Note: This blog expresses only the opinions of the blog owner, and does not represent the opinion of any organization or blog that is associated with Damn you, Kozo!.
It’s vacation time for LoveHKFilm.com - or at least, the person who runs it - so that means another 2 or 3 weeks of hand-wringing as we wonder if the site will ever get updated again. I’ll break the suspense by revealing that it will, indeed, get an update someday. After all, where else will I publish my review of KING OF SPY 2008?
This movie could be playing on You Tube right now
Also, Kevin Ma plans on reviewing Super Duper Communist Movie THE FOUNDING OF A REPUBLIC, which details the rise of Communism in the great country of China. I will not be around to see the movie, or I would review it myself. As has been noted on fine Internet publications, everyone who works at this site loves China. *whistles innocently*
Some photos from FOUNDING OF A REPUBLIC:
Donnie Yen and Vicki Zhao as a couple who celebrate
their 10th anniversary by joining the Communist Party
Eva Huang as the Cutest Member of the Communist Party™
Actually, what I’d really like to do is live blog the movie, so I can record the time that every single star appears. Such a list will surely help a ton of potential viewers who want to fast-forward through the film to see the stars (this is probably 80% of the Internet). Sadly, I don’t expect to see Huang Bo in the film, which is a travesty of cinema. Every film needs Huang Bo.
Huang Bo: making movies awesome since 2006
When I return from my trip, there will be a couple of new Hong Kong films on offer, namely the Herman Yau double feature SPLIT SECOND MURDER and REBELLION.
If you’re not Chinese and can name everyone
in this poster, you win a prize
The highlight of REBELLION: a leapfrog competition
The first is an idol-packed Halloween picture while the second is a long-in-the-can triad picture that was teased for release back in 2008. It’s sad the film actually didn’t get a release in 2008 since it stars Shawn Yue, who at this time last year was considered the Hardest Working Man in Hong Kong Cinema. The man had 10 features released in 2007 and 2008, and his only one so far this year will be a holdover from last year. What happened?
“People, hire me for your movies! I’ll work for food or tips.
Hell, I’ll work for you if you can recognize me on the street.”
When I return, the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival will be in full swing too. I may or may not review a slew of movies from it, as it’s been my recent pattern to only review Hong Kong films while carefully picking among the rest. I’d leave more to Kevin, but he’s a busy guy, what with school, his blog, the East-West Screen podcast and also his personal life. That he even visits LoveHKFilm.com must take precious minutes out of his day. He won’t get those minutes back either.
“Come on…who has time to waste at LoveHKFilm.com?”
Takeshi has a point. Anyway, here are my planned screenings at the HKAFF:
THE WARRIOR AND THE WOLF (with Joe Odagiri in attendance)
THIRST (with Park Chan-Wook in attendance)
INTO A DREAM LOVE EXPOSURE (again!)
CROWS ZERO 2
AIN’T NO TOMORROWS
BE SURE TO SHARE
AIR DOLL (with nobody in attendance)
KIMJONGILIA
BICYCLE SIGHS
HAZARD
FINDING HER
SUMMER WARS
DAD, HOW ARE YOU?
WHEAT (starring Fan Bing-Bing)
WEAVING GIRL (Starring Yu Nan and Guo Tao. Guo Tao!)
PASTRY
BEIJING IS COMING
COW (starring Huang Bo!)
AT THE END OF DAYBREAK
SEVEN 2 ONE (Directed by Danny Pang)
…plus maybe some short films and some Bollywood, if I can squeeze it in. You can check out the complete list on their just-launched website.
That’s quite a list, huh? If you’re going to the HKAFF and select these films for your viewing pleasure then you risk running into me. If I do see you, I promise not to spit on you, but besides that, everything is fair game.
“Ha ha, people spitting at me is nothing! I’m used to much worse!”
Let’s wrap up this obligatory September post with a look at Leon Lai’s last concert, entitled DREAM WEDDING. The concert occurred a couple of months ago, but I’m only blogging about it now. It was a simple affair, with a small stage rather than one of those crazy stages inspired by TRANSFORMERS. As expected, Leon was all professional charm, meaning he was suave and punctual. At the end of the concert here was a Typhoon Signal number 8 and he practically sprinted off the stage.
