Reviews

First of, since 'The City of Life and Death' and 'Kekexili' I have become a fan of mainland China director Lu Chuan. I did not know about this film but somehow, through indirect references, I found out about it and decided to purchase a DVD to see it.

And a good thing I have a DVD, for I needed to watch it more than once to truly grasp the gist of the film. The story line is based on a piece of history in the period of around 200 BC, toward the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is a story of allies turned mortal enemies, trust, mistrust, and the deadly outcome when a woman, here a queen, got involved in the King's decisions.

There are no epic battles and brutal action here, although there are a couple of scenes of torture and execution. The plot and pace are both slow. So I can see why many people will not like it. But if you have the patience, this is a visually impressive film that told a complex story. DVD is the best medium as you can pause, backtrack or watch it for a 2nd or 3rd time to fully understand the plot.

First off, I saw a DVD version of this film, so I did not have the luxury of enjoying 100% of the beautiful camera work that comes with this film. Second, I am a fan of Hou's work so my view may be biased.

Having said that, this is one slow, meditative martial art film, totally unlike other martial art films such as Ip Man. The camera pans very slowly, and most of the time the sound track is quiet. Words are sparsely spoken. Fighting is infrequent and short: as in Kurosawa's samurai films, the fight is settled quickly, sometimes with the defeated unhurt but walking away because he/she realizes that defeat has been the outcome.

Both the camera work and the settings are exceptionally well done, providing a visual feast. I understand the films was shot in Taiwan, mainland China and Japan, although I couldn't tell which was which.

To conclude, while knowing some people would find the film too slow and boring, I enjoy it a greatly. Characters are many and the plot is not easy to follow. That means at least a second viewing is required. Glad I have the DVD!

Since I viewed 'The World' and 'Still Life' from director Jia ZK a few years back, I have become a fan of this 6th generation film director from China. In this film he explored the ugly side of China, amid its prosperity (at least for some), GDP growth and blatant capitalism. It is about the contrast between the average person trying to make a decent living, and the corrupt officials and bandits that got rich quick. The film contains 4 stories, loosely linked together. Corruption, prostitution, social injustice, stressful lives of migrant workers in the World's Factories in the southern part of the country are all the issues explored and exposed here. Gosh, I am glad this film was allowed to be made by the Chinese government. I bet Jia's international fame has something to do with it.

All in all, I enjoyed the film greatly. I once worked and lived in China for a number of years so the stories relate to me quite easily. For now, I hope Jia can continue to do his work, with the freedom and liberty that he has so far enjoyed. I look forward to more of his work.

This film from Quebec is a quiet family drama, and requires patience to appreciate. Not much happened in the film except for Gaby, an ageing farmer close to retirement, attending to his live stock, 24x7.

His has two adult daughters living in the city, who seldom visit him. But when one of them got into financial trouble, Gaby made a tough decision to help her out, thus throwing his regular and regimented life style into turmoil.

The film depresses me in the sense Gaby was clearly taken advantage of by one of his daughters, but still made the sacrifice willingly, without considering the impact to his remaining years.

This is a well acted film for those who enjoy family dramas, and are interested in gaining an insight to farm life in Quebec.

I watched this film, all 150 minutes of it, from a DVD I received from FilmMovement. Apparently this film, a European production, is hardly known in North American.

At 150 minutes this is one long film, and if you expect to see epic battle scenes you will be disappointed. The story centres around the English and Portuguese armies retreating, with many civilians, from the advent of the Napoleonic army. There are many characters involved in several sub-plots, and three languages (English, French and Portuguese) are used in the dialogues. One can get confused easily.

Despite its flaws, I find the film watchable for the settings, for the costume, and for certain portions of the human dramas depicted. And forget about the presence of the two big-name French actresses referenced in the credit. Both Isabelle Hupert and Catherine Deneuve appeared in an inconsequential scene for less than two minutes.

Of course the Iberian peninsula can never be physical separated from the European continent. At least not until the end of the world anyway. But this films by director George Sluizer tells a story based on this impossible scenario. Not credible and silly you say, but once you push aside this critique the film actually is fun to watch.

The protagonists are two women and three men, augmented by the presence of a dog. There is human interaction among them, and love, and isolation. You can tell only Europe will produce a film of this nature. I have watched it twice over a course of three years and enjoyed it each time. I will recommend this film to lovers of international cinema for sure.

I can't recall when was the last time I saw a film from Singapore, a country known for trade and finance but definitely not its film industry. So for all intents and purposes this is my first exposure to a Singaporean film.

