Reviews

A Reflection of Queer Relationships

I could not sleep early on a Saturday morning, and this movie’s review came up on YouTube feed out of nowhere. So, on a whim, I decided to watch it. Before you know it, I had finished it and had become so engrossed in its plot and story, I found myself caring about these characters with a certain sense of affection. I found myself teary eyed and gently weeping for them. It is an intensely gut-wrenching film that is deeper than it is given credit for.

I was shocked and dismayed at how poor the reviews were for this movie. I do not understand. I loved it. To be sure, it does not move mountains, but it is not meant to do so. It is a story about two misfit loners who happen to find each other at exactly the right moment in their lives in exactly the right space that connected them to a feeling of fruition. They found each other’s treasured one.

Read the complete article here-

https://the-bl-xpress.com/2024/04/19/does-the-flower-bloom-movie-review/

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"Big stories, like life, get out of control"

Gone with the Bullets was loosely inspired by the real-life events that led to China’s first film. I say loosely because very little in this film was realistic from the opium induced car ride in the sky to the cartoon reenactments of a supposed crime scene. A kaleidoscope of primary colors doused the screen in a variety of manners. The realistic elements were the dangers of the court of public opinion and how films could be utilized for propaganda.

Ma Zouri is a fixer and a con artist extraordinaire. When the 7th son of the local warlord comes to him for help, Ma smells an easy mark. He and his partner, Xiang Feitian, decide to use Wu Qi’s money to hold the largest courtesan contest in the world, open to all ladies of the evening. The pageant is shared over the radio and filmed by the warlord’s 6th child, Wu Liu. The beautiful Yin Wanyan, and Ma’s lover, wins after promising 30 men she will entertain them and let them discover her “virginity.” The newly crowned President asks Ma to marry her which he refuses. They go on an opium induced car ride after making up. The next morning Ma wakes to find the car turned over and Wanyan dead. He runs to Wu Liu for help as he’s wanted for murder. During his two years on the run, he discovers there is a lurid play based on Wanyan’s death with audience participation.

"When the fake becomes real the real often becomes fake"
The film opened to music from 2001: A Space Odyssey, quotes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and an homage to the Godfather. It didn’t stop there. Numerous movies, events and songs were used regardless of time and circumstance. One contestant sang Summertime by Gershwin which wouldn’t be written for another decade when it was used in Porgy and Bess. The ode to motherhood also looked suspiciously like something out of 42nd Street. Reality and memory blended at times making it hard to tell what was real.

"We have to go fast to be nowhere"
Director Jiang Wen also starred as Ma Zouri with the capable Ge You as the duplicitous Xiang. An ethereal Shu Qi brought Wanyan to life and Jiang’s wife, Zhou Yun, was marvelous as Wu-6th aka Wu Liu. No expense was spared on the opulent sets and luxurious costumes. The talent portion of the contest was filmed on a huge stage with numerous scantily clad dancers in well choreographed dance numbers. I was surprised to see so much skin and gratuitous crotch shots in a Chinese film. Even more surprised in a fan dance number filmed from above where the dancers’ fans provocatively looked like vaginas. There were also poop jokes, self pleasuring, and a prisoner threatened with being “hammered” by a horse.

“The audience is always right.”
The story wasn’t always cohesive in this allegory or spoof of the movie industry and lawless land governed by corrupt foreign entities and warlords. “Love is nice but violence makes money!” Theater reenactments of the crime honed in on the violence the audience wanted to watch. After seeing the performances their minds were made up to Ma’s guilt. No trial, no witnesses, no evidence, only the court of public opinion for what would be the final show to be filmed by Wu Liu. And those in power saw no reason to not give the people what they wanted if it benefited them. Reality is easily manipulated on film in Jiang’s wink to propaganda. Gone with the Wind, I mean Bullets, was a strange but entertaining film that focused on one man’s downfall precipitated by his own hubris and also, “no good deed goes unpunished.”

