clayton-12
Member: Rank 4
I'll kick of the new month with the few I've managed to catch over the past couple of months …
The Shadow Play (aka Cloud in the Wind) (Lou Ye, 2018) is a femme-fatale packed noir that was apparently spent a long time is gestation. Thugs turn up in a village scheduled for demolition, the villagers fight back, and in the ensuing melee one of the directors of the property development company falls to his death. A hot-headed young cop is convinced the death wasn’t an accident. The widow and daughter both purr seductively at him, while a sordid soap opera is revealed in flashbacks. It’s not a mess of a film by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s not nearly as good or original or well-executed as it ought to be – I suspect that there were greater political ambitions that weren’t able to be pulled off, and the end result came out a touch unsatisfying.
The New King of Comedy (Stephen Chow, Herman Yau, 2019) E Jingwen has been slogging away at an acting career for the past 10 years, but for all the blood, sweat and tears she puts in to her auditions, she never quite succeeds in landing a non-speaking extra’s role. Still, this doesn’t dampen her enthusiasm, and despite any amount of humiliation she endures, she indefatigably throws herself into perfecting her craft – it’s kind of a feel-good version of the excellent Filipino film Ekstra (aka The Bit Player). I’ve only ever seen one Stephen Chow movie before, The Mermaid, and this is nowhere near as complete. At times it feels horribly underwritten, with several plot strands just petering out as if the whole thing never quite made past the brainstorming stage of development. But when it hits its marks, it really is funny – given that a lot of the humour revolves around dialogue and wordplay, I suspect that it would be even funnier if I could understand the original language.
The Crossing (Bai Xue, 2018) Peipei is sixteen, terminally bored and not coping with her dysfunctional broken family life. She escapes into dreams of a better life involving snow and Japan, without any practical hope of ever achieving them. Living in Shenzhen but going to school just across the border in Hong Kong, she’s the perfect target to be co-opted into a smuggling ring. This is a really solid coming-of-age film – both first-time female director Bai and lead actress Huang Yao should be ones to watch.
Aruna & Her Palate (Edwin, 2018) steps away from the arthouse territory that Indonesian director Edwin usually inhabits, and instead goes down the path of soap-opera-lite foodie flick. Aruna is sent across the country to investigate potential outbreaks of avian flu, and along the way is joined by her platonic chef buddy, slutty (but lonely) college friend and an old beau. Who really has feelings for whom? The romantic plot isn’t anything particular special here, but it is worth watch for the food whether or not you know Indonesian cuisine – I’ve never been a fan of rawon, but damn it looks mouth-watering here.
I’m gonna agree with everything @divemaster13 has said about this. If the benchmark for a thriller is that it is thrilling, then this definitely deserves the 5 star rating. What’s more impressive is the way that that it engages the viewer in the mundane – 80% of the surveillance work shown is routine, plodding, meticulous, and yet it is made into something completely engrossing. In that regard, of the Johnnie To films that I’ve seen, this reminded me most of Accident, which (like Eye in the Sky) wasn’t actually directed by Johnnie To.
The Shadow Play (aka Cloud in the Wind) (Lou Ye, 2018) is a femme-fatale packed noir that was apparently spent a long time is gestation. Thugs turn up in a village scheduled for demolition, the villagers fight back, and in the ensuing melee one of the directors of the property development company falls to his death. A hot-headed young cop is convinced the death wasn’t an accident. The widow and daughter both purr seductively at him, while a sordid soap opera is revealed in flashbacks. It’s not a mess of a film by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s not nearly as good or original or well-executed as it ought to be – I suspect that there were greater political ambitions that weren’t able to be pulled off, and the end result came out a touch unsatisfying.
The New King of Comedy (Stephen Chow, Herman Yau, 2019) E Jingwen has been slogging away at an acting career for the past 10 years, but for all the blood, sweat and tears she puts in to her auditions, she never quite succeeds in landing a non-speaking extra’s role. Still, this doesn’t dampen her enthusiasm, and despite any amount of humiliation she endures, she indefatigably throws herself into perfecting her craft – it’s kind of a feel-good version of the excellent Filipino film Ekstra (aka The Bit Player). I’ve only ever seen one Stephen Chow movie before, The Mermaid, and this is nowhere near as complete. At times it feels horribly underwritten, with several plot strands just petering out as if the whole thing never quite made past the brainstorming stage of development. But when it hits its marks, it really is funny – given that a lot of the humour revolves around dialogue and wordplay, I suspect that it would be even funnier if I could understand the original language.
The Crossing (Bai Xue, 2018) Peipei is sixteen, terminally bored and not coping with her dysfunctional broken family life. She escapes into dreams of a better life involving snow and Japan, without any practical hope of ever achieving them. Living in Shenzhen but going to school just across the border in Hong Kong, she’s the perfect target to be co-opted into a smuggling ring. This is a really solid coming-of-age film – both first-time female director Bai and lead actress Huang Yao should be ones to watch.
Aruna & Her Palate (Edwin, 2018) steps away from the arthouse territory that Indonesian director Edwin usually inhabits, and instead goes down the path of soap-opera-lite foodie flick. Aruna is sent across the country to investigate potential outbreaks of avian flu, and along the way is joined by her platonic chef buddy, slutty (but lonely) college friend and an old beau. Who really has feelings for whom? The romantic plot isn’t anything particular special here, but it is worth watch for the food whether or not you know Indonesian cuisine – I’ve never been a fan of rawon, but damn it looks mouth-watering here.
