The Economy, Empty Malls & Revolutionary Road

We have returned from a much-needed but also thoroughly exhausting trip to New York. The flight seems to get more draining every time, and going from warm weather to frigid cold is a real shock to the system.

Due to the wintry conditions and a bout with a nasty cold, So Jene and I didn't get to do as much as we would have liked. But call us doe-eyed losers, just being in the city reinvigorates us somehow. The cliche about distance allowing for clearer vision and truer appreciation applies in our case. NY is absolutely the most diverse city in the world with the most energetic and edgy people.

Seeing DEFIANCE at the Ziegfeld was a treat, not so much for the movie but the Ziegfeld itself, which seems ever more special as large single-screen theaters all but disappear from nearly much of the industrialized world. We also caught an Indonesian film called THE PHOTOGRAPH at the MoMA, which is a great place to see films. It was the first movie from Indonesia I've ever seen.

The general feeling from seeing friends and our brief stay seems to be the same as what must be in other financial capitals. People are anxious about the economy, many people have lost jobs, and there's less foot traffic in stores. But cities are, by definition, crowded places, so the impact of a recession may not be as obvious.

This was far from the case in a small town about 2 hours north of NYC. We went to a small mall just to walk around. Granted this mall was always a small one and never drew huge crowds, but it seemed to have less shoppers than stores at 11AM on a Sunday morning. We wandered into a rather large OLD NAVY and found just 2 other shoppers. This emptiness actually spooked us a bit and spoke volumes about the current recession.

The downturn in the economy impacts everybody, and we've definitely been affected. Fortunately, we have long lived beneath our means, and I rarely buy things. I'm just not as hung up on things as the average person. I'm not into gadgets at all. I honestly couldn't care less what our furniture looks like, what car we drive, etc. And on those rare occasions when I do go to malls or stores, I'm never gripped by an intense desire to buy anything.

So what?
The last thing I want to do is preach to anyone about the evils of materialism or tell them what to do with their money---I'm just a schmuck with a typewriter, after all, and the only money advice I have for anyone is for them to give their money to me.

So what's the point of all this? Simple. Sam Mendes' REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, which I also saw during the trip, is a piece of crap.

Sure Leonardo DiCaprio is a great actor, and ditto for Kate Winslet. I've long been a fan, and they have plenty of other movies, in which they show off their acting chops. But they stink in this movie because the movie tells a story that's without substance.

SUMMARY OF REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
Winslet's character gave up acting to be a housewife. DiCaprio's character works as a marketing guy for the same company his old man worked for and hates it. After some domestic disputes fueled by resentment and dissatisfaction with their dull middle-class existence in 1950s suburbia, Leo and Kate decide they will leave their familiar life in the 'burbs behind and go live in Paris, where they can be true to themselves. They vow to pursue passion & whim, and escape the drudgery of middle-class suffocation & convention. This plan seems so perfect, however social pressure and lack of courage ultimately derail it. They never get to live in Paris. The wife is devastated. Husband is also sad.

THREE REASONS IT SUCKED
I'm sure plenty of people found the picture to be poignant. God knows there are more than enough people who hate their jobs and being in the rat race. Still, I found the film to be cloying, irritating, and disingenuous. Here are three reasons why:

First, its structure is as follows: Characters are miserable, miserable, miserable, miserable, and then they die.

Second, its central conflict is hinged on pseudo-angst.

What do I mean by that? This is all a bit difficult to describe clearly, so I'll use an analogy. This film is like people who say that they would have been 'artists' but were dissuaded by their parents from pursuing their dream, and thus were forced to settle for a more stable and secure profession.

Both the film and such people cling to reasoning that is, at a certain level, disingenous.

The truth is, no person can dissuade or persuade anyone else to go into or out of the arts (that is unless they hold a gun to the other person's head). People become artists because they simply do (for a million+ reasons). It's not because someone persuaded or dissuaded them.

Likewise, if a person really wants to move to Paris, he or she will do so. (This is especially so for bourgeois Americans at a time when the dollar was so much stronger than the franc.) And if a person really doesn't want to, he or she won't. That's all fine. But it becomes annoying when the person, and a rather privileged one at that, doesn't, and then the blame is placed on 'society'.

Third, the film makes its rather obvious point in a clumsy manner.

It actually takes itself so damn seriously and thinks its message is so damn profound and above the audience's head that it uses a supporting character, a neighbor's grown-son recently released from a stint at a mental hospital, to spell out over and over (profundity apparently needs to be translated for mass consumption) the ennui the couple is going through. He declares, "You two are being stifled by this empty existence..."

The scene that follows is even more inane and has the couple reflect on their encounter with this clear-seeing madman. They tell each other: "He is the only one who sees things as we do. The madman is the only one who understands us..."

Some of this clumsy storytelling has to do with adapting a book, but this truth-seeing madman character could have been dropped, or at the least, the ensuing scene (described above) should have been cut.

Having trashed this movie thus, I'll add that for whatever it's worth, all this is not to discount stifling conformity of 1950s life and real social pressure. Peer pressure and conformity are real and powerful social forces. No one questions this. Conformity was stifling in 1950s American suburbs for many people who were really creative on the inside and is still resonant today. We get it.

Just don't try to pass off a nothing-of-a-movie that's mostly about bourgeois whining as if it's saying something new, poignant, or... (sorry, can't help myself here)...revolutionary.

125 Years Isn't That Old, Is It? (From Ibsen to BLIND SHAFT (2003))

I’m busy translating a bunch of business contracts. The work is tedious, but money’s money, even if it’s the Korean won, which has depreciated so much in recent months that I've actually started turning down some jobs after doing the money calculation. Still, it's a way to earn a little money that also allows me the flexible schedule and large blocks of free time needed to work on my novel and make films.

As for making the feature film, in search of ideas for a story, I’ve begun to do what I often do when I can’t come up with an original idea of my own for whatever reason. I’ve turned to works from the past that are in the public domain to see whether any of them can be updated to the contemporary Hong Kong setting. This is a very common practice. George Lucas’s STAR WARS series is basically a Japanese samurai film set in space. Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur’s I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943) is a retelling of JANE EYRE.

Nearly all novels or plays that were published prior to 1923 is in the public domain. This doesn’t mean, however that filmmakers can have a field day. Many of these literary works that are in the public domain aren’t well-suited for modern audiences. And those that are (Jane Austen & some Shakespeare) have already been done over and over.

In addition, literary and dramatic conventions from the past are often very different from contemporary ones, which means they don’t always help the cause of providing fodder for a medium, narrative film, which requires accessible storytelling.

The last time I ventured into the fascinating world of the public domain, I ended up with a short film based on Sophocles’ ANTIGONE, which in its original is compelling even if its form is so unlike any that we modern audiences are used to. In my hands, it turned into a straightforward drama with added exposition scenes between Antigone and Creon. The outcome was disappointing at best and very much a strange baby that was neither here nor there.

That said, I’ve begun to seriously consider doing a contemporary version of Henrik Ibsen’s THE WILD DUCK set in Hong Kong as part of a series of feature films about Hong Kong. To do so requires some modification. As great a contribution to modern theater that Ibsen has made (which is absolutely in no doubt as any self-respecting Norwegian will happily tell you and many did during my two-day stint as a street book peddler near Columbia University before our move to HK (which is another story)), much of the original play, which was written in 1884 and is in five acts, now seems clunky and dull. A contemporary adaptation could benefit from slimming the story into 3 acts and losing many ancillary characters and some story elements.

I’ve begun doing a quick outline of this adaptation. It could serve as the basis of a somewhat talky but could-be-compelling-depending-on-execution film focused on two main characters : GREGERS and HJALMAR from the original. The story still has a lot to say about life everywhere, but could be tweaked to say volumes about life in Hong Kong.