“Typhoon warning? Screw the encore - I’m out of here!”
While at the concert, I snapped some pictures. Here’s a good shot of my vantage point:
Once again, Leon Lai is upstaged by cables
And here’s a photo of Leon Lai and special guest Janice Man, who wowed the audience with her red dress if not her actual talent.
The cables are still the most interesting part of this photo
And, finally a cable-free photo:
Leon gives the cheap seats some love
Overall, the concert was enjoyable but a little on the low-energy side. Then again, Leon Lai is not one of those “go all out, bust my ass” performers like Aaron “I almost die in concerts” Kwok. Leon is more of a suave customer or cool cat, which comes off charming at concerts but kind of dull on the big screen.
At least at concerts he’ll do his own stunts:
Is it hot in here or is it just Leon? Oh, it’s the fire.
My favorite song that evening was the wonderfully titled, “I Love You OK”, which is a lyric and song title that confuses me. Does “OK” represent the measurement of Leon’s love? If so, then the poor girl on the receiving end should look for someone who actually loves her more than just “OK”. Saying that you love someone “OK” is like saying that you love someone “somewhat”. Is that what girls are looking for nowadays?
Janice Man is looking for that number on Leon’s left leg
The other reading of the title is “I love you, okay?!?”, which implies that Leon Lai is impatient in declaring his love for his girlfriend. She probably asked for his feelings while he was busy playing BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM for his PlayStation 3, and right before he got the coveted 40-hit Freeflow Combo, she annoyed him by asking “Hey, how do you feel about me?”. Well, if that’s the case - that Leon was going to get another Trophy to show off his leet status on the PlayStation Network, and then was rudely interrupted - then we fully sympathize with his impatience.
Either way, we know the truth: Leon Lai is not much of a boyfriend.
“Don’t bother me when I’m eating fruit, woman!”
Check out the song for yourself. BONUS: the video also features Athena Chu.
By the way, seeing Leon Lai in concert means that I have now seen every single one of the Sky Kings - Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Aaron Kwok and Leon Lai - after arriving here in Hong Kong nearly five years ago. This accomplishment brings me ever closer to getting the hell out of Dodge. Seeing all the Sky Kings in concert was one of the biggest things I wanted to accomplish during my stay in Hong Kong, and with that out of the way probably the most glaring thing not yet completed is meeting Ekin Cheng. If I can accomplish that, it may spell the end of LoveHKFilm.com in Hong Kong. Don’t worry, we’ll still review DVDs.
“You’ll still review DVDs? That was NOT what I wanted to hear!”
So last Wednesday I was walking down the street in Tsimshatsui and I happened upon this scene:
There’s always a crowd in front of 7-11
Hey, they were shooting a film! I was genuinely surprised and hung around to snap some photos. Hanging out near the film set resulted in me being 75 minutes late for a date with a girl, but she understood. Unfortunately, I have been unable to confirm her understanding because she won’t return my phone calls.
I’m sure Nick Cheung would have done the same thing:
“I totally make women wait!
They are powerless to resist my debonair charm.”
Man, it’s been awhile. And it’ll probably be a lot longer before I write in this thing again because in a few short hours, I’m off to Italy. Again. My toys will miss me:
Carue and Chopper will guard my Blu-ray collection.
This year is the second year that I’m attending the Far East Film Festival. I get to go because I contributed to their catalog and book, plus I’m fortunate enough to have saved enough money for a plane ticket. This is a special time of the year because it represents the end of a lot of stuff. The Hong Kong International Film Festival is over. The Hong Kong Film Awards and associated drama is over. The LoveHKFilm Awards and all the related busywork is over. All that’s left is the review writing, which I’ll get to when I get to. That’s what 2009 is about for me: not doing more than I have to.
Zhang Ziyi wants to wish you an even happier Lunar New Year!
