Category Archives: Films & Television

Films & Television, Science Fiction

Inception is a disappointment

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As usual, I don’t write film reviews, only critiques and analyses, so get the hell away from this post if you have yet to watch this film. Come back only after you’ve done so.

Anyone who reads this blog should know that Christopher Nolan is easily my favorite director and that I eagerly look forward to every film that he makes. This has been true ever since I first discovered Memento. Since then, I’ve watched every one of his films, except for The Following, which I understand is sort of a student film made on a shoestring budget. With the sole exception of Insomnia, which, being an adaptation of a Norwegian film, is competent but otherwise unremarkable, all have been stellar.

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Films & Television

Ip Man 2

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Despite all of the bad things that I had to say about the first film, Ip Man was still genuinely enjoyable due to the freshness and authenticity of its martial arts scenes. I am sad to say that this is not true of the sequel. While there is certainly a frisson of thrill as one anticipates the showdown between Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung, the overall quality of the fights in the sequel is dramatically lower, making it a thoroughly average martial arts film.

One of the reasons why the first film was so exciting was because it featured martial artists with styles that were visibly and palpably different one from the other, even to the inexpert eyes of martial arts laymen. This was possible because the film frequently used full body shots of the actors and long camera takes. This contributed to the feeling of the fights being authentic and grand, making every punch and every kick feel real and visceral.

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Films & Television

Little Big Soldier

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Like so many Chinese families these days, we ended up going to the cinema on the very first day of Chinese New Year. Both my wife and I were unenthusiastic as we now have very low expectations of Chinese films, especially whenever Hong Kong celebrities are involved. But we went along anyway as it was a family outing. The idea was to try to watch one of the specifically Chinese New Year themed movies but due to the unavailability of tickets, we had to settle for Little Big Soldier. In retrospect, it was easily the best out of all the films that we could have watched that day.

Despite starring Jackie Chan and being set in the Warring States period in China, Little Big Soldier is neither a martial arts film nor a war film. Though it has elements of both, it is at heart a buddy film in which two characters bond with each other over the course of the story. American-born Wang Lee Hom is competent but otherwise unremarkable in his role as an honorable general of aristocratic stock even if his spoken Mandarin is still noticeably accented. Jackie Chan, however, turns in a surprisingly fresh and entertaining performance as a canny footsoldier who does whatever is necessary to survive, even if means taking cowardly measures and resorting to underhanded tactics.

It’s surprising because I usually find Chan to be insufferably annoying. He basically plays the exact same character in all of his movies with his physical comedy and acrobatics skills as the primary draw. But in Little Big Soldier, he plays against type and while there he still gets to be the comedy and acrobatics guy, both elements are carefully doled out in measured rations as opposed to the usual practice of doling gags out by the spadeful and hoping that some will stick. Thus restrained, his character feels sympathetic, down to earth and realistic.

Another thing that struck me is how genuine and honest this film felt. So many Chinese period films now go for the epic feel. They want to show vast armies and sweeping vistas. They want to tell stories on a huge scale about larger than life characters doing heroic stuff. Little Big Soldier by contrast has a small cast and a very focused and tight vision that feels at odds with the heavily commercialized fare we’re used to from most period films. As my wife and I discussed, the big budgets and big name cast of the epic films probably limit directors to more conventional storylines designed for maximum mainstream appeal so they end up being commercialized dreck that don’t stand out.

Finally, I note with interest that the director Ding Sheng is a virtual unknown with only two entries to his credit on IMDB. Of course, if this had been an epic action movie from the conventional mould, the studio would have gotten a big name director to do it, but it must still have been a brave choice. I also note that this film was conceived by Jackie Chan over 20 years ago and he originally cast himself in the role of the young general instead of the old soldier. Probably no one thought it would make money and indeed I don’t think this film has received much attention or earned much money. That’s a pretty sad indictment of the state of the Chinese film industry right there.

Films & Television, Philosophy

The Passion of Ayn Rand

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Strangely enough, I first discovered the existence of this film while browsing through a video rental store in the Solomon Islands. There was no way in hell that any of my colleagues would be the least interested in it so I didn’t manage to watch it then but I do wonder sometimes at whoever thought to bring it into that country. Since my wife recently procured a Chinese version of Atlas Shrugged from Taiwan and read it, I thought it would be a good idea to finally get around and watch this film.

First of all, there’s nothing that’s really new to me in this film as I’ve long known how much of a mess Ayn Rand’s life was. Michael Shermer’s article The Unlikeliest Cult in History is a pretty good summary. The main thing about this account that particularly stood out for me is how sympathetically it portrays Barbara Branden’s role in the events. This is hardly surprising as the film was based on the book by Barbara Branden but it’s notable how manipulative and cynical both Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand are shown to be while Frank O’ Connor  is a doddering hanger on who’s too stupid to understand anything. Barbara Branden by contrast is shown as an intelligent woman who simply makes the mistake of allowing herself to be dragged along by the odd ideas of her husband and Rand.

Another thing is how astonishingly different Helen Mirren looks in this film compared to say, her performance that is probably best known today as the title character in The Queen. Everything about her including her demeanor, her accent and the way her hair curls at one side, combine perfectly to make her a believable Ayn Rand. In fact, all of the actors do a great job and names like Peter Fonda and Julie Delpy are hardly run of the mill television fare. It’s a made for tv movie but its production values are high enough that it could almost pass as film made for theatrical release.

Still, the subject matter is so esoteric that I can’t really imagine it being the least interesting to anyone who doesn’t already know about Ayn Rand and her work. The film makes no attempt to explain Rand’s philosophy so I would imagine that the motivations and rationale of the different characters must have been mystifying to those unfamiliar with it. Where it does succeed is in communicating that Ayn Rand was indeed a woman and a fiercely passionate one at that. It also shows how difficult it was for her to finish writing Atlas Shrugged and implies that her relationship with Nathaniel Branden was instrumental towards that end.