It helps that the original play isn't that well known. Many people, even those who know who Ibsen is, aren't that familiar with this play. And for whatever reason, deserved or not, this play as well as many of Ibsens' other works, are now relegated to the category of literary and dramatic works that are thought to be amazing but read only because some teacher at school assigned it or as part of some acting class. I believe the same can be said of much of Chekhov. (This is just an observation. I don't have a strong opinion on whether this is good or bad.)

I'm mostly concerned with pragmatic aspects of doing such an adaptation. Another plus is that there haven't been many screen adaptations of this play. The most recent and famous one being by Henri Safran in 1983 starring Liv Ullmann and Jeremy Irons. (This is a good thing and a bad thing. The bad is that there are probably good reasons why there haven't been more screen adaptations of this play.)

On a different note, I've just seen BLIND SHAFT (2003) by Yang Li. I’d caught bits of this film earlier in NY, when it aired on a local public TV channel. I didn't know much about the film or the filmmaker then.

Having just seen this film in its entirety, I was startled that such a bleak and dark film about contemporary life made its way past the Chinese censors. In fact, I learned from a little research that the filmmaker is based in Germany and circumvented Chinese censors by making the film outside the established filmmaking procedures and conrols by registering it as a foreign production originating in Germany and Hong Kong.

It is, in fact, one of the best films to come out of China that I’ve ever seen. (*It's at least 20,000 times better than the tired loosely-historical epics with 20,000 PLA extras that have now become a major staple of Chinese cinema and which function as de facto propaganda for China's superpower greatness -- Yes, the same critique can be applied to vast spectacles from the U.S., only the U.S. government doesn't play such an overtly direct role in film production. But of course, those films suck just as much.)

Yang Li's ugly little lump of coal of a film is intense for its entire 85 minutes while delivering many little truths about the price of modern life.

My only quibble is that were I the producer, I would have strongly urged Yang Li to cut the first two minutes from the film so that the film would then start from a completely different place and deliver even more of a jolt than it already does. Once you see the film, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Lowlife Jerk and Top 10 Films of 2008

Another year is coming to a close, and I'm feeling a little down.

I've gotten a total of 4 responses from posting notices here and on various Hong Kong public forums seeking people interested in collaborating on films. And that's counting the one loser who actually took time out of his miserable life to e-mail me, a complete stranger, just to say he could tell from my ad that I was "a lowlife jerk."

It seems I've come quite a long way since being a promising young filmmaker generating real buzz. Four guys from my circle at NYU, have since directed commercial films that won theatrical releases. One guy, whom I'd pegged as being the least talented among us, has directed half a dozen commercial films, including one of the highest-grossing films in Korean film history.

In contrast, I'm here in Hong Kong without a single contact, posting lame on-line classified ads practically begging people to work with me. (I think Peter Kubelka, who made some wacky experimental films, including UNSERE AFRIKAREISE, also had to beg and rope people in to make films for practically all of his career.)

My rational side tells me I'm still young enough not to panic and need not get down on myself about this general sad state-of-being. This side also tells me to keep plugging away, stay upbeat, and focus on my successes: two published novels that won some critical acclaim, some plays that were produced, a screenplay that was sold, and a string of short films...

But there's another part of me that can't help but get a bit negative. I've wasted so many opportunities in the past for whatever reason, and now, this stint in Hong Kong feels like I'm serving time in filmmaking purgatory. I've become a fish-out-of-water struggling to make a film under the least favorable conditions.

It doesn't help that our life here brings us into contact for the most part with people who have absolutely no interest in films and novels. It doesn't startle me at all now to hear people say with all seriousness that the best movie they've ever seen in their life is HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 or THE MUMMY--which wasn't a bad film at all, but how could that be any grown-up's best film ever?

Anyway, that's enough whining. Sorry!

Here is my list of the TOP 10 FILMS OF 2008 with country of origin and brief category description.

A few titles were actually originally released in 2007, but are being included in the list because they played in many theaters in 2008. For the most part, except for the two South Korean films and TROPIC THUNDER, which I believe doesn't get the credit it deserves because it's so easy to dismiss, these films were included in the major big movie lists.

The glaring omission from my list is the Romanian film FOUR MONTHS, THREE WEEKS & TWO DAYS by Cristian Mungju, which has been heralded by nearly every major film critic in the West, but which didn't impress me at all. I thought the film, a slice-of-life that follows two young women on the day one helps the other get a back alley abortion in a repressive Romania of the 1980s, works only conceptually but not at all as a film.

The film makes its point, in a very dull and clumsy manner, that life was bad in Romania and back-alley abortions are gruesome. But is that really a point that's hard to make? Even as a staunch supporter of a woman's right to choose, I still found the film tedious at best.

No Hong Kong or Chinese films made my list this year. It was definitely not a good year for Hong Kong films. Rather sad.


TOP 10 FILMS OF 2008

1. THE CHASER by Na Hong-jin (South Korea) *Commercial thriller/Subverted policier*

2. THE DARK KNIGHT by Christopher Nolan (USA) *Commercial thriller*

3. THE EDGE OF HEAVEN by Fatih Akin (Germany) *Serious Drama/Social Commentary*

4. ROUGH CUT by Jang Hoon & written by Kim Ki-duk (South Korea) *Commercial thriller/Subverted Gangster Film*

5. BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD by Sydney Lumet (USA) *Subverted Heist Film/Morality Tale/Modern Greek Tragedy*

6. THERE WILL BE BLOOD by Paul Thomas Anderson (USA) *Serious Drama/Social Expose*

7. CHOP SHOP by Ramin Bahrani (USA) *Social Commentary/Gritty Human Drama*

8. THE VISITOR by Thomas McCarthy (USA) *Social Commentary/Message Film about 9.11 and Its Impact on Immigrants*

9. IRON MAN by Jon Favreau (USA) *Fluff Fun*

10. TROPIC THUNDER by Ben Stiller (USA) *Fluff Fun*

HONORABLE MENTION: KUNGFU PANDA and WALL-E

**THE CHASER is the best film of the year by far. See it if you haven't done so. You're in for a treat.**

To put things in context, here are the films that are currently playing in nearly all theaters in Hong Kong (granted it's Christmas season):

TWILIGHT

TALES OF DESPEREAUX

MADAGASCAR 2

POKEMON MOVIE 10

BEDTIME STORIES

ONG BAK 2

IP MAN

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

FOUR CHRISTMASES


Palace IFC, in the fanciest mall in Hong Kong is also playing

AUSTRALIA


And the one "arthouse theater" in HK is playing the following films in addition to the above titles:

FOREVER ENTHRALLED (China)

IF YOU ARE THE ONE (China)

TOKYO!

TRUE WOMEN FOR SALE (Hong Kong)

MIAO MIAO (Taiwan)

TWILIGHT (2008) aka Book Proves Secret Fear of Writers to be True

There are some immensely popular books that seem to be fluff but are so well written that even if the material isn't one's cup of laai cha, one can’t help but feel a begrudging respect. For me, the Harry Potter series is an example of this. I just don't care for wizards, magic and spells. It's a matter of personal preference. Still, it's clear those books are writen extremely well.

Then there is TWILIGHT, a bestseller by Stephenie Meyer which has now spurned a film adaptation. So Jene, who loves the Harry Potter series and has introduced me to many books that I would have otherwise skipped, suggested I read the book as an exercise to see how it would be adapted for the screen.

Adapting a very popular novel to the screen is always difficult since a strong fan base demands that the film not deviate from the book even if this strict adhesion to the source material works against the film. On the other hand, it also means a minimum x number of fans of the book will flock to theaters regardless of how the adaptation is done.

At the risk of being called out for sour grapes (which I must harbor at some level since my own books haven't sold well), my main impression of the novel is that it seems to have been written by an 11-year-old for other 11-year-olds. The sentences are clunky and scenes go on for much too long. The vampire story seems to be rehashed from existing works of that genre and there's very little that could be called complex or sophisticated. I can't quite understand how any grown-up could derive enjoyment from this piece of junk.

The remarkable success of a book like this makes me question my own sanity. To me, it's so evident that this book is so unbelievably lacking in every way, yet it has somehow won the praise of hundreds of thousands of readers. It's enough to make a writer lose faith in the reader and wonder why he or she even bothers.