“This stuffed cow has seen me naked, too!”
In other news, the annual LoveHKFilm Awards will be announced Sunday, March 15th, 2009. I would tell you to mark your calendars, but because these awards are less important than the day-old donut sale at Dunkin’ Donuts, I won’t presume to do so. Instead, I ask that you drop by to see the results if you would be so kind as to deign us with your presence. You’d be surprised at how many people don’t deign.
Rather, Happy Late Lunar New Year. I’m forever getting behind. I’m so behind, in fact, that I’ll post up this celebrity Lunar New Year photo from last year:
“I think this is going to be a good year!”
Yes, this photo was taken before…uh, that thing that happened.
Completely minor announcement: there will be no “End of 2008″ post on this blog anytime soon, and barring another self-serving edition of Kozo’s Mailbag, I’ll probably be stepping away from this blog for a few more weeks.
Someone is already unhappy about the news:
“Whaddya mean no ‘End of 2008′ post?
What am I supposed to do now?”
NOTE: For this edition of Damn You Kozo, I’m combining a number of topics I was planning on writing separate blog entries about. Due to various reasons it’s been difficult getting anything off the ground, so I figured it was everything or nothing. Sadly, I have too many ideas to list everything, so why don’t we go with just five? Sounds like a plan.
Anyway, let’s get this over with.
Abandoned Blog Entry #1 OBAMA WINS, I CONSIDER MOVING BACK TO THE UNITED STATES
Aaaaaaaad, we’re back. These toys in my living room say “Hi”:
Clearly, my toy collection kicks ass
Anyway, the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival is now over. During that 17-day period I consumed 18 movies, 5 short films, 2 regular theatrical releases and plenty of bad food. Amazingly, I did not get sick, though I do recall nodding off during my screening of 881.
I should not call what I’m doing blogging, because I don’t actually blog. I just post every month or so.
I would apologize for this long absence from Damn You, Kozo!, but that would assume that people actually read this thing. In many ways, LoveHKFilm.com is what it is because I assume nobody ever reads it. Our lack of attentiveness to our visitors is also why we’re totally behind, and why many other sites have leapfrogged us in traffic, popularity, and online self-congratulation. It’s also why I named this blog Damn You, Kozo!, because aside from completely usurping another person’s real name and identity, Kozo simply can’t keep up with the Joneses.
Bruce Lee said it best:
“DAMN YOU, KOZO!”
Ah, that feels better.
Anyway, in recent Hong Kong news, this person is getting married:
NOTE: Not an actual wedding photo
Everybody loves Kelly Chen - provided that you talk to the correct six out of ten people. Chances are that the four out of ten people who actually liked An Empress and the Warriors can be found in those six, and why not? The film features Kelly in heavy armor, plus the wonderful sight of Leon Lai spitting on Kelly’s bare back:
The magic of the movies!
This picture cracks me up:
You could interpret this photo at least three different ways
About Empress, someone should really talk about the genius casting one day. Thanks to the triumvirate of Donnie Yen, Kelly Chen, and Leon Lai, every audience member is guaranteed to dislike at least one person in the starring cast. Could it have killed them to cast a single actor who doesn’t have active detractors?
If you hate Hui Siu-Hung, you will go to hell
Empress and the Warriors also marks the first Mei Ah Blu-ray Disc. Ownership of a PlayStation 3 has put me on the Blu-ray bandwagon, and despite not being entirely enthused about Empress, I will be buying it. Other titles on my Blu-ray to buy list include the Infernal Affairs Trilogy, Chungking Express, and nearly anything with Tsui Hark’s name on it - short of Black Mask 2 and Missing, that is. I’d still pick up The Legend of Zu.
“Wow, I’m really sorry about Missing!”
He better be.
