cin3matic contraband – chinese odyssey 2002
i should begin by admitting that i had no clue what to expect when i got this movie. i had heard abt it b4, but didnt really read up on it. not that i really had to, since the dvd had tony leung, faye wong, chang chen, and vicki zhao on the cover. and oh yea…they also nicely mention wong kar wai is the producer. convenient.

set in old china, tony leung is dragon, a local bully and bandit, and vicki zhao is phoenix, his tomboy sis and the owner of an inn. chang chen and faye wong are the emperor and princess, who are bored shitless in the imperial palace and are always plotting ways to escape from their queen mother. they split up during one plotted escape, so while the focus is put on the emperor and hes dragged back to the palace, the princess walks out the front gates dressed like a man. she promptly gets her money stolen and runs into dragon, who wants to help her/him out and wants to set her/him up with his sis…thinking shes a man. but he/she gives most of her/his attention to dragon, which makes phoenix cry. after the emperors guards come and take her/him away (after which she jus escapes again), dragon sets out to bring her/him back so she/he can marry phoenix and phoenix can become a princess. at the same time, the emperor asks the queen mother if he can go out and search for the princess (while in actuality, he jus wants to get the hell out)…and as he searches, he comes upon the inn and meets phoenix. phoenix decides to forget abt the princess/emperor and falls in love with this emperor, even tho she thinks hes jus another bandit.

whew…

if that brief synopsis is making ur head hurt, try writing it. the gist of it is that this movie is weird, stupid, and pointless. all in a good way too. yea…exactly. its a simple enough plot, and it takes many conventions of hk cinema (including many incited by wong kar wai himself) and promptly takes a dump on it and tosses it around. the result is a crazy romp thru old china thru the eyes of crazy love-struck ppl who cant decide whether they’re male or female. in between the flying one-hundred blade attacks, dragon and the princess getting stuck in a mud field and asking a goose for help, and the emperor sporting an afro and inventing high-heels, theres this sort of meandering pointlessness that guides the movie towards all kinds of humor. by the last quarter however, much of the comedy gives way to earnest questioning of their search for love. while this might be a slightly abrupt change in step, it doesnt get bogged down in over-wrought melodrama, primarily b/c its what all the meandering led to. that, and they wouldnt let it get too heavy…it might collapse on its own lite-hearted foundation. by the end of it, ur still scratching ur head…dont get me wrong. ur wondering how it all led to this. id better watch this again tonite jus to clarify some things. yup.

current selection | n.e.r.d. – lapdance (reznor remix)

did i tell u im a math genius? yea, its true. here, lemme prove it. i headed down to chinatown after work last nite to look for one dvd…”the returner“. sometime between not being able to find the dvd, and getting home…i ended up with two dvds. yea. i cant find one, so i buy two to compensate. its called fuzzy arithmetic. as a consolation prize for being unable to get “the returner” (which ill prolly get online now), i picked up 2009 lost memories and chinese odyssey 2002 instead. which in many respects, are both prolly better than returner. but thats not the point…my mind was set on returner. feh. anyway, i watched 2009 last nite, and ill prolly be watching chinese odyssey tonite. woo.

cin3matic contraband – 2009: lost memories
so what we have lined up today is another korean flick. except u couldnt tell that this was a korean flick at first b/c the majority of the movie is actually in japanese. 2009 is a co-production with both koreans and japanese in the crew. in the alternate world that is 2009, a pivotal assassination in 1909 never happened. as a result the korean nationalist movement never happened. korea dissolved into japan, who went on to win wwii on the side of the u.s. so in this world, two agents of the japanese bureau of investigation (jbi), sakamoto (an ethnic chosun) and saigo (a japanese), are investigating a series of events committed by the hurei-senjin, an underground korean nationalist movement, against the inoue foundation, a powerful japanese conglomerate. as sakamoto dives deeper into the intentions of the hurei-senjin as well as the inoue foundation, he begins to see that the world around him has been tampered with. and as he gets closer to the truth, he comes directly at odds with his partner, saigo, and the entire jbi.

if ur thinking this movie is a heady sci-fi plot twister, ud be wrong. its a tried and true blockbuster. so in essence, its not allowed to surprise u much. which isnt necessarily a bad thing. it takes the standard formula (read: action), mixes in a little intrigue, some exposition, and a little sci-fi-ness. slow-mo gunfights, high bodycounts, and a good amount of melodrama all make for an interesting movie outing. the slick production values and beautiful cinematography lend their polish to an already interesting package. while the ending was a little too pre-determined, you wont exactly be complaining abt it. the crazy ride of a movie that led you to the pre-packaged ending made it worthwhile.