Whenever I read a complete piece of rubbish like this that's sold millions of copies, I can't help but think back to the writers I've known in my life (most whom I met when I was in university or freshly out of university). In their unguarded moments, nearly every writer I know has told me that as cynical as it sounds, deep down he or she has come to accept that the worst most talentless writers are the ones who make it commercially.

I don't agree with this view since it's a blanket statement and it's clear that there are exceptions. But TWILIGHT certainly seems to providence ammunition for such a claim. Sure not every novel has to say something serious or important, and there is a place in this world for fluff. But this book isn't even good fluff.

That said, the only sense I can make for how and why this book works(and rather well obviously given its success) is that it does, in its inane, childish and clumsy way, try to tell an earnest story of incredibly intense first love. BELLA, the narrator and main character, sees and studies the beautiful EDWARD, who is actually a vampire, as no one else at her school does. The bulk of the book is long passages of Bella obsessing and agonizing over the meaning behind Edward's tiniest gestures, words, and actions.

As for the film adaptation, this is precisely where it fails. Without the film equivalent of Bella's obsessing over the object of her first love, the intensity of the obsession/first love doesn't come through on screen. It also doesn't help that the film treats these scenes of fascination-turning-to-obsession-to-purest love quickly and as merely a means to get to some special-effects-driven good vampire vs. bad vampire fight sequences.

Despite this shift in focus, which I can only guess must have been made to try to add production value to the film and make it feel more like a movie, the special effects are poor and there’s very little to distinguish the film from a small TV show except that Robert Pattison plays the moody vampire. Overall, the film plays worse than most recent TV shows about supernatural elements mixing with the ordinary populace set in high schools, which as a TV genre, tends to be far more witty and sophisticated.

The classic BUFFY THE VAMPIRE series, which also featured a moody vampire love story, epitomizes this. The genius of that series and its creator Joss Whedon is that each episode also worked as social commentary about familiar issues in high school life (eg. Eating disorders, cliques, losing one’s virginity…)

Lacking this sophistication in the source material, the film adaptation of TWILIGHT also disappoints because it fails to show the earnest obsessive intensity of first love that is the book's focus and main strength.

Beginnings of Pre-Production aka Thank You Val Lewton

So I'm really at the beginning of what I'm sure will be a long process to make an independent feature film in HK.

I've checked with film labs. I've gone over my equipment. I've compiled a small budget. I've even built a poor man's steadicam with plans found on the Internet from the famous Johnny Chung. By the way, he has become a youtube superstar lately with his 3-D subvert tutorial of the Nintendo wii.

I got the parts from a hardware store in Aberdeen and was able to put together the poor man's steadicam in a couple of hours. I can't believe how well the poor man's steadicam works. If only I'd had this when I was shooting FREE COUNTRY. Oh well.

Anyway, all I need now are actors. And more importantly, some idea, a story to hang scenes on.

I have really nothing as of yet, just a bunch of unrelated ideas and sketches and lots and lots of notes. So I spent part of the day looking for inspiration in the classics.

What do I mean by classics?

I read the screenplay for the Val Lewton-produced classic, THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943). I've seen this film a few times, including once at a screening with live organ accompaniment at the classic restored movie house off of the Stanford campus in Palo Alto.

I'd forgotten a lot of details from that film. The only scene I remembered was the unforgettable famous scene with the gang of pacifist Satanists. (It's really in the film.)

I couldn't believe some of the things I was reading. It was one hell of a screenplay and gave me some good ideas.

I don't know much about Val Lewton except that he was from the Ukraine and was the apotheosis of the low-budget producer but with a knack for storytelling and mood setting. I remember being so impressed after seeing CAT PEOPLE (1942) and BEDLAM (1946), which was one of his bigger-budget pictures. You can't help but recognize the talent despite the unbelievably low production values in some of his films.

Anyway, this is a start. We'll see how it goes from here. I do miss NY though. That's a city that's filled with actors

THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (2008), aka This Film Makes Us See with New Eyes

For whatever reason, at some point in their careers, many writers stop reading other people's books. There are too many books in the world. They don't want to be influenced or contaminated by other writers.

This is also the case with filmmakers. At a certain point, many filmmakers stop watching other people's films, especially new films.

I'm not like this. I no longer read nearly as much as I did or should, but I continue to actively watch new films, devouring them when given the opportunity, and not just "quality" films. Despite being, for a lack of a better term, a film snob, I watch many different types of movies and have no qualms about watching what many would dismiss as junk (eg. YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN, MADE OF HONOR, HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO...)

Why do I not discriminate so?

Because most movies, whether they are branded mainstream or independent arthouse, are bad. I know not to expect otherwise.

To see a truly good film is a rare event. That's why I am so pleased to write this post.

THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (2008), whose German title is AUF DER ANDEREN SEITE (lit. On the Other Side) and was written and directed by Fatih Akin, has startled me with its masterfulness.

I should have checked out this director earlier as one of his previous films, GEGEN DIE WAND (2004), a.k.a. HEAD-ON, was talked up quite a bit a few years back in NY. I passed on seeing that film then, but will soon remedy this.

This young German director of Turkish descent has created a stunning film in THE EDGE OF HEAVEN. It's no surprise that the film has received critical acclaim at prestigious international film festivals, including Best Screenplay at Cannes, and is on many film critics' TOP 10 FILMS of 2008 lists.

Instead of a clunky description of the story, I will point out two examples of masterful filmmaking from the film.

Example #1: The iconic German actress Hanna Schygulla plays the aged mother of one of the main characters. Her daughter, a German university student with an idealistic streak, brings a Turkish woman whom she has just met, to stay in their house. The daughter wants to help the Turkish woman, who is homeless and an illegal immigrant. The mother seems to project quiet disapproval and warns the daughter about harboring an illegal alien. In this manner, the film makes the viewer think he or she is seeing a contrast between the staid mother and the bohemian rebellious daughter.



Later, however, the film reveals that this staid mother is not who the viewer has come to think she is. In her youth, she was also a free spirit and a bit of a bohemian who hitchhiked to India. She shows herself to be someone so different than who she seemed to be.

Thus, the viewer's very perception is challenged and this character is revealed to be complex and truly human and not the "type" that the viewer has pegged her to be. In other words, the film challenges and undermines the viewers' perception to provide true insight.


Example #2: The opening scene of the film is of a car driving into a gas station in rural Turkey. A man gets out of the car, asks the gas station attendant to fill it up, then goes inside to the little convenience store, where he buys some snacks and exchanges small talk with the shopkeeper about a song that is playing on the radio. The shopkeeper says the singer is from the region but died of cancer due to fallout from Chernobyl that's only revealing itself to the public now. The man pays for his stuff and the scene ends. It's a two-minute scene. No tension. No conflict. No nothing. Completely mundane. Something that could happen to anyone.

Ninety-minutes of the film later, the same scene is replayed in exactly the same form. No changes. But the film has revealed the events that have led up to this man's setting foot in that gas station. It's the same scene. The same two minutes. But now, it's filled with tension, true pathos, and an abundance of meaning.

Again, this is an example where the film shows us something, makes us think we see it, only to reveal that what we think we're seeing is not so. It challenges the expectations and perception of the viewer. It makes us see with new eyes.

These two examples are just the tip of the iceberg for this remarkable film. This film is a wonder to behold. The performances are superb. The storytelling is quietly confident even as it takes the viewer on an emotional journey. It is a drama of the best kind. A must see.

As for Year-End Best lists, many of which contain this film, many people dislike such lists and dismiss them outright. Although I often think these lists contain egregiously bad films, I find that such lists can sometimes help bring attention to deserving films.

Many excellent films peter out without seeing the light of day because they don't register on people's radar. Even people who haven't seen QUANTUM OF SOLACE will have heard of it because of the ridiculous amount of money used to market this piece of junk, but this is just not so with even THE EDGE OF HEAVEN or even smaller films without the marketing dollars to promote them.

