Reviewer: Maria Komodore
Rating (out of 5): ****

Sixth Generation Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye's fourth feature Summer Palace feels very much like a French New Wave film. Using China's turbulent political years as a backdrop, the movie focuses on a small group of students - focusing on the country girl Yu Hong - attending Bejing University in the late 1980s, and the different (sometimes even conflicting) emotions they experience as the careless enthusiasm of their youth gives way to life's disenchanting realities. Emotions, it should be noted, are conveyed accurately, and most importantly non-pornographically, in the film's many explicit sexual encounters.

Continue reading "Summer Palace" »

Posted by at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Maria Komodore
Rating (out of 5): *****

If there's one word that best fits Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul's latest experiment in cinema, it would be "enigmatic." In almost every review about Syndromes and a Century writers mention that, as the director himself admitted, the film's distinctive two halves deal with his parents' lives before they got romantically involved, and that each one of them represents his mother and father respectively. The extent to which the statement is useful for understanding Syndromes varies according to what the viewer wishes to take away from the movie; even for the most open, receptive, and film-techniques-savvy cinephile there isn't even the slightest hint pointing to that direction.

Continue reading "Syndromes and a Century" »

Posted by at 11:14 AM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***½

If you're into movies that really deal with the importance of family--and not in a feel-good, Disney-fied way--give Journey From the Fall a try. I would particularly recommend it to those, like most of us, who felt the Vietnam War was a waste and a mistake, and those who followed the history, who knew that honest elections ought to have been held in that country when they were first promised, no matter that Ho Chi Minh would have easily won. All this may have been true, but it will not prepare you for the degradations experienced by those South Vietnamese left behind to endure "re-education" by the North. The family that is sundered here--dad left behind in a re-education camp, while mom, son and grandma try their escape via boat--is shown with great dignity.

Continue reading "Journey From the Fall: A South Vietnamese family story" »

Posted by at 7:09 AM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): Election ***½
Triad Election **½

If you've not yet rented Johnnie To's Triad Election (2006), on November 6th you'll have the opportunity to watch it with To's original Election (or "Black Society," made in 2005), when the first film is released to DVD. The actual title of "Triad Election" when it was released on its Hong Kong home turf was "Black Society 2." It's a noticeably inferior sequel that could easily turn you off from watching the original, a masterful piece of filmmaking about the Hong Kong triad organization. While either movie may hold up as a entity unto itself, there is no way viewers can appreciate even the second-rate virtues of the second film without first understanding how the situation in which the characters find themselves came about.

Election tracks the process (it's relatively democratic, for a crime ring) by which a possible new leader is decided upon. His reign lasts but two years and must be solidified via the possession of a very special, beautifully carved wood "baton." Abetted by screenwriters Nai-Hoi Yau and Tin-Shing Yip, To introduces us to a rather large cast, headed by two fascinating antagonists Big D (Tony Leung Ka Fai) and Lam Lok (Simon Yam), each with his own style and sentiments. Every cast member registers as individual and interesting in his own right (there is only one major woman in each film, and her role is mostly for show, particularly in the sequel). We get some intriguing history, too, doled out in smart visual terms. The movie pulls you in via its characters and keeps you glued so that when the action finally begins, you're beyond hooked. (Much of the action, too, springs from character--unusual for this genre--which makes it all the more riveting and special.)

Continue reading "Election/Triad Election: To for the price of one" »

Posted by at 12:28 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ****

Johnny To's Exiled [trailer] is set in Macau on the cusp of that Portuguese territory's Chinese handover in 1998, a perfect backdrop for an homage to throwback actioners, in fact, to Westerns, for that matter, in this story of an unlikely group of friends-cum-enemies pit together in a game of survival. While the transition of Macao (and neighboring Hong Kong) looms throughout, To doesn't push the analogy; the irony of a "peaceful transition" - noted by the relieved, incompetent cop who looks the other way until he retires - marks the end.

The film starts with a fantastic sequence that ends with the most prolonged Mexican stand-off ever (frankly, the whole plot is a mexican stand-off). Two hitmen hired to gun down a comrade Wo (Nick Cheung), a man running out of time for his part on an attempted hit on the boss. The hired killers break from their mob boss's orders - one (Anthony Wong), Infernal Affairs sooner than the other (Francis Ng, both were in To's The Mission, of which this serves as a sort of sequel). The trio - a male version of To's "heroic trio" (to reference an earlier film), band together to do one last score, a gold robbery.

Buoyed by humor in all the right places, the script is dryly funny. As other critics have already mentioned, Exiled serves as a fine introduction to To's work; if it's not his best film, it's certainly one of his most accessible and enjoyable (and, good Lord, the man's more than 45 films!) The plot, while complex, isn't as overly complicated as in To's Election films.