I doubt that the victory of Blu-ray over HD DVD will inspire a flood of Hong Kong catalog titles onto Blu-ray Disc. Such a flood did occur during the late nineties when DVD first hit the market, but even now, Hong Kong home video is beset by a terrible, terrible scourge that has destroyed home entertainment:
This logo is evil
Illegal downloading is the evil stepchild of the above, and is responsible for far more lost revenue, but I sincerely believe that crappy VCD quality - and its willing acceptance by Hong Kong consumers - is indicative of how the populace as a whole thinks of entertainment. Basically, everyone here is okay with watching movies with poor resolution, bad color, and zero features. Given that, is it a surprise that everyone’s okay with watching the latest and greatest in Asian Entertainment on You Tube?
Everyone in this photo illegally downloads
Back to Kelly’s concert:
Probably one of Kelly’s more conservative outfits
Kelly announced her upcoming marriage at the final show in her recent Hung Hom Coliseum concert series - a nice touch, since hers was the final appearance from a big star before the venue undergoes at least a year of renovation. I actually attended an earlier show (a.k.a. not the one where she said she was getting married), and here was my vantage point:
Kelly has always been a decent, if not spectacular singer - and really, she’s much better at singing than acting. The main draw here was her eye-popping assortment of wacky costumes and themes, which ranged from the cute bear-headed thing:
Love the boots
To the mermaid thing:
Hopefully Disney won’t sue
To the midriff-baring thing:
I think this was my favorite
To the white futuristic outfit with mega-huge goggles thing:
In the future we’ll all dress like this
Here’s one with Leon Lai as an accessory:
Too bad Donnie wasn’t there
Special mention must go to Kelly for her various yoga poses and exceptional good humor, which was evident because she didn’t act bothered by the people leaving their seats during her concert. For some reason, it seemed like every number was a new excuse for a bathroom break for the audience. Some people even got up to leave early. I felt like I was at a Laker game.
“Is this concert EVER going to get any better?”
In general, the concert was a fine diversion, but it was also curiously low-energy. Having attended a few other concerts in my time in Hong Kong, I must rate Kelly’s as the most non-crucial of the bunch - at least, from an audience standpoint.
About her marriage, it managed to occupy all the newspapers for a good 2-3 days here in Hong Kong - a nice change, since the news was entirely positive, and had nothing to do with scandal, judgmental mud-slinging, or accidental exposure. Sadly, it’s the exception to the norm over here.
Anyway, seeing Kelly allows me to check off yet another on my “Stars I Want To See Live, But Not Necessarily Meet” List. Now that Kelly is out of the way, my number one is sadly Leon because I’d like to see him, but yeah, meeting him is not a priority at all. If a meeting ever occurred, this could be my reaction:
An actual photo from the Kelly Chen concert
If someone asked which celebrity is the one I would most like to meet, that’s obvious: Ekin Cheng is still the number one. I hope it occurs one day, simply so we can take a picture and I can send a general “nyah-nyah” in the direction of those who think I don’t like Ekin Cheng.
Ekin and Charlene Choi on the set of Storm Warriors:
I think they’re made of wax
By the way, I still have not written about my Aaron Kwok concert experience. It may never happen now. I’m sure he’s all broken up.
Here’s a pic of him anyway:
“Tetsuooooo!!!!!”
Aaaand one last photo of Kelly:
She has something in her eye
Photo credits: As usual, thanks to Apple Daily - with an assist from Ming Pao, Sina.com, plus the World Wide Web.
While I’m wasting time between my Italy vacation updates - a trip which, by the way, is now one full month old - I figured I could quickly discuss the progress or lack thereof concerning the site’s review backlog. After all, it’s that and the merciless day job that are keeping me busy. You all want to hear about it, right? It seems that Fiona Sit is interested:
“Hmm, why are those blog updates taking so long, anyway?”
It’s comforting to know that Fiona cares. I’m not too sure about the guy next to her, though.
After Udine, I added up all the films I’d seen and not reviewed, from the Far East Film Festival (FEFF), the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF), and just regular theatrical release. The number came out to a whopping twenty-five. Factoring out Coffee or Tea, which I mentioned in an earlier HKIFF post, the number dropped to twenty-four.
