Movie Review - Ju Dou (1990)

My parents had cable off-and-on in my household.  At one point, the cable became too expensive, and we stopped.  We picked it up again after a while, and stopped again when the cable became too much. Now, with digital cable forcing everyone to pay for stuff they used to get for free, we have cable again.  With the glut of crap on specially generalized cable television (Toddlers & Tiaras, Crocosaurus, all the no-talent shows, occult-themed shows, police procedural shows, etc.), it will never be like it was.  

Back then, we didn't have to worry about having to subscribe to a specific channel to get out foreign movies: we simply were surprised.  It was like this in my high school years when I watched the movie that started my love for Asian cinema: Ju Dou.

Ju Dou was like nothing I had seen before in American film: the new land, the strange people and culture (granted, the only time I had dealt with Asian people and culture was either at a restaurant or a kung-fu movie), the language, and the colors. OH GOD THE COLORS.  The colors weren't part of some forced hallucination or a drug-related trip on my part.  It was simply the way that director Yimou Zhang was able to not only give the set designer and cinematographer the instructions to make the movie visually appealing, but the tension between the characters was believable and tangible.  It would set the rule for me in the future that whenever I watch an Asian film, check if Li Gong is in it first.

"Dear Penthouse Forum..."

The movie is set in early 20th Century China, when the life of Ju Dou (played by Li Gong) is disrupted by her marriage to Old Yang (actor Wei Li) who runs a dye mill.  He paid a handsome sum for such a beautiful bride, so she had better produce him an heir--which she cannot because the old man is sterile.  He treats her horribly in response (an understatement, to say the least) and has no idea that someone has else has had their eye on her, but can't act on it.

Tianqing (Baotian Li) is Old Yang's younger relative, who lives and works at the mill as Yang's ward.  He is also mistreated to a degree.  He takes pity on the woman who is now legally his aunt.  At first, their relationship is deeply appalling... but you come to understand that their common ground is their hatred of Old Yang.  He is wholly deserving of this hatred, which Ju Dou and Tianqing transform into lust and love.  Nature takes its course under the influence of human intervention, and the story seems as if it will develop into an ending scenario that will be considered acceptable.  That's when the film becomes an experience in truly deep heartbreak.  The dynamic changes so hard and fast, you can only stay riveted to your seat to see how it all turns out.

OH GOD THE COLORS, MAN

And so it went, my first foreign film viewing.  

This led to me watching not only foreign films with Li Gong in it (Curse of the Golden Flower, Raise the Red Lantern), but also other foreign fare (Luc Besson's ANGEL-A, Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor [yes, it counts], Karan Johar's Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Juzo Itami's Tampopo), not to mention domestic productions with Asian themes (Memoirs of a Geisha, Snow Falling on Cedars).  I can say without any confusion that this is one of the best movies I have ever seen.  This is mostly due to my eyes being opened--not to the flare of an action movie's explosion, the shine of a silver sci-fi rocket or to the horrors of a slasher film--but to the greater expanse of world film and filmmakers outside of America and kung-fu movies.  To you and all those like you, director Zhang, I thank you.

Movie Review - Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)

Snow Falling on Cedars is a movie that means so much to me, yet had absolutely nothing to do with my current situation when it was released. For one, I wasn't in a forbidden relationship and there was no open war fought on two fronts. But I can sympathize with the characters in the movie, given the theme of love in a world that will not have it, despite the gains made in society to facilitate it.

Based on the 1994 book of the same name, the movie is set in two time periods: around the middle of the Second World War and a period ten years later. Our two main characters are Ishmael (Ethan Hawke) and Hatsue (Yoki Kudo), two kids growing up in a small West Coast fishing town. They would grow up to be lovers, but they could never be together because Hatsue is Japanese-American and Ishmael is White. In their teens, World War II comes to America's doorstep. All Japanese-Americans had to report to internment camps due to their being a "homeland security risk" in the war against Japan. While Hatsue is placed in an internment camp, Ishmael joins the fight and finds himself in the Pacific Theater. It is this period where the young lovers are changed.
Hatsue meets her future husband Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune), a man in her internment camp who is shipped out to the European Theater and returns. Ishmael loses his arm--and his love for Hatsue--at Iwo Jima. Yet something inside Ishmael still burns...

