Sholay

Due to a lot of distractions in life, I accidentally got one of the Netflix movies I keep in the queue for the rare times when Jean and Renee are out of town. This movie, Sholay, is billed as a 'curry Western', and clocks in at a leisurely 199 minutes! I didn't watch it all in one sitting (in fact I watched several patches while walking on a treadmill), but I did finish it.

Let me tell you, there is nothing quite like watching a Bollywood interpretation of Sergio Leone's ouvre, with a dash of The Magnificent Seven thrown in, all the while boosting your spirits with whimsical Bollywood musical numbers!

Jean wondered how I endured it, but in truth, I enjoyed it, and am glad I picked it up. Thanks to whoever put together that list of seminal Bollywood movies!

Two More Movies

Today put two more movies under my belt. Streaming from Netflix, I watched Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, which is one of three films by Chan-wook Park on the theme of vengeance and how people get trapped by it, and how it affects them. While I'm sort of glad I finally watched this film, let me say that it is more or less unrelentingly bleak. Not much happiness for anyone. There were moments of humor, and quite a few of surreal oddity, but mostly bleak, bleak, bleak.

The other movie I saw was in the theater with my family: Sherlock Holmes. While they took some liberties with the characters, I felt most were in harmony with the originals. The story was similarly sinister to those of previous film adaptations, the setting was rendered very believably, and the music just felt right (thank you Hans Zimmer). There are a couple of scenes foreshadowing a follow-up movie, and given the panache with which the first was delivered, I can't say I would mind seeing the second. Guy Ritchie turns out to be good at mass-market escapism.

During the Snow

Portland is having it's annual 'blizzard' today. I came home early and took maybe twice as long as usual to get home. Jean is still out there, and thankfully she has her cellphone so I can get frequent updates on her progress, which currently translates to 'slow'. Given that I'm currently sitting on my hands waiting anxiously, I'll use the time to mention the movies I've seen with her and separately lately. Since they just happen to all be Asian, I'm using the Asian Movies tag.

Summer Time Machine Blues.I first heard about this movie a few days ago when following a pointer from another web log (sorry, don't remember which) to this review. This website will be a bit of a jumpstart to my Asian movie viewing habits, I can tell. STMB is a silly, light comedy with many nods to other time travel movies and a lot of confused conversations over what constitutes a time travel paradox. Its best departure from standard fare is that the protagonists dream up a new use for time travel: recovering an air conditioner remote control from the past as their present one is now broken!

I watched this movie streaming, and Renee watched parts of it with me while playing Last Remnant on her Christmas Xbox360 (thus interleaving a Japanese RPG with a Japanese Sci Fi movie). I gotta say that this is a very fun movie. Jean did not watch this with us.

The movie that Jean and I did watch together recently was also a Japanese movie, Shall We Dance?. Given my spectator-only interest in dance (I'm hideously clumsy in the act, as Jean can attest after our efforts at a Cha Cha class), this was a very nice movie. The story was pleasant, with that other-culture aura that comes from hearing that ballroom dancing is considered something to be ashamed of by the average Japanese salaryman. Recommended.

The same guy who recommended Summer Time Machine Blues took pains to not recommend Protégé de la Rose Noire, as it is a rather weak 'madcap adventure' with next to no plot. But alas, it is a Twins movie, and I'm bound by a silent oath to watch every one of their movies before my death. Fortunately, I am neither diabetic nor particularly demanding, so I managed to breeze through the film with only a few cackles of "this is really bad!"

Update!

Jean got home after three hours of travel from Beaverton! The roads are truly sucky right now, but my sweety is safe at home with Renee and I once again.

Catching Up

This will be an omnibus post, as I just want to jot down some notes while I think of them.

Food

Jean's been encouraging me to get back into cooking, and this weekend she selected a recipe for me to try. It was from an older copy of Cook's Illustrated, so I can't link to the online recipe (it's behind their paywall). Instead, I'll just include a generic link to Chicken Tikka Masala. We modified the recipe, substituting plain yogurt in the masala sauce for the cream in the recipe. Verdict: definitely very good.

Movies

Mid-last-week, I began an experiment with Netflix. I got the minimal subscription, with one DVD at a time. I really wanted to try out their instant streaming, as we are now using Hulu to watch a number of television programs, and I hoped that we might be able to do the same with some movies. I was skeptical, as most posts seemed to complain about quality at higher bandwidths than we get. It turns out that some movies are watchable, but not all.