The Goethe Institute in Hong Kong is promoting a screening of this film in March 2009 that will take place at the Hong Kong Film Archive. For more info, please click on the title of this post.

BELLA by Alejandro Monteverde (How is this film in Hong Kong?)

BELLA (2006), written and directed by Alejandro Monteverde, is in theaters now in Hong Kong after making its rounds in film festivals. For a so-called independent film, it is shot beautifully and has some real production value. It looks slick like a film that must have cost about $500K to $1 million U.S. dollars.



It's an earnest work that clearly has good intentions. Despite this, the film suffers from a very poor script and doesn't transcend that fundamental flaw.

Basically, the film is a long introduction to two characters, a chef and a waitress, who have experienced sadness and grief. For the first 50 minutes, the film trudges along as an "I've got a secret" story. It's clear the protagonist is still agonizing about some dark event from his past and that is why he is drawn to the pregnant waitress.

Until the dark secret about his past is revealed, the film is content to show the two main characters mosey about during the course of a day at various iconic settings in and around NYC (riding the subway, walking through a street fair, talking to a homeless man...) talking to each other.

By the time that dark secret is finally revealed, the audience has lost all interest. The film and its characters don't give the viewer any reason to care other than that one is pregnant and the other broods a lot and once was a star soccer player. It's a shame because the character of the fallen soccer hero is one that holds real possibility for drama.

Ultimately, this film manages to bore and insult the audience. Insult how? An independent movie should show some truth. This movie fails to do that.

The only thing that rings true in this film is the portrayal of a hectic high-stress kitchen of a Mexican restaurant in NYC. Nearly every other detail rings false. Just because a film has sadness and grief as its topic and doesn't have explosions doesn't automatically make it some kind of independent film gem. This film is clear evidence of that.

How this film managed to cross the Pacific and reach Hong Kong screens while far worthier independent films that deserve to be seen and gain recognition never manage to do so is a real mystery and a shame.

LIST OF MOVIES Made by independent filmmakers for less than $100K that are more compelling and show real vision that have yet to win theatrical release or wide distribution and definitely have not played in Hong Kong:

1) AFTER THE APOCALYPSE (2004) by Yasuaki Nakjima

2) YORICK (2002) by Jonny Stranger

3) FUNNY HA HA (2002) by Andrew Bujalski

WINDS OF SEPTEMBER (2008) by Tom Shu-yu Lin, (How a Film Just Missed Being Spectacular)

Say It Ain’t So, Tom. Say It Ain’t So.

WINDS OF SEPTEMBER (2008), Tom Shu-yu Lin’s feature debut, is not a film that’s shy about its earnestness as it well shouldn’t. After all, it's a movie about young people and that’s what being young is. The film, which is in Mandarin and is playing now in Hong Kong, tells an episodic coming-of-age story set in 1996 in a provincial town in Taiwan, and follows a tight-knit pack of seven high school boys in the months leading up to graduation.

The film is best in its early moments as it relishes in its episodic storytelling and leisurely shows the boys engrossed in their youthful adventures. They go to professional baseball games and cheer on their heroes, one of whom is the slugger Liao Min-hsung. They break into a swimming pool at night and go skinny-dipping. They ride around in motorcycles. They horse around and crack jokes. They cut school. They smoke, curse, and drink beer. They get chewed out by the school disciplinarian. Through it all, the camaraderie and joy of youth comes across loud and clear. This may not provide dramatic thrust in the conventional sense, but the energy and charm in these scenes more than make up for this.



Meanwhile, the film gradually focuses on two boys in the group: Yen (Rhydian Vaughan), the handsome playboy, and his best friend Tang (Chang Cheh), a shy boy with a more serious outlook than the others. It’s a familiar dynamic seen often in high school stories—I don't know why, but the film kept reminding me of John Knowles’ A SEPARATE PEACE.

After Yen’s womanizing causes problems for the boys as well as Yen’s girlfriend, Yen and Tang grow apart. Each starts to suspect the other has betrayed him. Overall, the performances of these young actors are convincing. And the script skillfully shows how minor things can be the catalyst for big emotions during adolescence.

But the final third of the film loses steam, precisely because of a contrived narrative device, which then becomes the vehicle on which the story is towed rather clumsily to the finish line.


What is this contrived narrative device?


*WARNING. SPOILER HERE.*

It's clear that the point of the movie is to show the disillusionment of young men and the repercussion of that disillusionment on a so-called band of brothers. But must that disillusionment stem from a totally contrived motorcycle accident and a boy falling into a coma? Can't adolescents grow disillusioned simply from seeing the grown-up world at large?

The motorcycle accident scene rings false on so many levels that I won't even try to list them here. Put simply, the scene is when this movie morphs from a promising film into a Korean soap opera of the worst kind--the kind in which main characters spontaneously combust and suffer from amnesia, cancer, and blindness all at the same time, and then learn that they are actually related to their lovers. It's phony and contrived tragedy that startles momentarily but ultimately precludes the outpouring of any real empathy with the characters.

Since this misplaced and wholly unnecessary inciting narrative device is false, every narrative beat depicting its consequences also rings false and the performance of the actors falters drastically in the scenes that follow. I’m not saying that all bad acting is due to a flaw in the script, just that most is. Whatever the case, it’s a shame the film takes this direction, since it clearly didn’t need to.

Meanwhile, interspersed throughout the film are news clips of another betrayal, a baseball scandal, in which professional players, including Liao, are revealed to have thrown games for money. It’s abundantly clear the film means for the baseball scandal to echo and heighten the "loss-of-innocence,"--I hate using this term but couldn't think of an adequate substitute--that the young characters experience. But this only works in theory. Indeed, it's truly amazing how one wrong turn in the story can destroy a movie and make it so difficult for audiences to empathize with the characters on screen.

In the end, despite all the outbursts of intense emotion from the ensemble cast over what true friendship means, the film fails to pack an emotional punch. It’s really too bad because with a few small modifications in the script, this film could have been something spectacular.

THE WAY WE ARE (2008), a HK movie that's unlike any other

THE WAY WE ARE (2008) by Ann Hui

Ann Hui is one of those directors whose reputation has been cemented decades ago. She's written about with respect in nearly every serious book about Hong Kong cinema. Her most famous films are SONGS OF EXILE, JULY'S RHAPSODY, STORY OF WOO VIET, and BOAT PEOPLE...

I have yet to see these films, but after seeing THE WAY WE ARE, will quickly remedy this. THE WAY WE ARE caught me completely by surprise. I was startled that such a small film with absolutely no commercial value was made and released in Hong Kong.



The Chinese title of this movie is "Tin Shui Wai Days and Nights," and it's a fitting one. The film is set in Tin Shui Wai, a.k.a. The City of Sadness, and follows a hard-working mother and her teenaged son over a few months.

She works at the supermarket. He hangs out with friends but doesn't get into trouble. He's waiting to find out the result of his Form 6 test. They visit their relatives, who are wealthier than them. The boy's grandmother gets sick and is hospitalized. The mother says she is too busy to visit the grandmother at the hospital.

In effect, the movie trudges along on the strength of a handful of false leads. Is there some dark family secret behind the mother's not visiting the grandmother at the hospital? Will the boy get into Form 6? Will the mother eventually lose it and unleash the pent-up anger and resentment from the sacrifices she's had to make all her life? Will the boy be led astray by his friends and commit some horrific crime?

But none of these things take place.

**WARNING. FILM CONTAINS NO FODDER FOR SPOILERS.**

Instead, the major event in the movie is that the mother and son befriend a neighbor, an elderly woman who is alone in the world, and form their own family unit.

This film has won critical acclaim and has been praised for its integrity of vision, subtlety, and refusal to depict a troubled slum in a negative or sensationalistic manner as other films have done.

