Summer '12, Watcha "jonesing" to?

Hey hey hey,

I love summertime. So many great memories of the season from around the world: growing up in the antebellum Deep South; visiting relatives in Southeast Asia; small town life in Japan with all those local family festivals in season; Old World Europe without air con, Hong Kong and Singapore with so much of it that you kinda have to wear layered clothing during the day(!); all-night masala wedding celebrations in India, plucking the leaves yourself and drinking freshly brewed White Tea at a countryside villa in China before wiling your evenings away drifting between nightmarket stalls, 24-hour book malls, and karaoke parlors.... Well, time has come for the sister thread to the Lunar New Year '12 series of posts from earlier this year. What are people reading, watching, listening to, eating, looking forward to (movie or travel-wise) during these bright months ahead--assuming, of course, that you're in the correct hemisphere right now.

Nothing beats sitting on your back deck in the evening sipping a tall glass of iced Chrysanthemum tea or a homemade green tea soy latte whilst watching fireflies flicker about like will o' wisps. I suppose I should save this post for the Ghost Festival at the end of the season but with Faye Wong returning to the airwaves on her recent world tour, it's time to spin some "oldies but goodies":

"Farewell to the Fireflies" live in Osaka '01: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTIwMTIwODky.html
And its spiritual sibling, "April Snow": http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTk5MDgxMTg4.html

Hola,

A gorgeous failure. Yup, that's what I'd call "Blood Stained Shoes" (2012), the C-Horror misfire starring little Miss Goody Two-Shoes herself, Ruby Lin (pinyin: Lin Xinru) of _Princess Returning Pearl_ fame, come back as a Sadako-like vengeful ghost hell-bent on bringing justice to those who did her wrong. Directed by Raymond Yip (Ye Weimin)--perhaps that's why this is rubbish?--and undercut by inane SARFT (Chinese State Administration for Radio, Film, and Television) [censorship] guidelines that take an atmospheric revenge tale and turn it into a laughable family drama. Saw this at a friend's place who used a VPN (virtual private network) client to stream this from a mainland VOD (video on demand) service. No English subs but with digital Chinese ones.


English-subbed trailer: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzU1Nzg0NDk2.html

Narrated by bland model-turned-actress Anna Kay (Ye Xiqi) as a recent college grad who has returned home to be a school teacher in her bucolic canal-lined village during the final weeks of World War II in China. Seamstress Ruby Lin and her smoldering sister-in-law by marriage Monica Mok (Mo Xiaoqi)--their two husbands are a pair of brothers--await for the menfolk to return home from the battlefront. Only Monica's husband Michael Tong (Tang Wenlong) comes back though as a partial amputee and clearly suffering from some form of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder.) Xing Minshan, a kindly county clerk who hasn't gotten over the early death of his wife and is still nursing his grief with a certain quiet dignity, continues to string out hope to Ruby Lin by telling how letters from upriver hint that her husband may return anytime now. With her husband rendered impotent from his condition, Monica has been flashing wild "come hither" eyes to all sorts of unsavory--albeit virile--men who pass through her husband's grain distillery. Action icon turned scary matron Kara Hui (Hui Yinghong) co-stars as the village's batshit crazy matriarch whose superstitious word is law in this backwater hamlet.

On a rainy night during the Ghost Festival, Lin ventures out during a storm to deliver a pair of elaborately embroidered silk slippers (the Chinese title of this movie is "flower [pattern] embroidered [silk] shoes") to a client. The next morning her rickshaw driver is found with his head bashed in. Rallying the town into a crazed frenzy, Kara Hui and the village elders proscribe death by drowning to Ruby. But after a few days, though, her pale corpse emerges from the river whenever it rains and starts meting out justice on its own terms.... But since this pic has passed through the hands of SARFT, we know there aren't any actual supernatural forces at work and something more realistic (though not necessarily plausible) is really behind the deadly hauntings.

I wanted to like this picture. It's quite handsome and the costuming plus set design are top notch. Heck, even the performances across the board are fine. It's just the sum is far lesser than the value of the individual parts. With a slow-burn initial 45-minutes leading to 15 minutes of all hell breaking lose but then concluding with 15 minutes of WTH?! A real wasted opportunity.

When the pic's "on" though, segments are simply mesmerizing. My favorite was of Ruby's young daughter Xiao Yuzhen and son Huang Yiyang desperately missing their mother but deathly frightened of her ghost after its initial return, clinging onto one another during a thunderstorm and walking into the dark forest where rumors place her water-logged corpse, and searching for it so they can give her a proper burial, which will hopefully cause the vengeful killings to cease. It's all really painterly with the menacing feel of a darkly charged Pre-Raphaelite canvas. Or a moody Alphonse Mucha tableaux. Unfortunately, the dross outweighs the cream in this one. Not so bad that you've got to intentionally avoid it but worth a look only if you come across it on late late night TV. During the Ghost Festival, of course (mwa ha ha!)

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jun 20 2012, 05:28 AM

Morning folks,

Touting a trailer to start the day. "Taichi 0" is supposed to be opening at the end of summer 2012 this year.

I guess one of the good things to come out of Sexy Photo Gate '08 was that Edison Chen (pinyin: Chen Guanxi) was dropped from all his upcoming projects. Actor-turned-director pal Stephen Fung (Feng Delun) was kinda forced to chuck his mate's name from the marquee on populist hip-hop dance comedy "Jump" (2009)--penned by its executive producer Stephen Chow (Zhou Xingchi) no less. Yes, that Stephen Chow--and re-filmed all of Chen's scenes with Singaporean stand-in Leon Jay Williams (Li Weilian.) So much for a planned wushu epic starring Edison whose screen person could be described--somewhat generously, I might add--as moody wanksta douchebag punk. Ohhh wellz.

So last year at the American Film Market Huayi Bros. announces that the first part of an upcoming steampunk wuxia trilogy directed by Fung is opening in theaters at the end of summer 2012. Maybe all these years hanging with Chow was a good thing. I can imagine a conversation between the two along the lines of "Lets upgrade your professional portfolio, son." So bring Chen Kuo-fu on as executive producer--who apparently is also working wonders with commercials-turned-features filmmaker Wu'ershan nowadays. Check. Line up Jet Li (Li Lianjie) and Sammo Hung (Hong Jinbao) as producers. Double check. Get Sammo to do double duty as action choreographer. Yahtzee! Throw buckets of cash at Fung, hire some grade A stars, and sit back and see what ensues.

Three words: steampunk wuxia trilogy. Plus liberal use of wirework. The inner fifteen-year old in me asks, Where was this picture when I was growing up in the teenage wasteland that is suburban America life? Anyway, here's some propaganda for "Taichi 0" to be tentatively followed by "Taichi Hero" and "Taichi Summit" in a few years (the "0" means from "zero" to hero in the series.)

English-subbed trailer (cut to English-language douche rock!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf9uJRsIxiY
No English but better resolution trailer: http://movie.mtime.com/144762/trailer/38136.html

These may or may not end up being good to awesome. Fine, But at least they don't star Edison Chen, and that by itself just plain elevates the material to another level. And we the audience thank whatever alignment of the stars led to Edison's (temporary?) hiatus from the biz--that permanent self-satisfied smirk just doesn't engender audience sympathy in any way.

Good afternoon folks,

And now time for a crowd pleasing Japanese ghost story from 2011, "Sutekina Kanashibari" known over here as either "Once in a Blue Moon" (the English title picked out by Japanese producers) or "Ghost of a Chance" (international English title.) The no-frills R2J NTSC DVD can be ordered on-line at north of USD $50 whilst the three disc special edition is a better value at just under $95. No English subs on either edition or the Blu-ray versions but there are SRT file English fansubs out there on the web. Sync the two up on a HTPC and stream to the screen of your choice.

The great thing about living in a city with a Japanese consulate is that there's a market for Nipponese products for ex-pats living away from home and one can acquire things like second hand DVDs at a substantial mark down. Watched this at an American otaku pal's house who buys just about anything Japanese and wasn't quite sure what to expect with his new loot. Did the SRT sub file thingy too.


Ah, the ubiquitous character relationship chart associated with Japanese ents.
Unsubbed trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9A7f_dOhLs

Anyway, playwright-turned-filmmaker Koki Mitani's pic is a delightful but somewhat slight ensemble comedy. Considering how much his work resembles Golden Age Hollywood [screwball] comedies, it's kinda surprising how little known he is over here. I'd opine he's still a notch or two below someone like Ernst Lubitsch or Billy Wilder--though that's an awfully high standard to hold anyone to--and this picture in particular seems to be a loving homage to Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939), explicitly spelled out in a scene or two.

Japan's national sweetheart Eri Fukatsu plays a lovable loser and failed public defender--she has yet to win a case--married to a cherub-faced Takayuki Kinoshita, a film extra who specializes in dying in Jidaigeki epics. Her quirky boss Hiroshi Abe, more in love with things like eating gourmet chocolates and practicing elaborate tap dancing routines than actual legal defense, is at his wits end and warns Eri that her losing streak doesn't bode well for her future career development. So naturally he puts her in charge of a no-win case as a pretext to eventually lay her off.

