BEHOLD MY FIRST MATCH-UPFarewell 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.
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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.
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Verdict:
Farewell China wins by a long shot.