Asian Cinema @ TIFF 2008

[Brian Thibodeau]

A few titles of interest from a quick glance (which means I probably missed some ). I put smilies beside some of the ones I'm interested in at the moment (more smilies, more interest, at least for now!), plus question mark smilies beside ones that I'm curious to learn more about. As always, opinions and links are appreciated.

24 City (China)
Jia Zhang-ke

Achilles and the Tortoise (Japan)
Takeshi Kitano

Adela (Phillipines)
Adolfo Alix Jr.

All Around Us (Japan)
No director listed yet

Ashes of Time Redux (Hong Kong)
Wong Kar-wai

Bayan Ko: My Own Country (Phillipines)
Lino Brocka

Block B (Malaysia/Canada)
Chris Chong, Chan Fui

Chocolate (Thailand) (have this on DVD, but unsubbed, so . . . )
Prachya Pinkaew

Citizen Juling (Thailand)
Kraisak Choonhavan, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Ing K

Daytime Drinking (South Korea)
Noh Young-seok
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6730/1/

Detroit Metal City (Japan)
Toshio Lee

Garden/ing (Japan) Short film, part of Wavelengths series
Eriko Sonoda

The Good, the Bad, the Weird (South Korea)
Kim Jee-woon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imgdpz_0m-8

In the Shadow of the Naga (Thailand)
Phawat Panangkasiri

Knitting (China)
Lichuan Yin

New York, I Love You
Fatih Akin Yvan Attal, Randy Balsmeyer, Allen Hughes, Shunji Iwai, Scarlett Johansson, Shekhar Kapur, Joshua Marston, Mira Nair, Natalie Portman, Brett Ratner, Jiang Wen, Andrey Zvyagintsev
(gee, can you spot one name that doesn't quite fit on this list! )

Ocean Flame (Hong Kong)
Liu Fendou
http://daily.greencine.com/archives/006152.html

Plastic City (Brazil/China)
Nelson Yu Lik Wai

The Real Shaolin (USA/China)
Alexander Sebastien Lee

Serbis (The Philippines/France)
Brillante Ma. Mendoza

The Sky Crawlers (Japan)
Mamoru Oshii
http://sky.crawlers.jp/index.html

Still Walking (Japan)
Hirokazu Kore-eda
http://www.celluloid-dreams.com/coming_ ... l_walking/

Tokyo Sonata (Japan/The Netherlands/Hong Kong, China)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/tokyo-sonata.shtml
http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/6143/

Treeless Mountain (USA/South Korea)
So Yong Kim

Vacation (Japan)
Hajime Kadoi

Winds of September (Taiwan)
Tom Shu-Yu Lin

[KMGor]

The Good, the Bad, the Weird (South Korea) Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy
Kim Jee-woon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imgdpz_0m-8

I'm totally with you on that one. I thought A Bittersweet Life was very good, but considering how well the action scenes were handled by the director, I wanted to see him do something a little lighter and funnier the next time out. Looks like I got my wish, and it's an Eastern-Western, one of my favorite of the more esoteric sub-genres out there!

[john_larocque]

Sadly this was my only usable picture of Won Kar Wai. Pictured to his left is the new Asian TIFF co-programmer, who (from a distance) is a lookalike for the Japanese detective from the TV series Dexter.



I got no usable photos from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, but this one's a treat:



Yes, Anthony Wong was in town, with the director of Plastic City, Yu Lik-Wai.

Ocean Flame was amazing. Reminded me a lot of Kim Ki-Duk's film "Bad Guy".

[Brian Thibodeau]

Going to see OCEAN FLAME tonight, so I'd imagine there won't be any film folk there if it's the second screening.

Saw WINDS OF SEPTEMBER (Taiwan) this afternoon. Excellent film about the friendship of seven high school boys played out in tandem with a real life baseball scandal in 1997 (though the latter is purely symbolic). The star player implicated in the scandal makes a nice cameo, though the focus is largely on the male relationships and how they begin to fracture. Solid feature-length debut film for the director Tom Lin (who gave a revealing Q&A afterword) with mostly first-timers well-cast in the leads. Rhydian Vaughan, the Eurasian member of the troupe and ostensible lead, looks so much like Tom Cruise it's uncanny.

Saw MARTYRS last night. Not an Asian flick, but figured it was worth mentioning. Almost plays like a slap to all of us high-minded types who like to look down on those who use the word "torture porn" to describe recent trends in horror. This flick is almost nothing but exploitation-via-brutality (thus the term could apply), especially in its second half, and I'm not sure the core message about athiests seeking "belief" through the forcible martyring of young women was really thought out enough to justify the relentless brutality inflicted on the two female leads. Definitely an attention-grabber, and I'd have to give it high marks for accomplishing what it seems to set out to do, but probably a bit strong even for a jaded soul like me.

Going to see THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD gala tomorrow hopefully. Recent events have seriously curtailed my fest plans this year, so this batch is all I could fit on my plate, and even that was a struggle. Maybe better luck next year.

