Flash Point (2007)

Not so very long ago, I used to call Donnie Yen the "unsung Hero of Martial Arts movies". While this wasn't really true then, it happily has radically changed in the last couple of years, and now Yen is one of the most respected action choreographers and screen fighters since the glory days of Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan. He reached his apex 2005 in the rightly highly praised SPL where he co-starred with Sammo and Simon Yam. And so it isn't very surprising that he returns to that gritty world of cops, robbers and lethal fighters.

Original planned as a sequel or prequel to SPL, FLASH POINT tells the story of Hong Kong cop Ma Kwan (Yen) who is a loose cannon in the Lethal-Weapon-tradition and doesn't bother how much heads he has to bust to solve a case or catch a criminal. He is on the trail of a vietnamese gang and his colleague and friend Wilson (Louis Koo) was able to infiltrate the organisation as a mole. Finally a raid is maid and gang boss Archer can be arrested, while his two brothers Tony and Tiger escape.
To prevent, that their older brother will be convicted, they go to great lengths – and that means, they kill all witnesses for the prosecution. And one of the people on their hit-list is police mole Wilson.

The plot is an old and proven one – or in other words: we have seen this dozens of times before. The characters are quite clichéd, the storyline has nearly none surprises in store and the acting is adequate but nothing special either. So: Why bother? Well, for the same reason, Donnie Yen wanted to make this movie: to watch our hero to kick some serious ass in ways you haven't seen before. Yen turns away from traditional Kung Fu and embraces, what he calls "Mixed Martial Arts" and what I would call free form brawling. Kicks, elbows, Jiu-Jitsu, grappling, wrestling - everything that can be used in a fight is used. This isn't realistic (for what street fighter knows all these techniques and can use them in a fight?) but it looks authentic and makes for some very gritty and exciting action sequences.
The down side to this is that there is not nearly enough action and it comes too late. Director Wilson Yip (who directed SPL and the disappointing TIGER DRAGON GATE with Yen) uses more than half of the running time to get into the characters. since he borrows heavily from INFERNAL AFFAIRS, Louis Koo's police spy is the main character in this part of the movie, and he does a good job with a a variation of Tony Leung's character from IA. Sadly this whole undercover drama with the angst ridden cop is mostly quite boring and not very original. There are only one or two very skillfuly delivered suspenseful moments: one is, when Wilson's identity is discovered, while the other is a nearly Hitchcockian scene concerning a bomb, that is hidden inside a roasted duck. But aside from these scenes it is a relief when the violence of the last act breaks loose. And as soon as Donnie Yen starts his one-man war against the gang, it is nonstop action right until the end.

The last 20 minutes or so, are a brutal hand to hand fight between Ma Kwan and his nemesis Tony (Collin Chou). Those two give no quarter and you'll be on the edge of your seat for the whole sequence, while they knock each other against walls and over balustrades, inflict bone crushing and limb tearing violence and just want to kill each other!
This last part of the movie is completely satisfactory (if you can swallow the revenge and vigilante motive) and shows Donnie Yen at his best: innovative, ferocious and passionate about his art. Sadly by all his passion for showing new and innovative means to fight onscreen, he ands director Yip forgot, that a movie is more than a climactic fight. I hope with their next movie they will be able to deliver a more compelling story as a background for Donnie's action sequences.

Miracle on 1st Street (2007)

As a small child, Myeong Ran (Ha Ji Won) was witness to a brutal beating of her father in the boxing ring. As a result, the former champion became a disabled wreck of a man. About a dozen years later, the small family lives in a slum area, and Myeong Ran works hard to become a boxer and win the championship. Alas, she isn't very good: of her five fights she lost four – and the other one ended as a draw.

One day the gangster Pil Jee (Lim Chang Jung) appears in the shanty town. He has orders to clear the slum, so that a new commercial complex can be built there. While he makes the rounds to convince the inhabitants to leave, he meets some colourful people: There is a young pair of brother and sister that live more or less on their own, because their grandfather is in a hospital; then there is Seon-yu, a young woman who is desperate to get out of her poor live and who has quit her factory job to join a pyramid scheme. And then there is this scowling, bratty girl named Myeong Ran, that wants to become a boxer.

As might be expected, while he settles down to stay for a couple of days, the tough gangster gradually falls under the charm of slum live. He bonds with the small pair of siblings (played heartbreakingly real and at the same time cute by two very gifted child actors whose names I couldn't find). And can it take long, before he falls in love with the would-be boxer Myeong Ran?

It can, in fact, because this isn't quite as generic and stereotypically a comedy as you might expect. It isn't a true comedy at all. Director Yoon Je Gyun takes a break from his all out fun filled farces like SEX IS ZERO or MY BOSS, MY HERO and tries his hand with a somewhat deeper movie. Comedy, drama, melodrama, a touch of action and a dash of fairy tale fantasy are mixed quite uniquely to a satisfying and entertaining whole.
Yoon Je Gyun succeeds for the most part to steer clear of romanticising the lives of his poor characters: He makes it clear, that the cute children have to live from things, other people throw away; he shows, that gangsters aren't funny buffoons or Robin Hoods but brutal thugs (well, with exception of Pil Jee obviously); and even his boxing-obsessed heroine isn't a Rocky-like underdog who beats all odds.
The director permanently undercuts and subverts attempts of his movie, to settle into a specific genre, by shifting from comedy to love story to melodrama and back again. My favorite "subversive" scene is, what would be the money shot in a typically sports drama: Myeong Ran's Big Fight. As part of an action movie it isn't shot very convincingly, and actress Ha Ji Won isn't Korea's next action hero (despite the fact that she was quite convincing in DUELIST). But Yoon intercuts it with a brutal attack of thugs on helpless slum inhabitants. This mixing of two different kinds of violence robs the box fight of its "glory" and evokes very mixed feelings in the audience.
Yoon's constant shifting of tone works very well until the climax. There the problem of tying the divers strands together nearly lets the movie falter. And only a miracle saves it from failing...

MIRACLE ON 1ST STREET is a movie, that makes you laugh and cry. It has interesting characters, a clever plot that veers from the well traveled roads of romances. Somewhere in the background, MY SASSY GIRL nods approvingly: The new film isn't as good as the classic movie from 2001, but it shows encouraging signs of freshness and oddness. And there is a decided taste of yupki-ness involved, that please me, obviously, quite a bit.

