I love arthouse movies. They got me thinking long after I left the movie theater, reminiscing scene after scene. The synopsis of Wandering (or The Wandering Moon) captured my attention.
In a park on a rainy evening, a 19-year-old university student, Fumi, offers an umbrella to a soaking wet 10-year-old girl, Sarasa. Realizing her reluctance to go home, Fumi lets her stay in his place, where she spends the next two months in peace. They take each other’s hands and seem to have finally found their place in the world until Fumi is arrested for kidnapping. Fifteen years later, the lonely two are reunited both still suffering from the stigma as the victim and perpetrator of “a pedophile case”. Will society give a place to the unshakable bond they have formed?
I don’t usually fancy random notifications that stream into my mobile phone. When VIU notified me that A Werewolf Boy is now available for streaming, my natural instinct kicked in, and just when I was about to ignore the notification, the words “Park Bo-young” caught my eyes.
A 2012 Korean movie featuring Park Bo-young.
She is an award-winning actress in Korea – though you must know by now that in South Korea, there are lots and lots of competitions from music to movies to TV-series to what-have-you.
I am a huge fan of Park Bo-young and have been watching her TV series whenever available. Here in Singapore though, K-dramas or K-movies especially the older ones can be limited.
Hence, I have got to give it to VIU and their well-crafted notification (as words are limited). Last night I have attempted to watch A Werewolf Boy but I fell asleep shortly after it had started. This afternoon, I was more alert and have watched the entire 2-hour movie in one go.
While it is an eight years old movie, I still enjoyed watching it. I am familiar with how werewolf themed stories work in the Western world. And it is refreshing to see it from the Korean’s perspective.
OK. Spoilers from this point onwards.
Song Joong-ki played the werewolf boy. His acting was superb. He really acted like … an animal not being able to speak or write and behaved like an untamed wolf. And the trigger for him to transform from his human form is when his loved one was endangered.
Neat eh?
Somehow, in this Korean version, the werewolf was created through a secret government project in an attempt to create super soldiers. I don’t really get why there is only one of them.
Not surprisingly, Park Bo-young was the one who could tame the werewolf.
At the end, when Park Bo-young asked the werewolf boy to wait for her return, the boy waited for decades.
Oh my.
He really loved her.
And yes, Park Bo-young’s acting is amazing, as ever.
The 8th Spanish Film Festival in Singapore is ending soon. See if you can catch Chico & Rita (2010) at The Arts House today. Admission is free on a first come basis.
Chico & Rita is a Spanish animated feature-length film. The first that was nominated for the Oscar. The artwork is beautiful. Each frame could well be made into a wall painting. The soundtrack throughout the film is equally beautiful, especially for the jazz music lover. Set in Cuba, a pianist called Chico meets a singer called Rita. And they have fallen in love. However, circumstances seem to often get into their way. Chico & Rita is a journey of love and music from Cuba’s Havana to New York and Las Vegas in a span of five decades. Due to the rich history behind Chico & Rita and the fact that many of Havana’s pre-revolutionary buildings had decayed, the filmmakers have looked into the photograph archive in order to recreate the era and the mood.
This story is rather dark. So is the mood. Perhaps it is the pain the gives forth such beautiful music and inspires such exquisite artwork.
Cynthia and I were invited for the opening of the 8th Spanish Film Festival at The Arts House Singapore. Before the main movie Tapas (2005), a 18 minutes short animation called Tadeo Jones (2007) was played. Now that I have watched the animation. It does sound like a reference to the Western version of Indiana Jones.
The main character Tadeo was at home when from his window, he saw a cute dog being thrown into a garage by a delivery man, together with boxes after boxes of mysterious packages. Feeling the urge to save the dog, Tadeo ventured into the house and discovered a bizarre cult in the mist of an animal sacrificial ritual set in a quasi-Egyptian backdrop. Not the sort of top quality animation as you would expect from a Hollywood movie of the same era. The story is entertaining nonetheless.
Tapas (2005) is a mix of characters with individual plots that intertwined with one another. In a Barcelona suburb, a wife of a self-centered restaurant owner cannot take his husband’s unrealistic demand anymore and has decided to quit being a chef. And quit being his wife while she is at it. Meanwhile, a Chinese chef who knows kung fu is happy to take up the job vacancy (and the abuse). He is in Spain because he wants to be with his love. A lady who sells chickpeas – among other cooking ingredients – has been in a separation for two years and now being in a cyber relationship with a man from Argentina. Two young teenagers work at the same supermarket. One of them is obsessed with Bruce Lee and girls of different nationalities while the other one has fallen in love with the chickpea lady. Finally, there is an old couple with the woman selling drugs to the young and the man dying of lung cancer.