Japanese standards crooner Kimura Kan plays a failed businessman accused of murdering his wife, sexy femme fatal Yuko Takeuchi, for her life insurance policy. From the intro, though, the audience knows that she died accidentally during a scuffle with her slightly less tony twin (also played by Takeuchi) and her sister's mustache twirling beau Koji Yamamoto. Anyway, while establishing her case, Kan confesses to his attorney that he couldn't possibly have killed his wife because on the night of her death he was trapped in a rustic country inn while the ghost of a Sengoku [Warring States] era samurai--played by funnyman Toshiyuki Nishida--sat on top of his chest all night long(!) Going to investigate the claim for herself, Eri too is haunted by Nishida prompting her to cajole the five hundred-year old ghost to testify in court on behalf of her client's defense(!!) Her opponent, zealous state's prosecutor Kiichi Nakai, will have none of this foolishness and what ensues is an effervescent battle of wits to admit an avuncular samurai spirit as a witness for the defense(!!!) Trouble is, only some people can see the ghost and Eri and company must resort to clever means to convince others that Nishida does in fact exist and that she isn't simply stark raving nutters.

The most charming bits are fish-out-of-water Nishida being baby sat by plucky Fukatsu and things only start to come off the rails toward the end as more and more people from the afterlife start popping up--authorities "upstairs" aren't entirely happy that its citizens are setting highly visible legal precedent in the courtrooms on this side of the great divide. Surprisingly, Eri finds an unlikely ally in legal adversary Kiichi Nakai whose zeal in uncovering the truth allows him to stand up to afterlife authorities (and she doesn't quite have the skills to talk down celestial gatekeeper Fumiyo Kohinata.)

The concept is archly loopy, the dialogue's simply sparkling, and Mitani's un-showy direction is both solid and assured. Not quite as classic as "The Magic Hour" (2008) or "Suite Dreams" (2006) but perhaps that's just this one coot's preference for more "realistic" scenarios. Nonetheless, great ensemble chemistry and comic interaction by everybody--this movie is chock full of wonderful experienced character actors and peppered with many amusing idol cameos. Satisfying populist entertainment that's fun for the entire family and a charming tribute to Mitani's love for screwball Hollywood. A solid recommendation.

Parting note: Eri sings a pop tune called "Once in a Blue Moon" that serves as the pic's cutsey theme. Parts of it are featured in the trailer above.

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jun 20 2012, 04:02 AM

Hiya,

A good aspect about having an otaku acquaintance whose enthusiasm for Japanese culture far outstrips his actual language ability means occasionally getting a hold of the hand-me-downs he passes on because the purchases don't quite match up with his (unrealistic?) fan expectations. Enter amiable drama "Railways" (2010), which probably was purchased because of a superficial resemblance to that cultural phenomenon that is Densha Otoko [Train Man], which spawned books, comics, TV shows, and even a full length feature. Though it's capital mainstream entertainment, it apparently didn't provide the cultural fix that my friend had been scouring Otaku-land for. Oh well, his loss is my mother and mine's gain. R2J NTSC DVD with only Japanese subs and no English fan subs out there on the webs--though whatever print that has been showing up at festivals, retrospectives, and on airline flights do seem to possess them.


Un-subbed trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yczHFExsar0

A simple tale about following your dreams in addition to being a gentle paean to the charms of small town life in semi-rural Japan. No more, no less. But exceptional in its elegant simplicity. Delectable like a newly ripe tomato plucked from the vine in your backyard garden or a quiet evening stroll after a flash storm has just drenched your neighborhood in cooling rain.

Senior executive Nakai Kiichi is just one step away from a place on the board of directors and a hefty upgrade to the gilded life of the elite Japanese corporate plutocrat. Just one thing left to do though: save the company's hemorrhaging accounts by lopping off its unprofitable train equipment manufacturing division. Trouble is said plant is located not too far off from his hometown, run by childhood friend Endo Kenichi, and employs hundreds of loyal cradle-to-grave lifers. After some soul searching Kiichi axes the factory only to be hit in quick succession by two personal tragedies: first, life-long friend Endo is killed in a freak auto accident; second, mother Naraoka Tomoko suffers a massive heart attack. Though congratulated all around at work for adroitly shaving millions off the ledgers, our middle age executive is now in an unusually pensive mood.

Visiting his mother in a Shimane prefectural hospital, Kiichi cann't wait to return to the workplace and is chided by his college age daughter Motokariya Yuika about being too career oriented for his own damned good. Busily making plans to return to work as the company's new saviour, Kiichi suddenly makes a flip decision. To quit his job, stay near his mom while she recuperates, and pursue his childhood dream of being a country train conductor. Despite being too old for the position--our protagonist is forty-nine and locked onto the career track headed towards the penthouse with private jet privileges--he gets accepted and is paired off with twenty-something Miura Takahiro, a former professional baseball whose career was cut short by unexpected injury. Businesswoman wife Takashima Reiko, busy running her own start-up boutique in Tokyo, is taken aback by her husband's unexpected decision.

That's it. Workaholic absent father figure discovers there's more to life than just the corporate grind for the corner office and rediscovers those quiet personal moments that make life worth living whilst driving an electric train in scenic Izumo. He reconnects with his mother with whom he's been too busy to maintain timely contact. He reconnects with his "slacker" daughter who is about to graduate but who still hasn't secured a high paying job yet. He rekindles that spark with his wife whom earlier had thrown herself into her work because he was just too busy to pay her any serious mind. He mentors a young man who thinks his life is over after his lifelong dreams have been completely shattered.

No explosions. No manufactured drama. No plot contrivances to cause the narrative to careen off into the improbable. "Railways" is just the tale of a man rediscovering deep personal contentment and just living life with newfound inner peace. No flashy editing or obtrusive musical cues. Just Nakai Kiichi's calm, assured performance ambling on at a leisurely pace until just after the two hour mark as the calming scenery of rural Izumo passes by the passenger car windows outside. Perhaps I just have very middle brow tastes but this one was totally life affirming. Highly recommended; if it comes to a station near you, be sure to book some tickets for the upcoming journey.

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jun 21 2012, 04:59 AM

Hello people,

Ever since Highbeam Films posted their DIY "Vietnamese Coffee" guide on-line nearly a year ago, "fusion" foodie blogs the world over have been groovin to the beat of Waipod Phetsuphan's "Ding Ding Dong" song. (As a lifelong aficionado of kopi tiam--one of my mom's schoolmates owns one that I have my morning joe whenever I'm dropping by Kuala Lumpur for a visit--I kinda want to tell people it's not just the Vietnamese who enjoy this style of beverage.)

Anthony Wong (pinyin: Huang Qiusheng) is one cool cat. You don't need me to tell you that. His filmography of nearly 200 films is a testament to his distinctive brand of understated cool. One of his most memorable roles from the past few years was his turn in Jiang Wen's "The Sun Also Rises" (2007) where he plays a guitar-strumming university cafeteria chef who drives all the ladies mad with desire by his simple presence not to mention his easy going acoustic stylings. Here's him singing "Bengawan Solo" in Mandarin. Wiki sez about the pic:

Kozo sez:

(BTW, Joan Chen [Chen Chong] gives one of the most fearless performances in the history of Chinese cinema in that movie. Every breathy line is given as if on the verge of sexual climax prompting one to seriously ask, How did this make it past the censor's shears entirely unscathed? Aiming for the stratosphere, Chen blasts one out of the park for the ages.)

But returning back to Anthony Wong, I always wanted to see a movie starring his character from the above movie, belting out proto-funk tunes like Phetsuphan's "Ding Ding Dong," driving all the women on screen burning mad with desire and, um, solving crimes assisted by a coked-out Miles Davis circa 1970-like jazz musician sidekick. Doing sloe-voiced line readings like in the McDull pictures (yes, it's subbed in English.) To all the filmmakers out there reading this: could one of you please make that movie? It would be teh awesomez. Thank you in advance.

Evening,

The Chinese webs are kinda abuzz right now with news and reviews on "Million Dollar Crocodile" (2012), the mainland's first CGI creature feature (click here for an un-subbed Chinese trailer; you don't really need subs to intuit what's going on.) This prompted me to take a look at another 2012 homegrown B-movie: "Ultra Reinforcement" directed by plump Hong Kong character actor Lam Chi-chung (pinyin: Lin Zicong), a graduate of Stephen Chow (Zhou Xingchi) Community College's close-knit world of goofball discoveries that have gone on to full-time employment in the entertainment industry and invariably pop up in Chow's various new projects. I watched this one 'cause the official poster looked like that rare bird you in find in the wild of China's pirate culture of fly by night shanzai bootleg discs sold in back alley mom 'n pop stores (along with snake oil miracle drugs and knock-off foodstuffs.) You know, a disc of somebody taking a camcorder into a theatre, filming the feature, and repackaging it all with a wacky, obviously photo shopped cover and a new slightly more outrageous title. Except this one is a real movie and the poster's been designed to look (intentionally?) kuso.