Sukeban Deka - The Movie 1 & 2 (1987 & 1988)

While the recent YO-YO GIRL COP was a disappointment, it led to two things: I got myself a yo-yo (and I'm proud to say, I learned some basic tricks!) and I bought the only dvd-releases available with english subtitles of the "Sukeban Deka"-franchise. Since this series isn't widely known outside of japan, here a very short and rough outline (courtesy of wikipedia and the Sukeban Deka entry on Encyclopedia Idollica): "Sukeban Deka or "Delinquent Girl Cop" started as a manga series in the 70s and was made into a tv-series in the 80s. It ran from 1985 to 87 and is divided in three seasons, each of which starred a new girl. The heroine of the series is an girl cop that goes undercover to investigate crimes, committed at schools. Sort of like "Jump Street". But then, "Jump Street" never had pretty girls, wielding a steel yo-yo as their weapon of choice!
When the tv-series ran out, the stars of Sukeban II and Sukeban III were featured in a couple of movies.
When SUKEBAN DEKA – THE MOVIE starts, Yôko Godai(Yôko Minamino),the second Sukeban, has just resigned her undercover job to become a normal student. But then she stumbles into a refugee from a very strict school for delinquent boys and girls. she learns that the pupils in that school are being brainwashed and made into a sort of fanatical stormtroopers for a mastermind who wants to overthrow the government.

Yôko quickly rallies her tough friends - including her successor as sukeban, the enthusiastic young Yui (Yui Asaka) - and forms a plan to storm the school and free the pupils. And so, one night, five girls in bright pink coveralls paddle to the rocky, Alcatraz-like island and sneak to the fortress-like school. Oh, I forgot: before they start the sneaking, they change from their overalls to traditional japanese school uniforms – perhaps not the beast thing to wear in a raid....

Fights, double-crosses and sacrifices follow, including some cool yo-yo-wielding with an utterly ridiculous super-yo-yo.
The plot is very straight and to the point, the action not too shabby (nearly everything is obviously done by stunt-men), and Yôko Minamino and her friends are looking quite good with their yo-yos, marbles and bizarre weapons.

SUKEBAN DEKA - THE MOVIE 2: COUNTER-ATTACK FROM THE KAZAMA SISTERS not only has a long and tedious title, the movie itself is much less fun than the first film. Yui (Yui Asaka), the third Sukeban Deka, has been transferred to new "student police" that aims to stop bad behavior among youths, raids discos and bullies everybody who strays from the straight and narrow. One day, Yui has enough from the fascistic group and resigns. Now her former colleagues go after her and her sisters and Yui must go in hiding. She finds refuge with a group of outsiders that try to live an alternative lifestyle on an abandoned property. From there she starts - together with her new friends - her resistance-fight against the fascistic police-troop that plans - once more - to take over the government.

The action is much less believable than in the first movie and Yui isn't nearly as tough (and nimble) as Yôko. The plot is quite convoluted and the movie slower than the first outing. A nice time-waster, but not much more.

Interesting in both movies is the distrust of authority, they convey: The enemies are always law & order types, the only good persons are outsiders - Yôko's bad-girl friends in the first movie, the group of punk-like squatters in the second feature. Even the only nominally positive authority figure - the boss of the sukeban dekas - is a real bastard: He manipulates his girls and lies to them, only to steer them into suicide missions.

The SUKEBAN DEKA movies can't be compared to the "real" sukeban movies of the 70s. Those earlier exploitation films with Miki Sugimoto, Reiko Ike or Meiko Kaji were gritty films with a lot of blood, violence and even rapes, and the stars were girls with a real bad ass attitude. These later movies aim for a younger audience and entertain them pretty nicely. While I prefer the older flix, these juvenile movies have a certain charm - and a film with deadly yo-yos, thrown by pretty girls can't be all bad, can they?

Simply Actors (2007)

"Crap Acting!" This note is found on a killed undercover cop, and the police chiefs of Hong Kong decide that it would be good to brush up the acting skills of the troop. As a first try out, they send PC Man Long (Jim Chim) to a drama school. Man Long is thrilled, as he always dreamt of being an actor, but his new co-eds and the teachers are underwhelmed by his constant enthusiastic overacting.

There is another new pupil in class, the soft-core porn actress Dani Dan (Charlene Choi), who has two prominent talents and a very friendly personality. She and Man Long bond immediately and becomne partners for the coveted roles of Romeo and Juliet in the play, the class will stage at the end of the term.

SIMPLY ACTORS s mainly a show-case for comedian Jim Chi, who goes over the top as far as possible as the over enthusiastic wannabe actor. Ironically - or appropriately - Chim is a respected acting-coach, and one of his protegés is Charlene Choi. Choi is the main female lead but plays second fiddle to the Jim-Chim-Show. And she is really fine. I have seen nearly all of her pictures, starting with FUNERAL MARCH, and while at first the enjoyment was more of a "guilty pleasure", in the last couple of movies she really begins to shine as an actress: ALL ABOUT LOVE, DIARY, the not quite satisfactory SUPER FANS - Charlene really starts to widen her range. And playing a porn actress (with obviously fake breasts) is indeed far away from her usual clean cut, innocent girls, even though her "Dani Dan" has a certain lovable spontaneity and naivety that is not incongruous with her earlier screen persona.

But this film is not about Charlene Choi, it is about Jim Chim and - even more - about the art of acting and the love of an actor for his craft. The plot of the movie takes a back seat to (very funny) acting lessons for Man Long and the audience.
and these lessons are delivered by some of the biggest and beloved people in HK movie business: Eric Tsang and Anthony Wong have cameos as teachers (okay Wong plays a janitor, but he is a much better mentor than all the "real" teachers) and even Chapman To, who plays a gangster, gives Man Long very good advise.
But these are not the only cameos. Indeed the movie sometimes seems to consist of nothing but cameos. It starts right at the beginning with the police chiefs, discussing the acting abilities of their subordinates: all of them are played by movie directors. Off hand I recall Ann Hui and Vincent Kok. Later on, Alan Mak plays himself in a funny scene. but this are only the directors. In a street scene we see Sandra Ng, Isablla Leong, Josie Ho and numerous others in very small but funny parts.

The funny cameos and the string of Jim-Chim-mugs-it-up routines are the attraction and the weakness of the movie. One and a half hours of funny acting lessons and wacky over-acting tire you out and you begin to wonder how to wind up the movie in a satisfactory way. Well, the filmmakers came to a quite unfortunate solution: forget all the plot about undercover cops and start a NEW storyline about a gangster (Lam Suet)threatening the father of one of Man Long's co-eds. And that takes another half an hour to conclude.

Directors Chan Hing-Kai and Patrick Leung are too much in love with all the little details, performances and cameos and forget the movie as a whole. A much tighter script, more substantial roles and less cameos and primarily a better constructed story would have benefited the movie and we would have a really good film and not only SIMPLY ACTORS.

Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000)

Yun-ju (Lee Sung-jae) is an unemployed professor and lives in a depressing, shabby apartment complex. His pregnant wife is the breadwinner, while Yun-ju sits brooding at home, tries to figure out, how to get the money to bribe his way into a job - and gets slowly mad over the constant yelping and barking of a dog somewhere in a neighboring flat.

One day he just snaps and decides to kill that noisy mutt. Alas, Yun-ju is not the greatest of he-men and lacks the true killer's instinct: Not only he gets the wrong doggie, but the poor mutt ends in the cooking pot of the delighted janitor. But at last Yun-ju catches the guilty dog and throws it from the roof – and is watched by Hyeon-nam (Bae Du-na), a bored young estate clerk in the apartment complex. Luckily he escapes unrecognized, but his troubles are not over: Hyeon-nam does the Sherlock thing and tries to find the presumed serial dog killer, and Yun-ju is confronted with his wife's new pet: a dog…

My main reason to watch this movie was Bae-Du Na. I enjoyed her tremendously in LINDA LINDA LINDA and wanted to see more of her. This was her second feature after THE RING VIRUS - and she is great in it. She plays a directionless, lazy and bored young woman who is nevertheless quite lovable, and she fills her role with a lot of life and realism.
Her counter-part, Lee Sung-jae is equally good in portraying the frustrated Yun-ju, while the rest of the cast has to work with more sketchy, caricaturesque roles. Most fun of them is the gourmet-janitor and dog lover (Byeon Hie-bong is the actor's name, I think). But the many, seemingly one-dimensional roles (I have to mention Hyeon-nam's chubby pal, who was a very nice and fun character) form a surprisingly complex picture of the "biotop" they live in.

The movie is equal parts social satire, comedy and drama. It often gets quite absurd and the it becomes touching or biting (but there are no biting dogs in this movie!). First time director Bong Joon-ho went on to make the critically acclaimed MEMORIES OF MURDER and the smash hit THE HOST (with Bae Du-na in an important supporting role). all of his films are more complex and deeper than you would expect from the genres, he works in (comedy, thriller, horror). All undermine these genres in a subtle way and all of them have at least a touch of absurdity to them. While HOST goes the most over the top and MEMORIES has the best characterizations and goes deepest, I prefer his debut. The movie carefully balances his different aspects and is, for me, his most entertaining work - even though I love dogs very dearly (and NOT in the way, the janitor does).

Above the Law /Righting Wrongs (1986)

Prosecutor Jason Chan (Yuen Biao) is fed up with criminals who can't get touched by the law. So he takes it in his own hand to punish the guilty. and the verdict ist death, of course. Enter police woman Cindy (Cynthia Rothrock), a tough as nails cop who is assigned to find the mysterious killer.

Well, so far, so generic. The plot made me a bit uneasy with its theme of vigilantism, but I was surprised to find a movie that handled this subject quite sophisticated for a Hong Kong action flick of the 80s. This goes so far that Yuen Biao, the main protagonist, isn't handled as a true blue hero but as an obsessed, angry man. And the body count isn't only on the side of the bad guys either – there are a couple of violent deaths that I didn't foresee and that are very quite disturbing. Not an all around fun ride, the movie contains some rather bitter tones, that make the viewing more surprising and even a bit richer.

So much for the story, but this is supposed to be an action flick, so what about the fights? Well, if you got Yuen Biao, perhaps THE best screen fighter of the 80s, paired with Cynthia Rothrock in her early prime and directed by Corey Yuen you are in for some rock 'n' roll indeed! And the fabulous trio delivers in spades. Highlights are a fight between the two leads, a fight of Cynthia versus another woman (american martial artist Karen Sheperd) and the 15 minutes climax where the main villain takes on first Cynthia Rothrock and then Yuen Biao.

Between the fights, the movie drags a bit, now and then, and there was at least on time when I was confused about the plot (why are we suddenly in an airplane hangar?). But as a whole the picture is exciting and unexpected gritty. It also is a good showcase for Yuen Biaos skills as an actor, who handles the dramatic and emotional parts of his character very well. Rothrocks role is more constrained, but she is able to put together the feisty, tough and hot tempered character she played in so many pictures after this one. Director Corey Yuen has an important supporting role as Rothrock's police sidekick and shows that he is as good in front of the camera as behind it.

Two remarks about the history of the movie: There exists an alternate version of the picture, that has a more happy ending, but that sabotages the point, the movie tries to make.
The other note is about the title: In Europe the movie was called ABOVE THE LAW, and that is the reason, the Steven Seagal flick of the same title (that came out two years later) is known over here as NICO.

ABOVE THE LAW is a fine example of the golden age of Hong Kong action cinema and helped to launch the career of one of my personal favorites, Cynthia Rothrock. It has a gritty and violent tone that grips you, and the "hand made" action is a lot more exciting than the CGI-fights, that make most of today's action movies look like elaborate cartoons.

Eye in the Sky (2007)

What a pairing: Simon Yam versus Tony Leung Kar-fai! Those names alone would have made this movie a must-see for me. While Leung Kar-fai may be the more acclaimed and versatile actor of the two, I always had a special place in my heart for Yam. I used to call him the "unsung hero of Hong Kong movies", but in the last couple of years he got more attention - especially because he got a string of very good roles in films by Johnnie To: PTU, BREAKING NEWS, ELECTION, EXILED – heck he becomes nearly as much a member of To's stock company as Lam Suet! And he deserves it!
Here he plays once more a cop (he must have played hundreds of them), but this time there is a difference: His "Dog Head" Wong looks like a slob with a potbelly and a stubble on his chin. But that is partly camouflage, because he is an inspector with the surveillance unit of the Honk Kong CIB: their specialty is to shadow and observe people without being seen.
Wong's new mission is to find a gang that robs jewelery shops.

EYE IN THE SKY is more a police procedural that shows the work of the surveillance experts, than a thriller. The film begins with new team member Ho Ka-po (Kate Tsui) who gets the flattering codename "Piggy". By Wong's teaching her the ropes, we learn of the inner workings of police surveillance and get gradually in the case at hand.

The robbers are masterminded by Tony Leung, of course, so the expectations are high. but unfortunately this is no battle of the giants between Yam and Leung like in the first ELECTION movie. The focus is much more on police work than on a cat and mouse game between the two antagonists. Everything is interesting and even exciting, but there is no nerve wrecking tension, and only in a couple of scenes there is the sensation of real danger. So don't expect another ELECTION. Relax, lean back and enjoy a skillfully executed, excellent performed little thriller by first time director Yau Nai-Hoi. The movie often looks like a minor work by Johnnie To and that is no coincidence: Yau has written a lot of scripts for To and the master himself produced EYE IN THE SKY.