Fast forward to postwar America: people are still against Japanese-Americans. Sometimes out in the open and sometimes behind closed doors. It all comes to a head when the small fishing town where Ishmael grew up has a murder mystery. It seems a young fisherman was murdered. The only suspect is the last man to have a dispute with the young man's family: his friend Kazuo Miyamoto. The racism in town has got Hatsue and Kazuo's father Zenhichi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) worried that his son won't get a fair trial, even with the help of Nels Gudmunssen the defense lawyer (legendary actor Max von Sydow). Ishmael, now a newspaper reporter, has evidence that could clear Kazuo's name, but will the jilted love of Hatsue stop him from doing the right thing?

The idea that there's this love story with history being used as a backdrop for a murder mystery is absolutely brilliant. I can't think as to why I went to see this movie... Wait! I think I know why: back then I had CRAZY yellow fever.
I was all about the Asian hotties. Hell, I used to rationalize that I admired the minimalistic beauty of the Asian woman as a man AND as a graphic designer. I used to say, in reference to the Asian woman, that God did so much to create a beautiful woman by doing very little. In many ways, I still feel the same but definitely not as strongly as I did during the time I saw this movie. When this movie ended, I cried quiet tears. I cried for the happiness and sadness of the characters. Most of all, I cried in recognition of Ishmael's silent battle fought to quell the feelings in his heart for Hatsue and to uphold a pillar of the newsman's existence: the truth.

Here be an excellent movie.

Movie Review - Chloe (2010)

I saw the ads and trailers for the movie Chloe back in 2010 when I would see certain movies back in 2010.  It was marketed as a sleek thriller, with some sex in it.  It left so much to the imagination, but I thought it'd go the route of a racially homogenous version of the Beyonce vehicle Obsessed.  Now that I've seen in, I must say it is one hell of a movie, and is even more so if you've never seen anything about it.  This movie has highs and lows, and all of them are so low-key thanks to the acting abilities of the cast, consisting of two acting icons and one rising star in the shape of actress Amanda Seyfried, she recently of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale movie adaptation of Red Riding Hood.

In the role of of our titular character, Chloe, Miss Seyfried plays a beautiful call girl who says she can be any man's fantasy: their secretary, their daughter, their seventh-grade teacher, and so on.  She is recruited for her skill set when she finds herself wrapped up in the inferiority complex of Dr. Catherine Stewart, OB/GYN (Julianne Moore).  Chloe is hired to tempt the doctor's husband, Mr. Stewart (Liam Neeson), a music professor.  The doctor is suspicious that her husband is cheating on her, and chooses to spy on him with a very talented liar.  The two develop a "business" relationship which is, to say the least, not the sole focus of the watching audience.  It builds to a climax and leaves quite a lingering that really makes you wonder about the nature of love and attraction.

My initial focus on the movie was to just see it and stop thinking I should see it.  As the movie went on, it afforded me several reasons why I need to see more movies with the actors involved.  I have all the reasons I need to see Mr. Neeson, so that's a given; Julianne Moore has made more movies that are so interesting, yet I have not seen due to budget constraints, like Blindness.  More to the point, I would like to see more of the otherworldly beauty of Miss Seyfried.  If you've ever looked at her, you know that Miss Seyfried does not look like an average person.  Something about her is very different.  Is it her operatic training, or her teen modeling experience? Probably not, but I can's imagine what else it could be that's gonna make me want to watch more of her movies.

Oh, I know why. She's hot.

CHOICE CUTS:

• Amanda Seyfried, the part where you can see the crazy, and Amanda Seyfried.  That is all.

The ups and downs, twists and turns of this film completely had me on the edge of my seat.  It made me want to know exactly how far the story would go.  With two actresses so easy on the eyes, it was a pleasure.

RATING: 8/10