I tried watching Banlieue 13, a French action movie with a lot of stunts based on parkour. The stream paused and even skipped, every few seconds. This turns out to be a bad thing for a movie filled with physical stunts.

On the other hand, we watched a movie recommended by one of Jean's co-workers, Monsoon Wedding, and it was not too jerky. The movie itself was great.

Finally, our first actual DVD from Netflix arrived this weekend, and we watched it today. It is called Bride & Prejudice and is a Bollywood-style musical based on Jane Austen's novel. It was produced by Indian, British and American companies and was mostly in English. I love musicals, and have a weakness for Bollywood musical romances and comedies, so this was a real treat. Jean seemed to enjoy it too.

Coming up in our queue next will be Memento.

Breaking News

This movie has been sitting in my pile unwatched since the very last Anime Expo I attended (2005?). Anyway, I decided I wanted to watch a HK movie while exercising, and had one of the Twins movies all ready to go (thanks for the loaner, Lisa!) when I discovered that it was not Region 0 or 1, and so would not play on the deck downstairs. So I grabbed Breaking News off the stack as a consolation prize.

And a consolation prize is what it is. It's an acceptable action movie, with a bit of cat-and-mouse, but nothing really special, and not exhilarating in the way a silly Twins movie can be. Basic HK police action movie.

Seen and Wanna See

I could have seen this years ago, but somehow, I only just now got around to watching Battle Royale, a goofy movie I won't even try to describe. Fun if grim Japanese movie. Note: Chiaki Kuriyama, who plays Takako Chigusa in Battle Royale, later played the role of Gogo Yubari, in Kill Bill, Vol. 1.

Another movie I just found out about was directed by Tarsem Singh, and was apparently making the art house rounds last year, but I missed it. It's called The Fall, and Roger Ebert gives it unequivocal praise. It sounds really neat, so I'm gonna try to rent it some weekend in the near future. Noted here so I remember the details...

Oneechanbara

Since DOA wasn't as bad as I anticipated, I hunted down Oneechanbara, a zombie-fighting movie starring a sword-wielding woman in a bikini, cowboy hat and feather boa. I don't think I need to say more than that!

Avenging Fist

Lisa lent me this DVD, with the assurance that it was awful, and right up my alley. Right on both counts, Lisa! But with extra emphasis on the awful. Man, was that a klunky 'plot'!

Anyway, thanks for the movie, I'll get it back to you at the next gathering.

Infernal Affairs

I finally got around to watching Infernal Affairs, a movie which was quite hot in Hong Kong when it was first released, in 2002. I bought it in the Dealer's Room at the last Anime Expo I attended in 2005, but have been sitting on it for the right moment. So long, in fact, that I actually saw the Martin Scorsese remake, The Departed, in the theatre before watching the original.

Not into writing elaborate essays on the Asian movies I watch anymore, so I'll just say that I enjoyed it thoroughly. It differed from The Departed mostly in cultural ways, and I suppose in ways specific to Martin Scorsese. A major plot element in Scorsese's version was not in the original, but I won't give that away here.

Two thumbs up.

Onmyoji II

Onmyoji II is, as the title suggests, a sequel. I watched the original several months ago, and only now got around to the second title. I think I liked this one better than the last one. It's a bit darker, and while it still has the borderline Power Rangers monsters, I am sufficiently 'child-like' to go with the flow and enjoy the story.

The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter

It's late, so I'll just note this review and background article on The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, which I watched on a whim this evening. It's considered one of the classics, and though occasionally flawed, I'm glad to have seen it.

The Protector

Tom pointed out yesterday that the new Tony Jaa film, The Protector, was in general release. That is, showing in regular theatres in the 'burbs, not just arthouse theatres downtown where I'd never get to see them. Given that I had to miss the theatrical release of A Scanner Darkly due to a limited downtown release, I knew I really wanted to try to see this one. Ong-Bak, the first Tony Jaa action vehicle, is in my collection, as a VCD, no less, and is one of my favorite martial arts movies.

So I cleared it with Jean and ran off to the theatre with money in my sweaty fist.

If Ong-Bak was a classic Asian martial arts movie, heavy on action, stunts and angst, light on plot and character development, then The Protector ... well, let's just say that director Prachya Pinkaew has pared things down to the 'bone' for his second film with Tony Jaa. Ong-Bak might have been twenty percent plot, but The Protector is lucky if it is five percent. After a brief, sentimental, narrated opening montage to set the scene, we are plunged into ten straight minutes of foot and vehicle chases through Thailand, culiminating in two tail-boats shooting off a ramp into a mid-air collision with a helicopter (helicopter go boom). Occasional pauses for motivational plot elements links the following action sequences, but this is condensed Muay Thai, here.