Now, some fourteen written reviews later, there are only ten left on the list. Of the ten, I have decided to excise three. The reason? I got sleepy while watching those three films, meaning three possible things: A) I may have missed something important while dozing off, B) any confusion I felt may be due to grogginess and not film quality, or C) the movies were boring, thus putting me to sleep because hey, a thrill-a-minute film would definitely have kept me awake.
This is what happens when a movie lacks action
Regardless of the reason for my nodding off, I feel it’s hard to let people know my opinion on a film if I don’t end up catching all of it. It’s not very responsible - though to be honest, I hear that a few Asian Cinema publications were written using this “I saw only half of the film” reviewing technique. I did it once, for a movie called Hong Kong X-File. The shame stays with me today.
I’m not a fan of partial, uninformed opinion. Hell, sometimes I even change my mind after seeing a movie three or four more times. The best example of this is probably Running Out of Time 2. At the time I considered the film to be a disappointment, but I now feel it’s a very fun, entertaining, and smart chase movie - albeit with an overly-arch sense of humor. Also, given Ekin Cheng’s career slide, I now feel like being charitable towards every film he makes.
The main lesson: I’m not always on my “A” game, and reviewing a movie that I partially slept through would be somewhat disingenous. These films deserve an actual viewing while awake and sober - something that will hopefully happen one day if they get released on DVD with English subtitles. If not, I’ll have to be content with the following memories, which I’m sure are wholly innaccurate and probably proof that I should change my profession to professional paint scraper.
Feng Xiaogang disapproves of sleeping at films:
“You! In the front row! Wake up!”
I’ll take his advice, but frankly, the director of The Banquet is in no position to ask his audience to stay awake.
Anyway, here are my mini-impressions of the three films that I fell asleep at. DISCLAIMER: the following mini-reviews are not really reviews, and fully belong in the blog format. That’s because I did minimal research, and made zero attempt to talk about the films or the filmmakers outside of my own instant experience. If I blogged about my dinner or coffee before or after these films, it may actually be appropriate because that’s what blog posts like these are like. Web Film Criticism 2.0: the online version of dinner and a movie.
Film I slept at No. 1: In Love We Trust
Yu Nan wakes up from a nightmare where
she appeared in a megaflop directed by
the Wachowski Brothers
Directed by Wang Xiaoshuai, this Chinese drama proffers up a particularly fun premise: adultery for a good cause! Basically, a divorced couple consider siring a new child to provide an organ transplant for an older one whose illness is fast becoming terminal. Of course, each person has a new partner, who may not go for extramarital action, even if the cause is a good one. Human emotions can be tricky things.
The great things about this film: the screenplay, the acting, and the approach, which sidesteps the Curse of the Asian Tearjerker(TM) and features unspoken realization and complex characterization in place of bile-spewing Oscar clips or egregious displays of weeping. This is a film about decisions, not outcomes, and it deserved to be lauded at the Berlin Film Festival.
I fell asleep when the half-hour setup began to drag. When I woke up, I wasn’t sure which couple I was watching, so I had to reacquaint myself with them on the fly. By the time the plot kicked in, I was hooked, but I do feel that I missed a lot. If I spoke Mandarin, I could solve this issue because there’s an unsubbed DVD available in China. I don’t speak Mandarin, so I am a waste of space.
“I told you not to fall asleep! Why must you make me so upset?!?”
By the way, this film featured small turns by Gao Yuanyuan and Tian Yuan, and stars Yu Nan from Tuya’s Marriage and - get this - Speed Racer! No Rain, however.
Film I slept at No. 2: Your Friends
No, they’re not my friends, they’re your friends
Shojo manga alert! Your Friends tells the could-be-very-sappy story of a disabled girl, her friendship with another girl who has a terminal disease, and her search for the perfect cloud to honor that friend. My description does the film an incredible disservice, however, as Your Friends is actually sensitive, well-made, and quite restrained - though the overt symbolism of the clouds was still a bit much for my sleepy brain cells. Your Friends sounds like a ten-ton weepie requiring about sixty tissues, but thankfully it stays restrained enough to qualify as something a bit more accomplished. I’m sure it would have worked equally as well as a manga, however.