A word about the actors: Leung and Yam are up to their usual quality and especially Yam seems to enjoy the role of the fatherly, potbellied slob, he plays. Lam Suet (who is for Johnnie To's movies, what Elisha Cook jr. is for film noir ) has one of the greater supporting roles and fills it as only he can. And new comer Kate Tsui - and Miss Hong Kong 2004 – is surprisingly good in a very central role.

EYE IN THE SKY is a promising debut by Johnnie-To-protegé Yau Nai-Hoi. No master piece but an enjoyable crime picture to watch, while you wait for the next picture by sifu To himself.

Kidnap (2007)

A police operation to catch a kidnapper goes horribly wrong and the victim, a young boy, dies. Hui-yeung, the older sister of the killed child, gets traumatized, but a couple of years later she seems to have found her balance again and even is friends with the police officers who made the fatal mistake.
But now, Hui-yeung (Karena Lam) needs a lot of money to pay a treatment for her seriously ill husband, and becomes a kidnapper herself. Alas, her plan to get ransom from a millionaire misfires: the little boy she caught is not the son of the rich man but of inspector Ho Yuan-chun (Rene Liu) - the leader of a kidnapping task force and incidentally the woman whose team botched Hui-yuengs case.

This is a nice little cat-and mouse-game between two strong and desperate women and it is a show case for Karena Lam and Rene Liu. While Lam has played a couple of characters that balance precariously on the edge (INNER SENSES and KOMA come to mind), it is surprisingly Rene Liu (A WORLD WITHOUT THIEVES) who gives the stronger and tenser performance. Her police inspector and mother taps in unsuspected amounts of resourcefulness, while the stakes for her get higher and desperater. The character even has some darker traits you wouldn't usually expect.
Karena Lam is equally fine as the cool mastermind that has to adapt quickly to the changed scenery when her foolproof plan misfires. There is a certain tenderness and insecureness beneath her ruthlessness and you sympathize with her as much as you do with Rene Lius character.

Unfortunately there are some flaws in the script that diminish the efforts of the excellent actors: director Law Chi-leung (DOUBLE TAP, INNER SENSES, KOMA) relies too much on lucky (or unlucky) coincidences that more than once amount to veritable deus ex machina effects. And than there is a that very amateurish looking stunt/cg-effect near the end....
But for the most part of the movie, Law keeps the tension up and there are only one or two instances when the pace slackens and the characters get a bit lost in their sub-plots.

All in all a fast and often exciting thriller with good performances, a not so good script and a quite weak ending that calls for some goodwilll by the viewer.

Yo-Yo Girl Cop (2006)

Well, I should have known better, when I read "A Kenta Fukasaku Film", but how could I resist a movie about a movie about a girl going undercover in a tough highschool, armed with a Yo-Yo? But the son of the great Kinji Fukasaku (BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANIY) proves that the destroying of his father's BATTLE ROYALE by making the utterly bad sequel was no accident but proof of his lack of talent as a filmmaker.

YO-YO GIRL COP is the revival of a film- and tv-series from ther 80s, and I don't know much about the earlier incarantions of the yo-yo-wielding girls. But you don't need no background information to understand the new movie. There is a new website that teaches kids how to make bombs and brainwashes them into suicide bombers. After a female undercover cop blows herself up, the police forces the tough daughter of the original Yo-Yo Girl Cop into investigating the school, where the killed cop played the role of a student. Why does the police enlist that girl, who gets the moniker "Saki Asamiya", when she hasn't any training and an extremely bad attitude to boot? Well, ask Kenta Fukasaku....

J-Pop singer Aya Matsuura is cast as Saki, her main adversary and two more important roles are played by the members of pop group "Biyuuden" and all four girls are better than one would think. Especially Rika Ishikawa is nicely menacing as a bad girl with a sweet smile and a deadly Yo-Yo. And the Girl Cop herself, Aya Matsuura, can run and strike good poses, even if her fighting and Yo-Yo-wielding aren't so hot. But with a good director and an acceptable screenplay, she would have made a fun action heroine - in a strictly popcorn sense, of course.

But alas, the plot is utterly diffuse and scattered. The movie needs twenty minutes to start (even though we have a nice fight scene in the first couple of minutes), and is very unfocused. Even the action scenes are not very satisfactory. Okay, it is nice and ironic, when our tough Yo-Yo cop gets hit by her own weapon, when she first uses it, but it is only funny once. An action hero needs to be competent, even in a trashy action comedy.
Worst of all are the sociological and political implications, that are nearly as harebrained and dumb as in BATTLE ROYALE II with its al-Quaida-like rebels without a brain. Here we have to swallow that the pure existence of a website lets every viewer become an anachist and suicide bomber. Well, even V FOR VENDETTA, a somewhat better film, lost me with that witless statement that you can start a revolutin just be telling people they havve to rebel.

So, to wrap this thing up, what do we have here: A wannabe trashy nobrainer with a cute and constantly frowning girl in miniskirts and with a yo-yo; some fight scenes, one or two of wich are at least fun to watch, and a quite inept director who seems to be the son of Ed Wood and not of Kinji Fukasaku. Notwithstanding this underwhelming film I hope that there will be more YO-YO GIRL COP in the future, because I like the idea very much – and Aya isn't a worse action actress than Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu (but don't get me started on their miserabel CHARLIE'S ANGELS abominations).

Spider Lilies (2007)

