I picked this up from the usual lists of notable films since it was aired at some of the world’s most prestigious film festivals and thought it was fairly serious Japanese family drama. However it turned out to be a very light watch, being an adaptation of a manga. In fact, despite being a live-action film that it feel so much like a Japanese anime that I suspected this was the case.
It feels like it’s been ages since the last time I watched a proper, mainstream Hong Kong film while at the same I’ve had plenty of posts on this blog about Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese films. That is of course a reflection of the territory’s fading prominence. Just as China is becoming an economic center of the world so too is it slowly becoming a cultural center as well just as other superpowers before it have done. So it’s very apropos that this is precisely the theme of Trivisa, a film that was produced by Johnnie To but directed by a trio of first-time directors Frank Hui, Jevons Au and Vicky Wong.
So we’re now so on top of current releases that we’re watching a prominent 2017 release. It’s so new in fact that it doesn’t even have a proper Wikipedia page yet. This is a documentary by Jeff Orlowski who became known a few years back for Chasing Ice. We didn’t watch that one but we might go back for it in a bit though if this title is anything to go by, it must be a horribly depressing experience.
Despite it being a rather conventional zombie film, I rather liked Train to Busan and so I had high hopes for this animated prequel by the same director Yeon Sang-ho, especially after hearing that it’s better than the better known live-action film. Despite being a prequel, it was made and released after Train to Busan so it was reasonable to expect that it would indeed be better. Unfortunately this was very much not the case.
Paul Newman is one of Hollywood’s legendary actors but I don’t believe I’ve ever watched any significant film that he has been in until now. Cool Hand Luke turned out to be an excellent choice and I liked it so much that I immediately went to check if director Stuart Rosenberg, who I have never heard of before this, was another underappreciated director with a rich filmography to mine. Unfortunately while his body of work is indeed respectable this seems to be his best film.
This is one of the oldest Chinese films I’ve watched yet and I think the earliest one I’ve seen about the Cultural Revolution. In fact this was made so early that I was taken aback by what I perceived to be a very vicious critique of Communism and wondered how this could possibly have been allowed. I believe I managed to work out the logic in it later in the film however.
One of the cool things about keeping myself up to date about the world of cinema is that we’ve actually watched the films that established the career of director Taika Waititi before he hit the big time with this latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Having watched both What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, it was possible to recognize the director’s voice role in here but also cameos from his usual cast and numerous influences from his native New Zealand.