18 April 2024

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♡ Perfect Days ♡

This is a lovely movie where the main actor is Yakusho Koji ♡ He works in a toilet company in Shibuya, everyday he wakes up early and goes to work then around lunchtime he always has lunch at the park at his favourite spot where there is a lot of nature and trees. He carries with him a disposable camera and takes pictures of the trees. He lives a simple life he likes cameras, films and books. Every evening after work he goes to his favourite Izakaya, and then before bed he always reads his favourite book. On the weekends he goes to the laundry and then to the bookshop to buy more books. I really really loved this movie especially Hirayama's acting, he is so handsome and in the movie he is so simple, he doesn't talk much but he gives to the world the best impression of surrealism. ' Now is now' ♡

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Life is a Journey.

This movie definitely demonstrates the reality of life.
Mixed emotions. A rollercoaster of life.
Definitely a must to watch!
Simple yet inspirational.

I totally understand her decision of not getting treatment as she wants to enjoy her life for the last time before she rest.
She overcame her cancer, but she feels like it is time to finally accept her faith. Which is why she decided to make a bucket list of things she wants to do before she dies.
I would prob do the same thing. Spent what was left with my loved ones and did the things I've always wanted to do.

The twist was crazy. I was bawling.

Anyways, I wrote a quote about what they said about 'Journey'.

"It's not the destination. It's the journey. Life experiences don't mean anything if you don't end up where you want to. We all have goals. Were not just cruising through life. It's all about the destination.
For me, it's the journey. Because that's how you mature. That's where you learn. Sometimes, you even end up differently, depending on the journey. I believe it's the journey that allows you to mature."

2:11am 4/18/24..
I was also bawling my ass out because it been a year since moonbin died..????

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It's OK, nothing noteworthy.

It's a good movie to watch when you're bored or just want to play something in the background. There's not really a good slowburn aspect, but that is to be expected of a movie. Story was meh, but it did have a somewhat creative plotline with the Matryoshka doll and it's significance. In my opinion, the main character Hirofumi is FAR too awkward. There's a line between being awkward but the acting is bearable and then there's being awkward and the acting being awkward too. Although I will say that I liked the love interest, Shinji. His acting was actually not that bad and felt genuine. On the other hand, these two as a couple did not feel genuine or authentic and the final kiss scene was honestly repulsive because of how unnatural it felt. Dude was kissing with his eyes wide open and they even added an intimate scene that looked even worse because they were just flailing around and mouth breathing on one another. The movie is old so I can't be too harsh on it but it definitely has it's shortcomings. I'd watch only if you just need something to watch. It wasn't horrendous, just awkward.

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the film had a statement to make!

what i liked

+ the story of this film shines light on the corruption that goes on in authoritative figures of society

+ the actors were convincing in their roles. the cast nailed their characters

+ the setting of the film was giving modern coming-of-age. in scenes like at their gigs and the car ride leading up to the events but then it builds up and becomes intense yet still maintaining a somewhat cool tone. the film gives a glimpse of what could have gone wrong without becoming extremely disturbing if they did not have their said privileges (police brutality is way worse irl)


what i didn't like

- cussing was overused in my opinion and at times, it felt quite cringe because was it necessary to add "f*ck/ing" at certain dialogues? i get that they're supposed to be edgy and relatable to the youth today but the script writing could have been better BUT i must say and slight spoiler coming ahead...

i'm paraphrasing here but it hit when jk said "kung hindi sa pangalan nya, makakalaya ba kami dito?" #shook

that was something that stuck with me at the end.

overall,

i recommend blue room. however, it is heavy and should not be watched around children.

blue room definitely had me pondering upon issues that our society faces when one becomes drunk with power.