While pretending to be a love story, SPIDER LILIES in fact is a film about damaged people. They are not damaged in a physical sense but all the protagonists are carrying heavy psychological burdens. First we have Jade (Rainie Yang), a young girl who lives in a shabby apartment with her senile grand mother. She makes her living as a web-cam girl. That means she chats and strips online for money. One day, she decides to get a tattoo, to add a little spice to her allure.
Enter Takeko (Isabella Leong), the owner of a tattoo shop. Takeko doesn't speak much and is a very introvert young woman. Jade is instantly attracted to Takeko and tries to become friends with her. She wants a tattoo of spider lilies, that reminds her of her first love, as she tells Takeko. But Takeko refuses the request. Now we discover that Takeko has exactly such a tattoo, that covers her whole left arm and we get a first glimpse that these two girls have kown each other before. Jade knew this the monent she saw Takeko, but the other woman doesn't remember - or at least acts like she doesn't.
The story of Jade and Takeko, the quite openly proclaimed love of the one girl for the other and the struggle of the other one to come to grips with her emotions, is the center of the movie. In long flashbacks we learn of their past, of the time when Jade was nine years old and Takeko about fifteen. It is a heartbreaking story, that sometimes borders on kitsch and clichee, but is very effective told. We learn of the deep hurts that are buried in the minds and souls of the two girls and that influenced their lives all these years.
Three more characters, all of them male, complete the main cast of the film: Takeko's young brother who is deeply traumatized by the same event that led to Takeko's tattoo, and acts mentally retarded, is the most important of them. The other two are a young punk who wants more and more tattoos from Takeko, to overplay his insecurities, and a cop with a bad stutter, who investigates the illegal internet firm of Jade's web-cam act. He only sees the girl on the internet and chats anonymously with her to get evidence for her illicit behavior, but falls deeply in love with the cyber-princess.
There we have it: five persons with traumas or psychological deficits, that cross paths. The story of Jade and Takeko is the core of the movie, as I said, and it is told very sensitive and with great love for the protagonists. Thankfully, the fact, that it is a lesbian love story isn't exploited or made as something out of the ordinary - the characters are interesting enough without that. This, obviously is a good thing, but it goes a bit too far. While Takeko's lesbianism is handled very matter of fact (we even see one of her earlier lovers in a flashback), Jade's sexual orientation is left a bit vague. Is she really a lesbian or is she only attracted to Takeko, because she has fond memories of her and wants to recapture the feeeling of belonging and security, the older girl gave her so many years ago?
Don't get me wrong: I don't question Jade's reasons for falling in love with Takeko. Two people can fall for each other from a multitude of reasons and all of them are legitimate and only the two concerened persons are allowed to question them. But in a film I'd like to know these reasons to feel with the characters.
Well, it's only a minor quibble of a very compelling, bittersweet and thought provoking movie. The two main actresses are doing a fine job in getting their characters across. I have seen Isabella Leong in the silly (but enjoyable) comedy BUG ME NOT and the horror spoof THE EYE 10 and thought her just another pop star that tries to make some light weight movies. But then she popped up in much more demanding roles like ISABELLA and DIARY and it became obvious that she takes her acting quite seriously - and with very rewarding results. I hope to see more of her in the future. That also goes for taiwanese pop singer Rainie Yang: She is the real star of this movie and brings a lot to her complex character. I can't say much about her, because this was the first movie I saw her in (not very astonishing since it seems to be her first real movie), but what I saw is very promising.

Ming Ming (2006)

Zhou Xun is one of the two or three most popular young chinese actresses, the other being Zhang Ziyi and perhaps Zhao Wei. I saw her in a big supporting role in THE BANQUET and then, getting curious about her, in her earlier film A WEST LAKE MOMENT. The latter, a bitter-sweet contemplation about the modern chinese youth, made me a fan of Zhou Xun and so I was eager to see her new movie MING MING.
After watching it, I'm still very much in awe of her as an actress, but the film wasn't sadly not as godd as I had hoped.
Xun plays a double role as Ming Ming - a fabulous martial artist and clever crook - and as Nana, her unwitting look-alike. Ming Ming is a black clad, black haired crook who fell in love with the mysterious D (Daniel Wu). He promises his undying love (or something like this) for 5 Mio. Dollars and a trip to Harbin. Well, Ming Ming gets that money from her gangster boss Cat, who is more or less willing to give it to her. But then she also robs a mysterious locked wooden box, and Cat is desperate to get it back. Ming Ming flees and gives the money to her admirer Ah Tu (Tony Yang) with the instructions to go to Shanghai, where she expects to find D. On his flight Tu meets a girl, he thinks is Ming Ming, even so her hair is red. This is Nana who is flabbergasted at first, but she doesn't confess to Tu that she isn't Ming Ming, for she realizes, that the girl she is mistaken for, is following D. and D is also Nana's lover.
While Nana and Tu travel to Shanghai, followed by Cat's henchmen, Ming Ming stays in the shadows, observes the proceedings and helps secretly, when the gangsters get to near to the fleeing couple.
MING MING is a potpourri of a different genres, styles and intentions. The first twenty minutes of the movie, including a long fight scene between Ming Ming and Cat's gang, is overly stylized and annoyed my with its pretentiosness enormously. Fortunately, director Susie Au gets a lot more down to earth later in the film, and there are a lot of fine moments between Nana and Tu. Despite the title, it is mostly their story that the movie narrates. And here Zhou Xun shows her strength as an actress. The scenes with Ming Ming and with the elusive D are important for the plot but struck me mostly as a sort of macguffin. They are a sort of main motive that is equally overly pretentious filmed and themed, so that the story of Nana and Tu can enfold.
This all may sound a bit vague, but i don't want to get to deep into the plot, that contains one or two mysteries and revelations I won't spoil. In the whole the movie is only partly successful. Is has a nice road movie element with good character parts for Xun (as Nana) and Toiny Yang. Then there is a very pretentious and nearly ludicrous plotline about D and Ming Ming, that is filled with losts of wire- and CGI-fu, hectic cutting and some weird visual ideas. Well, it is Susie Au's first movie and she obviously enjoys playing with all her new bright toys. Xun's role as Ming Ming consists mainly of brooding in the semi-dark, looking cool and do some crazy fights - nothing to stretch her artistic muscles overly. The same can be said about Daniel Wu. Someone called Wu Hong Kong's Keanu Reeves, and that comparison (even if it sounds a little harsh) isn't so bad: Both are very handsome and their good looks often stands in the way of good roles and even good performances. But Daniel Wu has, in my opinion, made more effort - and with better results - to get past his beefcake image. In this movie, however, he isn't more than just okay in a role that is not much more than decorative.

I'm a Cyborg but That's OK (2006)