For the first 10 minutes I didn't quite know what I was into, but as the film progressed I began to catch the gist of it - a low-budget, family drama around person-to-person connections. That fact that the back-drop was the financial crisis in the 90's is not important. The story can happen now with a small change to the back-drop.

Acting was good by all. The story was well told. It is a film with no 'villains' as such, but a good drama around a middle-class family in Singapore. 'Ilo Ilo' reaffirms my faith in low-budget, low-visibility, independent films that can be high in quality.

I am just glad to have stumbled onto a DVD copy of it. Well done!

I am sure some of us still have, on occasion, flashing memory of our childhood love subjects. We can be adults and settled into a homely life style. But if your memory is still robust, a trip to the past is common - especially if you are getting older.

"Balcony on the Sea", a name which I prefer, is a top-notch romance from France. It blends mystery with a love story, and with a the plot which is very credible and moving.

Both Jean Dujardin (of 'The Artist' fame) and Marie-Josee Croze are great in their leading roles. Director Nicole Garcia's steady and conventional directing is perfect to tell this tale, with flash back to childhood life in Algiers. I also find the ending subtle and satisfying. Highly recommended for those who yearn for a good romance story. Meanwhile, I will try to seek out more work by this director.

I have never been a fan of Dogme style film making. To me it means jittery frames due to the use of hand-held cameras, little background music, and often grainy images. But 'Open Hearts' is one big exception.

The story is about forbidden love. There are plenty of miserable people in this film and yet there are no 'bad' people here. Mads Mikkelsen delivered one of his strongest performance by portraying the tormented lover. He was a good man - a practising doctor, a caring father and husband to his children and wife. Yet he fell in love, madly and beyond his control, with a younger woman who was traumatized by a recent accident. I can totally relate to his agony and sentiment - not being able to remove her from his mind every single waking minute, while fully knowing his obligation to his family.

The film concludes without offering a feel-good ending, as life often does. I was left to think about it, and to muse over the dilemma faced by the characters. It made me think for a long time.

I strongly recommend this film to anyone who enjoys European cinema. And if you are a romantic, you should not miss it.

I have to confess here in Canada I have no previous exposure to films by Hong Kong directors Johnnie To. Obviously he has done good work before but I just did not have the chance to see them. 'Drug War' was shown in a local art-house cinema and my like-minded friend alerted me to it.

Well, this was an interesting film experience - a Hong Kong director doing a police/drug dealer drama based in mainland China. Although other fictitious names were used for the cities, it is obvious the final, major shootout took place in a main street in Tianjin, a large city not far from Beijing. And much has been said about the long, protracted shoot-out scene toward the end, done in the John-Woo-ish manner.

I do not know if the version shown in mainland China - apparently the film did well in the box office there - is the same version that I saw in Canada. However, I suspected the China version has to be slightly edited. Still, (Spoiler Alert!) Johnnie To managed to get a film approved for the Chinese audience despite breaking one important rules: four desperadoes gunning down a large number of police officers, male and female. Now this used to be a big no-no in China. The police had to come up on top and the bad guys punished. The mass killing of cops was never presented to any screen in Chinese cinema. And then there is the lesser scene of RMB (Chinese currency) bills being burnt in place of 'ghost money' to honour the dead. Now this may just be part of drama but one can also argue about its possible political significance.

All in all, for a cops-against-bad-guys film this is well directed, with action scenes well staged and the cops and criminals well portrayed. There are also finer moments exploring humanity - e.g. a drug dealer's wife, fatally shot, still struggled to put her high-heel boots back on while dodging bullets. The ending is a tad depressing but is mostly likely closer to reality.

I have to admit I like films by Kim Ki-duk, the first from him that I saw being "Spring, Summer, ....", which got me hook to his works. Pieta has his signature all over it. However, in his attempt to shock and entice his audience with a very unlikely and yet twisted plot, he went astray. A city in Korea was painted as totally lawless, with thugs breaking people's arms at will and getting away with it. Loan sharks were above the law and charged exorbitant fees and, in the event the borrower could not pay up, resorted to having an enforcer break limbs for insurance money. And the police was never in sight or called for.

To sit through this film you have to endure scenes of rape, torture, incest, and implied gore. You do need a fairly good stomach to put up with these parts of the story. In the end, it is all about vengeance, a theme exploited heavily by Korean directors in the past decade.

Kim could have made a better film had he not been obsessed with shocking the audience. Tone the film down a little, make it a bit more credible, and we could have a film that we can believe in, and characters that we can sympathize with. As is, it is too surreal, grotesque and falls into the category of style over substance.