current selection | yoko kanno – ask dna

woo rock. nothing like a refreshing round of cowboy bebop. wasnt sure i would make it in time…i was working this morning on presentations and things took a little (alot) longer than expected. i didnt leave my office til 3:10. i sprinted to the subway and got back to union sq jus a little past 3:30 to meet up with fish. we made it down to the angelika jus in time to both meet up with pho and troche and get in line jus as it started forming. ah…bebop. i saw it on vcd over a yr ago (thanx greg!), but seeing it on the big screen is def more worthwhile. not only is it a coo movie (yea…its a movie) but it has one of the coolest intros ever. what you gonna do, lil buckaroo?

ass beating
me and fish hit up yokochos after the movie…and then hung around cosi for dessert. we hadnt had a round of chess in a while, so we whipped out my trusty chess board. lil did i kno i was gonna get a dirty beat-down. twice! ack..im pretty much out of form. i pulled out blitzkriegs in both games…but they dun work with fish anymore…and i usually get beaten with an ugly stick after the blitz fails. we were also pretty on par with each other b4…but if we dun play for a while, he retains his skills while i get worse. ick.

current sel…oh wait, winamps not on….

ok coo…

current selection | they might be giants – birdhouse in your soul

woo! i luv this song. u kno…there will always be a place in my heart for they might be giants. so this week has been booty left and right. we have an upcoming trade show, so theres alot of material to prep. me being the only graphic designer, i get to shoulder a company’s worth of work. woo. and it gets better. they like to leave things to the last second. doesnt that rock? so this week all this work has been crawling onto my desk from all corners of the company. super. anyway, so im now safe at home, where i can continue with my ways….of…doing stuff…and stuff.

rahxephon
anyhoo…ive had this series for a while now, and ive been meaning to write a review for it. so since i have nothing else interesting to write abt, ill write this instead. this is jus from my initial viewing of the series btw…since marisol currently has it, i cant go back and check stuff. anyway, here it goes.
id been tracking this series for a while now…prolly since it first started airing in japan. the first american dvd of the series was jus released…but im impatient like that. i went ahead and grabbed the full japanese collection. who wants to wait 6+ months for the set to come out anyway?

the quick run-down is that ayato, a teenager from tokyo, is unwittingly thrown into a war between tokyo (the last surviving city on earth) and alien invaders. he eventually comes to be linked with a powerful mech (dolem) called the rahxephon, and it seems the rahx is capable of alot more than jus tearing aliens in half. the two themes that are prevalent throughout the series are music and time. when ayato pilots his rahx, he is referred to as the musician playing the instrument. all the dolems use sound for both offense and defense. time also plays a crucial role, since ayato eventually learns that outside of tokyo, time travels faster. many characters he encounters are also representations of time, in a sense. u’d have to see it to understand…im trying to avoid spoilers here. everything unfolds around ayato slowly, revealing to him the nature of his existense, and what part he can play to ultimately shape his future.

i read alot of reviews incessantly comparing it to eva, saying it ripped off this and that…so ill start there. upon my initial viewing, alot of similarities did strike me. but even tho eva is fresh in the minds of american otakus, it is nearly a decade old. so lets quickly run thru the comparisons. boy discovers self…sure its in eva, but its also in a hundred other animes. robots are actually the enemy’s being used against them….another similarity, but its been done too….its jus a really coo plot device, k? hmmm…this third one i was abt to point out was a spoiler…so lemme jus skip that. anyhoo…overall, yea, there are similarities. some overt. but if theres jus one similarity that one should point out, its that both series set out to subvert the normal conventions of the robot genre….so thats the way ill see it. rahxephon is unique in its own way…with its play on time, sound, and real cool looking mechs. the characters that inhabit this world are nicely fleshed out…each playing their own small crucial role in the overall anime. alot of care is taken to fully realize jus about each and every character. so when the shit hits the fan, you’ll kno why. one negative tho that i have to point out. the anime is confusing as hell. especially towards the end when everybody’s shit is hitting the fan. what the hells up with the ending?? (i kno, btw…but even knowing doesnt help when u actually watch it) every small detail counts, and if u missed one sentence that was uttered 4 episodes ago, u risk losing track of things later on. its that minute. i backtracked a few times jus to refresh what someone had said, when what they said resurfaced in a later episode. ick. but density such as this should be appreciated…it shows the great lengths the producers put into the anime. watch rahx and judge it on its own merits…not on another animes. ull prolly like it more.

the much anticipated movie by zhang yimou finally hit the shelves the other day…so um, since i had already broken my no dvd rule before, i was gonna lump this “mistake” as a part of the last one. its jus one long mistake! id actually been following this film for some time now, primarily because my friend ags is the personal assistant of zhang ziyi, so i got coo little field reports occasionally. hi ags!