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS blew me away, when I saw it three years ago. It is - hands down - the most exciting and scary korean horror thriller i've yet seen. And main actress Lim Su-jeong was so good I tried to follow her career. But, alas, somehow she fell beneath my radar with movies like …ING and SAD MOVIE, that just weren't my cup of coffee. So it was quite a revelation to find her in Park Chan-wook's new movie, playing a mentally ill girl who thinks, she's a cyborg. But that's OK, because she's the best cyborg (or nutcase) I've seen for a long time.
The movie's title contains most of the premise of the tale, Park Chan-wook tells: The young girl Young-goon is checked into a mental ward, after she tries to connect herself with an electricity cable. There she won't eat anything but only licks at batteries, because, you see, she's a cyborg, and cyborg don't eat but get charged by electricity. Sadly she is slowly starving to death in this way....
The ward is filled with excentric and colourful nutcases - probably not very realistically but funny and interesting to look at. There's a guy who is so humble that he only walks backward (protocol at the royal court, someone explains) and then there's a woman who views her surroundings only via a mirror and who likes to sing folk music from the swiss alps (including yodeling). And then there's a young man (played by K-Pop star Rain) who mostly wears a bunny mask and who is considered a thief by all the patients. But he not only steals things but also skills and characteristics. For instance he steals the humble behaviour of the above mentioned patient, who becomes very forward until he gets his stolen attributes back. Il-soon, the thief, is fascinated with our cyborg girl who speaks to electric appliances, while wearing the dentures of her granny. And Young-goon is attracted by the thief because she wants him to steal her sympathy and compassion. For Young-goon wants to kill all "white 'uns", all doctors and nurses, because they put her granny into a mental ward. And she will kill them with the machine guns that are built into her finger tips, as soon as she can fully charge herself with electricity.
Hm, nearly sounds like another entry in Park's "Vengeance"-Series, doesn't is?
Well, it isn't. Instead it is a sweet, disturbing, funny touching movie about the relationship of two mentally ill people. While it isn't very realistic in it's description of mental illness and the causes of the defects of the protagonists, it depicts them and their very own world(s) very detailled and without discrimination. Il-soon's character was the most fascinating for me: He knows that Young-goon is loony and tries to help her. But at the same time he is able to accept her loony world and can see with her eyes.
The concept of reality and the very subjective and personal understanding of it by different people seems to be the main interest for Park Chan-wook in this movie. And he obvioulsy enjoys very much to show us the realities of his protagonists in bizarre and totally over the top scenes that only happen in the heads of Young-goon and Il-soon. There are no thriller elements in this story, like you would expect them from the director of JSA and OLD BOY, but the movie does have it's scary and even bloody moments, and they are an important part of the story. But the core of the film are Young-goon's and Il-soon's reception of the world and their tentative opening up to each other.
A last word about the actors: Rain does a very credible job (his popstar charisma fits perfectly with his likable character) and the other patients are fabilous as well. But Lim Su-jeong just owns this movie with her tour de force performanc. She is absolutely perfect and you can't help falling in love with her character. I'm very happy to have "found" the girl from A TALE OF TWO SISTERS again, and I hope I will see much for of her in the future.

Saving Face (2004)

Wil (Michelle Krusiec) is a modern young american woman in her late twenties. Her work as a surgeon in a clinic is highly regarded. Everything would be fine, if she only had a husband, or at least a boyfriend - or so her mother Hwei-Lan (Joan Chen) thinks. She comes from a very traditional chinese family and lives with her parents, since Wil's father died fifteen years ago. Hwei-Lan constantly tries to set Wil up with eligible chinese men, but her daughter likes none of them. You see, Wil has a secret: she is a lesbian, and she just found her dream girl. And then the young woman finds out, that her mother also has something kept from her family: she is pregnant by a man she won't name. Her self-righteous and extremely conservative father immediatley throws Hwei-Lan out of his house, and so Wil suddenly has to take her mother in.
Wil's life becomes very complicated and nerve-racking all of a sudden: She can't bring her friend home, for mother shall not know of her sexual preferences. This girl, the beautiful ballerina Vivian (Lynn Chen) gets more and more frustrated with their relationship, because Wil is reluctant to show herself with her lover in the public. And the fact that Vivian is the daughter of Wil's boss makes this mess even more complicated...
The debut movie of director Alice Wu (who also wrote the script) draws a very convincing picture of asian americans. The struggle between cultural identity and heritage and the modern life in the USA rings true and is depicted with affection and a lot of humor. Wil is thoroughly americanized, so it seems, but she can't shake off the expectations of her traditional family. Hwei-Lan on the other hand, who came with her parents to America, is steeped deeply in the traditonal chinese family values, but breaks them by having an affair and getting (unintentionally) pregnant. These two women are the core of the movie and the actresses are fully up to their task. Michelle Krusiec is enchanting (and terribly cute) as the self-confident young doctor who becomes quiet awkward when confronted with the emotional problems of her mother or - even more so - her own relationship with Vivian and her demands. And Joan Chen excels in the role of a woman who is ripped out of her quiet life and is confronted with the sin of having a child out of wedlock and at the same time having to accept that her daughter is a lesbian. Two very strong and dominant characters that overshadow Lynn Chen a bit, but that's not her fault. The dynamic between mother and daughter is much more crucial for the movie.
I have seen not enough movies with Joan Chen, who made herself rare in the last years, but I just a couple of weeks ago had a lot of fun watching WHAT'S COOKING (2000) by Gurinder Chadha. In that movie Joan also plays a "normal" asian woman and mother who has to balance traditional and modern values. Quite different from the fighters, femme fatales and villainesses Hollywood has given her too often - even though i enjoyed movies like SALUTE TO THE JUGGER (with Rutger Hauer, one of my heroes). Michelle Krusiec was a new face for me, but I hope to see a lot more of her – and not only because of her looks... I'm quite excited to read that she will be co-starring with the great Michelle Yeoh in her next film, the drama FAR NORTH.

SAVING FACE is a funny and touching movie with a big heart and I enjoyed it very much. Let me tell you my favorite scene to finish this off: Hwei-Lan explores her new neighborhood and goes to a video store. After asking for asian movies she is referred to a small board where she only finds THE LAST EMPEROR (a film Joan Chen starred in) and porn flix with Asia Carrera. In the next scene we see the slightly flabbergasted Hwan-Lei watching the porn movie and then you hear a male voice from her telly shouting "Who's your asian daddy?"
I found myself rolling on the floor.

The Golden Girls (1995)

No, this is not about three old ladies in Miami. These "golden girls" are two young and beautiful actresses who dream of becoming movie stars in Hong Kong: The time are the Sixties and Mei Ball (Anita Yuen) and her friend Lulu (Ada Choi) work as extras for the booming movie industry. The aspiring script writer Chun Wai (Lau Ching Wan) is impressed withs Mei's dedication even for her tiny parts and as well for her strong character. He falls for her and tries to get her bigger parts, but the headstrong and dignified Mei Ball isn't very popular with the directors and so her more beautiful friend Lulu rises to stardom. Now Chun Wai and Lulu try to push Mei Ball's career, but after she chases off a lecherous director with an axe, she is fired. She leaves the country and when she returns after some months, Chun Wai and Lulu are a couple...
This early movie by Joe Ma (LOVE UNDERCOVER, FEEL 100%) is a fine bit of nostalgia from the golden days of Hong Kong's entertainment industry and filled with costumes, hair styles and zeitgeist of the Sixties. A candid and funny look behind the curtain of classic studios like Shaw or Cathay is coupled with a tender love triangle without a bad guy. Anita Yuen is very good as the bold Mei who eventually finds stardom in tomboy roles (a bit like the one she played in HE'S A WOMAN, SHE'S A MAN), and Lau Ching Wan excels (as usual) as the mentor cum lover of both young actresses. His role reminded me a bit of the recent MY NAME IS FAME (2006) that brought him the Hong Kong Film Award as Best Actor.
I really enjoy Joe Ma's movies. He is a gifted author and director for comedies and romances and brings out the best in actors. Pop stars Miriam Yeung (COLOUR OF SOUND) and Charlene Choi (DIVA AH HEY, SUMMER BREEZE OF LOVE) made their best films with him and he nearly always delivers real feel-good-movies. Never overly intellectual or demanding, they make for some fluffy entertainment with a lot of emotions and (usually) a happy end. And I'm a sucker for happy endings.