Un-subbed trailer: http://movie.mtime.com/152845/trailer/36698.html

Use a Chinese VOD service and a VPN to get it to play outside the Great Firewall. I don't think this one is ever going to get English subs or even a physical disc release--its protagonist has a tendency to break the fourth wall and exclaim in astounded Engrish "Oh shit!" This played during the Lunar Near Year holiday season--it isn't explicitly labeled a LNY comedy but it's just about lazy as your average holiday yuk-fest--so not too long ago yet it streams for free within the PRC. Serious cinephiles, that should give you some indication of its overall quality. Yet if you grew up on a steady Chinatown diet of Wong Jing (Wang Jing), Chu Yen-ping (Zhu Yanping), and Jacky Wu (Wu Zongxian) comedies, I daresay "Reinforcement" is more wildly entertaining than it has any right to be. Inventive B-minus movie on a shoestring budget that provides simple thrills and from-the-heart effort that warrants at least some passing mention.

Taiwanese dreamboat Walalce Huo (Huo Jianhua) plays an aspiring serious novelist who obviously pines for slick media consultant Hao Hao--we know he's an outright nerd because in the pic he's wearing thick black glasses. Still living at home with his mom, he's spent years meticulously researching and writing a novel about a minor Tang dynasty aristocrat who he feels embodies the platonic ideal of the perfect wuxia hero. Envious of colleague Lam Chi-chung (the director doing double duty as a contemporary on-screen character plus his medieval ancestor), a wildly successful hack famous for his vapid tween romance novels and inane self-help guides, Huo dispiritedly leaves a writing group dinner convened by Lam and Hao only to be mugged by some surly goons on the way home. During the night of a rare meteor shower, Huo's family heirloom jade medallion glows green causing the muggers to swipe at it. Huo gets the necklace back but when he accidentally tosses it to the ground, a shimmering green portal appears. Looking to avoid the thugs still chasing him, he jumps in...

... Only to materialize in Tang Dynasty China, ca. 730 CE! After getting his bearings, Wallace realizes he's appeared on the night his wuxia idol Dylan Kuo (Guo Pinchao) is going to have a nearly successful assassination attempt made against him. During a royal procession through the provincial capital Wallace intervenes to stop the plot causing Kuo and his sister, warrior princess Jing Tian, to come to his rescue and save his life. Like _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_, Huo becomes a celebrated hero and wins the heart of "ugly" Princess Jing (Tang Dynasty men preferred plumper mates.) After recovering his amulet Wallace discovers how to activate it again but not before Cheung Tat-ming (Zhang Daming), the eldest aristocratic sibling, hires assassin Sun Hao to off Dylan and Wallace who thwarted his previous furtive plans. Kuo eventually kills brother Cheung during an unexpected coup against their father Bi Haifeng (Wallace is ignorant of the plot because his initial intervention has already started to alter history.)

Badass assassin Sun pops up out of nowhere forcing our trio to flee the scene. Activating the amulet, Huo takes Jing and Kuo with him back to the future followed by Sun hot on their heels. At this point the pic becomes <<Les Visiteurs>> (1993) and "Just Visiting" (2001.) Wallace tries to get his guests to maintain a low profile and not to look like modern day otaku cosplayers. One day after a trip to mall, Princess Jing and her brother save a little girl's puppy from being run over by a freight train--apparently all Chinese people back in Tang Dynasty can fly, leap tall buildings in a single bound, punch modern trains off the track, etc--which is recorded by amazed bystanders reaching for their mobile phones. The siblings become famous and PR lady Hao Hao becomes intrigued by handsome Prince Kuo. Eventually everyone decides Dylan and his new consort Hao will go back to the Tang era while Wallace and Jing will stay here in 2012. Meanwhile Sun Hao has fared terribly in the present and has been locked up in a mental institution because everybody thinks he's just an insane old coot caught up in fantasy wuxia delusions.

Using the special jade medallion to return to the past, the two couples enjoy a brief holiday whilst getting Dylan installed as the new local monarch. Wallace and Jing return to the present and things are fine until reality begins collapsing around them ala the late Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder." It turns out Prince Kuo's seemingly innocent inquiries into Chinese history after the Tang Dynasty and modern day green technology have emboldened him to become a megalomaniacal conquerer who, after he returns to the past, will build a new ancient China that stretches from Peking to Paris utilizing awesome steampunk technology adapted from Consort Hao's iPad! They come across assassin Sun wandering around the wasteland of the present and use his jade amulet to return back in time to stop the all-conquering Kuo.

Whew. That's a lot of setup with enough material for two or three whole TV series. If the above description sounds like your thing, then this movie is an absolute blast. Just keep in mind, though, it's filmed on a shoestring budget. This is the type of movie you catch at ten-years old during the LNY holiday and it leaves kickass B-movie memories inside your brain. If you dig DTV (direct to video) Chinese cinema--the comparison to early Wong Jing, Chu Yen-pin, and Jacky Wu is a good approximation of what this one is like--"Reinforcement" is a wonderfully inventive pic and punches high above its scrappy weight. With twist ending that is a setup for all number of time traveling sequels/prequels.

Also, actress Jing Tian solidifies her reign as China's celluloid warrior princess of choice with this movie. She's quite diminutive but throw on flowing battle regalia in this and stuff like "The Warring States" (2011) and she becomes a fierce sight to behold. Really looking forward to the movie "Special Identity" (2012) where she co-stars with Donnie Yen (Zhen Zidan) and "Vincent" Zhao Wenzhuo in a present day actioner (sorry, no trailer as of yet.)

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jun 23 2012, 02:13 AM

Good morning people,

Chinatown video rental of an actual R6 PAL DVD with Chinese only subs (the print that shows up at festivals and museum retrospectives seems to have English ones, though.) Or do the whole VOD/VPN routine. Pick your poison.

Totally mis-marketed as a C-Horror title--Chinese "Silence of the Lambs" (1991) according to the press materials; shares the same Chinese character title as the Zack Snyder "Watchmen" adaption (2009)--I don't have the critical faculty to evaluate "The Man Behind the Courtyard House" (2011) starring a restrained Simon Yam (Ren Dahua) as a serial killer who offs people by driving iron nails into their skulls via a common household hammer(!) Pick your own grade on this one. It's probably a career highlight for Yam, features a wealth of talent working behind the scenes, yet God-only-knows what I just watched. Sympathetic psychological portrait of an ex-con hellbent on revenge that makes him look like the least evil person in the movie? Failed teen slasher that sheds formulaic procedure a third of the way in to explore how mundane evil might drive an otherwise sane bloke completely bonkers? This movie shouldn't work yet it does and leaves you wondering, What the hell did I... I don't even know what to say anymore.


Un-subbed trailer: http://movie.mtime.com/126915/trailer/27142.html

Eva Huang Shengyi, her dopey boyfriend Yu Shaoqun, and another college couple are on their way to a country villa in China's rustbelt to ostensibly witness some ethnic minority ceremonies but in reality, they're just there to hook up. Stopping by the building, which is owned by friends of her parents, they encounter gruff Simon Yam who tries to shoo them off until he discovers Eva is related to the place's owners whereupon he invites them in. And then our slightly thick slasher fodder begin to drop like flies as Yam starts putting out large clay vats of "pickled meat" every night after yet another college student goes missing. Just as Simon is about to bash in Eva's head, the pic pulls a "Memento" (2000) and flashes back a few days before the kids visit the compound. Just as the second third of the film reaches a denouement of sorts, it does the same thing once again showing Simon getting out of prison making his way for his college sweetheart's family home. Years ago he helped pay her way through uni but upon graduation she secured a cushy overseas job and dumped him like a sack of rocks whereupon he spirals off into a life of senseless crime followed by hard time in the slammer. When he's initially let out of prison, he just wants to confront her and find out why she did him wrong. Yet everyday events have a funny way of twisting this seemingly innocuous goal into something truly horrific.

Bravura technique leading to, I dunno quite what, a really confusing package. The highlight of the film is a ten-minute sequence in the middle of the picture where ex-con Yam has a "My Dinner with Andre" (1981)-like conversation with corporate malfeasance inspector Chen Sicheng intercut with Chen dancing the tango with Zhang Jingchu, lovelorn owner of the motel where both men are staying, whose husband is always away on business with pretty female assistants. And the look on Simon's face as he watches those two in flirty forbidden passion whilst thinking of his own first love that dumped him all those years ago. And based upon what happens in the third story, which chronologically takes place first, we the audience witness the moment when the light goes off inside his head and Simon goes, I'm gonna fuck that bitch's family up. Hell hath no fury, people, like a lover scorned.