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watched this film tonight and this is what i think!

what i liked

+good acting. the main characters, jane + rk.. they brought marge & mike to life. i must say though i feel like everyone portrayed their characters really well. side note: i just found out on this website that jane was one of the screenwriters, no wonder she nailed it as marge! :)

+ i also enjoyed the visuals of the film! the scenes at the beach and the place they met was something they went back to. given that this film was made in 2020 (or atleast released idk), the use of their locations was well done

+ music was nice. very mellow and suitable for the mood the film is setting us up for

+ tbh the plot twist was quite unexpected. i think it was unique for an overused trope that i've seen in newer filipino drama/romance films. i don't wanna spoil anything so i guess you'll know what i mean when you've watched it. so i do appreciate the plot twist :)

what i didn't like

- well, the story of the film mostly. the premise was intriguing. a struggling artist and med student meeting again after they've shared a connection at the church. it would have been nice to see how their relationship unfolded in a different way. but i guess these things do happen (for the most part) and i can appreciate that ana's character was solid until the end.

overall,

i enjoyed "us again" and i do recommend this to watch if you're thinking about it or need recreational sobbing :)

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Three minutes travelogue for Wu Lei fans - not a drama

I had watched this before, but not noticed until now that it was included on MDL as if it was a full movie or drama.

It is not uncommon for actors to do travelogues or vlogs of their trips, even modeling abroad, videos that can be shot quite professionally, like the most recent fours short videos linked under the title "On The Road" that Chen Zheyuan shot in Dubai in mid April 2024. Such pieces are usually watched mainly on the original social media of their idols by fans of the actors or of the fashion they showcase in foreign settings, or discovered by the fandom explorers.

This video, If I'm Not Wu Lei, shot in Sri Lanka, dates back to the times when tourism boomed in Asia before covid. It comes with a message : "Don't Wait For Life, Live It". Wu Lei has lived it up to do road trip vlogs of his bike travels in the Xinjiang, and an introduction to the coastal city of Xiamen, as brand ambassador. If the latter featured well known highlights of the "must see" circuit, it also included experiences that felt more personal, like this little video , where Wu Lei watches the country fly by from the train window, or briefly encounters curious youngsters of a different culture, in a kaleidoscope of pictures that make those in front of the screen feel the rush and impermanence of traveling.

But traveling abroad can also be romantic, and this was incorporated later in his full drama Amidst a Snowstorm of Love, set for a good third in Helsinki, Finland, with a small trip, not unlike this Sri Lanka one, to Annecy in France, before the evening out stargazing on top of a mountain.

For the rookie fans of Wu Lei (in addition to trawling his Weibo pages and other social media), I recommend the pages of the blog and YouTube channel of " Wu Lei Galaxy ", which is very comprehensive and up to date.

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"There will be no end to the sorrow"

Early Train from Taipei is one of about 200 Taiwanese language films to have survived that were made between 1955-1970. This film was popular during its day and has been restored with only a few flickering skips still evident. There was no doubt what type of film this was going to be during the intro when an artist tells his friend there is a sad story behind two disparate paintings of the same woman. While I can appreciate its place in history, the endless melodrama and flat characters caused my interest to wear thin by the end.

Siu Lan and Hue Thao are two beautiful people who live and work in the countryside and love each other. Siu Lan’s father died leaving her ailing mother in deep debt. When the creditor comes calling demanding payment, Siu Lan asks a friend to find her work in Taipei. The work turns out to be as a taxi dancer. Within a couple of weeks, she’s sending significant money to her mother to help pay down the debt. Hue takes the train to visit her but derides her for her choice of employment implying she needs to go home. He leaves her a note and catches the train, hiding from her when she follows him to the station. Siu Lan attempts to quit but her boss does not handle her resignation well, and from there on her life takes a decided turn for the worse.

A heavy-set couple back home brought comic relief whenever they encouraged Hue to visit Sui Lan. But that laughter was soon drowned in a torrential flood of tears. Tears of guilt. Tears of loss. Tears of sorrow and anger. Tears of hopelessness and remorse. And tears of pain. The last third of the film was a relentless parade of pain. With each new dilemma the catastrophes felt more like manufactured drama desperately trying to force the audience to cry than from any organic developments to the story. Siu Lan and Hue were tortured over and again. The lyrics to the songs implied that Siu Lan had been enticed by greed and the big city lights, but she appeared to remain the same lovely girl she always had been and was only working in the city to pay off her mother’s debts. She would have preferred to stay in the country with Hue and her mom but her innocence was exploited by the cruel club owner. Whatever lessons fate was trying to teach her for having sought to make money in the city, I’d say it was overkill.