Overall, this film probably isn’t worth watching unless, like me, you’re one of those whose lives have been greatly impacted by reading her work. Even so, I think I would have preferred to watch a film of her early life, detailing her flight from the Soviet Union to her early success with The Fountainhead. The Passion of Ayn Rand begins with her as a writer who is already established and successful and focuses exclusively on the unconventional relationship between the four main characters. As an author whose work continues to sell hundreds of thousands of copies a year even today, I think her life deserves a more complete and complex film than this one.

Films & Television, Fun

Avatar fans upset that Pandora isn’t real

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Avatar is currently well on its way to becoming the highest grossing film of all time, proving that James Cameron still has the magic touch. Part of it might be because of unusually high numbers of repeat viewers. Just as Titanic inspired legions of teenaged girls to sit through the ill fated romance again and again, Avatar is inspiring its own fans to do the same thing. As this CNN article explains, fans become so immersed in and enchanted by the idealistic planet of Pandora that they feel depressed when the movie ends and they need to come back to dreary, meaningless Earth. So they go back to watch the movie again. One even claimed to be contemplating suicide in the hopes of being reborn on Pandora. You can read the original forum thread where the fans share their woes here.

I think these people need to be reminded that Avatar is a commercial movie made for the purpose of earning money. This being so, buying into the whole thing would be contrary to the ideals of the simplistic, communitarian way of the life of the Na’vi. Not that the ideals made much sense or were even coherent anyway. Did anyone notice that for all the talk of hunting in the movie, you never actually see any of the Na’vi eat anything? I think Cameron knew very well that showing the Na’vi barbecuing the wildlife and chomping into them, animal juices flowing from their lips and chins, would not mesh with the overall pro-environmental message. These people just need to grow up and solve their own problems instead of thinking that running away would make the problems go away magically.

Anyway, while movies have preyed on the white man’s guilt before and made viewers wish they belonged to another ethnic group, such as the Native Americans in Dances with Wolves or the noble Japanese of The Last Samurai, I think Avatar is the first movie to make people wish to be a different species entirely!

Films & Television

Avatar

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As usual when I write about films, spoilers abound so you might want to hold off on reading this until after you’ve watched it yourself. However, the plot is so cliche-ridden and so predictable that it’s pretty hard to spoil the film. It’s basically Dances with Wolves in space and all the pertinent plot points are clearly telegraphed from the first moment that you see the planet Pandora. Having only recently rewatched Aliens, I was also struck by how many themes and ideas were re-used. Over the top gung-ho soldier? Check. Greedy corporation exec who cares only about the bottom line? Check. Even the military vehicles and mechs look vaguely familiar.

The wonder of the film is that it all works, which says a lot about James Cameron’s directing skills. The film is genuinely breathtaking and spectacular, so much so that when you see it for the first time you simply know that this is something that you have never seen before. In that sense, it’s every bit as iconic and singular an experience as watching Star Wars or Jurassic Park for the very first time. It’s the same kind of once-in-a-lifetime experience that just blows you away.

It’s when you walk out of the cinema that all of the plot holes and flaws catch up with you. How do the human controllers connect with the avatar bodies? It must be magic because it seems to be unaffected by range or electromagnetic interference and the avatar bodies don’t seem to come with electronics. Why was the human ground force fooling around in the jungle for when the mission was to bomb the Tree of Souls? How ludicrous is it that no animals come to eat the avatar bodies when the human controllers are disconnected, especially after the film has established how hostile the jungle is? How come if the rocks float, the water still falls from it? And if they are made of the magical anti-gravity mineral, why don’t the humans just tow those away instead of trying to mine it from underground?

It’s common knowledge that Cameron wrote the original script for Avatar not long after he finished Titanic, so the script is still floating around the Internet. This website has a good comparison of the differences between the original scriptment and the film that ended up being made. It’s apparent that the original script was more subtle and less filled with cliches but a great deal more bloated. For example, in the original script the Na’vi that Jake falls in love with isn’t the first one that he meets, the research team is being helped by a Na’vi guide and Grace is secretly sleeping with him, there’s a previous human controller who fell in love with a Na’vi girl but she was killed by the military and he committed suicide etc. It all makes the Jake character less unique and less like a superhero who came out of nowhere to save the world.

For all these reasons, while watching Avatar once is practically mandatory, I doubt that the film stands up to repeated viewings. Even the technology will eventually look dated. But for now, it’s undoubtedly one of the most beautiful things ever put on film.

Films & Television

The Storm Warriors

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First off, don’t watch this. It’s terrible and you’d only be wasting your money. That said, I expected it before I went in and still dragged my wife into the cinema with me. This is because the original film The Storm Riders from 1998 is a huge guilty pleasure for me. This old review from LoveHKFilm.com (who still haven’t posted their review of the sequel yet!) put it best by calling it the Hong Kong version of Star Wars. As the reviewer Kozo noted, the original film, for all its cheap CGI effects, poor acting and hackneyed plot, successfully transported the viewer into a fantasy version of a mythical China that never actually existed but is clearly drawn from and inspired by Chinese themes and legends.

For my part, I immediately recognized The Storm Riders when I first watched it as the Chinese analogue of the many Western fantasy worlds I knew so much, Tolkien’s Middle Earth being the most iconic example. Of course, it wasn’t the only Chinese fantasy world. The version of China that Louis Cha’s novels are set in is unarguably more famous and celebrated, but it didn’t really feel fantastical enough for me. Come on, The Storm Riders even has a freaking dragon in it! Considering The Journey to the West as being fantasy is a bit unfair too. It would be like calling The Bible a fantasy novel.

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