Pacing change-ups that will remind of The Mission, with gun battles and chase scenes alternating with slower, talkier scenes. For the most part, it's an equation that works out, with only a few draggy moments - and the film running its course about fifteen minutes too late.

Continue reading "Exiled: Johnny To's Spaghetti Eastern" »

Posted by at 10:07 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ****

Kamikaze Girls
There is such an absence of films about female friendships (that don't revolve around abusive marriages, competition or cancer) that I can't even find a citation to contextualize my angst on the matter. Seriously, where is my Deer Hunter, Good Will Hunting or Rio Bravo (I'd even show up for a Dudette, Where's My Car)? There was a quick spate of studio releases in the 80s and early 90s that fit the bill, but they were mostly mired in tragic circumstances (Foxes, The Legend of Billie Jean, Times Square, Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains, Little Darlings, Heavenly Creatures, Foxfire, etc) and few of them are even available on DVD.

So it's very exciting to find Tetsuya Nakashima's Kamikaze Girls, an adaptation of a wildly popular graphic novel ("The Story of Shimotsuma") about two young women who have taken up very different methods of rebellion in the oppressively dull surroundings in very rural and style-free Shimotsuma (known primarily for its cabbage production). Momoko (Kyôko Fukada of Dolls, Ringu 2) is a frilly-dressing existentialist who daydreams of living in 18th century Vienna. Ichigo (Anna Tsuchiya of Taste of Tea) is a formerly shy girl now a member of the Ponytails, the toughest motorcycle gang in town. They form an oddball friendship, bonding over the clothes that make them stand out amongst the cabbage, keeping themselves entertained and helping each other out of scrapes in a style that is something akin to Amelie if it had been directed by Quentin Tarantino.

Continue reading "Kamikaze Girls" »

Posted by at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Reviewer: Dylan de Thomas
Rating (out of 5): ****

Like slapstick and belly laughs along with your bloody political assassinations?

Well, Im Sang-Soo's The President's Last Bang, a pitch-black political comedy about the unlikely bumbling murder of South Korean President Park Chung-hee, should suit your particular predilections.

Last Bang is, in turns, a queasy, confusing and riveting thing as it goes about its darkly funny business. It's a lean film, working quickly and cleanly through the narrative. Sang-Soo lays it all out a bit like a chamber piece, with the events mostly playing out at one location over the course of a single night. The first half echoes The Rules of the Game or Gosford Park, sketching the social station of those involved before leading us to the proverbial Main Event - the dinner party where President Chung-hee will be killed by the director of his own Korean CIA.

Continue reading "The President's Last Bang" »

Posted by at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

Some movies may be arty, different and interesting The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes immediately comes to mind) but not be all that enjoyable overall. Tears Of The Black Tiger manages the arty/different/interesting part, while providing enormous fun in the process. Much of this, I suspect, may be due to how little knowledge many of us western film buffs possess regarding the traditions of Thailand, its culture and film history. We may have seen some of the oddities of Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Tropical Malady), the martial-artsy Ong-Bak, a genre-jumping Beautiful Boxer or a gorgeous epic like Suriyothai (the Thai movies I can immediately bring to mind), and although the Hong Kong-born Pang brothers often film in Thailand and clearly have an appreciation of that country, this is not quite the same thing as being Thai. Consequently, when we see something as bizarre, colorful, and all-over-the-place as writer/director Wisit Sasanatieng's Tears, the experience probably approximates how viewing one’s first Bollywood extravaganza might have seemed at the time.

Continue reading "Tears of the Black Tiger: Thai yai-yai!" »

Posted by at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ****

At the beginning of Linda Linda Linda, the end of school is nigh and the annual Holly Festival is just three days away. Due to a P.E. injury and in-fighting, Kei, Kyoko and Nizomi's band is in shambles. They decide on a new song for the festival (the titular "Linda Linda Linda" by the Blue Hearts), to switch up instruments, and to find a new singer by sitting in the courtyard after school and picking the first person who walks by. The first is a boy (no go), the second is Rinko (recently kicked out of the band, double-no go), and the third is Son (played by Du-na Bae, The Host, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Take Care of My Cat) a Korean foreign exchange student who speaks so little Japanese she's not even sure what she's agreed to until the band's first practice -- which is a total disaster.

It's a little jolting to see a punk rock high school movie told in Nobuhiro Yamashita's deliberate, Altman-esque fashion. As the girls practice and go about their lives, the camera never moves, the takes are long and the dialogue authentically awkward.