This film on the life of a college student doubling up as a call girl is watchable but not particularly moving. First of, the girl went into prostitution not to support her college education, but to maintain a flat in a choice location. Right there my feeling for her as a young woman deserving sympathy evaporated. The acting was decent, and if you expect to see much nudity in this film you will be disappointed.

Instead, we were exposed to the array of her clientele, from a generous join from Britain to one obsessed with hygiene - rubber gloves in both hands. There was this usual side story of her fleeing from two men who wanted to pimp her, and from the police due to the Viagra-induced death on one client. However, the story overall is fairly simplistic and not engaging enough.

This is a film from Film Movements, and I actually expected a higher quality film. As is, it is enjoyable to watch - but just barely.

This film has undoubtedly Wong's signature all over it. The first half of the film is very good gets your attention, but the second half becomes a bit talky, and when you have to rely on subtitles, much of the dialogue is lost. So I can see why many people were disappointed and failed to grasp the entirety of the plot.

As a martial film the fighting sequences were well executed, complete with slow-motion and drum or other musical score to sharpen the mood. It is a poetic film, although at times the dialogues often get to be too philosophical and may lose the audience.

Being a wuxia film I finding the ending a tad anti-climax, especially when you remember the dramatic, rain-drenched fighting scene at the beginning. One problem, as I understand, is the North American version is much shorter. I have a feeling the longer version is far superior and I look forward to getting it on a DVD someday.

Overall, it is not as memorable as 'Crouching Tiger' in this genre, but I was not disappointed. Having said that, I do believe Wong has actually done a better film which we don't get to see in our cinemas.

I enjoyed this Canada-Japan co-production for a number of reasons. First, it brought me the beautiful scenery of Okinawa, a place I know little about previously, and its art of making cloth from the fibre of banana trees. Now I have a strong urge to visit there some day to sample the beauty and tranquillity of that location. Second, this is, in a way, a romance story between an ageing, depressed and lonely baby-boomer from Quebec and a pretty Japanese woman much younger. So it is a story about an older male and a younger female, and hence a formula plot for male fantasy. Mine for sure.

Direction by Claude Gagnon, who did C.R.A.Z.Y. in the past, is solid, and acting by both actors very believable. However, because of its subject matter, I don't think the younger folks will enjoy this film as much as the older folks.

Although there is no nudity in the films but on two occasions you are treated to the screams (of joy, I assume, and I mean real screams) from a woman at the height of her sexual activities with an older man. So we may have some credibility issue here. Another point is any man that can please a woman to that extent could simply have no reason to be depressed. That would be my thought.

With this great medium called DVD I have watched this films a number of times over the past decades, and enjoyed it each time.

Perhaps it was the name, or perhaps it was bad promotion and marketing, this film was one of the least known pieces of work by the great director who offered us 'Once Upon a Time in the West'. No, "Duck, You Sucker" was not in the same category as "Once" but as a light-hearted western it was great and had all the signatures of Leone. The sound track was good. The acting by Steiger and Coburn was memorable.

It has everything that I want in a western of this nature. Yes, the 'magic' of explosives was a bit far-fetched but, hey, this is meant to be easy viewing meant for entertainment. Highly recommended for fans of the western genre - one with an Italian/Mexican spin.

Life has been good but at times it gets to be mundane, and boring. So I need to escape from reality and get lost in another world. Many films, such as 'Pan's Labyrinth' and 'Kwaidan', offer me a channel to another world for a couple of hours. 'Painted Skin II' does an equally good job in this regard with its dose of fox demons (the good kind), a princess and warriors.

I watched the film on a BluRay disc. The colour, the imagery, the landscape, the costumes, the feminine sexuality - all visually stunning and often poetic. There are also two love stories in there too, and these are no conventional love stories - they are the very complicated kind. The action sequences, often done in slow-mo, are satisfying. Acting is great, especially by the two leading ladies. This film offers all I need from a fantasy story.

It appears that not many in the North America are aware of this film or have seen it. That is indeed a pity. I hope director Wuershan will move on to do Painted Skin III. Something I very much would look forward to.

This is a simple film - two main characters with no blood relation and yet deeply connected to each other - and presumably made with a modest budget. It is slow, and arguably a tad long (but I am OK with it), but as the story evolves I begin to care about them.

As a film it is a great antidote to the sex, violence, intriguing plots, and CGI (I must admit I like some of those too) that we are so used to on the big screen these days. Director Ann Hui indicated the story was inspired by true events and I believe her. What makes this story unique is we are looking at love, respect and a feeling of duty and obligation between two human beings as if they were mother and son - but they are not. Instead, what started out as a servant-master relationship transcended itself to become something more sublime when the care-giver became incapacitated and the table was turned. When this happened the roles were reversed and yet it happened in such an unforced, natural and leisurely fashion.