[dleedlee]

Glad to hear John's endorsement of OCEAN FLAME. And surprised, too. I recall only a tepid response from the Cannes screening. Just goes to show you.

Intrigued, but unfamiliar with the whole WINDS OF SEPTEMBER series. What is the link between the three films (Taiwan/HK/China)? Is it thematic, historical or something else?

[Brian Thibodeau]

Glad to hear John's endorsement of OCEAN FLAME. And surprised, too. I recall only a tepid response from the Cannes screening. Just goes to show you.

Having now seen it, I'm not sure I can share that endorsement, despite its technical proficiency. But I think I'm naturally biased against movies about unpleasant characters beating and hating each other until they practically die (more or less). I think the BAD GUY comparison is apt, but that's a better film (though no less brutal in its way), and perhaps its somewhat ambiguous ending was what allowed me to draw my own conclusions. OCEAN FLAME takes that core relationship--in this case an emotionally cross-wired waitress inexplicably and violently attracted to a hot-wired mainland hood who does little but screw her, beat her, cause her to abort their baby, and ultimately marry her off to his partner-in-blackmail-schemes. She hates him, she loves him, she hates him, she loves him, she thinks she can change him but baby, you oughta know you can't do that. Mostly she hates him, but they have sex while ocean waves thunder across the soundfield and the audience titters, and later they have violent kitchen sex while a fried egg gets fried into oblivion on a nearby pan, and the audience titters some more. I know these kinds of irredeemably unpleasant characters fascinate filmmakers (especially young ones) the world over--and I'm sure I've seen similar tales from other countries--but I can't really remember a movie where I felt they could exist in real life. BAD GUY came the closest I suppose, and I think that may have been due in part to the fact that the "heroine" such as she is, starts off as one of us, and her dirty little secret (thievery) gets her into a whole mess of trouble, and her forcible confinement somewhat explains the attraction she develops for her captor. In OCEAN FLAME, we barely know the female lead before she becomes smitten with this scuzzy looking rogue who, with an excited grin on his face, braves a thrashing at the hands of gangster Lam Suet, and logically, she could walk away any time (and does, briefly). Ooooh, how nihilistic. I'm also not sure why this was set in Hong Kong beyond the fact it probably wouldn't have gotten a greenlight on the mainland, and the director could score a handful of familiar locals in tiny key roles. On a technical level, it's good stuff, but these characters are so predictable they're practically types at this point. After about 30 minutes, I knew exactly how the two leads would end up (if not the exact methods); you can just feel it coming because the genre practically demands it, and the director apparently didn't want to challenge convention.

Intrigued, but unfamiliar with the whole WINDS OF SEPTEMBER series. What is the link between the three films (Taiwan/HK/China)? Is it thematic, historical or something else?

Can't remember exactly, but I recall the director saying that the Hong Kong edition will be at least partly based on stories submitted to the production by young people in the city or something like that. The first film ends in 1997, so I was tempted to ask if the Hong Kong story would start in that year, and maybe the mainland Chinese story at a later time of significance, but never got the chance. Might be interesting. Eric Tsang's involvement in the film came in a roundabout way: his daughter who lives in Taiwan actually noticed Lin's earlier short film THE PAIN OF OTHERS and met him for coffee to discuss a feature. Lin, who's fluent in English, also suggested that this film is about 80% autobiographical, and that the single film that inspired him to become a filmmaker was Edward Yang's A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY. He also said he harbors a grave outlook for the future of the Taiwanese film industry, which is probably not surprising.

[Brian Thibodeau]

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD is phenomenal. Undeniably one of the most enjoyable films I've seen this year, and undoubtedly one of the most fun to come out of Korea in a while. This thing just lights up and never goes out, with a director who continues to perform at the top of his craft and three of the best Korean actors you could ask for. This thing's all about action (a lot of it), and the two trailers available so far barely hint at the sheer scope of the rolling desert chase that comprises much of the third act of this film, with Song, possessed of a map that supposedly leads to a buried treasure that could fund the Korean resistance, aboard his motorcycle outrunning two very large groups of villains (one led by "the Bad" Lee Byung-hun) AND the occupying Japanese army with their trucks, jeeps and cannons, nearly all of it scored to an instrumental re-do of Santa Esmerelda's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", that catchy tune you might have thought was only used in the trailers to give the film a Tarantino-ish vibe. The film does have such moments here and there, but it's wholly more original than most of what he's done, taking the spirit of Spaghetti westerns and, as many critics have already noted, socking it in the mouth with a kimchi fist. The gunfights are dizzying and plentiful and intricate, and laced with quick shots of humour and clever character touches that happen so fast they're almost subliminal. The production design is bold and colorful and the costumes are rich in gonzo detail that should be rewarding on repeat views: there's a lot of visual stimulus in this one. Great stuff. Can't wait for the DVD.