Folk singer turned TV writer and now filmmaker Fei Xing (nom de plume of Li Wenbing; meaning something along the lines of "not doing so well, dude") has an interesting vision that's probably like nothing you've ever seen before. If you look past the ill-suited advertising campaign to market this film as C-Horror, there's something worth watching--and deeply disturbing--on display here. Pretty amazing too how distinctive this one is considering all the SARFT re-shoots required of it just to make it into theaters. Somebody promising to keep an eye out for in the future.

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jun 23 2012, 09:41 PM

Hey,

I wanted to give "Jump" (2009) another look, the Stephen Chow (pinyin: Zhou Xingchi)-produced hip-hop dance movie starring Kitty Zhang (Zhang Yuqi) that was kinda derailed by the Edison Chen (Chen Guanxin) sex scandal noted above. I caught this on VCD way back when from Chinatown video rental sources and probably let Sexy Photo Gate cloud my enjoyment of an otherwise delightful little truffle. It hasn't received a Western theatrical release but it's out on region-free Blu-ray, R3 NTSC DVD, and best of all for those who have fast internet in the West, streams in HD from Amazon for under a fiver. All are English-subbed so I won't get too detailed with the plot below.

Take a look at the following 2004 Kentucy Fried Chicken commercial for the mainland market (sorry, poor quality) starring Kitty Zhang. At some point in time Stephen Chow saw that advert and said, You know what, I need to put that girl into my next movie. The resulting pic was 2008's "CJ7." There was lots of idol chatter before the premiere about a possible rift between the two because midway through filming, Ms. Zhang got eyelid surgery causing potential continuity headaches. But since then Chow's made a decent effort to showcase her: a co-starring part in the 2008 Kou Shibasaki vehicle "Shaolin Girl" and now this. She's done some stellar work since then--pulling even with accomplished thespians Zhou Xun and Guey Lun-mei in "All about the Women" (2008); as a sexy courtesan in "The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman" (2011); as a lusty peasant bride in "White Deer Plain" (2011) who sets all men around her aflame with desire; as the classy opera singer wife of the eponymous protagonist in "Qian Xuesen" (2012), father of the Chinese ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile) program. She may be a good to great actress when it's all said and done. But before all of that there was this, "Jump," which is a winning showcase for Ms. Zhang's charms.


English-subbed Cantonese trailer: http://movie.mtime.com/57880/trailer/23005.html

In the movie Kitty plays a wholesome and somewhat naive peasant girl from Southern China who lives with her kung-fu practicing papa Yuen Cheung-yan (Yuan Xiangren; Yuen Woo-ping's kid brother who is also an accomplished action choreographer himself.) When a village entrepreneur comes back looking for workers to staff his successful clothes manufacturing factory, Kitty sees an opportunity to see the world beyond her tiny hometown alongside pleasantly plump best friend Yao Wenxue. The thing that most captivates wide-eyed small town girl in bright shining Shanghai is hip-hop dancing as seen on big screen displays blaring around town. After that all she wants to do is dance.

That's about the whole plot. There's a bit about how she catches the eye of bad boy entrepreneur Leon Jay Williams (Li Wei Lian) who just happens to run a hip-hop dance studio, which he uses to market to yoof culture. There's a bit about her having a hard time with his in-house pro dance team because they don't take too kindly to bumpkin girl being up in their space. There's some stuff about the big showdown with the scary good Korean team in the big international dance competition for the year and whether or not Kitty can pull her weight against such stiff competition.

All the character are underwritten with the exception of Kitty's but let's make no mistake about this one: the show is all about her. She's bubbly, infectious, and a winning player that carries the limelight with chipper charm (she's so cheery throughout that it's almost cloyingly tiresome at times.) Here's a dance montage to Gloria Gaynor's "I will Survive". If that doesn't put a smile on your face, then this picture definitely isn't for you. The overall flick is PG and pretty entertaining family fare. But it must be noted that Kitty Zhang is hot. She's decked out in pigtails, a goofy ear-to-ear grin, and a drab cleaning lady's uniform for most of the film but there's a couple of times the producers cut loose and say, Yeah, we know she's a bombshell--this ain't that kind of movie though--but out of duty to haam sup lo fan service, here ya go you lechers. Like during a studio jam session when she's wearing low-rise jeans and a tank top sensually gyrating in hypnotic motion. Or whenever the panning camera lingers for just a second too long over her arched back and bent-over bum.

All in all "Jump" is an enjoyable Stephen Chow flick in full populist crowd pleasing mode. With original treatment penned by Chow including subsequent script rewrites, I'm surprised this hasn't shown up over here based on the strength of Chow's industry rep alone. Lots of Chow community players pop up here with Zhang Jiancui showing up and pulling duty in that long running Chow gag of having an ugly dude on hand in drag that everyone around just accepts as a woman without batting an eyelash. But the show belongs to Kitty and she carries the pic from start to finish with endearing aplomb. Great on a double bill with 2008's "Kung Fu Pop" starring Jordan Chan (Chen Xiaochun) and Fan Bingbing if you love your big screen dance pictures. Or by itself as a family nite treat.

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jun 25 2012, 01:29 PM

@Yi

Thanks for all these new Chinese film reviews---Ultra Reinforcement and The Man Behind the Courtyard House--those really sound interesting. I actually got dizzy reading your listing of all the places you're been, maybe you should write a traveler's guide to those places. Also, "nightmarket stalls and 24-hour book malls" would make part of a great rap song, now that I think about it.


Here in the Detroit tri-county area (it's been hot as hell here lately, but when you reside in a state where winter lasts a good half of the year, you learn to appreciate the heat a hell of a lot more) one's got to really look far and wide for HK action flicks beyond Thomas Video in Clawson ( which carries all kinds of cult/foreign/locally-produced horror films) and online sites---especially since all the Borders,Blockbusters and Suncoast video stores where I used to get all my Asian action films and anything else that was weird/hard to find, shut down and went out of business during the past several years.

I found an area at Eastland Shopping Mall (it's on East Eight Mile, which was made world-famous briefly by the movie 8 MILE, of course) where various kung fu/action films are sold--so far, I got COWEB and IP MAN there for a reasonable price---what's cool is that there are TVs on each side of the stand which show trailers from many of the films. Two that stood out for me were from a film called VAMPIRE WARRIORS and THE LOST BLADESMAN---this 1st one in particular because the main fighter looked like the bad-a** star of COWEB, Luxia Jiang---looked it up and found out that, yep, it's her--that's one good reason for getting it,then. A scene from TLB showed my boy Donnie Yen and another swordsman going at each other/ swinging it out in that classic fight-to-the-death style with huge sickle-like swords within a narrow wall--that was a seriously remarkable scene by itself!

Just wanted to know if either VAMPIRE WARRIORS and THE LOST BLADESMAN are worth splurging on---I only read one negative review of the latter, and I've never heard of the former. Luckily, a store in the northwest part of the D where I used to rent all my old school kung-fu favorites still stocks some relatively new HK flicks (sort of) and the ones sold in those old-school VHS clamshell cases have now been knocked down to more than reasonable prices (for me,anyway!)

Also caught part of another IP MAN sequel at the mall----I don't know who the star is, but there was some incredible old-school style fighting in it, and I was surprised to see old-school action star Yuen Biao in it--didn't know he was still acting, and apparently, he can still fight,too! I'm about to get an old film of his called KNOCKABOUT,which is pretty good in itself.


Forget to mention that the THIS movie channel has been showing a bunch of HK action classics lately--such as Jackie Chan's PROJECT A 2, which I'd never seen,and which turned out to be just as entertaining as the original--CITY ON FIRE, SUPERCOP,and THE ACCIDENTAL SPY----of course, they're shown English-dubbed only, which sucks, but that's how they do it.

This post has been edited by Kim Greene on Jun 26 2012, 11:23 PM

Hey Kim (and everybody else),

Thanks for the kind words. I'm going to be away from my office most of today but I kinda want to squeeze in a quick reply before I dash.

First, re: "The Lost Bladesman" (2011.) If you're a big fan of Romance of the Three Kingdoms-based action movies, it's quite watchable, especially the weapons wielding clinic Donnie Yen puts on in it. In the pic Donnie plays legendary Chinese general Kuan Yu/Guan Yu. Therein sort of lies the problem. Guan Yu is a god. No, literally, he's a god. He was such a great warrior in history that he's been elevated by popular folk religion to god status in things like Buddhism, Taoism, and even Confucianism. Now granted he was mortal when he was alive but in the centuries since his passing and elevation to various pantheons, Guan Yu's built up quite a considerable reputation. I don't think it's fair to compare any actor to a role that has been literally elevated to godhood in the popular imagination but as cool as Donnie is, he's still just a few sizes too small to be wearing Guan Yu's shoes at this point into his career. Also, Jiang Wen steals the scene whenever he's on as legendary bad guy Ts'ao Ts'ao/Cao Cao.