There are tear-jerking moments, of course, but they came in such an unpretentious manner. The ending is as you would expect when age and illness took their toll on Tao Jie, played by Deannie Yip. And yet, I finished watching the film feeling uplifted, and with a strong sense of hope on humanity.

My first exposure to Medem's films was through 'Lovers of the Artic Circle'. Right away I grew fond of his style of directing - meditative, philosophical at times, poetic, personal and often abstract. 'Tierra' was one of his earlier films, dated 1996. However, time has not eroded the film's merit.

The protagonist, called Angel, had just come out of a mental institution and was struggling to get back to a normal life of work and love. In love he was linked up to two women, played by Emma Suarez and a young Silke. Both very attractive to look at and contributed to a few very erotic moments in the film.

'Tierra' told the story of Angle's mental struggle, and the struggle of others around him. There is really no message in the film despite the many quotes relating to atoms, stars and the universe. What we are left with is a story of human interaction and struggle, and love. This is one very usual human drama and well told by Medem.

There is really nothing special about the story - a successful, young lawyer with a good career, two great children and a 'model' husband finds her life in peril upon the revelation of an incurable disease. We have seen stories like this before. However, 'All Our Desires' (I still think the title is not very relevant) is a film that works. It works because of the way the director tells the story, and the way the actors play out their roles and emotion.

Nothing is over-the-top. The bonding between the two lead actors, with the age gap, is natural and admirable. One can still argue about the cliché of Claire withholding her illness from her husband but it was not too important. In the end I find the story to be moving, well told and engaging.

This is my first exposure to films by Philippe Lioret. And it definitely will not be my last.

First off, with all the negative comments I have read, I can only draw the conclusion this film is not for everyone. Yes it is slow, repetitive, and often with the camera pointing at a scene, for a long time, in which nothing much is happening. However, the scenery around the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, where the film was shot, is breathtakingly beautiful. So it helps if you are an armchair adventurer, an armchair hiker in particular, who enjoys this kind of scenery.

The plot is fairly thin - the relationship between two young people deeply in love, but thrown into question by one simple, disruptive event. Still, it only carries part of the weight for this film. The dialogues are not great either, and I feel much improvement could have been achieved with a better script.

Summing it all up, it is worth 2 hours of your time if you are an art-house film fanatic, enjoy outdoor scenery and have the required patience. Otherwise you may want to skip it.

In the past I seldom got excited about watching a film with an entire cast of ageing actors - until I came upon "Found Memories". With the exception of one young actress, playing a visiting photograph from a big city, the film consists of all old folks, many in frail health.

Life in this small village is repetitive, slow and mundane. And yet life goes on. Many of the ageing inhabitants have outlived their children, and past memories helped to fuel their will to live. The arrival of a young girl, a photographer, added a little bit of change to their otherwise uneventful lives. You sense the generation gap, and the gap between the past and the modern. But in the end this does not matter.

I could not help but care about some of the characters, and thought about them after the film is finished. Needless to say, I like this film a lot, and will be training my eyes on any future work by this brilliant Brazilian director Julia Murat.

Director Aaron Schock had his camera following members of a circus family in Mexico and they went about their daily life, performances and road trips. This family which included 4 children, all performers, roamed from one small town to the other to make a meagre living through their performances - a dying art. Life was not easy, but even the children seemed to be content with that life style.

Acting was flawless and often you think the it was done without the family members knowing the camera was there. There was also a candid look into the usual problems within a family, including the conflict between the parents over the wellbeing of the children. Through this film you will have a good, honest look into the lives of a family that you would not otherwise relate to.

The bonus materials is good, too. An update on the family after the film was done gives the viewing an interesting closure. I highly recommended this film to anyone seeking a story in real life, and not Hollywood escapism.

I was informed before the showing that Director Manoel de Oliviera was over 100 years old when he directed this film. So I took that into consideration. That may be one of the reasons I did not walk out half way through the screening.

However, in retrospect, this is not a bad film, but one that is very personal (for the director) to the extent it may not connect with everyone. Many inserts to the film (e.g. the labourers in the field) may have no bearing to the story but they were there. And an average Joe like me couldn't understand the reason why they were there. Metaphor, poetry, or scenery diversion may be the reasons but I could not tell.

In a sense it is a story about a young photographer losing his mind, and eventually his health, as a result of the escalating obsession following an encounter with a beautiful, dead woman. That I can relate to. But the story could definitely be told in a more lively, and less arty fashion to appeal to a larger audience.