook they could throw in, they did.
There were two plot twists that I did not expect... the first skull being someone else and the big twist, which I won't reveal. There was a great deal of Ju-on style scare tactics here, lots of the same makeup... add a dash of Sadako for good measure and you have the horror part of the movie. Now, if they had touted the film as a thriller with some supernatural overtones, it would have been different... this was an interesting film.
Well, interesting premise. I loved the idea of the re-constructor, but the rest was basic stuff. At least it wasn't a case of 'organ makes recipient do bad things' or anything. Mostly it was a murder mystery that happened to have a ghost in it, and if you take it that way you won't be disappointed by the lack of scariness.
The movie also dealt slightly with black-market organs and how far doctors will go to help their patients, as it were. The movie touches on many small aspects without ever really delving into any of them, which is unfortunate but understandable. The filmography, the picture, the handling, everything was really well done. Korean films are often very pretty, though, with a great deal of potential delivering less than expected or, worse, less than they are capable of delivering. More than once has a Korean film left me mildly disappointed story-wise, though always satisfied visually. They also tend towards very good actors and music scores. All this adds to great padding and fluff, gorgeous eye-candy and just a little weak in the script. The climaxes are generally less than they should/could be as well.
All in all, a seven out of ten. It's worth watching at least once and definitely enjoyable despite its story flaws.