Second, re: "Vampire Warriors" (2010.) On paper this one is awesome. Yuen Wah as an uber vampire that's killing other vamps to harvest their inner power. Jiang Luxia as a kickass vampire hunter. A bunch of hot Hong Kong models turned actresses playing Jiang's "vegetarian" vampire buddies who help her out. Problem is it's directed by HK property magnate turned filmmaker Dennis Law Sau-yiu (Luo Shouyao.) Connoisseurs of Cinema de Merde such as Mobius' own Marty McKee will probably get a kick out of Law's pictures. Lemme paint the picture.

Law, scion of a billionaire real estate family in Hong Kong, got into filmmaking as a hobby. He actually did his undergrad in the States at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles studying to be a filmmaker. He apparently wasn't any good so he went back home and got a job in the family firm. After making several hundred million himself he one day said, Hey's make some films. I'm good at making money; how hard can it be making good pictures?

Since he's got a bunch of money and connections he gets some good folks to work with him in front of and behind the camera. Trouble is, he insists on writing, directing, and acting in his own productions. Sometimes he gets lucky and gets attached to a good project--he was a producer on Johnny To's two "Election" movies. Most of the time, though, he makes films that he writes and produces himself. And the results have been head scratchingly mediocre to bad. Aspiring filmmaker Kevin Ma at Love HK film often reviews Law's pictures with delightful schadenfreude. Sour grapes, perhaps? No. For someone who wants to be a big name filmmaker so badly, Law seems to have no discernible talent as either a visual artist or storyteller. But he's got the money and connections to green-light genre picture vanity pieces whenever he wants to.

I'm a cheerful fellow who watches just about anything. My own unbiased take on Law is that whenever his pics are good--and there are good moments here and there--it's almost never done so intentionally on his part. Worth a rental to see if you like his brand of high financed DTV cinema. I don't know if the pictures themselves have enough material in them to warrant re-watching down the line, though.

Hiya Kim (and everybody else),

Back to your earlier discussion.

(To everyone): I don't really travel as much as I used to--when you're younger you have a lot more time to do stuff like that. I use movies to keep up with languages and remind myself of all the trips I've still yet to take: the Trans-Siberian from Peking to Paris; swimming the Amazon on the way to Galapagos; finish riding the Silk Route on camel-back; re-tracing Livingstone's steps on the way to Victoria Falls; camping out near Petra among the Bedouins in Jordan; and so on. Okay, now back to talking about the pictures....

I'm just going to continue writing about Asia related films and cultural products that I come across during the summer. It probably will be Chinese heavy (including Chinese cinema from Malaysia and Singapore) and I foresee a chunk of Desi pictures from South Asia coming up--I live within driving distance of two cinemas that show all sort of Desi films not limited to the Hindi dialect ones--plus there's a pretty sizable community here served by rental shops and the like. Might throw in some Middle Eastern films if I come across them. It just depends of whatever catches my fancy and whatever becomes available--one of my mom's friends from her Bible Study group has kids who work in the entertainment industry and they seem to be able to obtain stuff months ahead of everybody else. We'll see.

Keep on watching good flicks, folks. Would love to hear some suggestions of gems from off the beaten path that you've unearthed during your summertime viewing.

Hey hey hey,

And now for an utterly dismal failure that should be avoided at all costs. I got roped into "Chongqing Girl" (2009) because of its cool poster art the the promise of being a quirky food focused rom-com. Thank goodness the disc is out of print (OOP)--somebody bothered putting this on disc in the first place?!--but if anyone tries to sell you on this one being "just like Tsui Hark's 'A Chinese Feast'(1995)," just smack 'em upside the head and be done with it rather than wasting 90-minutes of your life. A cheap shot-on-video feature that if the filmmakers had to do over again, should maybe spend some extra time constructing little things like, I dunno, plot, character, believable character relationships, a point.


Un-subbed and totally un-essential trailer: http://movie.mtime.com/99325/trailer/21329.html

Goofy young character actors Jiang Chao and Pang Bo play the bovine Brothers Ma, a pair of useless Chongqing tossers whose favorite thing in life is gawking at the fine Chongqing gals that strut around the city in breezy tops, stiletto heels, and "7B" mini-skirts (skirts so short that the hemline may actually be above the crotch line. The term itself is contemporary Chinese internet slang for "qi-bi" dresses where the "hemline" [qi] is at the, um, "vajayjay" [bi.]) And the best thing to help them pick up all the sexy lasses is opening their own hotpot restaurant--'cause nothing says hot women in panty exposing miniskirts like restaurants serving Chinese fondue/family steamboat/shabu-shabu in hot boiling cauldrons at every table.

Hong Kong actor Law Kar-ying (Luo Jiaying) plays the distant master of the best hotpot joint in town. Leggy haute couture fashion model turned actress Yu Na plays his somewhat bitter daughter--resentful over the fact that father has been so devoted to making infernally spicy hotpot that he neglected mom to the extent she ran away decades ago. A fiery fierce modern grrrl, Yu has a tendency of ending heated arguments by punching people in the face. Anyway, the goofy Ma Brothers figure the key to making their own hotpot a smash success is stealing Law's secret broth recipe so they hire twentysomething lothario Jerry Yuan Chegjie to romance Yu Na, sneak into her family home, and abscond off with pop's secret recipe book. Getting close to Yu, Yuan gives her the confidence to move out from under her father's shadow, publicly defy him, and open her own hotpot restaurant with childhood friends Stephy Qi Wei--another leggy Chinese model but known especially for her sexy magazine pictorials--and Ran Tingting--yet another svelte gazelle with impossibly long legs. Not to get too haam sup here but considering one of the overarching motifs is skirt chasing gals in tiny minidresses, not one of our female leads sports a micro-mini this entire picture. Jeans and leggings all the way and when they're in their restaurant, ankle length aprons(!) At some point in time Jerry Yuan obtains Law Kar-ying's secret recipe box but must take it to his master locksmith dad Wu Ma to help open it.

I think this was probably pitched as "Chinese Feast" given the Ning Hao treatment (see 2006's "Crazy Stone") with a bit of Sichuanese flair. And no flare burns so bright as 24-7 city Chongqing (Chungking), an autonomous city-state of 30 million people in China's wild west known for its spicy food and even spicier women (Yu Na hails from there; Stephy Qi comes from Chengdu, Edinburgh to Chongqing's Glasgow.) Needless to say, the filmmakers failed because it feels like they forgot something... what's it called now? Oh yeah. They forgot using a script to tell a story employing characters. Don't be fooled by the box art. If you see this one in the bargain bin, be sure to take it to the cashier and demand they to give you two dollars for wasting your time even looking at it.

Also, the movie's about hotpot. Specifically the special mala hotpot you get in Sichuan--not only does it burn your mouth, it also numbs your face, cheeks, and lips (or jump here to get directly to the point.) I can respect the filmmakers avoiding the objectification of women so no gratuitous shots of random ladies in 7B skirts walking around the city. But no food porn of delectable hotpot courses? No shots of people chowing down in steam-filled banquet halls? No picture postcards of life in a proper modern megapolis? Was this movie a tax write off or something? Were the filmmakers coerced into this because of embarrassing personal photographs of some kind? The elements for an engaging pic are there; however, nobody bothered to assemble them into anything remotely fun or entertaining.

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jun 29 2012, 07:56 AM

G'day folks,

"Panda Express," which came out in the Christmas-New Year season of 2009, is freakin' awesome. Directed by mainland music video maven Wang Yuelun and produced by his wife Li Xiang, the voluptuous TV personality who is slowly positioning herself to be China's very own Oprah, "Express" is a complete hoot of a wuxia comedy that is surprisingly little known outside of China. Indeed, it's been panned there (on-line aggregate scores place it in the neighborhood of the above "Chongqing Girl") but I find that it compares favorably well to things like "My Own Swordsman" and "Treasure Inn" (both 2011) with the nutball insanity of vintage Wong Jing (Wang Jing) and Chu Yen-ping (Zhu Yanping)--the two actually collaborated together on 1993's "Flying Dagger," BTW. Zany good fun that's aiming to be a screwball crowd pleaser rather than slavishly made-up festivals/awards bait. And the best news? It's out on R3 NTSC DVD with English subs (I watched the R6 PAL version with no English subs.) So yes, you too can catch this one and pass it on as your very own obscure cult classic.


So awesome it gets two un-subbed trailers.
Tailer 1: http://movie.mtime.com/99781/trailer/22309.html
Trailer 2: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTI5MzM5ODIw.html

Yet another film riding the Sichuan wave--hey, even HK director Peter Chan (Chen Kexin) tapped into it with 2011's "Wuxia" wherein Takeshi Kaneshiro lays it on thick with his affected Sichuanese accent--that plays fast and loose like early Guy Ritchie. The setting: China during the Song Dynasty. Jurchen invaders have already sacked former capital Kaifeng and are amassing their armies upon the North China Plain. Likable and extremely refined Chinese general Ren Quan convenes a diplomatic summit between the Song court and the Mongols to seek assistance against the marauding invaders. As a gesture of cross-cultural good will, Ren proposes he will perform an elaborate panda dance in front of the gathered dignitaries using a real live baby panda (a sly dig at animated pic "Kung Fu Panda" [2008]?)

