Author Topic: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts  (Read 561709 times)

Thor

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket - Verdicts
« Reply #110 on: November 18, 2008, 03:43:37 PM »
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roujin

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket - Verdicts
« Reply #111 on: November 18, 2008, 03:46:11 PM »
I'm going out on a limb here... but don't you think you should've let someone else hage Days of Being Wild. I'm pretty sure you're well acquainted with the film already and I'm guessing the reason why you got it was to make sure it got moved on (and to revisit it, of course) so as to avoid the early huge upsets of the US bracket. Isn't it more satisfying for other people to discover this masterpiece who might've otherwise never seen it? Of course, I'm pretty sure I agree with your decision and I do agree that this film should go pretty damn far in the bracket. I'm just lightly suggesting that perhaps next round you check out something that you're not familiar with.

I might regret this.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2008, 03:48:36 PM by roujin »

sdedalus

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket - Verdicts
« Reply #112 on: November 18, 2008, 03:49:40 PM »
I'd actually only seen it once before, and didn't remember it all that well.

Plus, i just bought the Blu-Ray and wanted to watch it.
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roujin

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket - Verdicts
« Reply #113 on: November 18, 2008, 03:55:06 PM »
I'd actually only seen it once before, and didn't remember it all that well.

Ah, I thought you had watched it again with the New Asian Cinema marathon.

I'm a bad reader. Sari.

Anyway, was the DVD awesome or what?

sdedalus

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket - Verdicts
« Reply #114 on: November 18, 2008, 04:06:39 PM »
Image = great, Subtitles = terrible.

On the whole, it was worth the double dip.  The subtitles on the Kino standard DVD edition aren't that great either (though they are better).  The Kino also fails to deliver the greenishness.
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sdedalus

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket - Verdicts
« Reply #115 on: November 18, 2008, 04:15:13 PM »
I'd actually forgotten it was part of that marathon.  The thread has some really great (spoilerific) posts, for anyone who hasn't seen them.
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philip918

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket - Verdicts
« Reply #116 on: November 18, 2008, 08:23:58 PM »
Finally, Dong just has one of the most amazing ending sequences ever! It perfectly combines the real and fantasy aspects of the film and just left me smiling and happy.

Ok, this hasn't been very suspenseful. Dong moves on to the next round.

Yay!  Dong is one of my all-time favorite films.

edgar00

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket - Verdicts
« Reply #117 on: November 20, 2008, 08:02:50 PM »
My Rice Noodle Shop (1998, Yang Xie) versus April Story (1998, Shunji Iwa)


My Rice Noodle Shop

The year is 1949 and times are difficult. China is plagued by internal strife between the communists (who as you may know would eventually be lead by Mao Tse-Tung)  and the nationalists (KMT). Supporters of the former were many to flee to Taiwan in the hopes that soon their side would overthrow the communists.

Such is the backdrop for Yang Xie’s story about a 40 something noodle shop owner, Rong Rong (Carol ‘Do Do’ Cheng). She grew up in the small but lovely town of Guilin, where her grandfather owned his own rice noodle restaurant. But with the emergence of the communists, she and several other colourful characters from Guilin moved to Taipei. My Rice Noodle Shop functions as a series of episodes, although linked in the narrative sense, about Miss Rong’s trials and tribulations as the rice noodle shop owner. Among the cast of characters who frequent her establishment are an ex state officer, a formerly wealthy real estate business man and a school teacher, Mr. Lu (Kevin Lin).

For the most part, the movie functions as a drama. The reasons for this are evident. All these people had far more respectable and wealthy lives back in Guilin. This is shown through a series of flashbacks which set up each individual nicely. Having left it all behind out of fear of persecution, their current lives meander in poverty. Some of them who come to eat everyday do not even possess sufficient funds to pay for their meals and owe considerable debts to Mrs Rong. The film does make certain brief attempts at comedy, but they are rather painful and consist mostly of cussing, kind of like bad Kevin Smith dialogue (although that may have been more about the quality of the subtitles I found). Drama for realism’s sake is something I very much support. However, I was a tad disappointed so witness the fates the movie reserved for each of the customers. While I shan’t spoil everything, allow me to alert anyone curious about the film that none of the customers comes out all smiles. In fact, each of their individual fates is quite sad, depressing and pathetic. I can understand the logic behind this decision by Xie and the writers given the economic and political conditions of the time, but it was a bit much too handle. When writing this, I have in mind especially the up and coming school teacher, Mr. Lu, who has been saving money for years in order to set up a nice wedding and marriage for his sweet heart who is still living in mainland China. What happens to him is so depressing it almost feels as if the film was being too manipulative.