This film is raw, as in, there is little attractive about the characters and their living conditions. Yet, it feels so real. Ordinary people going about with their ordinary life dealing with real life challenges while learning from them. Of all the sub-plots, I enjoy the story of the old couple the best. It is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.
The 8th Spanish Film Festival is starting from now till the end of the month. Every day at 19.30. Admission is free and the location is at The Arts House. Check out their website for further information.
I have not heard of the manga One Piece until I watched a movie adaptation of the manga. Naturally, I love anything that is Japanese. When I first saw the gigantic promotional poster displayed at one of our beloved cinemas, I said to our buddy TK, “Let’s watch this!” To that he replied, “On!”
Apparently, One Piece is a very popular manga series in Japan, for a very long time. In this particular movie One Piece Film: Z, there are pirates the supposedly protagonists (I think). There are the marines who hunt down the pirates. And there is Commander Z who was a marine, went rogue, and now rages war against the pirates as well as the marines that get into his way. Each pirate, meanwhile, seems to possess at least one unique power (think X-Men). As you can imagine, there are tons of combat scenes between the characters. More or less like a video game.
Unlike other more artistic Japanese animations Cynthia and I have seen, One Piece Film: Z does not require too much thinking. Just sit back and enjoy the humor and the action. I am not entirely convinced that the English subtitles convey the original essence well. I wish there were Chinese subtitles as well. Usually, for Japanese animation, Chinese subtitles work better than the English ones.
One Piece Film: Z is not a story exploring the abstractness of nature or the emotional vulnerability of character. It is a film with a decent amount of humor and action that entertains.
The title says it all. Set in the 18th century, Danish King Christian VII was mentally unwell. Caroline Mathilde from Great Britain was married to Christian at the age of 15 and became queen. German physician Johann Friedrich Struensee had attended the king’s sickness. In the mist of it, he had become the king’s trusted friend and later on, an affair with the young and lonely queen. As the king’s close friend, the physician played an essential part in shaping the country’s policies, which until now, had been mostly ruled by the Council due to the king’s sickness. As the queen’s lover, the physician risked throwing away the political progress he had gained, which was ultimately the progress of the country.
I love watching European films inspired by historical events. The plot is less formulaic than, say, a Hollywood movie. European filmmakers tend to take their time in giving the film a treatment it deserves. A Royal Affair is a 137 minutes long movie. The story is engaging so much so that I wish the ending could have been expanded in some ways, rather than a paragraph of words or two on the screen. The cinematography is beautiful. Each frame’s composition is an art. The music score is good too. It goes well with the plot’s development.
Mads Mikkelsen’s role and the fact that he can act is a surprise to me. He is often seen in Western movies as a villain (like many foreign artists come to think on it). In A Royal Affair, he could well be a hero of the country. He has a set of visionary policies based on his freethinking ideals. Unfortunately, he was ahead of his time. His policies were implemented only by the next generation. This prompted TK and I to reflect upon our local political atmosphere. We joked that the reason why A Royal Affair is being rated M18 in Singapore is due to its anti-establishment sentiment. There is very little blood and gore, equally little sex. The most I would rate is a NC16.
Swedish actress Alicia Vikander looks really young in this movie. Having read the history, I can understand why. It is pretty hard to act mentally unstable. All credit to Mikkel Følsgaard’s boyish performance. He is funny to watch but not without inducing a sense of pity from the audience. At times, I could feel the king’s internal struggle as he threaded between the line that separate sanity from insanity.
Royal affair is a messy business. But at least, for this historical story, there was something good coming out from it.
To fully appreciate this Chinese movie, you probably need to understand the language, the culture, as well as the martial arts within. It is not unusual for the olden day Chinese to speak in metaphors. My dad still does too. The English subtitles can be quite misleading at times. What if you don’t understand Chinese but you are curious about The Grandmaster? I suppose even if you can only get the essence of it, it may still be worthwhile provided that you enjoy watching art house type of movies or you are a fan of the leading actor and actress.
The backdrop is enticing. A story told from Yip Man’s perspective (he who was Bruce Lee’s teacher). From Yip Man’s age of 40 till his old age. Upon the then-grandmaster’s retirement, while the northern China’s grandmaster title was given to Ma San, it was of the old grandmaster’s wish to pass the southern China title to a southerner. Hence the introduction of Yip Man.