The entertainment organizers must ship a cute young cub to the correct site at the exact date requested. Cock-eyed government runner He Jiong mistakes sad sack Liu Hua--looking like the late ODB's Chinese brother from another mother as seen in "Shimmy Shimmy Ya"--for being a first rate bodyguard-cum-transporter when in fact he's mostly just a third rate knife dealer that can't make ends meet guarding simple cargo. He commissions Liu to take the panda from the Sichuan wilds to the site of the all important diplomatic summit. During his journey Liu encounters a wild cast of loons all with their own designs for him or the panda. Since there are English subs I won't get into too much detail but the gallery of characters include: sexpot singer Ah Duo as a whip-wielding bandit queen intent on mating with our hero; Li Changyuan and Li Xiaochuan as a pair of Jurchen assassins tasked with killing General Ren and thus are seeking out the panda to get within physical striking distance of the esteemed leader; Shi Ning as a near invincible Mongolian warrior whose shaman tells him that all he has left to do to achieve supreme martial mastery is to consume the meat of a panda; comedienne Deng Jiajia as an undercover police constable on the lookout for illegal black market animal trafficking; and Japanese funnyman Koji Yano as an underworld veterinarian who breeds exotic animals for hungry gourmet clients with Taiwanese babe Pace Wu (Wu Peici) as his barmy wife with a mad fixation on infantile babytalk.

Unlike his contemporary Wu'ershan, Wang Yuelun seems content with making whimsical entertaining fare instead of festival pictures or big budget extravaganzas. With talent to burn, he could care less. Wang's swimming in money, married to a bombshell that has aspirations to become the queen of the Chinese media--and who has enough entertainment industry projects to make it a reality someday--and has every other major recording star lined up at his front door to have him direct their next music video. I think he's got the potential to be something special but until the right script comes along plus a producer to push him out of his comfort zone (spouse Li probably ain't going to be that person), Wang's probably content with just living the dream and enjoying life as king of all he surveys. Oh yeah, and you haven't lived until you've seen a bunch of guys in panda outfits along with our titular panda (obviously a guy in suit) rocking out to a pipa rendition of Micheal Jackson's "Billie Jean." Or our heroes trying to get our hungover panda to vomit out last night's dinner. Or any number of absurd scenarios that develop on screen (things do kinda tucker out a bit at the end 'cause filmmaker Wang has just too many porcelain plates spinning on poles for his own good.) Definitely check this one out if you can if you enjoy holiday action yuk-fests.

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jun 30 2012, 05:37 AM

Hola,

Xu Haofeng is one cool cat. Most people here probably know him as an action consultant on Wong Kar-wai's upcoming Ip Man movie "The Grandmasters" (TBA) starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai as Master Ip, a position he secured because of his thoroughly researched martial arts novels that have a keen eye for period detail and engaging explanations of actual martial arts technique geared toward layman readers. These past few years he's made a career out of writing martial arts fiction, being a film critic, publishing articles on religious Taoism/Daoism, being a well-known martial arts practitioner and champion of wushu to the public, and now this: becoming a bona fide director. "The Sword Identity" (2011) is a difficult film to recommend because it's two very different movies based upon one's understanding of wuxia. For those well-versed in such works, its an elliptical meditation on a person's legacy within the jianghu punctuated by piquant moments meant to shock you out of self-satisfied realization the way a wily sifu might whack you over the head with a paper fan a few seconds after you think you've fully solved some koan he proposed to you years ago when you first started your training. To those entering as novices to martial arts literature--both fiction and non-fiction--it's a somewhat meandering, bone dry satire of the way characters in wuxia stories think and how even grandmasters need the occasional thwack to the head to see beyond limiting horizons within their own minds imposed by decades of rigorous training that have caused them to think inside an increasingly narrow and specialized box.

You know that scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) where Indiana Jones encounters a sword-wielding baddie who proceeds to go into an elaborate pre-fight blade twirling routine prepping the audience for a knock down, drag out battle for the ages? And then Indy just pulls out his pistol and shoots the guy. Most of the humor in "Identity" is of that variety but such scenes, scattered throughout quite sparsely I might add, serve as but minor grace notes to the larger leitmotif that simply might be mistaken for noise unless one has the critical apparatus to know what one is supposed to be listening for. I guess that answers it: "The Sword Identity" fails as mainstream commercial cinema but for wuxia aficionados, it's a soulful meditation on one's impact upon the world and how mastery of martial arts doesn't necessarily give one reign over one's own life.


English-subbed international trailer: http://movie.mtime.com/142074/trailer/34476.html

Real life martial arts master Yu Chenghui plays a local grandmaster who leaves town and ascends to a life of seclusion atop a mountain.... Years later two mysterious swordsman played by veteran character actor Yao Weiping and newcomer Song Yang enter town with the ambition of starting their own martial arts school teaching their own particular brand of fencing. Years ago they served a renowned Ming Dynasty general who had repelled Japanese pirates from local shores by appropriating their katana and inventing a new type of sword technique to counter Japanese swordplay. They want to teach the jianghu his unique art as a way to preserve the late general's legacy.

In order to be allowed to set up a school, they first have to best the four schools already in town led by Ma Jun who stands in as the town's champion since elder brother Yu left for the mountains way back when. Although the two do okay against the four schools, Ma prohibits them from establishing their own because Yao and Song are using "Japanese" swords and thus are proffering fake, "un-Chinese" wushu. Yao is captured and beaten whilst Song flees and quickly hatches a plot for revenge. The two are labeled "Japanese pirates" on account of their use of modified katana in battle.

Several nights later aboard a traveling pleasure boat manned by ethnic minority girls, Song becomes enamored with sing-song girl Xu Fujing. The other girls, without clients, are away from the boat watching the local wushu students competing in a demonstration exercise/tournament. Xu, bored out of her mind singing and dancing to an unappreciative Song, threatens to leave unless he shows some directed interest. Whereupon he reveals that he was simply testing her endurance and asks if she wants to learn some real martial arts. He proceeds to show her how to wield a bamboo staff that will best fighters of exponentially greater skill...

Word gets out that the "Japanese pirate" is aboard the pleasure boat causing the four schools to converge upon the scene. Since martial codes of "chivalry" require them to fight the enemy head on, they approach through the front door, which is covered by a thin cloth screen. Using a simple trick of watching an opponent's advancing shadow and not his actual moves, Xu manages to whack all comers in the head with her staff (which is really the scabbard to Song's katana and represents just how sly the humor in this one is--BTW, the joke works just as well in English. The Latin word for sheath or scabbard is, um, "vagina." It's neat how filmmaker Xu uses little gestures and symbolically loaded action to fill in the blanks.)

The four schools are at their wits end until Master Yu returns to town. Many years ago he fled because his beautiful young wife Zhao Yuanyuan was having an affair with her personal bodyguard. Too kind to kill the erring couple outright--Yu has demons in his own past that won't fully allow him to take such action--junior master Ma Jun allows the forbidden romance to run his elder brother out of town so he can be local grandmaster himself. Master Yu thinks defeating the "Japanese pirate" will clear up some bad karama so he approaches the pleasure boat by the front only to be knocked unconscious by song girl Xu's staff.

Carted off to junior master Ma's residence, wife Zhao comes with plans to finally off her husband so she can flee with her lover. Only she's interrupted by Song Yang and his plans to burn down Ma's house plus the communal properties of the four schools. She too seeks revenge against them for how their old ways have prevented her from seeking out a new life whereupon he shows her a nifty trick about using a shadow to forecast an opponents movements whilst handing her a large beam that she can use as a staff. Now the town has two "Japanese pirates"--two women hiding behind doors--that are showing up the four great schools who cannot but attack from the front door. Yet disciple after disciple is knocked dead or unconscious from a deftly placed whack to the temple from the all powerful Japanese pirate staff.

Song hopes to humiliate the four schools into submission so he will be granted permission to open his school. The main story, left unspoken by the plot and only sparingly sketched out by the filmmaker, is Yu's.