I like the fact that Tony Jaa speaks Thai throughout the film, with his conversations (and shouted challenges, imprecations, curses...) being subtitled for the benefit of the audience. The rest of the actors are ostensibly members of the Chinese mob, or Australian, as the chase (after Jaa's kidnapped friend and ward, a baby elephant) has led to Australia. Chinese tong leader Xing Jing has had the adult mother of said baby elephant poached because the symbol of the elephant will grant her power, like the ancient Khans. Yeah, I know...

Fights include random encounters with masters of other disciplines (wushu, capoeira, some sort of machete master), two or three huge hyper-muscled, adrenaline-drenched thugs who must hail from professional wrestling, and of course, the obligingly serial stream of cannon fodder who rush forward one by one to be mangled by Tony Jaa in the grand Bruce Lee tradition.

There was a lot more shouting, angry aggressive posturing and running attacks in this movie than in Ong-Bak. But there were still a number of the impressive, poetic battles and ballet-like stunts which made Ong-Bak such a joy. In sum, I have to give Ong-Bak the crown, but I'm just happy to see this crew getting wide-release treatment, and hope that when they find their stride again, they are allowed to debut in the 'burbs again.

P.S. - Jackie Chan had a movie called The Protector in 1985, a rather sad attempt to break into the U.S. film market. So it's amusing that he does a ten-second uncredited walk-on where he bumps into Tony Jaa at the airport. Jacky is still the king, but he pays his respects to the young pretender.

Sh15uya

One side effect of the family reunion is that every evening after retiring, I watched at least one episode of Sh15uya. Sunday I finished the series. At the end of the last episode, I feared that they were going to go for the stark, bleak ending. Small spoiler: it ended 'happy'. All told, I liked this series quite a lot. Twelve episodes was just about perfect. Some repetition, but mostly in the service of the story.

I really enjoyed the role of Piece (yes, that's the correct name), the 'supernatural' executioner who reaps the 'broken' 15-year olds in Shibuya 15. He was played by Mark Fulenwider (stage name Mark Musashi), who made no effort to erase his Western pronunciation of the random Japanese proverbs they had him spouting during battle. It was a chuckle every time he appeared. (Just search YouTube for 'Mark Musashi' for some interesting demo tapes).

Movie Day

As it was the beginning of the Fourth of July weekend, I took some vacation time and went to an early showing of Superman Returns before going down to work. I don't think I had any expectations to speak of, so I hope my reactions were mostly unbiased. I enjoyed the movie, liked Kevin Spacey's Lex Luthor, and felt that they were mostly faithful to the general concepts of the comic character. It's also nice to get the taste of Superman III and Superman IV out off my mouth after all these years. Now I can just pretend they were a bad dream.

Still, all the while I was watching it, I felt less like I was watching a sequel than a review. It felt like we were being given an overview of the principal characters to remind us of what we were supposed to know. Sort of as if this was a dry run, and that the franchise will really take off with the second movie starring Brandon Routh. Assuming they get the box office response I imagine they will, I'm sure I'll find out in about a year...

As if that were not enough, when I got home this evening, I decided that I wanted to watch something on my den television, as I'd had such a good experience watching Koi...Mil Gaya. So I dug through my pile of Asian movies I keep in store for re-run season, and pulled out the DVD I bought on Max's say-so: Bayside Shakedown. The supplied link gives a fair assessment of the movie, so I won't repeat all the same info here. Suffice to say that I enjoyed it plenty, and thank Max for the reference.

Magic Kitchen

In the mood for a Hong Kong romantic comedy, I put in one I'd been saving: Magic Kitchen. This was nominated for Best Screenplay at the 41st Golden Horse Awards, which is one reason I bought it. Another is that I love cooking dramas and comedies. Having watched this one, all I can say is, my God! What a chick flick!

Lots of chummy and likable female friends, lots of internal dialogue, seeking after love with many hunky and/or beautiful males. Chick flick. But even so, I enjoyed it, and laughed out loud at least a couple of times. I definitely don't regret getting it.

