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Author Topic: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts  (Read 561791 times)

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1070 on: May 27, 2010, 02:18:11 PM »
Yay! Another verdict! Shower sounds a lot better than that other film, but I'm not much for the '80s.

Melvil

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1071 on: May 27, 2010, 02:39:00 PM »
Awesome! Love it when someone discovers a film they want to champion like that.

pixote

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1072 on: May 27, 2010, 06:04:54 PM »
This is a film that is desperately trying to hold on to the 80s.

This might describe every Hong Kong action comedy in the bracket.  :)

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BlueVoid

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1073 on: May 27, 2010, 08:40:11 PM »
Nice verdict Bondo.  Shower doesn't seem like it would appeal to me, but I'll keep my mind open since you liked it so much.  I wonder how it will do in round 2.
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tinyholidays

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1074 on: May 27, 2010, 08:51:56 PM »
BEHOLD MY FIRST MATCH-UP


Farewell China

VS


A Class to Remember

Since these aren't very widely available, I took a lot of caps so you could see with your eyes.

-----

First:  Farewell China. 1990. Directed by Clara Law. Hong Kong.

Meet Hung (Maggie Cheung) and Nansan (Tony Leung). They're married. They live in China. They've got a baby named Sansan. They want Hung to go to America. 


The opening establishing shots of the film show the squalor of the shantytown where they live. And this bus ride to the American embassy looks crowded and smelly. (Can something look smelly?)


The American consul is kind of a douche about the whole visa thing.


But Hung gets a visa! This makes her make crazy faces.


She jets off to the States, leaving Nansan and Sansan alone together.


Eventually, Hung writes to Nansan, saying she wants to come home. Then she writes other letters saying other, contradictory things. Nansan becomes concerned for his wife and decides to go to the US and find her.


He shows up in New York looking like this. The reasons are eventually revealed, so it's a little unfair for me to cap this moment, but it was really funny to me. So, share times.


Nansan has a hard time finding Hung, so he teams up with a 15-year old Chinese-American prostitute, who helps guide him through the city.


They find clues as to what happened to Hung and what faces Maggie Cheung conjured along the way.

Okay. All that happens within the first, like, quarter of the film. The truth is that Farewell China is a pretty interesting mystery/psychological drama. There's a lot about the film that is super in-your-face. America is totally CINECAST!ing awful. Like, seriously bleak. At one point, Nansan wants to buy a donut with his few remaining dollars. He asks for some water, and the clerk charges him for bottled water. Nansan is, like, uh, I want the free water. And the clerk yells at him, "Nothing don't give money. You must be communist!" (Actually, I'm pretty sure that this is how Dutch people felt last summer when I insisted on tap water at restaurants.) (Also, yeah, I know that the water story is not all that bleak. There is more bleak that I'm not telling you about. So quit your staring!) All of the English acting is overwrought and hollow. But, at the same time, there are many interesting photographic decisions being made. I have a feeling that I would end up really enjoying some of Clara Law's later work.

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Second:  A Class to Remember. (Gakko.) 1993. Directed by Yoji Yamada. Written by Yoshitaka Asama and Yoji Yamada. Japan.

Hey, remember Stand and Deliver? To Sir, with Love? Okay.

...Oh, you want more of a review than that? Fine, I guess.

So, Sensei Kuroi (Toshiyuki Nishida) works at a junior high night school. As the sign says, "Anyone can enroll. (Tuition is free.)" These students are at risk!


Especially this old Korean lady! Look at how much risk she's in! We get little vignettes of all the students' stories. How did they end up at the night school?


As you can see, the situation gets pretty sentimental. In fact, this movie manages to both tackle and reinforce almost every negative stereotype about Japanese society. Attitudes toward Koreans and Chinese, the mentally handicapped, women, rape, class system, groupthink, work, suicide, divorce. It's all there.


Yup, this is a totally appropriate student-teacher relationship. How do I reach these kids??


How do I reach my brain??


Anyway, the unteachables get some teaching and learn how to function. Yay, them!


The most succinct and accurate summary of this movie. They actually freeze-framed on this shot. I am not kidding.