Adapted from his early novella "On the trail of dwarf pirates" (wakou or "dwarf pirates" was a Ming Dynasty slur against Japanese sea brigands that were raiding Southern China at the time. One could easily render the phrase "Jap crooks" in modern American English to get a sense of how it might sting in the untranslated original)--the Chinese title of both movie and published story are the same--"Sword Identity" is sort of a thematic reply to Xu's novel _A Taoist Master Descends from the Mountain_ (Daoshi Xia Shan) about a Taoist hermit who leaves the seclusion of his mountain retreat to find the crazy world of Republican China around him below: rampaging warlords, factional squabbles between local political parties, Japanese spies and their war to conquer the mainland, and so on. That in itself seems to be a rejoinder to Huanzhu Louzhu's Zu Mountain stories (adapted twice by Tsui Hark) where noobs ascend the mystical mountains of Sichuan only to discover immortal warriors waging spectacular eternal war against one another. In Xu Haofeng's celebrated "hard-facts wuxia novel," it's the seasoned master naive in the ways of the modern world who comes down from the pinnacle of a lofty peak only to be astounded by a China run by electricity and petrol, a modern realm where politicians and revolutionaries plot and counter-scheme to gain power and control.

A literal chase for fake "dwarf pirates" mirrors Master Yu's inner figurative chase for solutions on how to undo his past wrongs and be the good man his martial arts training has denied him from becoming. A seasoned audience should yelp when that moment of Zen realization happens on screen--the scene is loaded to make the audience react that way. If Master Yu doesn't intervene, two "innocent" lives will be killed in a case of mistaken identity--and the coda, an honest fight between Song Yang and Yu Chenghui, becomes an exhilarating sight to behold because it takes place stripped of all formal pretense and calculated deception.

The pic looks great and filled with lots of realistic detail--Xu can have a lifetime job as a set and costume consultant if he wants it not to mention fight choreography duties. But the very rewarding parable it tells is all but hidden to those untrained to look out for it. This one is playing at the 2012 New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) tomorrow. And wherever else it will show up with English subtitles after that. I hope some of you check out "Identity" and that this post preps you to look for the subtle little details, which tell the actual story of what's really going on. For some, an essential must-see. For others, an apparently boring joke whose punchline comes after 110 minutes worth of seemingly pointless setup. To all: Happy viewing regardless!

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jun 30 2012, 10:39 PM

Morning,

Filmmaker Chiu [Keng Guan]'s (pinyin: Zhou Qingyuan) day job is being a senior manager with the Chinese language division of Astro, the Malaysian media conglomerate that operates in the radio, TV, and film business not to mention cable, satellite, and internet. As his hobby on the side he also makes family friendly Lunar New Year (LNY) comedies as a dual threat writing-directing talent. His LNY '10 crowd pleaser "Woohoo!" was marketed as the first 100% Chinese financed picture to come out of Malaysia. "Great Day" (2011), his sophomore follow up, uses many of the same folks from his earlier effort. And the best news for those looking to partake in this homey cinematic comfort food: it's on R3 NTSC DVD with English subs!


Woo-hoo, the cast and crew in Perlis!
Un-subbed trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endsc...1&v=tvmL4V0r4JA

Lim Yew Bing (Lin Yaoming) and Tam Yee Swee (Tan Yeshui) are two grumpy old pensioners living in a retirement home in cheery Northern Malaysia bordered by Thailand on three sides. Constantly trying to best one another, they continually squabble and fight whether it be by hogging control of the media room's TV remote or trying to spin increasingly impressive yarns about their respective children's success in life. Largely bored out of their minds but also missing their absentee families, the two plan to sneak out of the home in the middle of the night and hitch a ride in the back of propane deliveryman Jack Lim's (Lin Derong) beat up transport truck 300 miles south to Kuala Lumpur. During their escape Tam sprains his leg and is forced to stay back in Perlis while Lim successfully springs the coop and rides with with Jack Lim and his son Tan Hao Yen (Chen Haoyan) all the way to the capital. Father and son drop old man Lim off at his daughter's flat whilst they themselves head off to see increasingly absentminded mum Yao Ah Lan (Ye Yalan) who lives with Jack's distant cousin Wan Wai Fun (Yin Huifen), a fried noodle hawker whom Jack has quietly fancied since childhood.

It turns out old man Lim's boasts have been way off base. Daughter Vivian Tok (Zhuo Huiqin)--whose character humorously shares the same name as famous Taiwanese actress Lin Feng-jiao (AKA Mrs. Jackie Chan, mother of Jaycee)--is no longer married to a bank branch manager (who was laid off after the current recession hit and has since walked out on his family) and works double duty as the owner of her own travel agency/perky tour guide who hosts ethnic Chinese travel groups who come from abroad to see Malaysia. Granddaughter Crystal Lee (Li Xinqiao) is a spoiled brat who would rather play Wii than do homework or talk to gramps. Son Royce Tan (Chen Zhikang), formerly a bank teller, has been laid off and has chosen to follow his artistic dreams of becoming a really camp wedding photographer.

The very episodic film follows Jack and old man Lim interacting with their families for about two maddening weeks in bustling KL. Jack wants his mom with early onset Alzheimer's plus cousin to move up with him to Perlis but doesn't want to deny them the better medical care they could receive down in the big city. Old Lim tries to patch up his relationship with son and daughter and to get his granddaughter out of her self-centered shell (she basically has no one looking after her besides the family's kooky Malay maid played by an actress credited simply as "Wanda.") At some point in the story Lim tracks down buddy Tam Yee Swee's estranged son Gan Jiang Han (Yan Jianghan), a strict elementary school headmaster who just happens to be Crystal Lee's homeroom teacher, who claims his father is long since dead to him.

A gentle family holiday pic that celebrates Confucian family values and the virtues of being a good neighbor. If you're a fan of old time Hong Kong holiday movies before they became overly self-referential--think something along the lines of "The House of 72 Tenants" (1972) here rather than the recent crop--but given the concentrated focus of recent pics like "Echoes of the Rainbow" (2010) with the tragedy element excised, you should definitely give "Great Day" a spin. Not particularly challenging viewing and maybe a little bit too didactic in its pro family outlook for its own good, the movie captures the mood of a LNY family reunion on the Straits with simple charm and good cheer. Indeed, the dialogue jumps out as a raucous cacophony of Hokkien, Cantonese, Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa Indonesian, and English capturing the feel of being at an excited community gathering where everyone and their friends are moving in and out of various dialects and languages to catch up. Also, teeming with lots of local character actors and media personalities if you follow your Straits entertainment news (and arguably just as chock full as your average Hong Kong holiday extravaganza.) A sunny place of mind to visit, "Great Day" is worth the trip to see simple working class life in multicultural Malaysia in somewhat rose-tinted shades. Recommended, ya'll.

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jul 4 2012, 10:59 AM

Happy Independence Day people,

For those of us stuck in an office somewhere, sucks doesn't it? I wanted to do a July Fourth post for the day but didn't really know what would fit just right with this particular holiday. Then I came across this. Ah yes, something that relates to the so-called national pastime:


"Rice Field of Dreams" (2012)--still unseen by me 'cause I don't have fast internet at home.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UAHDdskncA
On-line rental off of Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Rice-Field-of-Dreams/dp/B006LZC8R6

A feel-good story by Cambodian-American Daron Ker, himself a refugee from the "killing fields," that probably would have gotten more traction on the festival circuit if not for a scathing expose by sports journalist Patrick Hruby for ESPN entitled "Field of Schemes?" (See here for Joe Cook's rebuttal in the form of an interview with _The Khmerican_.) I don't know quite who or what to believe. But here's to the American ability of mythologizing everyday life and turning whatever into hopeful narratives that celebrate the human spirit or the big dreams of wide-eyed common folk.

Enjoy your backyard grilling and your nighttime fireworks. Stay safe on the roads too.

Hiya,

Filmed in 2009 but unreleased until 2011, "Sweet Journey" is a lyrical children's road movie that serves as powerful fable on lost innocence and, considerably less successfully, hope regained via a jarring ten-minute coda added after the heart of the 90-minute story has concluded. Held up due to SARFT meddling--the film is actually a very oblique critique of the Cultural Revolution decade that probably will go unnoticed by most non-Chinese viewers--it has the meandering quality of Sixth Generation film except by centering the narrative from the perspective of two not totally grown up yet ten-year old boys, it elides drifting into the realm of jaded urban youth ennui as most Sixth Generation narratives are wont to do. The debut of newcomer filmmaker Yan Ran, "Days Beneath the Clouds" (the pic's Chinese title) was released on the same day as Yan's second pic, mining disaster drama "Together" that was also held up for a time by SARFT, this is nonetheless a brilliant first picture that should not be missed by Chinese film aficionados.

On R0 PAL DVD with no English subs; however, hi-def Chinese VOD sites are streaming the international festival cut with burnt-in Chinese/English subtitles. Time to employ a VPN to make Chinese servers think you're watching this one from inside the Great Firewall...