Indeed, whether the slum is in Hong Kong's New Territories or in inner-city Baltimore, films that are set in the ghetto usually follow one of two main trajectories:

1) nihilistic hell-on-earth story in which crime, violence, and drugs prevail and all hope goes out the window.

2) quiet dignity of individuals despite the odds socially-conscious story - these films are usually about community activists or young people who find a way out of the ghetto and often contain brief snippets of 1) nihilistic hell-on-earth to contrast and heighten their protagonist's dignity.


THE WAY WE ARE definitely falls into the second category.

But what's noteworthy is that unlike other movies of this type that are made elsewhere, THE WAY WE ARE categorically refuses to point the finger of blame for the plight of its protagonists at any social or government institutions, individuals, or even deities.

The two protagonists are not angry at anything. They don't fault any of the usual suspects, namely the school system, the government, the housing estate, gangs, drugs, the media, their relatives, friends, one another...

It seems as if the two main characters have no problems whatsoever. And the only complaint the mother ever voices is that the newspaper stand guy was mean and didn't give her the free pack of tissues that the convenience store guy gives. I don't know what to make of this lack of finger-pointing. I simply found it to be unique.

Also as an outsider, I found great interest in the film's numerous depictions of the minutiae of daily life, and the film worked for me also on the level of anthropology. But above all, the film struck a chord in me by being so very different from other Hong Kong movies.

On top of all that, seeing the elderly third character in the film deal with her loneliness made me pick up the phone and give my parents a call.

If that's not a testament to the power of cinema, I don't know what is.

THE CHASER (2008) a.k.a. Why Godard Was Wrong

See THE CHASER (2008) by Na Hong-jin.

It's December and I'm catching up on my movie watching for the year.

My vote for most entertaining and gripping serial killer thriller of the year goes to THE CHASER (2008), a box-office hit from South Korea that was written and directed by Na Hong-jin.

This film, which runs two hours and played briefly in Hong Kong a few months back, is about the chase to stop a serial killer by the least likely protagonist, a former detective who was kicked out of the force for taking bribes and is now a despicable pimp. This pimp is moved to act after some of his call girls go missing. At first he thinks some lowlife out there is abducting his girls and selling them to another human trafficker. Gradually, it dawns on him that a serial killer is killing them. Meanwhile, in the background, the police are also conducting an investigation to try to catch this killer.

Of course, this description doesn't do the film justice. THE CHASER is the best kind of thriller. In addition to social commentary about various aspects of modern life, it is masterfully-crafted and executed.

What do I mean by this? As is usually the case with the best storytelling, the film places the viewer in the exact place and viewpoint of the protagonist, whose single-minded pursuit of the villain is hampered by the bungling of the very police who banished him from their midst. The film puts the viewer through all the emotions that the protagonist goes through. If you watch this film and do not find it emotionally draining, then it's time to go get a check-up because something is kaputt.

This film has its share of violence and blood, but it is not your conventional whodunnit. The killer, one of the most chilling serial killers in film histroy, is revealed very early on (in the first 20 minutes) to the audience, and soon afterwards, to the police. What follows is what grips the audience. Simply put, THE CHASER is a film that sinks its teeth into the viewer from the start and doesn't let go. It's packed with tension. Were it a book, it'd be the best page-turner. Its depiction of the serial killer is truly chilling.



If you see one movie from those that are mentioned on this blog, then see THE CHASER.

Depicting the journey of a fallen man who comes to grips with pure evil, it is an intelligent film for adults but also wholly accessible and entertaining.


WHY SO MANY KOREAN FILMS?
Am I am not aware of American and European films?

Quite the opposite. I am enamored with films from the French New Wave and the gritty in-your-face films of Pasolini, the subversive films of Fassbinder, and other European filmmakers of the 60s and 70s. Some of my favorite films are American films from the 1970s.

But that's all ancient history.

The fact is, at this point in time, South Korea is where the most interesting and gripping movies are being made. Sure like any other country, they also produce a whole lot of utter junk. But the gems are gems.

In contrast, most movies coming out of the U.S. are, in effect, special effects cartoons made for children and most movies from Europe tend to be dull little things that lack creativity. Someone, I think it might have been Catherine Deneuve, decried the sad state of French films by saying that too many French films went like this: "Jacque sleeps with Marie. Marie sleeps with Paul. Paul sleeps with Genevieve. Then, they all go to a restaurant."

It's sad but true, but it's been almost 10 years since I saw a French film that was truly exciting. England fares better. CHILDREN OF MEN (2006) is proof of this. And don't even get me started on what's happened to the once amazing Hong Kong film industry that's now but a frivolous imitation of itself.

Of course, this is all just an opinion and one that is based on huge generalities. But this view is not an isolated one. Film lovers and festival programmers throughout Europe know Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, Hong Sang-soo, among others, as well as the amazing output of films coming from South Korea.

As for why South Korea is enjoying this sudden prestige as movie capital of the world, who knows?

In an appearance on the DICK CAVETT SHOW, Godard--in the 1990s at the East Village Kim's Video, where videos were displayed on shelves under names of directors, the hipster clerks there did away with "Godard" and filed his films under "God"--suggested that of all the arts, films were unique in that they were, in effect, made by the public.

According to this reasoning, it is the public who actually guides and shapes what films get produced by supplying their input through the box office. In other words, if many people go watch a piece of junk, this encourages the continued production of junk, and vice-versa.

I don't quite agree with Godard's view on this in that I don't think there is something special about Korean moviegoers. I think it's more likely that it's just luck. A dozen or so very talented people just happened to be born in Korea at around the same time. That's all.

Whatever the case, what makes Korea's emergence as a filmmaking mecca that much more impressive is just how quickly the South Korean film industry has risen up from the ashes. In 1996, I visited a South Korean filmmaker I knew from NYU who had gotten his chance to make his feature film debut for the leading film production company in Korea at the time.

I was shocked to find just how small and amateurish Korean film production at that time was. The scale was so small and the quality of films made was so poor. Indeed, things were so not impressive and so not promising that when the film director offered me an assistant director post for his production, I said no. I just didn't think South Korean films were going anywhere. (Shows how much I know.)

Today, just a little over a decade later, filmmakers in South Korea are making the most interesting and entertaining films in the world.

If you haven't seen THE CHASER. See it. Go and get the DVD somehow. It will be the most entertaining film you see this year.

Review of SWEET RAIN (2008) a.k.a. Is a Movie Star's Goofy Smile Enough to Sustain a Picture?

SWEET RAIN (2008) is a Japanese film directed by Masaya Kakei that was released about a month ago in Hong Kong. It is is about a grim reaper whose job it is to spend a few days leading human subjects to their death. In the course of the movie, he meets three such subjects and the people around them.

Edmund Lee's review in TIME OUT HK is much too generous to this little nothing of a film that plays more like 3 episodes of a dull TV series taped together and passed off as a feature film. In fact, the scenes of Chiba (the protagonist, a Grim Reaper who appears in human form, played by Takeshi Kaneshiro) inadvertently touching mortals with his ungloved hands and seeing them freeze and die temporarily is straight from the short-lived American TV series PUSHING DAISIES.

There is very little story here. And granted Kaneshiro is easy on the eyes, charming, and a movie star, one has to be a super fan of his to find this film enjoyable. Basically, the movie follows his character around as he meets a half dozen people. There's no story purpose and no conflict. Hence, no forward momentum.

Kaneshiro just mugs for the camera and tries to carry the film on what's left of his boyish charm. That may work to a certain extent, but given how overexposed the guy is--(I think China's Film Board recently passed a law that requires that Kaneshiro must appear in every so-called Chinese epic filmed on Chinese soil)--it's a flimsy excuse to justify a feature film.

The TIME OUT HK review also conveniently leaves out the presence of the main character's sidekick, a black lab, with whom Kaneshiro converses telepathically (dog gets subtitles) to provide a lot of exposition. The three separate stories are connected by the thinnest contrivance, but are spaced out over the course of a quarter century.

Basically, this film seems to have been made solely because Kaneshiro agreed to be in it. It is one of the dullest movies that is currently screening in Hong Kong. Why this film was made or distributed is a mystery to me.