By I have criticised the film enough. I did, in fact, enjoy it a fair bit. The film’s strength lies in the strength of its central character, Rong Rong. Her flashbacks show a time when she was deemed one of the prettiest girls in Guilin and became the beautiful wife of an army general. She was wealthy and happy, even though there was every now and then the fear that her husband may not return from battle. Today she has lost the beauty that provided her such high esteem, her husband (dead) and much of her wealth. I was pleasantly surprised that the story spends most of its time with her at this stage in her life. In another movie the story would have been about her youth when she was a beauty. In another still she would have possibly been relegated to a supporting role only. None of that here. Instead, this 40 something, less beautiful than before women takes center stage. And she becomes all the more beautiful for it. She’s a business woman first and foremost and needs to keep her shop running with a profit. She grows weary of her regular customers not being able to pay, but she still lets them come and eat out of compassion. She keeps a loving and watchful eye over her niece, who plans to marry a soldier, just as she did back in her youth. Mrs. Rong warns her niece of the possible heart breaking fate that may await her husband. This is done in a loving manner, much in the way a mother would do it towards her daughter. The movie treats Mrs. Rong very fairly and makes her an interesting and complex character. Her flashbacks and reactions to them hint that she longs for her home town of Guilin and for the better days of her past. But she still finds the energy to see through every day. It’s her determination and will to succeed that keep the restaurant afloat, and herself out of depression. It is also obvious that she takes great pride in her business and often boasts that her rice noodles are the finest in Taipei. Carol Cheng gives a complete performance, thus making Mrs. Rong a fully realized character with ambitions, fears, and dreams. The end does not say whether or not she will one day find the happiness and security she seeks, but her story ends on a more hopeful note than those of her compatriots. Her story is far more fulfilling and engaging.

I love it when a movie can provide a strong central female character, so My Rice Noodle Shop was still, despite the shortcomings I discovered, a good movie. Carol Cheng carries the film with an inspiring performance which at times shows the right amount of energy, and at other times sublime subtlety. For the acting alone this is a worthwhile film.



April Story


A young adult girl, Uzuki Nireno (Takako Matsu), is leaving her small island home of Hokkaido to study in college in Tokyo. It seems she has rarely left her home is a bit uncomfortable at first in her new surroundings.

On the first day of classes, the students are invited to share names one by one and say a little bit about themselves. Some are energetic and outspoken, others less so. But Nireno is clearly the shiest of the bunch. Her reactions when spoken to consist mainly of ‘huh? and ‘hmm?’ I don’t speak Japanese but I doubt those are enough to hold a conversation with the chick at my work. She makes few friends, with the exception of a pouty girl, Seako Sono (Rumi) who, I suppose, also hasn’t made many friends of her own because she seems to only hang out with Nireno. When pressed to explain why she chose this particular school, Nireno stutters and fails to deliver a satisfactory answer. Oh, but she has her reasons, doesn’t she? Choosing a university is one of the biggest decisions of a young adult’s life, correct?

Well, it turns out her reason for attending the school in question is an unfulfilled crush on a boy who was a year higher than her back in high school. She had adoring goo-goo eyes for the boy and, when she discovered that he went to Tokyo for his future studies, well, the logical solution was to follow suit. To warm our hearts even more (as if they haven’t warmed up enough already, ha! ha!), the boy she is working at a bookstore. So what does she do? She visits the said bookstore as frequently as she can naturally.

After that she has-…

Wait a minute.

I need to know that you fine filmspotters out there are seeing where I’m going with this. You’ve read my reviews before, you know how I typically dissect the films I watch. Has the punch line set itself in enough already? You want to come out and just say it? *Sigh* Very well…

This movies sucks. First and foremost, the premise. Remember that comment I made about one’s choice of a university being a big decision? Yeah…so this girl makes that decision based on an unfulfilled high school crush that may, or may not, be realized now. And how am I so supposed to relate to this character exactly? Now, forgive me for being perhaps abrasive, but isn’t what Nireno does in this movie normally considered stalking? I think so. Yeah, if a person who can’t get over the fact that the one they desired but never had left for another town and decided to do everything possible to get to that person even though the target never knows about it, that sounds like stalking to me. Any counter arguments? Anyone? Man, there may have been (or not) a girl that I found cute and maybe even had crush on (or not) back in my last days of high school (I’m not giving Edgar’s History 101 this semester. Tough). But I didn’t base the decision of where I would study on her choice. In fact, I ended up going to a different school altogether. What the heck is up with this girl? I grew weary of her ‘huhs? and ‘hmms?’ every time someone approached her. She must have been thinking about this guy 24 hours a day, which doesn’t see to healthy a past time to me. There are no interesting secondary characters either. In fact, the only one is Saeko, who seems content to wine about the food in the cafeteria and put on such a face you’d think she had a rash up her-.

The one thing the movie could have pulled off, but of course failed, was to provide the viewer with the satisfaction of what their relationship could like. She does make a hello to the boy in the bookstore eventually (oh, did I just give away a plot point? I don’t give a sh**), but that’s all we ever see. The entire movie is about how she musters up the courage to hello to this boy. You want to know why I think the film limits itself to that one goal? Of course you want to know why. Because I think the boy, who obviously made an educated decision about his future when he made his choice of college, eventually dumped Nireno when he found out about her stalker mentality that was hidden behind all those ‘huhs? and ‘hmms?’ What kind of conversations would they strike up anyway if she always takes half an hour to come up with something constructive to say? This movie is 67 minutes in length and wasn’t short enough.

The sky was the most interesting, three dimensional character in this movie.


Enough! For the love of Mike, let My Rice Noodle Shop go through! Granted, there were a few elements that did not quite work for me, but it had an intelligent story and such an attaching central character. Besides, Mrs. Rong makes the best rice noodles this side of Taipei, and that’s good enough for me.

Hmm, I think I’ll head down now to that Chinese restaurant down the street for some take out.
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facedad

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket - Verdicts
« Reply #118 on: November 20, 2008, 09:50:40 PM »
You're gonna incur some wrath for this one.
You're just jealous! Nobody loves you because you're tiny and made of meat!

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edgar00

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket - Verdicts
« Reply #119 on: November 20, 2008, 10:22:11 PM »
You're gonna incur some wrath for this one.

That's the least of my worries.
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