Un-subbed Chinese trailer: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjQ3NzQ4MTQw.html

Rural Guizhou in 1980 between the end of Mao's failed Cultural Revolution policies and the start of Deng's market liberalization program that will transform China into the world's second largest economy in less than a generation. Rambunctious boys Ma Guoxing and orphan Wang Shibin are best friends. Ma, a fast talking Tom Sawyer type, and Wang, the sad-faced Huckleberry Finn of the duo, live in a rural commune with no contact with the outside world. One day while playing with some other village boys down by the stream, PLA engineer Xu Zhifei's truck gets stuck crossing the riverbed on the way to setting up electrical lines throughout the area. The boys get the men of the commune to help dig out the truck whereupon Ma and Wang become fixated on the transport vehicle. Soldier Xu notes the boys' enthusiasm and tells them that he comes from something called a "city," which lies three mountains north of the commune. Giving the boys a pictorial magazine of provincial capital Guiyang as well as a used army compass, the soldier tells the boys to diligently study and that one day they may themselves see what a "city" is for themselves.

When the commune's one room schoolhouse goes on temporary five-day break, the two boys decide to hike over the mountains to see what the city is all about for themselves accompanied by Ma's trusty German Shepard, Dragon. During their trek they encounter model turned actress Yu Na--a Beijing girl sent down to live in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution who married an abusive peasant farmer and has since gotten a divorce and is looking to return home--and Zhang Hanyu--the Chinese voice actor for Donald Duck, Hannibal Lecter, and Gandalf the Grey among other things--who plays a model factory worker that was called up to be a street fighting Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution and who may or may not be Wang Shibin's long lost dad.

During their scenic journey the boys see much sign of progress but also encounter the wreckage of people's lives that have been irrevocably changed by Mao's failed bid for eternal revolution. Because the boys are so young, they don't fully grasp the implications of what they're witnessing but a mature Chinese audience should. Once they reach the city they are eventually adopted by local tough Zhang who runs a children's pickpocket gang out of an abandoned factory--a factory he had commandeered during the Cultural Revolution to launch massive street brawls in addition to beating up the factory's "capitalist roader" management. Short fused lackey Xiao Jian tries to turn the two boys into proper petty criminals but big boss Zhang is decidedly set against corrupting his "son" by too much exposure to thug activity.

Bewildered by everyday life in the metropolis, Ma seeks to return home whilst orphan Wang decides to stay on in Guiyang at an orphanage after they've been busted by the police. The story ends on an ambiguous to ominous note with Ma fleeing pursuing officials while best friend Wang looks on sadly powerless. The tacked on epilogue tells the story of the two young men meeting up as classmates at the same uni in Beijing years later. And this sudden juxtaposition with slick modern day Beijing really shatters the dreamlike fable quality of the previous 90-minutes despite introducing a happy conclusion to the proceedings. Clothed in safe contemporary nostalgia for simpler bygone times, the story loses some of its original bite. Irrespective of the tone killing shift though, "Sweet Journey" is a beautiful pic showing innocence lost and then regained with passing maturity. Highly recommended.

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jul 6 2012, 11:10 AM

Hello folks,

It's weird what Chinese movies get released over here. "Master of Everything" (2004), long OOP on disc but now available on Amazon streaming with English subs as "Bamboo Shoot" (the hells?), looked like it was going to picked up for overseas distribution way back when it was first released. International actor John Lone (pinyin: Zun Long) plays a smalltime arts council bureaucrat in the sleepy Chinese equivalent of Mayberry who pines for Chinese-American pop star Coco Lee (Li Wen), the mayor's plucky daughter who aspires to go to acting college and become a future superstar. Trouble is, she's a terrible actress (the character not the actress; Ms. Lee is surprisingly good in her cinema debut.) After her failed audition for university, he chases after her only to come across a wedding photographer filming a cheesy just married video with a tiny camcorder. He suddenly has himself a eureka moment: purchase a similar model camera and then shoot a movie around Lee as a way to salve the sting of her professional rejection and maybe win his way to his dream babe's heart. With Tao Hong as Lone's sister who happens to be Lee's best friend since childhood; skinny Xia Yu and beefy An Hanjin as two villagers competing for cooly detached sis Tao's affections; Yuan Ding as Lone's best friend and proprietor of the most popular restaurant in town who becomes producer to Lone's director and drums up local support to turn their entire town into one large film set. Lone and Yuan think the best way to showcase Lee and their backwater hamlet is to shoot a straightforward costume martial arts picture with Lee as a heroine taking revenge on the bandits who slew her heroic sifu father.


American teaser on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LscV3h0VlKE

Obviously influenced by the look of films "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) and "Hero" (2002), this is a simple but charming picture about people's collective mania for all things wuxia and the length one man will go to pursue his girl. Even more surprising, the pic is based on the true story of a local arts council official in Northern China who armed with only a camcorder and two VCR decks shot several hundred VHS wuxia movies populated by his town's very game residents. "Master of Everything" kinda introduces a tale of romantic pursuit to the proceedings but outside of that, it's remarkable just how skilled DIY no budget wuxia looks--sorta like those two telve-year old kids who recreated "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) over a ten-year period or something more commercially accomplished along the lines of "Son of Rambow" (2007.)

Since costume wuxia epics re-emergence over a decade ago in Chinese cinemas as a top drawing genre, the pictures have become more calculated enteprises in delivering tent pole thrills made possible by budget busting casting and superfluous CGI enhancement. Lee Xin's debut is a winning tribute to the shy everyman, armed with but a budget camera, and what they can do when they surround themselves with a cast of fellow dreamers aiming for the moon. Well worth checking out.

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jul 6 2012, 11:14 AM

Hey,

This past weekend was illz, ya'll. Spent almost all of it watching all three days of EVO 2012 at a friend's place off a live stream. For those unfamiliar with it, EVO is a massive international video game tournament held in Las Vegas every year that focuses on fighting games. The titles being played and streamed were "Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition 2012"; "Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3"; "King of the Fighters XIII"; "Street Fighter x Tekken"; "Soul Calibur V"; and "Mortal Kombat [9.]" There was also a separate "Virtua Fighter 5" tourney but only the finals of it were streamed as part of the official EVO feed.

I love arcade fighting games. Consoles aren't bad either if you've got a bunch of good players over for a house party or something. I remember growing up in the wasteland of teenage suburgatory in America and finding one of the things that made life tolerable was video games like "Street Fighter II" and "Mortal Kombat II." Everybody gathered around a cabinet whilst goofy kids with proto-hip hop swagger busted each other up with manual combo chains (none of this fake auto combo crap that today's yoof have grown up playing), trash talking and toasting/roasting one another between rounds (and occasionally, people's mothers with carefully timed "yo mamma" jibes), just hanging out and wasting time as penniless teenagers are wont to do.

A friend and I took a bunch of Advance Placement (AP) and Joint Enrollment (JE) classes in high school (if you play your cards right, you can enter undergrad as a junior in hours and complete uni in under two years or jump straight into MA/PhD classes right off the bat.) This had the added benefit of completely clearing out our class schedules and allowing us to fill up our high school course load with a bunch of independent studies (study hall for non jocks), which we used to program a homebrew JRPG (Japanese role playing game) along the lines of "Dragon Quest" or "Final Fantasy" which were hugely popular when I was in high school. After school I remember we'd kick off marathon programming sessions--capping off the programming we did at school during independent study--with rounds of "Street Fighter II" theorizing about match-ups, counters, game design, and whatever have you.

Anyway, gaming still means a lot to me even though I don't have the time to play now. No, I do have the time--it just isn't enough of a personal priority for me to dedicate 40-60 hours a week to it to become right propa god-like at it.

Another side effect of my teenage mania for fighting games is that this was the same time I started reading martial arts novels (wuxia fiction) and whenever I read martial arts fiction--even to this day--I visualize the fights in terms of 90s wire-fu and "Street Fighter" bouts. And you think about things like match-ups, counters, zoning, spacing, harassment.


Lil' Chun-li says: "I'm tired. Maybe I'll eat some sweets to recharge."

It was a pretty international tourney. Top Eight finals in "Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition 2012" at EVO--whittled down from 1,500 participants from six continents and eighty countries--featured two Americans, two South Koreans, one Japanese (and possibly greatest player all-time to date, Daigo "The Beast" Umehara), one Taiwanese, one Hong Konger, and one mainland Chinese player. Starting with an amazing "KoF XIII" finals and eventually followed by "UMvC 3" and capped off with "SSFIV AE," the show was absolutely sensational. The most memorable thing for me, a longtime Street Fighter aficionado, was how South Korean player Infiltration (Lee Seon-woo) just curb stomped his entire competition on the way to the winner's trophy. It's like in martial arts novels when you have some character who has mastered the supreme ultimate style or some such and just clobbers all challengers with apparent ease. Infiltration was running over other players like a Mack truck and making his world class opponents look like noob chumps. Anyway, here are the complete SSFIV finals on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpCom3opMdc

See also this archived seven-hour(!) live stream of all finals Sunday:
http://www.twitch.tv/srkevo1/b/324153018

Stay salty, folks, as Yipes (Michael Mendoza)--king of the hype man commentators and a former champ himself--might say. Stay salty.

This post has been edited by Yi Lee on Jul 10 2012, 07:45 PM