By the way, the literal Japanese title is ACCURACY OF DEATH. Neither that nor SWEET RAIN is apt. A far more fitting title is WATCH TAKESHI KANESHIRO SPORT DIFFERENT HAIRSTYLES AS HE SMILES GOOFILY FOR THE Nth TIME.

ROUGH CUT (2008), an excellent movie that needs to come to Hong Kong

I don't mean for this blog to become a tribute site dedicated to the contemporary Korean film director Kim Ki-duk, but this guy truly is a force of nature and the closest thing to a pure cinematic genius I've encountered in my life both among contemporary filmmakers and even among those past greats I've studied through the canon of world cinema. Indeed, I'll state for the record that even a mediocre Kim Ki-duk film is far more engaging and interesting than most other films that are being made on this planet right now.

Why the profuse praise?

I've just seen ROUGH CUT (literal Korean title is "A Movie Is a Movie"), a film released in South Korea in September of this year to resounding box-office success and which will have a very modest release on DVD in the U.S. this month. The film was scripted by Kim Ki-duk and directed by Jang Hoon, who had been an assistant director to Kim.

That Kim Ki-duk has the energy, time, and drive to write scripts in addition to making at least one feature film per year (he has written and directed all 16 of his films) is amazing enough. That he can script such an intense, compelling, and most notably, mainstream narrative film given his already well-known uniquely perverse sensibilities and tastes really blows me away.

This screenplay probably is the most mainstream of all Kim Ki-duk screenplays, and Director Jang Hoon has done a bang-up job of turning it into a substantive thought-provoking gangster picture that's also very entertaining.

The story is about a difficult young movie star who has a short fuse and a propensity to cause problems and scandals. Out of hubris that he really is as tough as the cool characters he plays in movies and due to some personal quandaries, he hires a real gangster to star opposite him in a gangster film. This set up sounds comical, but the film treats it with all seriousness and follows the premise all the way to its conclusion.

One of the film's two leads is the Korean actor (So Ji-sup). He plays the thug and gives a haunting performance. He was in the Korean weepy TV miniseries I'M SORRY I LOVE YOU (2004) and is returning to acting after doing his mandatory military service.

Aesthetically, the film is Director Jang's own and a completely different animal from a film directed by Kim Ki-duk. It features very realistic gloriously-choreographed fight sequences with fast cuts and breathtaking cinematography that's rare in your typical Kim Ki-duk film, which may feature seedy settings and delve at the underbelly of society but rarely shows violence that's entertaining. On the contrary, Kim Ki-duk's violence is brutal and grotesque.

ROUGH CUT, like most mainstream films, makes violence entertaining and cool. The stylized fight sequences are similar to ones in FIGHT CLUB and OLD BOY. So if that's not your thing, this film may not suit you.

But this stylistic difference aside, the story, its themes (one of which is about the very nature of filmmaking itself and which was explored in Kim's earlier experimental film REAL FICTION (2000)), and some moments of super-heightened intensity are clearly in the script and pure Kim Ki-duk flourishes.

For the uninitiated, this film may be a good introduction to a certain kind of gangster genre action film that has been nearly perfected in the past decade by South Korean filmmakers.

That said, given the propensity of Hollywood to buy up foreign box-office hits (these days most often from Asia) and re-make them, often shot for shot, with white American movie stars (eg. THE GRUDGE, THE DEPARTED, THE LAKE HOUSE), it is easy to picture this film being re-made and released a few years from now starring Leonardo DiCaprio and (I can't think of anyone who could play the role of the thug convincingly).

For that to happen though, the ending (rather dark) would have to be tweaked a bit. After all, it is much more acceptable for mainstream films in Korea to have pessimistic, or bittersweet endings than it is in the U.S. I'm not sure what this says, if anything, about the national characters of Koreans and Americans in general, if such a generality can even be made. I just hope that the remake isn't botched or inane as is too often the case.

I have nothing against remakes as long as the remake is inspired and is somehow a different animal (eg. SEVEN SAMURAI becoming THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN). But, an uninspired remake that is done solely to save the audience the "inconvenience" of having to read subtitles or look at foreign faces on screen (eg. INFERNAL AFFAIRS becoming THE DEPARTED) seems utterly stupid, senseless and unwarranted. Such a practice is also ultimately negative because Hollywood's release of a remake and the accompanying marketing campaign require the intentional burying of the original and prevents the original from ever being released theatrically in the U.S. and in much of the rest of the world.

I know that gauging whether a remake of a foreign film is inspired or warranted seems highly subjective. In fact, it is the most subjective. Still, it is my opinion that in order for such a remake to be warranted, the remake should, at the very least, be better than the original.

Many will disagree, but I feel this was the case with THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, but definitely not so with THE DEPARTED.

Whatever the case, given the sad state of movies and film distribution in general, especially in Hong Kong, this film should hit theaters here in about January.... 2010.

Indeed, one of the saddest things about Hong Kong is that so many films never come here. Sure one can scrounge about and find the DVD, which is what I did and which can be very convenient, but that's never the same as seeing the film on a big screen.

Quantum of Solace Is One Big Mess

So Jene and I saw QUANTUM OF SOLACE last night at the movie theater in Kowloon Station with the rumbling seats and glorious Shaw Sound (Thank you, Sir Run Run!).

We both loved CASINO ROYALE and became fans of Daniel Craig. So we had a certain level of expectation for the latest 007 film despite having heard that it's not as good.

That assessment turned out to be quite an understatement.

The film was a complete dud. It was more than that. It was an unadulterated mess, the type of movie that gives big-budget mainstream Hollywood movies a bad name.

Hollywood is usually excellent at delivering big-budget action movies that are slick and entertaining. Just look at any BOURNE movie, EAGLE EYE, DIE HARD...

But this one was botched to the point that it had very little redeeming about it. The movie runs about 90 minutes, but it's so clear that it was meant to be much much longer. That longer version must have been so bad that they just hacked it to make it shorter, hoping to minimize the damage.

There's very little that's good about the movie. Not one good sequence. Not one good scene. Even the trademark 007 opening credit sequence with the new Bond song was forgettable. In fact, there were exactly two things I liked about this film(and I am not being facetious here): 1) a CU shot of a lizard in a desert in Bolivia 2) a throwaway line toward the very end of the movie about someone working for "Canadian intelligence", the mere concept of which made me chuckle.

The action scenes (chase scenes) are so poorly crafted that they end up being just confusing. The TIMEOUT HK review makes it sound like this film fails because it has too many high-tech computer-generated special effects action sequences and too few dialogue amongst human scenes, when the truth is the film fails precisely because its action sequences suck. I may seem to be harping on the TIMEOUT review, but to me, those are the absolute laziest film reviews--the argument offered in such phone-it-in paint-by-numbers revies goes like this: This high tech action film is not so good and will not please "traditionalist viewers" because it is all action and does not have enough quiet sentimental human interaction scenes."

The truth is, a major reason that QUANTUM fails and thus disappoints, is precisely that its high tech action stuff doesn't deliver. Its high tech action stuff is subpar. Compare any action sequence in this film to those in CASINO ROYALE, and you'll see the difference between a mess and solid assured execution.

In addition, the villain is weak. The story and dialog are completely lackluster. Don't let the TIMEOUT reviews fool you. This is one of the worst 007 movies ever.

So Jene and I were so disappointed by how poor this film was--the only good thing about this moviegoing experience was that we shelled out the extra bucks to see it in the fancy private screening room with recliners (it was well worth it)--that even though it was late (around midnight) and we were both exhausted, as soon as we came home we watched the opening 20 minutes of CASINO ROYALE on DVD again just to confirm that what we remembered was indeed so.

Martin Campbell, the director of CASINO ROYALE did such a better job. The action sequences are shot and edited so much more crisply and solidly in that film. Script is so much more substantial. That film delivers what it's supposed to, a slick well-crafted action movie that's got real weight.