Shogun’s Samurai (1978)

This will be a bit rambling, because I'm still trying to make up my mind about this movie. But what the heck: this is a blog and not a critical essay...
It's 1624 and the Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada has died. His elder son Iemitsu would be the logical and traditional choice as his successor, but he is ugly and has a bad stammer. The younger son Tadanaga is handsome, intelligent and quite sensibe - a better choice for a ruler, as his parents and quite a lot of the clan leaders and daimiyos think. For Yagyu Tajima, an influential and powerfull samurai and the fencing teacher of Iemitsu however, the rightful and lawful shogun can only be Iemitsu! It transpires, that the old shogun was poisened by the followers of Iemitsu, and a bitter power struggle begins. Yagyu Tajima and his children, among them the mighty swordsman Jubei (Sonny Chiba), attack and assassinate supporters of Tadanaga, but his fraction isn't scrupulous either. And in the background, the nobles of the imperial court fuel the undeclared war between the brothers in the hope that the Tokugawa shogunate will collapse and the emperor will regain his old power.
Director Kinji Fukasaku isn't interested in a classic samurai epic with a good guy fighting the evil doers. Are Iemitsu and his grey eminence Yagyu doing the right thing in killing the supporters of "usurpator" Tadanaga? Or is Tadanaga only guided by responsibility when he tries to become shogun? And are the brutal deeds both sides commit justified bei the goals they aim for? Yagyu is the most extreme player in this struggle: he sacrifices one child after the other, only concerned with making Iemitsu the new shogun. The movie never clearly takes sides in this struggle and the viewer is left alone, with whom he should sympathize. In the end you realize that there is no one to cheer for but only some people to sympathize with, because they are merciless sacrificed by the powerfull.
Kinji Fukasaku (BATTLE ROYALE) rose to fame in the 70s with BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY, a series of Yakuza movies, and that name would fit SHOGUN'S SAMURAI as well. "Kill your brother, if he is in your way, kill your parents and kill even buddha", Yagyu tells the reluctant Iemitsu.

I'm not sure if I liked the movie. Its gritty philosophy and cynicism is quite refreshing after so many tales of the noble samurai fighting for the good of some poor peasants or going into certain death, because honor and loyality demand it. Here it all boils down to power as a motive. But while that may be intellectually satisfying, the distance to the characters makes it hard to feel anything for them. The acting is quite good. Kinnosuke Nakamura is great as menacing, singleminded Yagyu and Chiba plays Jubei (a legendary samurai who was often featured in movies, books and mangas) in his typically gruff but honest fashion. Hiroyuki Sanada and "Sister Street Fighter" Etsuko Shihomi (love these flix!) - both members of Chiba's JAC-team - have smaller but not un-important parts and act them quite well. The fighting is provided by JAC and is up to the high standard of that superb stunt- and action-team

I'm not an expert for japanese history, but I somehow doubted the historical correctness of Fukasaku's movie, so I looked it up: To make it short - the names of the featured people are correct, the whole plot is fake. Even the characters of the rivaling brothers seems to be completely false. Apparently the "handsome and noble" brother Tadanaga was quite a scoundrel and after some crmes and misconducts was condemned to commit seppuku. But, who knows? History is written by the winner...
Kinji Fukasaku probably changed all the historical facts deliberately to make his points more profoundly.

Linda Linda Linda (2005)

Three days until the first gig in a school festival, and desaster strikes a japanese girl band: The guitarrist breaks her fingers and two of the band members have a serious fall out. But Kei is determined to hold the band together and to play on that festival. She and her two remaining friends decide to do some songs by the japanese punk rock band The Blue Hearts, but there is a slight problem: While Kei will try to learn to play guitar in three days, the band still needs a singer. Enter korean exchange student Son. She can barely speak japanese and the offer to sing comes for her and for Kei - who does the offering - as quite a shock, but somehow the four girls stick to it and start working on the songs. So we have a band with a guitar player that never played the instrument before and a singer, who can't really speak the language. If that isn't punk, what is?
All right, LINDA LINDA LINDA hasn't got the most original plot in the world and comparisons to movies like SCHOOL OF ROCK or especially SWING GIRLS are unavoidable. But while the last mentioned flick is the stronger one, LINDA LINDA LINDA has a lot to offer to make that tried formula into a fun movie. First of all there is the music: "Linda Linda" is a very catchy tune by The Blue Hearts, a classic japanese punk rock band, that can be compared to The Clash. By the end of the movie you can't get the refrain ("Linda Linda, Linda Linda Lindaaa") out of your head. Very nice fun punk, indeed.
And then there are the actresses. The headstrong and stubborn Kei is played by Yu Kashii, who recently was seen in DEATH NOTE (btw: Ken'ichi Matsuyama, who plays "L" in that movie has a small part here). Her smoldering and brooding bad girl attitude seems to channel the great Meiko Kaji (LADY SNOWBLOOD and especially FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION) and she even looks a little bit like that fabulous star from the 70s. The second important role is of course that of the korean student Son, played by Bae Du-na. Son is often bewildered about her friends, about japanese customs (and the language) and seems to wonder, what she got herself into. Since she can't speak japanese very good she mostly observes her surroundings silently. Bae is very good in getting her character across without many words, and you can feel the mixture of stage fright, excitement and joy, when she stands behind the microphone and starts singing "Linda Linda". Very fine actress! I didn't recognize her, and when I looked her up in the IMDB I was very astonished to find that she was 26 when she made this film, playing a 15 or 16 years old teenager. She had a role in Park Chan-wook's SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGEANCE, starred in the mildly entertainig comedy SAVING MY HUBBY und was the "reluctant archer" in the blockbuster THE HOST, but I consider LINDA LINDA LINDA to be her best work as an actress.
The other actors are also okay, but they haven't enough to do to make them very memorable (for instant bassist Nozomi, played by musician Shiori Sekine in her screen debut). Drummer Kyoko (Aki Maeda, Star of BATTLE ROYALE) has a sweet subplot about first love, but that detracts a bit from the movie's main motive and slows it down. The main fault of the movie is exactly this: in some parts it is just too slow and in the whole too long. Nearly two hours are quite a stretch for a simple story like this. But all is forgotten, when Son finally stands on the stage and the band starts with "Linda Linda"! (So okay, that is a bit of a spoiler, but really: there is only one way, this sort of movie _can_ end).
If you enjoy the movie, check out SWING GIRLS: different music (swing, obviously) but equally fun und an even better film.