so where to begin with this. jet li is “nameless”, a lowly lawman who at the beginning of the film has already killed sky, flying snow, and broken sword, 3 assassins who have been after the emperor of china for 10 years. he is granted audience with emperor qin, the first emperor of china, who asks nameless to tell him how he took down 3 assassins that 3000 of his own troops couldnt. the story goes thru a series of flashbacks to nameless taking on each of the assassins. each of the “vignettes” is represented by a dominant color, visually marking each one as distinct. and as each story unfolds, differing interpretations are revealed.

to the people who call this a crouching tiger rip-off….you need to pull your head out of your ass. it should be known that hero is nothing like crouching tiger. besides zhang ziyi and trivial similarities…”look, they fight…and stuff!” there is little to nothing that ties the two movies together. at this point in my little review, i wouldve gone into an exposition of the themes and ideas blah blah blah. but that requires alot of typing. (and this film shouldnt even be one to warrant such heavy dialogue) ill instead jus go directly into what i found most enthralling. namely…its fight scenes and cinematography. that is why we watched it, right? dur. the whole movie is one long fight scene, with 5 minute bathroom breaks between each one. they are amazing. actually, they’re fucking amazing. they duel with their swords, their bodies, and their minds. flying thru the air as their blades hum, they know that they need only one strike to kill their opponent. what makes each fight scene become so engaging tho is the exquisite cinematography of the always amazing, always drunk, chris doyle. each frame composites the fighters amongst the details of their surroundings, whether it be swirling leaves, subtle rain drops, or a quiet lake. with each dominant color of the vignettes, its as if the setting itself washes its colors over the fighters, bathing them in its hues. there are times when english just does not contain appropriate adjectives to convey a meaning, and this is one of them. just watch the film and let your eyes talk to your mind. itll whisper “holy shit.”

current selection | supercar – yumegiwa last boy

ok, so i broke my self-imposed dvd-shopping hiatus yesterday. i was supposed to be watching my spendings and shit…since i usually bought about a dvd a week. oops. i was actually down in chinatown scouting out fine ramen cuisine, but instead got lulled into the video store. u could almost hear it whispering *buy dvds…..* -in cantonese of course- to my happy surprise, i saw a brand-spanking new dvd of ping-pong sitting on the shelf. huppah! snatched it up in less than a millisecond. which all leads to the following double-happiness movie review.

so unless ur an asian cinema afficiando, then uve prolly never heard of ping-pong. so….whats ping-pong, u ask? released in 2002, ping pong is a japanese movie based off the manga of the same name by taiyo matsumoto. the movie follows the lives of 2 childhood friends, peco and smile, who grew up playing ping-pong together. each has their own different ideologies and ambitions, and its thru these differences that they come to understand where they stand in the world…where they want to go.

the movie paces itself like a dream…weaving in and out of the surrealistic. the hero dons his “robot mask”, a player sprouts butterfly wings, and a dragonfly quietly hovers over a ping pong table. dialogues are interweaved with flashbacks to their childhood, and the kinetic competition matches are interspersed with visions of the fantastic. its these moments that elevate the movie high and above ur avg film. nevermind the fact that ppl dont exactly look at ping pong as the most fascinating topic, but its the character interactions…how they see each other, their rivals, and the competitions in general, that gives weight to the movie.

all this is laid on the pounding tracks of the boom boom satellites, supercar, and other electronic acts. which in and of itself could be worthy of its own review. the entire movie screams of polish and coolness…and its highly recommended by all accounts. it wont be long b4 ur wondering to urself…”hmm, peco vs. forrest gump….“

ok, so its a tuesday. i usually do any kind of “habitual-weekly-thing” on mondays (nobody likes to immediately start working monday mornings), but since i joined today on a tuesday, and i took yesterday off, this’ll be the exception….

m3ntal contraband.jan.twoeight.zerothree
anybody else starting to really like korean cinema alot? ok, for the hardcore fans out there…i kno im a little late in coming. but better late than never. hollywood these days keeps churning out sequels, prequels, and shite. so i looked overseas for a while. ive always been into hk, anime, and japanese cinema…but was starting to feel a little narrow-minded. so after reading around, some korean movies got mentioned. i started with shiri…like everybody else. it was coo and all, so i started looking into it more…which led me to even more titles like whasango, attack the gas station, and yupgi girl. ill admit to watching yupgi girl over and over again (i kno its semi-romance! its happy and the girl is ridiculously cute, so bugger off!) even read dreamworks picked it up. scary…but they did translate the ring good, so who knos. my picks are kristin kreuk as the girl and….um….jason biggs?? as gyun-woo (lets call him gary). yea, i really couldnt think of anybody except pie-fucker boy to fill the whipping boy role. but kreuk…she is damn cute, and she needs to start shedding her spanky-clean image before she gets pigeon-holed. thats my 2 cents worth anyway. back to the main focus…um…korean cinema is good. ill prolly be picking up musa next, money permitting. getting a new apartment is mad expensive.