It's never clear who's at fault or why a film turns out so bad, but the director is always an easy target. I'm not really familiar with Marc Foster, the director of QUANTUM. But I know he directed THE KITE RUNNER, which I thought was okay, despite being a bit clunky in storytelling (I thought it had too many false endings, but that may have been simply to appease the fans of such a well-known book). Anyway, I'm sure Marc Foster is a talented director to even be in the position he is now, but it doesn't show in this film. There certainly were elements in it that belonged in and resembled a good action movie. For instance, the action sequences had fast-pace cutting, cross-cutting etc., but they were confusing and didn't add up to much. I think So Jene summed it up best when she said, "This guy can't make action movies."

Compare the first 20 minutes of CASINO ROYALE, or even the first 3 minutes, or any 3 minutes of that film to its counterpart in QUANTUM, and it's clear that QUANTUM is laughably lacking.

I don't know what the behind-scenes story is, but why wouldn't the people who put up the money for QUANTUM just rehire Martin Campbell after he had done such a stellar job? It's clear they know this film sucks, but are still trying so hard to recoup as much money as possible from it. I've seen Jean Claude Van Damme movies that are better scripted and have better stories.

QUANTUM is going to get very poor word-of-mouth. It leaves the viewer completely dissatisfied. Indeed, it's by far the crummiest big-budget action film we've seen in a long long time. Daniel Craig deserves better than this. The audience deserves better than this. And on top of all that, what the heck does QUANTUM of SOLACE mean exactly?

Two Films That Are Way Way Out There

This comes in the wake of Barak Obama's victory in the U.S. presidential election yesterday.

I'm still feeling high from that victory. I've seen two films since. Both are films that I've been trying to see for quite a while now.

The first is Nagisa Oshima's DEATH BY HANGING(1968), which has been written up in so many books as epitomizing Japan's New Wave but is a really hard film to get to see. It's virtually impossible to find in the U.S., here in Hong Kong, and even in Japan. I looked for it at various video stores in Tokyo a few months ago to no avail.

I won't get into the logistics of how I finally got to see this film, which I first read about more than 10 years ago, but it was a treat. That said, I can't believe it was ever produced. It's one of the strangest most experimental films I've ever seen. It's divided into 7 sections. For me 2 were gripping and ridiculously intense. The others were too disjointed and anti-cinema for me. These sections were like watching Godard from the 80s and 90s where there's no effort whatsoever to accomodate the viewer.

The film is almost unclassifiable. It starts out like a documentary, then quickly turns into an absurd play. Overall, it is a treatise or interactive inspired dissertation on capital punishment and Japan's historical role and treatment of its underclass. I cannot imagine the film finding any sort of audience in Japan. I don't know the facts, but I'd be willing to bet that it made no money. It is just too intense a film, too experimental, too out-there. Indeed, it's an indictment on Japan and simultaneously a call for real soul-searching but made by a film genius.

It is definitely one of those super obscure intellectual films that you have to be a ridiculous film snob to have seen.

The second film was Kim Ki Duk's debut feature CROCODILE (1996), which was trademark Kim Ki Duk. It was bizarre but strangely compelling and original. Even though it was the first feature film the guy made, there were moments of complete originality. In fact, the film contained two things I've never seen before in my life. One, the main character dives into the river, and while underwater blows and inflates a balloon. I've never seen this before in real life or in a movie. Two, the main character picks up a turtle at the river's edge and paints its shell blue before releasing it back into the river. Again, original.

The film was clunky at times and had big gaps in narrative. Still, it had enough elements and signs of promise. The film was strong visually and told the story with pictures, which to me, is always a sign of a filmmaker using the medium. Most films are well-made and do indeed tell the story with the sound off. Try it sometimes. Park Chan Wook's OLD BOY is great to watch with the sound on mute.

Watching a movie with the sound off is also a good way to focus on the picture and see just how interesting or mundane a film truly is. I tried watching FAILURE TO LAUNCH with the sound off. The director truly took no risks in making that film. There isn't a single original or inspired shot in the picture. Instead, just the usual 'coverage' of conventional shots. They might as well have made that film on auto-pilot. Maybe they did. That film quickly dies without the sound.

The point is, CROCODILE was a treat despite its inadequacies and despite the fact that the copy I managed to get my hands on didn't have the best picture or sound quality. I can't believe anyone produced it. It was a truly bizarre film. It was clearly meant to be a low-budget quickie cheap entertainment, but Kim Ki Duk subverted it and turned it into a surreal and at-times visually stunning personal picture complete with his obsesssions and neuroses.

This guy is a true creative force. In his prolific output and sheer originality, the only person who even comes close in the history of cinema was Rainer Warner Fassbinder. And of course, both were complete originals. Not every film of both filmmakers was impressive. They each had some duds, but overall, they made more interesting and original films in a short period of manic productivity than some studios do in a lifetime.

By the way, tonight we will go see QUANTUM OF SOLACE. I can't say I'm a huge James Bond fan though I've seen my share of 007 films, but I thoroughly enjoyed the last one. So Jene loved that film. Hope this one is just as much fun.

OASIS by Lee, Chang Dong

I just read a book on the Korean director Lee, Chang Dong, which I got from the main branch of the HK public library over the weekend.

Lee, Chang Dong has made four feature films in the past 12 years. All four films were serious movies and well-received.

Prior, he was a novelist with two books and no ties whatsoever to the film industry. I have read none of his novels but have seen all four of his films. They are all pretty amazing.

That said, I learned from the book that the guy's father was a leftist intellectual who was blacklisted and persecuted in Korean society of the 1970s and 1980s. This left its mark on Lee, Chang Dong.

From reading the book, I got the impression that this director is one serious person and a real intellectual. Most film directors are not. It is a hands-on medium after all.

Still, the guy's strength as a writer is evident in all four of his films: GREEN FISH, PEPPERMINT CANDY, OASIS, and SECRET SUNSHINE. He wrote the screenplays for all four films. All are complete original works except for SECRET SUNSHINE, which is based on another author's short story. All have tight storytelling structure and form and content are excellently-crafted.

Today, I saw OASIS again. The acting is superb, but the screenplay is even better. Lee, Chang Dong is the master of the subtle exposing of hypocrisy. The film slams middle class aspirations that most people in Korean society have by focusing on two outsiders, a fuck-up ex-convict and a woman suffering from cerebal palsy. This description doesn't do the movie justice. The film is no RAIN MAN or MY LEFT FOOT. It doesn't look for redemption in some vindication of the human-spirit type of story. It's far more desperate and disturbing than that.

My favorite contemporary filmmaker is Kim, Ki Duk. But this guy, Lee, Chang Dong, is intense like Kim, Ki Duk, but only much more cerebral and cautious. The film plays like there was nothing at all left to chance. Every frame seems to have been crafted. This guy must be such a perfectionist.

I was also impressed that in the book, which contained interviews, Lee, Chang Dong repeatedly mentioned Kim, Ki Duk as a terrific filmmaker from Korea. Kudos to the guy for giving credit where credit is due.

These films aren't for everyone, especially if you haven't seen many films. It's like reading, the more you read the better a reader you become. Same thing with films, the more you watch films, the better you become at appreciating them. Of course, this is only relevant to people who have a serious respect for movies. For most people, movies are just a time filler.

Regardless, OASIS is definitely a winner. A haunting film like no other that will stay with you for a long time. The closest European equivalent is FASSBINDER, but Lee, Chang Dong's films are more carefully crafted with less theatrical cavalier quality.

OLD JOY by Kelly Reichardt

I saw this film again on DVD as it is one of the 400+ DVDs that we brought with us to Hong Kong.

It is a short feature (about 70min), but beautifully shot. There's not much story or dialog. If you take away some sequences that are just scenery of Oregon woods, the film would be about 55 minutes.

I wanted to see this initially a couple of years ago after learning that it was based on a short story by Jonathan Raymond, who graduated with me from Swarthmore College.

