Review Weekend Film Club - Part I

[Zelena]

Okay people persons, thanks to @plsletitrain for the suggestion -- you guys expressed some interest in these Shaw Bros films, so anyone that wants to grab some popcorn and join me, I'm going to be watching My Dream Boat (1967) this weekend. This is a melodrama written by Yao Chiung, queen of the Chinese bodice-rippers, and directed by prolific Shaw helmer Ching Doe and starring lovely Lily Ho. Subtitles are included in the cc button, not hardcoded.

Here's the blurb on imdb, which doesn't illuminate much:

The film tells a complicated love story. Carmen with Ke, Xiang Yi and Jiyuan. They start as a friend, but somehow a love triangle occur, and the outcome is very tragic.

Hope the copyright police have the weekend off and this lasts on youtube for a few days! If not, it's available at other -- ahem -- well-known sources at higher quality if you prefer. Not sure this one will be as fun as some as the others I've watched, but if you watch another Shaw Bros film and want to share thoughts on it, we'd love to hear them.

So without further ado....
youtu.be/45isOUc7Ta4

@sitenoise @Daniel Larusso @divemaster13 @ebossert @clayton-12 @chainsaw_metal1

 

[sitenoise]

Random Cat Video

 

[divemaster13]

Ok, I watched it! Am I supposed to post comments now? Or wait until Monday... ??

 

[Zelena]

Ok, I watched it! Am I supposed to post comments now? Or wait until Monday... ??

Let 'er rip!

 

[divemaster13]

The first half was a rather strange experience. Sorrtof like a Chinese version of Beach Blanket Bingo, only with hunting in the mountains rather than partying on the beach. But they did get a couple of songs in, and there was a campfire. I was a little confused at first about the family relationships (adopted half siblings? "Uncle" is a real uncle, or an honorific?), and who liked whom. I must say I did not care for this too much. The first half of the movie gets a 2 / 5.

However, once the soapy love triangles (quadrangles?) started to take over, I was on much more familiar ground. Somehow the movie morphed into pure drama. No more singing around the campfire or cheerily onward while working on a road crew. I like movies with unrequited love and misdirected passion, and every movie like this has to have melodramatic tragedy, right? So I liked the second half much better. Say 3.5 / 5.

So over all, a solid 3. Given my general tastes, if the exact same story were told as a historical costume drama, I would bump it up a half star for sure; and if the ladies (in my hypothetical historical costume drama) did some kung fu, perhaps in place of the singing, that would have been even better.

 

[sitenoise]

yeah, I'm confused about who is with whom and how. The one girl says to the guy with the Ivy League haircut "lets go get married" and then he's kissing after another girl.

 

[Zelena]

Yeah, well, the dilemma here was recommending a film that I hadn't already watched. If I had already watched it, I wouldn't have been in on watching it for the first time. But it's murphy's law that it would turn out to be the least good of the ones I've seen so far.

I was a little confused at first about the family relationships (adopted half siblings? "Uncle" is a real uncle, or an honorific?), and who liked whom.

Yeah so was I. I think that the real tragedy here is that a novel got mangled. Most times, there is way too much in the novel to cram into a film, and everyone involved in making the film forgets what the audience doesn't know. That was the problem here.

I watched like six of these Shaw films in a week so I'm too fried on them to properly review it right now. Just the Christmas party scene alone was worth the whole movie. I find this stuff amazing. You gotta remember, the cultural revolution was going on in the mainland when this was being made. I'm not interested in plot, just tone and context etc, so that didin't slow it down for me much. I think Mr. Wong Kar Wai has a lot of explaining to do. He's been carrying on like he invented 1966. In fact, he started out working at TV-B studios, which was the Shaw studios, just as they branched off from movies into TV around 1980. Wong clearly owes his whole "world" to the Shaws.

I remembered that it was the Iggy Pop movie that sent me running through space and time to find a less overexposed culture to hang out with, and boy, I found it.

Lily Ho is no Pei Pei Cheng. I am saving her one remaining non-kung fu flick for a rainy day.

 

[divemaster13]

No need to make apologies. A 3 or 3.5 rating for me, while not a gushing rave, is certainly 2 hours well spent. I got all the relationships figured out in plenty of time for the drama and tragedy to be effective. No, I didn't love it, but I would certainly watch more in the genre. And, God's honest truth, I liked it better than a couple of WKW's movies. Mainly b/c I am one who *does* care about plot.