This one put me to sleep immediately because it features lots of shots of clouds and blue skies, and only serves up tinkly music when it’s time to cut to a new segment featuring yet another of “your friends”. This is a flashback-filled tale with many young actors all wearing school uniforms. Not that I couldn’t tell them apart - I could, but after waking up forty minutes into the film, it took me an extra ten to realize that the film had shifted segments on me, and was concentrating on a new girl instead of a previous one, though one of the girls hanging around was the same.
What the above means: there were three young girls featured in the first forty minutes of the film, and not just two, but my nap required me to perform some extra mental gymnastics to realize that we were following one girl’s experience with two different friends, and not just two girls all the time. Director Hiroki Ryuichi made things even more difficult for my sleep-deprived brain because he decided to shoot his film in mostly long shots and long takes, meaning I had to wait an age for the rare close-up to get a good look at anyone. Frankly, the wait was sometimes so long that I was able to take a nap.
For the record: one of the three girls was also in Adrift in Tokyo - which I didn’t fall asleep at. There are also a bunch of boys, including a guy who was in the Nodame Cantabile drama. I’m not using their real names here because I didn’t do any research before writing this blog post - in which case I would have dug up a name or two. Call it me being lazy, but there are many online film reviewers who don’t do the proper research before writing their reviews. A note to those reviewers: we’re all on the same level.
Everyone in this photo has a film-related blog:
“We support Hilary AND we blog about Asian movies!”
I think the lesson here - besides check who’s writing those blogs you frequent - is that responsible journalism is hard to practice, and I’m not a complete saint in that department. Truthfully, Your Friends has plenty of fans, so my sarcastic sleepy-eyed review should be taken with a couple thousand grains of salt. Maybe our actual friends deserve to be insulted, but Your Friends is better served by respectful quotes like “a new wave classic” and “I see my friends in the clouds, too”. It’s better than the damning, “It was okay, but then I fell asleep” judgement that I would probably otherwise make.
Honestly, I will try to see this movie again someday. I’m getting a venti Starbucks beforehand.
Film I slept at No. 3: Ta Pu
If you cheat, they shoot you
The tale of a bunch of overage students taking university entrance exams in rural China, Ta Pu is a film definitely worth watching - but I’ll have to see it again, because this time I completely messed up and fell asleep a total of THREE Times during the film. The first time was about ten minutes after the film started, the second time was when the students were all sitting in a classroom, and the third time someone had already failed the exam and the other students weren’t doing so hot themselves. Not really a commercial film, Ta Pu relates a post-Cultural Revolution time in Chinese history, when all those sent-down laborers got the chance to get out of the sticks and get themselves their long-delayed education. NOTE: a friend told me that info and I remember it - no research required!
The message of the film seemed to be that the best intentions of Chinese youth won’t help them get into University, and lots of everyday, China-specific stuff will get in way of that new-fangled progress thing called an education. Yes, I’ve just insulted a fine motion picture with an insincere synopsis - but that’s what happens when you fall asleep in a movie and struggle to recall exactly what went on. The moral: someone should fire me from this website. The other moral: seeing five movies a day can kill almost anyone, especially a person who doesn’t sleep that much anyway.
The positive is that I stayed awake in Italy long enough to take this photo of Kelly Lin and Lau Ching-Wan:
Her hair is blocking Johnnie To’s profile
The negative: I totally shafted Ta Pu because of my nap attacks, and even though my memory seems to tell me that it was a film worth seeing, I can’t recall enough specifics to piece together why exactly I thought that. Rather than faking it and going for the three-paragraph review, I’ll come clean and admit the truth: I probably saw only 40% of the film in a lucid state, and my impressions are mostly gleamed from a personal fill-in-the-blank exercise involving the fest catalog, a blank notepad, and a diagram meant to describe the character relationships. I never did figure out all the details, but this is what I drew up:
I think it’s a dog
As punishment, I’ll promise to review movies responsibly, honestly, and with more integrity than I did last week. I’ll get started on it right away.