Tony Leung is quite possible one of the best actors I have seen. He truly can act with just his eyes. That heighten alertness in face of a real challenge, confidence with a hint of playfulness during a friendly duet, that moment of being mesmerized by the opposite sex, pain and despair, heartache and resignation, or simply that pair of weary eyes having seen too much in life. It is a real treat to see him act as Yip Man. This movie has provided him much opportunity to shine.
Zhang Ziyi plays the role of Gong Er, the daughter of the then-grandmaster. While the range of emotion given is not as wide as Yip Man’s role, Zhang Ziyi has certainly chilled me with her coldness, pained me with her rare tenderness. Her acting too is convincing.
The martial art scenes are pretty impressive. With modern technology and the extreme slow motion close-up playback, the action is exciting to watch. But here lies the problem. The director Wong Kar-wai has cast this film in an art house setting (like his last movie My Blueberry Nights). Take away the breathtaking action and the engaging acting is a series of artistic shots such as water peddles and street scenery, Buddha statues and candles. The gaps can be extremely slow. I found myself wanting to see the next action or acting scene and skip the excessive artistic frames.
One good example is the character Yixiantian “The Razor”. The film has devoted quite a bit of airtime to develop The Rezor. He has absolutely zero contribution to the main story except that one interaction he has with Gong Er on a train. Even that does not materialize into anything. The story goes on telling more about The Razor – humorous I must say – whereby taking all in, I wouldn’t miss a thing if the director has decided to cut this character away. Maybe I am missing something significant here. I don’t know.
Also, the resolution between Yip Man and his wife (played by a Korean actress Song Hye-kyo) appears to be fuzzy. Is it because there is a lack of real life documentation of his marriage? Or is it the director’s intention to have us thinking? I thought for a bit. Then I gave up.
Another of his movie that is low in entertainment but probably high in artistic value.
My Indonesian born now a Singaporean wife Cynthia has been asking me out for a movie date for the past three weeks. She wants to watch the new Indonesian movie The Raid: Redemption that is very popular back home and in US. Yet, five minutes into the show when a line of captives were brutally executed by the gangsters, I was not sure if she would stay till the end. It is bloody. The execution is so in-your-face such that at one point, even I had the urge to look away. The opening scene has set the bar. The audience is warned. This is no child play. Blood will be shed, in a big and realistic way. Bone will be cracked. People will die. When it comes to urban warfare and close quarter combat, the key to survival is to eliminate your opponents. The Raid: Redeemption is a 100 minutes movie that guarantees to entertain from the beginning to the end, if you have the stomach for it that is. Surprisingly, Cynthia stayed till end. And our friend TK did not fall asleep.
Here are a few interesting points to share, courtesy of my wife who understands the language and has been reading all the news on this movie. I have added a few based on my research too.
The main actor Iko Uwais has won a National Silat Championship. Silat is a traditional Indonesian martial art. Iko is one of the two choreographers of this movie. The other one is Yayan Ruhian who plays the deadly Mad Dog character in The Raid.
The Raid or Serbuan Maut as locally known was hugely popular in Indonesia during Cynthia’s recent visit to her birth town. It has also gained popularity in US.
The translator has apparently taken the artistic liberty to spice up the violence of the movie by adding a lot more vulgarity than what is spoken in its original Bahasa Indonesia language. I suppose that is to cater for the Western audience because violence is not really violence with a lot of swearing?
It is common to see a praying scene in an Indonesia movie. After all, Indonesia is a Islamic country. It should come as no surprise that those who pray will prevail.
The Raid is likely to have a sequel.
At the end of the movie, I felt utterly confused by the story line. Maybe it is lost in translation. So I asked Cynthia and TK for their understandings. Looks like the three of us have a different version of what we think the story is. Cynthia insisted that this is an Indonesian action movie. There is no story. We pay to watch the action instead.
True. There are tons of action. Twenty cops raid a 30-story building heavily guarded by a notorious crime lord and his gang. The show starts with an urban warfare stealth mission that turns horribly wrong. I suppose sooner or later, the characters would be out of ammunition. Hence, I was not that surprised when halfway through the movie, it turns into close quarter combat with knives and fists and a rare usage of pistols. The fight choreography flows beautifully (again, beauty in the context of violence). The filmmakers must have involved quite a number of professionals for this show because the fight looks authentic and there are many different faces that appear for that few second of glory. There is one old guy who cannot fight – as demanded by the plot I guess – and he stands out like a sore thumb. It is through contrast like this do we realize how professional the rest of the actors are.
The Raid: Redemption is intense. It is an entertaining, eye-opening movie provided that your heart can take the violence, blood, and more.