Continue reading "Linda Linda Linda: giddy Japanese punk rock high school flick" »

Posted by at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***½ (lower it a notch or two if you're not a fan of "slasher" flicks)

Generally I avoid most slasher flicks, except the occasional Hostel or Wolf Creek that causes a blip on the cultural radar and might be worth a look--if only to ascertain what the noise is all about. (It usually pertains to newer and more "creative" levels of violence, and hell, why do we need that, now that we've got Iraq?) I took a chance on Bloody Reunion and--surprise--I am now recommending it to you. Directed with welcome economy and speedy pacing by Dae-wung Lim and written with a terrific understanding of concept, organization and follow-through by Se-yeol Park (smart, talented first-timers), the movie begins at the scene of a bloody mass murder, backtracks to how it all came about and ends with a surprise you'll have figured out far in advance--and then fools you as it proceeds apace.

Continue reading "Bloody Reunion: To sir, with hate." »

Posted by at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

I am not sure, given a limited knowledge of film history and my rather circumscribed life, that documentaries come much weirder than The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On. The film won half a dozen awards at various film festivals at the time of its release. Now, twenty years later it comes to DVD. Though it deals with events that happened during WWII, on the island of New Guinea among the Japanese troops just after the official end of war, I suspect it has lost none of its immediacy or--to western eyes--its strangeness.

Continue reading "The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On: And what did you do in the war, daddy?" »

Posted by at 2:05 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ****

A mutant monster - looking hideously like a giant semi-evolved catfish -emerges from Seoul's Han River after years of toxic dumping, taking its revenge by terrorizing the city's people. The Host's director Bong Joon-Ho has said the film's initial catalyst - in which an American researcher makes his Korean assistant dump gallons of toxic chemicals down the drain - is actually based on a real incident (and thank God nothing like that could ever happen in the States). The film also obviously has antecedents in allegorical horror films like Godzilla and It's Alive, and this mix of the immediately real and the fantastical are woven nearly seamlessly in this enthralling new horror film.

Continue reading "The Host: Something fishy this way comes" »

Posted by at 11:23 AM | Permalink

Reviewer: Julie Newcomb
Rating (out of 5): ***½

In its earnest and slightly romanticized treatment of teens, Take Care of My Cat may at first remind you of a Korean Say Anything, but delves even further into the question of what happens just after high school graduation - do you escape your home town, or start settling down there, follow your dreams or earn a living, stay in touch with your high school friends or let them go? The film's core is the shifting relationship between Hae-joo, determined to succeed in the business world of Seoul, Tae-hee, already at work for the family business, and Ji-young, a talented outsider who seems just about to slip through the cracks. Buoyed by some beautifully saturated photography and something of a happy ending, the film nevertheless keeps an eye on the social and economic realities the girls face (it also boasts one of the more poignant Dance Dance Revolution scenes you're likely to see on film). Winner of several festival awards and anchored by a terrific performance by Du-na Bae as Tae-hee, Take Care of My Cat is an undiscovered gem.

Posted by at 4:09 PM | Permalink

To be eligible for our random drawing, send an email to contest@greencine.com, including your name, email address and, if you're a GreenCine member, your username in the email, and "One Take Only" in the subject header. Entries without all this information will not be considered. The deadline is Friday, August 25, at 12PM PST. Winners will be notified by e-mail and announced in future editions of the GreenCine Dispatch newsletter.

3rd prize winner will win a copy of the One Take Only DVD; 2nd prize will win a DVD of One Take Only and a DVD of Ab-Normal Beauty; 1st prize will win One Take Only, plus an Ab-Normal Beauty DVD autographed by director Oxide Pang!

Posted by at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (78)

Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Yes, some Samurai action does figure in The Hidden Blade but action lovers best be warned that this mostly quiet, thoughtful and lovely movie is more about justice, kindness, decency and - especially - love. Call it a classy chick flick with some swordplay. Director and co-writer Yoji Yamada has now made nearly 100 films (including the recent Twilight Samurai). His new one steeps you in the time and habits of 1800s Japan, as western influence - particularly in weaponry - was beginning to assert itself. At the outset, we meet three samurai: one of them leaves for fame and fortune elsewhere, and we remain behind with the family of one of other two, watching as love grows between master and servant, and the story twines around loss, politics (particularly greedy incompetent overlords). Though lengthy, the movie is never slow or uninteresting because the scenes of daily life are filled with such fascinating detail and the plot strands come together gracefully and believably. While Yamada integrates all his themes beautifully, it is the love story that attains most impact: Here is a film that demonstrates what real love is - how it grows and survives against heavy odds - about as well as any I've seen. The swordplay arrives rather far along: a riveting and suspenseful climactic battle and a denouement featuring the blade of the title that is quietly shocking. Despite some violence and a bit of gore, I'll bet most women will love this film. Men - along for the fights and thrills - may learn a number of useful things about communication and caring in a foreign culture that applies quite well to our own. The Hidden Blade, a very special movie, was nominated for multiple Japanese Academy awards. Though it won only for its art direction and actresses, it's hard to imagine anything topping it in the other realms.

More reading: Samurai primer >>

Posted by at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (898)