tokyo story

luxury car and three times at miff

i've got three times at home in the pile to watch - what's luxury car?

Any Stephen Chow movie rules.

uxury Car was winner of Un Certain Regard at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

“Wang Chao finally attains an almost perfect balance between style and content in Luxury Car… a tightly written and beautifully played drama.” – Variety

In what filmmaker Wang has called the last in his trilogy on the darker side of Chinese society, he follows an elderly country schoolteacher, who heads to the big city of Wuhan in search of his only son to fulfil his dying wife’s wish. There, he meets his daughter, working as an escort in a karaoke bar. He also meets a sympathetic policeman who agrees to help him in his search to find his son – but who also recognises the daughter’s much older boyfriend as a man he arrested ten years previously.

As Wang says of his motivations, “My precarious lifestyle, the exploding cities, my lack of closeness with my parents – these things got me thinking about all the missing young people out there, and the parents who have lost their children, and I decided to make Luxury Car.”

does this thread embrace the subcontinent? i watched 'armaan' on the weekend, a good romance/comedy/tragedy/drama/musical set in a hindustani hospital. i'm totally in love with preity zinta - my favourite actress, funny as hell in this movie.

Bangkok Bar Booty Sessions 3.

Awesome...

bittersweet life (stylish but empty), big bang love juvenile A (takashi miike and fucken FUCKED, great stuff) and great yokai war (miike does the neverending story)

PEARL HARBOUR. LOL.

Branded To Kill and Tokyo Drifter.

i'm seeing tokyo drifter next week, any good?

wong kar wai films are pretty ace, my favs probably 'in the mood for love' or the chungking express/fallen angels double.

ringo lam and beat takeshi films are pretty cool too. and then there are the old pros like kurosawa and ozu that you can watch on repeat.

>my favs probably 'in the mood for love' or the chungking express/fallen angels double.

I really like happy together, chris doyle's cinematography is incredible

you can't mention wong kar wai without crediting chris doyle some. my fav. bit from happy together didnt' have people in it at all. it was a just a shot of a room with a table and a curtain very still, then it cuts sharply and the curtain is billowing through the room. a little piece of magic.

christopher doyle shot 'last life in the universe' too.

i feel asleep during 'great yokai war' but will try again...

i thought tokyo drifter and branded to kill were a bit underwhelming. good for their time etc but not particularly great films really.

yeah, christopher doyle is the boss. 2046 illustrated the fact that christopher is the real talent behind all those wonderful films like 'in the mood', rather than wong kar-wai - the scenes done by christopher were stunning while the scenes done by the other cinematographers were devoid of interest or magic of any sort.

started watching 'symapthy for mr vengeance' last night - shaping up to be a great movie! some crazy shit going on there!

Ichi The Killer anyone?

John Woo HK films - Bullet in the Head, Hard Boiled, The Killer, A Better Tomorrow

and Ringo Lam- City on Fire

fuck the arthouse stuff i like guns and lots of them

Manly 70s kung fu films from the Shaw Brothers library.

luxury car

''In this emotionally taut narrative, Li Qi Ming travels from his small village to the city of Wuhan, determined to fulfill his wife's last wish of seeing her son. But instead of finding his son, he discovers his daughter working as a karaoke bar escort, forcing him to come to terms with their long-estranged relationship and the tenuous future of his family. Director Wang Chao uses Li Qi Ming to represent the painful reality of thousands of parents who have lost contact with their children through rural exodus and political upheaval in China.''

great movie. music by this guy i discovered too

qiu yue

can't find much about this movie as there's an older one with the same title. here's a little write i found tho:
''Set in a village in rural China, the story focuses on a traditional
woman, Qiuyue. Her family is abandoned by her husband who has found a
new lover. She is employed by a factory owner, Chan Dai-lian, but her
step-daughter leaves to go and look for her father. Qiuyue misses her
step daughter and goes after her, returning to the village later to
prove her strength of character''

this is a pretty awesome movie about the struggle women face in their villages whilst the men go to the towns and cities to work. and unlike a lot of mainland movies this one has a happy ending!

the city of life and death

interesting that this chinese movie about the rape of nanking runs a story about one japanese soldier feeling remorse for his fellow countrymen's actions. fucking brutal in places - the 6 year old daughter just being mindlessly tossed from a top floor window is harrowing. not the feel good movie of the year that's for sure.

the city of life and death

saw that at last year's miff. while i'd admit to it being a well made film, it did very little for me as a piece of cinema i'd freely watch with any discerning interest whatsoever. mainly the fault lies with its very straight-ahead and conventionally developed narrative structure, and partly the predictable ''redemptive'' conclusion of the film (as you pointed out - the remorse) which if anything reveals a less than subtle partiality of the film with regard to nanjing.

at this year's miff, i saw a bunch of asian films i really liked. notable highlights were sivaroj kongsakul's eternity (current recipient of rotterdam's tiger award - the only film award that matters in my opinion), hong sang-soo's the day he arrives, and li hongqi's winter vacation. winter vacation was an especial treat. i can only describe it as somewhere at the provincial crossroads between roy andersson's statically framed wry deadpan wit and jia-zhangke's early minimalist realist undertakings (the pickpocket and platform spring to mind). it was easily the funniest film all festival, but without necessarily being funny in a conventional
way - a kind of dry comic naivety bordering on the unintentionally humorous and without the pretense of trying-to-be-funny. in my many years at miff, i don't think i've ever held back uncontrollable fits of laughter for a good porton of a screening as much as with this film.

winter vacation sounds like something i'd like from your description. i'll keep a look out for it.

I worked during a screening of eternity. I've never seen so many walkouts.
I'm interested into why you hold the tiger award in such high esteem, dzerz?

A new Johnny Too's movie Life Without Principle

Closing Film of Hong Kong Asian Films Fest, Let's Go! is a Hong Kong remake of the cartoon Yatterman.

Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWpmHUdnA2E&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

The poster is awesome:

Jackie Chan and a Jet Li movie opened on the same day last week.

Sorcerer and the White Snake - Jet Li - s'alright I guess.

1911 - Jackie Chan - ANOTHER movie about Chinese Communism? Jeez!

Tim, 1911 is not about Communism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinhai_Revolution

Republic of China, democratic one, started on 10/10/1911.

People's Republic of China, Commie, started on 01/10/1949.

i watched battle royale II - i didn't really watch the last 45 minutes tho. er...i think that's my review....

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, 3D remake of Dragon Inn by Tsui Hark starring Jet Li Trailer Not sure about 3D for these sorts of movies, I just get jack of it and take my glasses off when they keep throwing stuff at the screen.

My asian bodyguard owns some of the world's rarest cats.

Fantastic Asia Film Festival on in early November at Cinema Nova, there's too much stuff on, can't make it.

KUNG FU DUNK

TimChuma said 15 hours ago:
Fantastic Asia Film Festival on in early November at Cinema Nova, there's too much stuff > on, can't make it.

Is going to be awesome!

Went last night and saw Helldriver at The Fantastic Asia Film Festival Launch

I think my head just popped some brain cells.

The only word I can use without going into a massive diatribe rant thing is 'unrelenting'

LIke the look of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCD00LLZmys

Directed by Ann Hui, staring: Andy Lau and Deanie Ip (She won best actress @
68th Venice International Film Festival!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Simple_Life

This looks pretty crazy. Features Danny from 50 Kaitenz in a starring role.
Zombie Ass