The Tale of Zatoichi

Bought at Kinokuniya in Seattle, The Tale of Zatoichi is the original inspiration for the Takeshi Kitano vehicle Zatoichi, which reimagines the character. I got the Kitano work as a Christmas present last year, and enjoyed it tremendously. So did many of my friends, both in anime and at work. As a result, I'd been planning on grabbing this original film for some time, and seeing it on the shelf at Kinokuniya, I just had to grab it.

Watching this movie last night, I was reminded many times of the Kitano movie. The broad strokes of the story, introducing the character of Ichi, the blind masseur, his prowess with the sword, and his friendship and rivalry with an unattached samurai, are the same. Beyond that, what makes this movie is the screen presence of Shintaro Katsu. Shigeru Amachi is also great as Miki Hirate, the former samurai suffering from tuberculosis.

I'll be handing this movie around the same circle of friends who enjoyed Zatoichi.

Onmyoji

The first meeting of August at NOVA, my friend John Jackson lent me the movie Onmyoji. I didn't get around to watching it before the trip to Seattle, so I decided to take it along with me. Friday night, worn out from our drive and initial forays into the city, I loaded up my iBook and sat down to watch it. Jean and Renee both went to bed and I sat up with headphones in an armchair with the laptop in my -- lap -- and watched the remainder of the movie.

I found it very fun. It's occasionally a little cheesy, and the special effects are occasionally weak, but the story was quirky and engrossing. I also have the sequel from John, and I'll try to watch it before the next meeting I'm likely to make, which will probably be the second one in September. That should be plenty of time, right? Riiiight....

One Night in Mongkok

One Nite in Mongkok is about exactly what the title suggests, a night in Hong Kong's most densely populated city blocks, where myriad people and circumstance crop up every two or three feet.

Love HK Film.com


This was our second feature last night. It stars a large ensemble cast, with star turns by Daniel Wu and Cecilia Chung as a yokel hitman and green card prostitute who are flung together by circumstance one night in Mongkok. The story is fast, varied and at times confusing. The ending is bleak and uncompromising. This movie won a Best Director and Best Screenplay award, and was nominated for a slew of others, which is why I bought it. If I'd known how it ended, I honestly might have given it a pass. But in retrospect I'd have to recommend it to my other Asian movie watching friends.

Come Drink With Me

Jean and Kelly are still in Michigan, woe is me. They return Friday, and so, in what is probably my last act of bachelor defiance, I joined my friend Burr after work for pizza and movies. He is also bereft of his wife for this week, so we had his place to ourselves. We watched Come Drink With Me, my second King Hu movie experience, and One Night In Mongkok, which I'll post about separately.

Come Drink With Me stars Cheng Pei Pei as the daughter of a provincial governor. Blood will tell, and she is gifted with the almost magical martial arts powers that only manifest in these movies. She has been sent by the governor to rescue her brother, another official, who has been captured by bandits as a hostage. They want their leader freed, but Cheng Pei Pei has no plans to comply.

Throughout this movie, I was silently comparing it to A Touch of Zen, the only other King Hu movie I've seen. Overall, ATOZ is a better film. The story has more depth, and the atmosphere seems more genuine. Frequently I found myself criticizing the movie for all the conventions it displayed. Then I realized that many of these conventions originated with King Hu, and probably in this very movie. The teahouse ambush for instance, is a classic of wu xia movies, but here it is possibly realized in film for the first time. It is a charming scene.

So while I'd say that CDWM is the lesser of the two movies by King Hu I've seen, it is still better than many other wu xia movies I've sat through, and was definitely worth my time.

Twins Effect I & II

Yesterday I went to Alan's house for the first time ever. He was throwing a little Hong Kong movie soiree, showing his copy of Twins Effect and my copy of Twins Effect II. Many other high definition video wonders were shown, but Twins Effect was the impetus. The supplied links give detailed and reasonably fair reviews of the two movies. I for one laughed myself hoarse.

These are a pair of cheesy fantasy action movies starring a couple of cute pop stars and their male counterparts. It's funny that I watched these so soon after New Police Story, as it seems that the stable of 'actors' in all these movies came from the same pool, the Emperor Entertainment Group, a multimedia conglomerate that is pushing it's pop stars into movies as fast as it can.

I won't be doing this sort of gathering in another blue moon. I was only able to do it this time as Jean and Kelly are in Michigan visiting Jean's parents. On the plus side, I have the flexibility to go to an all day impromptu film festival. On the minus side, I dropped them off at the airport on Wednesday, and I miss them a whole lot about now. And there's five more days to go!