Jonathan Raymond was one of these guys at Swat who was really serious and very smart. I'm actually a little surprised that he is now a writer. I always sort of pegged him to become an English prof.

Anyway, he has a novel called THE HALF-LIFE. He also did the screenplay for OLD JOY.

The film is a roadtrip/camping trip of two men who were old friends but have grown apart. One is a bohemian drifter. The other one is married and is expecting a child. The drifter guy comes to town and the two men go into the woods to camp out and spend some time together.

The story doesn't have classical dramatic structure. There's no conflict. Seeing it a second time, the film wouldn't work at all if it weren't for its visually stunning cinematography and the nuanced acting.

The whole movie is two guys sitting in the car, sitting by a campfire, talking about random stuff that are linked together by thinnest shared motif of having to grow up and longing for the past in a world that seems to pass by so quickly.

The film supposedly cost $30,000 U.S. to shoot. In the hands of another director, the film might have tanked without seeing the light of day. It benefits from gorgeous cinematography. I don't know the technical details eg. what cameras they shot on etc, but some scenes look lik they were shot on 35mm film. Sound is excellent, and some scenes are intense.

Overall, I checked it out to see what Jon Raymond contributed to the film. The guy knows Portland and Oregon. He was from there. I hear he now lives in Brooklyn.

Anyway, this is a contemplative small film that requires active viewing.

Kudos to a fellow Swattie for keeping it real. Where the hell are you Jon Raymond?

THE WIRE, or Not Reading Dostoevsky

I feel like such a loser for finally catching THE WIRE only 5+ years after it premiered.

Again, credit goes to Philippe, who gave me a DVD of all 13 episodes of season 1. He's been telling me to see this show for a couple of years now. So have other people. And there have been those great reviews. I remember a few in particular on NPR, describing it as the best thing on TV and simply sublime.

After seeing all 13 episodes in one day (I couldn't put it down--that's almost 13 hours of DVD watching), I have to agree. It lives up to the hype and more.

I don't know about the other seasons because I have yet to see them (now I will have to get them somehow), but season 1 was epic. It felt like I was watching or reading some epic Russian novel--something heavy and serious.

It's the only show I've ever seen where cops seem real and haven't been glorified like crazy and ditto for the drug hustle in the projects. It was brilliant. Each episode, each scene was so well acted and, most importantly, so well written.

The episodes have different guest directors, but the influence of the writer is so strong, that there isn't much stylistic difference among the 13 episodes in terms of visual content.

And to the writer's credit, there is very 'little showing off' to draw attention to his obvious brilliance. Though what little showing off there is is enough to put a smile on your face.

What do I mean by the writer 'showing off'?

The best example is the scene when McNulty and Bunk go out to examine the now-empty apartment in which a young woman was killed 6 months earlier. Working from a thin file, which contains another homicide detective's shabby write-up of the same scene and a half dozen photos of the victim, McNulty and Bunk, being more thorough, observant, and better cops, figure out the angle of the bullet's trajectory and manage to find a bullet that had been lodged hidden inside the refrigerator for 6 months. They do this while a third man, the super, who has let them into the vacant apartment, is standing there watching them and being treated to a show of two really skilled cops at work.

Of course, my clunky description of the scene doesn't do it justice. Because besides serving the utilitarian function of exposition, the 5-minute scene, which might have been a part of any police procedural, is elevated to art by being played out in such a way that the progressive little discoveries that the two detectives make in piecing together what really happened in that apartment is conveyed by one detective to the other with multiple exclamations of "fuck" by McNulty and "motherfucker" by Bunk.

In other words, the only dialog in this 5-minute scene, is 15-20 "fuck"s and "motherfucker"s.

Basically, te two actors play the entire scene with the imposed limitation that each convey all the exposition by uttering only one expletive. Usually on TV shows, the same scene would have been loaded down by clunky exposition dialog of the "From the angle in the photo, the bullet must have come through the window and entered her neck and come out her back. Hey, wait a minute. Do you think it's possible that she might have had the fridge open? I'm not sure, let's take a look..."

The characters in this ensemble piece are terrific and have complex internal lives. The show is frank about homosexuality, alcohol abuse, snitching, fuck-up cops, corruption, and a dozen other things. In other words, it is true about life, without being completely pessimistic or cynical.

I know that my description of season 1 is rather vague and rambling. I'm writing this on Sunday morning after having spent all of Saturday watching the show.

One more thing. The show seemed to switch protagonists half way through the season. It starts out being about Jimmy McNulty, a white detective with a maverick streak, but then at some point in the 2nd half of the season, becomes about Lieutenant Cedric Daniels. Indeed, Lieutenant Daniels has the biggest character arc and changes the most due to the events of the story. I've never seen the actor who plays him on other TV shows or in movies. I'm guessing he must be a theater vet. The guy was amazing. His delivery of lines is so utterly unique.

Overall, watching THE WIRE was like reading CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, but without the reading.

I'd read Richard Price's CLOCKERS way back in the early 1990s when it came out. That tome was about a stuttering low-level drug crew manager in a housing project in Newark. It was a good read, if ultimately not as gripping as some other books about the drug hustle in the ghetto. Still, it was ambitious, but became a rather bad movie by Spike Lee, who is one of my favorite directors.

Compared to CLOCKERS, or other dramas set in the hood, THE WIRE shines even that much more brilliantly. I normally don't even like cop shows. I think they nearly always lie about how noble, smart, and hard-working cops are. THE WIRE is different.

If you haven't yet seen this show, you have to check it out. Don't take my word for it. Trust the next President of the United States.

According to Wikipedia, THE WIRE is Barack Obama's favorite TV show.

Kim Ki Duk's DREAM at Hong Kong Asian Film Festival

Like I wrote on my last post, last night So Jene and I schlepped out to Kowloon Tong AMC in Festival Walk mall to see Kim Ki Duk's DREAM, which was being screened (one-screening only) as part of the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival.

We, especially I, had very high expectations since the guy's been remarkably consistent in making truly unique films. I love COAST GUARD, BIRD CAGE, and BAD GUY. I also believe that this guy is the most-talented, most-original, filmmaker of my generation. (That is correct: He is the best most-original living filmmaker I have seen in the 30+ years that I've been watching films.)

But, it turns out the guy is only human, and this movie was less than stellar.

Here are some tidbits: The main character speaks only Japanese, but all the other Korean characters can miraculously understand him. He talks to them in Japanese. They answer back in Korean. And nothing, not even one piece of dialog, is used to explain or address this.

But this is just a minor quibble in the overall plausibility benchmark.

Granted that Kim Ki Duk movies aren't usually known for being very plausible and we knew going in not to expect a mainstream narrative, but this movie was just too much. Too much so that it prevented the development of real empathy.

So Jene termed it aptly by saying she couldn't empathize at all with the characters because the things they were doing were outright stupid.

Stupid in what way?

For instance, the main character is put in a situation where he must not sleep. So what does he do? Normal people would drink coffee. This guy starts to stab himself in the head and pound his foot with a hammer.

I actually don't think Kim Ki Duk is one of those gratuitous gore-type directors like Miike, who do gore for fore's sake.

Kim Ki Duk's 14 other movies are magnificent, equally disturbing and sublime, and even more impressive because he wrote and directed every single one of them.

I know the next Kim Ki Duk film will be amazing.

On the whole, a rather disppointing night. Still, while watching the film--the audience was mostly HK Chinese (I'd been wondering what sort of fanbase the guy has here in HK; in South Korea, his movies don't play at all)--there were scenes that really inspired me. I started thinking, I could do this. I've shot scenes like this. All it takes is two actors and a 35mm camera.

Cut to the chase, I began thinking I could make a 35mm feature film. All I need to do is write a script that has very little dialogue. That way it can be shot with novice actors with a 35mm cameral.

Sure it'll cost some money (I figure it can be done for 50-60 thousand dollars), but what the hell am I waiting for? Even a bad movie can get some light of day, and can lead to the next film.

You have to have something to show for yourself.