Speechless I was at the end of this French movie. What could I possibly write in order to share my experience with my readers here. The entire entry could well be summed up in two words: C’est tragique. Too much to process after the show, my mind just went blank. House of Pleasures does not glorify prostitution, which is good. With a group of actresses who are naked or semi-naked most of the time, strange to say, there is nothing erotic about this movie either. Is it seductive? Yes. The costume is beautiful and some scenes are tantalizing. But there is also enough grotesque and fear that darkens the overall mood. In this tragic setting, the camaraderie within the group of prostitutes under the same roof is what holding the story together. Sex is transformed into a pure monetary transaction. The preparation and after the act routines add much realism to the profession. And because of that, fantasy and eroticism is diminished leaving behind what it is seen through the eyes of the prostitutes on a day-to-day basis. House of Pleasures is a movie told from the prostitutes’ perspective. To them, there is no pleasure about the business. It is what they do in order to make a living.
The year is 1899. At the turn of the century, what future does it lie for the brothels that are specially catered for the French aristocracy and the high society? In this particular brothel run by Marie-France – a single mother with two kids – the courtesans are hygienically cleaned and seductively dressed. Every evening, inside a luxurious living room, wealthy clients mangle with the girls. This scene almost viewed like a high society party with free flow of champagnes and cigarettes. Someone is playing the piano. Girls entertaining the guys. There is laughter and small talk. Some clients like what they see and the business is concluded in the bedrooms upstairs. Some stay in the house till eight in the morning when the ‘commerce’ hours are long over. There is this illusion of love. Most girls dream to have their debt paid fully one day and be free. The prospect of marriage at the end of their career is non-existence, and the girls know it. The threat of deadly diseases is real, and it persists throughout the movie. Each client has his fetish. Some are deadlier than others. This bets the questions of: If sex can be paid by money, what else can money buy? One girl is brutally disfigured by a client she grew to trust. The landlord’s decision to increase rent threatens the very survival of this brothel. What can Marie-France do? Close down the business and sell the girls’ debt to other brothels? What is going to happen to the prostitutes we as an audience have made a connection with in this two hours long movie?
House of Pleasures has an open ending. While the backdrop of the movie is set in 1899 and 1900, there is a short clip showing modern day street prostitution. Perhaps, that is the answer. The world’s oldest profession never ends.
I have my respect to the director Bertrand Bonello. This movie could have been watched like a porn movie and it is not. Because the rest of the film is so much more engaging than the sterile sex scenes within. The continuous shooting and split screen methods blend the different themes and concepts into one, resulting in a holistic story of: This is prostitution.
In the opening scene, you see the back of a French actress walking down the street of Paris. The camera stays with her and you wonder, where is she going? Since you can’t see her face, you further wonder, who is she? The way she walks seems familiar to you. You may even recognize her back, her short hair, the back of her ears, and perhaps her rather petite outlook. Suddenly you gasp, she must be Audrey Tautou! Seldom have we seen actresses who exude such aura that is instantly recognizable. Our friend TK recognized the actress before the camera revealed her identity. He had no idea what movie we have chosen for him.
Delicacy has a slow moving plot. The overall story is not what I would call entertaining. It is about coping with losses and starting anew. Because there is so much realism within, you ought to be someone who appreciates acting in order to enjoy this movie. If you do, Delicacy is delicious. Tautou is a talented actress. We have seen her taking on different types of roles throughout her career. This time, as a widower, she buries herself in work shutting away from most social interactions. Can she fall in love again? As audience, we get to witness how love not at first sight works. Her counterpart played by François Damiens is worth a mention. Damiens looks utterly ordinary, awkward in every little move. He is even balding. And his character Markus has a huge crash on Nathalie played by Tautou. The way he looks at her, the way he behaves when she is nearby, and the way he spaces out when she is not around – all these moments accentuate how awkward the relationship development is. But the beauty is that it feels so natural looking at how the two interact and drown in this intolerable awkwardness. It feels so real.
The soundtrack performed by Emilie Simon is also worth a mention. The music is dreamy and moody. It suits the plot well. Emilie is a French singer who plays electronic music. If you have a chance to check out her music, I would recommend you to do so. Her music can be found in SingTel AMPed, arguably the world’s worst designed Android app. Alternatively, you may check out her official YouTube channel.
Delicacy does not have a thought provoking open ending like many European movies do. However, it does have a flavor to it. Perhaps, what the filmmakers want to tell us is that to help someone in overcoming the pain of losses hidden inside, one must relive her past, understand it, only then there is hope to moving on. On a side note, I think the title is appropriate in every way to describe the movie, especially Tautou’s character.