---

Verdict:  Farewell China wins by a long shot.

smirnoff

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1075 on: May 27, 2010, 09:09:52 PM »
A Class to Remember is not as fun it looks then eh? :)

Good job!

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1076 on: May 27, 2010, 09:10:24 PM »
Cheese!  ;D

Tequila

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1077 on: May 27, 2010, 09:34:04 PM »
To Liv(e) (1992, Evans Chan)

Quote
"To Liv(e) was inspired by actress Liv Ullmann's 1990 visit to Hong Kong, where she decried the forced deportation of 51 Vietnamese refugees. This, coupled with the Tiananmen Square the year before, contributes to a dark cloud of apprehension that shades this film as the British Crown colony faces imminent takeover by China in 1997. Made for a mere $150,000, To Liv(e) is filled with the kind of style, performances and ambition one might expect from a film critic turned filmmaker, and for which no apologies need be made...With a painter's eye in capturing the bohemian fringe of the Hong Kong art scene, and the mature voice of a seasoned filmmaker, Chan examines love, family and the fate of Hong Kong, and the culture clash between East and West with equal depth and assurance."

--- The Hollywood Reporter

Ah man, you know you're in trouble when my notes for the film contain something like "it means ever so well". I think ultimately, this just always felt really constructed to me.
"Wow, Liv Ullman said that? I'm gonna make a whole movie about this!"
And the political aspect of it is fine, it's the 'real life experience' that just totally fell flat for me. We get a number of couples, each facing different problems, all of them connected in some way or another. Some of the actors are clearly more capable than others but really, none of it is very engaging. Towards the end, things get very dramatic and boring.

This is a short scene that sort of comes out of nowhere and I thought probably did a better job of explaining what the film's all about than any of the rest.
Liv(e)

Midori (1992, Hiroshi Harada)

This is about Midori, who after becoming an orphan, is persuaded to join a fairground freak show. There, she is getting abused and humiliated by the freaks, until magician/hypnotist Wandâ Masamitsu joins the group. The two immediately fall in love and everything is peachy for a while, until that guy shows that he's got a dark side too.
Wikipedia defines this as Ero guro, "a term that describes a literary and artistic movement from 1920s and '30s Japan. Ero guro puts its focus on eroticism, sexual corruption and decadence. While ero guro is a specific movement, many of its components can be found throughout Japanese history and culture."
As for the film, I'd recommed reading this review over at Midnight Eye for some much needed context.

So, it's seems I only got half the experience by watching this on 'DVD'. That said, I kind of enjoyed this. There's no point in describing the images, it's utterly repulsive and disgusting most of the time but also just strangely fascinating and, you know, not boring. It's very explicit in terms of sex and violence. It has nightmare scenes. It has freak orgies. It has girls with penises. It has a scene of puppies getting killed. It's only 48 minutes long. It makes you feel like you're watching something forbidden. Go figure.

Someone else can kill this.


Verdict:
Freaks, definitely.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2010, 06:10:08 PM by Tequila »
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Melvil

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1078 on: May 27, 2010, 09:45:56 PM »
Heh, good stuff tiny! Farewell China sounds pretty interesting, especially with Maggie Cheung (and even if it is the wrong Tony Leung). It sounds like I would probably have a really difficult time with the English/Set in America element, but I'm glad it wasn't a deal breaker for you.

tinyholidays

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Re: 1990s Far East Bracket: Verdicts
« Reply #1079 on: May 27, 2010, 11:27:50 PM »
Heh, good stuff tiny! Farewell China sounds pretty interesting, especially with Maggie Cheung (and even if it is the wrong Tony Leung). It sounds like I would probably have a really difficult time with the English/Set in America element, but I'm glad it wasn't a deal breaker for you.

Well, that element is the majority of the film, but there was so much happening, and it was trying to be so many things that I kind of had to just sit back and be, like, wow! Nice try!

A Class to Remember is not as fun it looks then eh? :)

At a certain point, it is just so goofy and sentimental and ridiculous that it becomes fun. Apparently, there are at least 4 sequels? Upsetting.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2010, 11:31:24 PM by tinyholidays »