Shadow Warriors - Complete First Season (Hattori Hanzo - Kage no Gundan)

I love Quentin Tarantino!
Not (only) because of his own movies but because he opened the floodgates for so many delightful trashy and not so trashy films from the past. Without his enthusiasm for all things exploitation, asian and gleeful gory, there would be much less awareness of the great eras of blaxploitation and japanese violent cinema of the 70s. KILL BILL is not my favorite Tarantino-movie, but it triggered a wave of re-releases of asain cult classics, that have kept me happy for quite some time. The latest offering that can be contributed to that movie is the 7-disc set of SHADOW WARRIORS, a tv-series from 1980, starring the one and only Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba, perhaps the biggest japanese action star of the 70s and 80s.
The Setting is about 1650 in Edo, one of the central metropols of Japan. Some twenty or thirty years ago, the Tokugawa Shogunate was established and a long period of small and bigger wars has ended. Some years ago, the ninja clan Iga was falsely accused of treason and destroyed. The few survivors and their offspring live in hiding or under false names all over the country. Clan leader Hattori Hanzo (the third with this name) poses as owner of a bathhouse in Edo, the central metropole of japan. By day, he is a gambling, playful and slightly bumbling guy, but in the night, he and his small group of loyal helpers change into very cool black ninja-uniforms and punish all evil doers.
This is an absolute amazing series and one of my instant favorites. The production standards are very high - the ancient japan, the costumes: everything looks great. The action is provided by Chiba and his own stunt team, the Japan Action Club, and these guys really know what they are doing. Best of all, of course is Chiba, when he goes in "fighting-mode", by joining his two swords and becoming a killing machine - awesome!
But there is not only action in this series. The episodes also contain a very fine blend of drama, comedy and political intrigue. Occasionally, the episodes get very gritty indeed: whole villages massacred, vile deeds by incredible villains - and don't expect all our heroes to survive until the last episode. But then again you'll find fun episodes with a lot of comedy and of course, since Hanzo owns a bathhouse, there is quite a lot of eye candy for male viewers (there are of course also some quite naked man, but I can't say, if these will be considered hunks by the femals audience).
The love-hate relationship between Hattori Hanzo and Okou, a female ninja from the rival Koga clan, is allowed to change and develope over the course of the series quite a bit, and there are some other story-threads that are continued, in the background over many episodes.
To describe all the other central cast members would be too long, so just let me mention Okiri, the homely hairdresser who is determined to gain Hanzos love, and who provides a lot of comedy relief for the series. She is played by Kiki Kirin and I recently saw her in KAMIKAZE GIRLS as grandmother of the lolita-girl. Nice to see her still going strong.
Ah, yes one last small detail: Guest star in one of the episodes is Shihomi Etsuko - "Sister Streetfighter" herself.
SHADOW WARRIORS has my highest recommendation as one of the best, and most entertaining adventure series I have seen in a long time.

Bizarre girls and old boys - korean kraze

My current obsession with korean movies started with some very different films: The actionthrillers SHIRI,NOWHERE TO HIDE and the romantic comedy MY SASSY GIRL.
Here is a list with them and my other korean favorites (in no particular order).

Thriller
SHIRI - The first korean thriller I saw, and it showed me that Hollywood and Hong Kong had no monopoly on exciting action
NOWHERE TO HIDE - A very exciting and fast cops-and-robbers flick, that left me on the edge of my seat for most of the running time. Very stylish filmed.
JSA / OLD BOY / SYMPATHY FOR MRS. VENGEANCE - Everything by Park Chan-wook is fine with me, but I loved JSA the most. Song Kang-Ho (star of THE HOST) is very strong here - but so are all the actors.

Comedies/Romances
MY SASSY GIRL - This one started a whole genre in Korea - and my love for romantic comedies (romcoms for short). This sort of amour fou is in turns sweet, funny, melodramatic, bizarre und completely enjoyable.
THE HARMONIUM IN MY MEMORY - A 10 year old film with Jeon Do-Yeon, who just won "Best Actress" in Cannes. After seeing this film and MY MOTHER THE MERMAID I became a fan of Jeon.
MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER - Funny with great action scenes and a clever script. There is a plot twist near the end that I don't care for much, but altoghether one of the best korean gangster-comedies. (The two sequels are quite a bit weaker)
IL MARE - Was remade as THE LAKE HOUSE with Sandra Bullock and master-thespian Keanu Reeves, but the original is so much better. Very romantic and well written, and the fantastic element is well integrated.
ALL FOR LOVE - I'm sucker for LOVE ACTUALLY, and this is a similar but, in my mind, superior film.
ATTACK THE GAS STATION - If Tarantino were korean and in a very playful mood...
TWO COPS 1 + 2 - Not your typical buddy-movies. The first is with Ahn Sung-Kee and Park Joong-hoon (two of my favorite actors) and has some biting humor. The second still has Park and more humor than satire.

Horror
MEMENTO MORI - Best of the "Whispering Corridors" movies
A TALE OF TWO SISTERS - Great, disturbing horrorthriller
R-POINT - Cool mix of war movie and horror
SAVE THE GREEN PLANET - Bizarre and often spine-tingling

That's it - my favorite korean movies. I'm sure i mist some important ones, but what the heck. And then there are some, that probably would be in the list, if had seen them yet. I have, for instance, high hopes for KING AND THE CLOWN, I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK and THIS CHARMING GIRL.
I'll let you know how I liked them, as soon as I had time to see them.

And so it begins…

Hi,
if you follow this blog you'll know what one specific german male in his 40s likes to watch and read. You'll find him quite opinionated and frank in his judgments, I think.
I hope that some day there will be a lot of comments on enjoyable movies of all possible genres (well, perhaps not so many about westerns), and passionate rants about bad movies. What I consider to be bad, you'll have to find out by yourselves – it won't necessarily conform with the critics or the mainstream of movie fans.
There probably won't be many long reviews, and my comments won't always be very up to date. I intend this blog to show my actual viewing history, so if I discover a movie that's when I'll write about it, may it be 20 years old or just released.

The first few posts will consist of movies I care for a lot and should give you an idea what you can expect here. After that I'll mainly stick to movies and books that I just watched/read. At least, that's the plan…

Ah, yes: and you'll probably find a lot of funny english, since I understand the language much better than I write in it.

Right-o, lets have some fun!