I did like that the connections between the women were strong. Siu Lan’s friend, Suat Gno, stayed loyal to the end and felt deep regret over finding Siu Lan a job at the club. Suat Gno also cared for Siu Lan’s mom when Siu Lan was unable to. It was good to see Ko Yu Min, veteran of numerous kung fu flicks, play the defense attorney (paid by Suat) exasperated with Siu Lan’s martyr complex. His perfectly timed eyeroll expressed my sentiments exactly. It was difficult to watch this woman who only had good intentions be victimized over and over again. First by the lascivious men in charge of the club and then later by the justice system. Lastly by herself. Taiwan was going through a growth faze with young people heading to the cities for better jobs. Apparently, this melodramatic tale connected with audiences and was quite popular. The Last Train from Kaohsiung was a successful prequel to this film and there was possibly at least one sequel to Early Train. I would like to find the sequel to see if they saved Siu Lan and Hue Thao not only from their emotional damage but also the physical damage they endured.

Early Train from Taipei was a love story between two people torn apart by the evils of the big city. Beauty and “greed”, even if used for protecting the family were punished like using dynamite on a gnat. I appreciated this time capsule for what it was and am grateful it was saved and restored for future generations to see. Despite that, I struggled with the almost gleeful degradation of Siu Lan and Hue Thao as a cautionary tale for young people desiring to leave home for the promise of a better life in the city.

17 April 2024

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Extraordinary

I just watched 'Lahn Mah' today, and it's easily one of the best Thai films I've ever seen. There was a lot of fun(Actually, jokes are stunning, I heard many people laugh in the theater), sadness and touching in this film.

This movie provided the mood and reality of being in Thai-Chinese families like the scene that throw flowers to the ancestors' graveyard, words that are using or celebrating Chinese New Year. Moreover, the acting was impressive. The reasons why I said that are the emotional depth that Billkin, Grandma and other casts give to understand their own characters. The smooth energy of their interactions throughout the movie creates a genuine familial atmosphere, making it feel like a real family dynamic on screen.

In addition, the inheritance fight among M(the protagonist), M's mom and 2 M's uncle adds another layer of complexity to the narrative which turns out M got the most but before that there's a fight to get the grandma's house and it made a question to the audience that will M get something for taking care of grandma?. This subplot not only adds depth to the characters' motivations but also reflects larger themes of tradition, obligation, and the complexities of family relationships.

On the other hand, it's worth noting that while the film's acting is impressive, the pacing of the proceedings may feel a bit brisk, particularly in terms of character development. Viewers may find themselves wanting more insight into the characters' backstories, especially the childhood experiences that shaped their personalities, or more time to understand the dynamics of their relationships before pivotal events unfold.

To conclude, 'Lahn Mah' is a film that shows both tears and laughter, showcasing heartfelt moments and a deep sense of love and care, especially between M and their grandmother. However, the pacing issues, particularly in character development, leave some room for improvement."

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The story of this sad comedy was probably not only very strong for me, and the end of the film only confirmed it for me, which is also proven by the three wins and a large number of nominations of this film at film festivals, but ...
The way I'm used to trances mainly from RuPaul's competitions (and that there are still many different kinds of competitions), but mostly good to excellent professionals perform there. Filipinos, on the other hand, are known in their film projects for often horrible, mocking, grinning trans people, and actually these people do not have a good reputation in the audience world, and I was a bit bothered by the second roles of "miracles" of the two main characters Mark and John, otherwise two well-known and excellent and sympathetic Filipinos actors (Guzmán+Gamboa), when I didn't believe their "hands" and femininity for an inch and these scenes had a rather repulsive effect on me. Damage.

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A modern day romance inspired by the work of Edgar Allan Poe

“I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia.”

But 白晓宇 Bái Xiǎo Yǔ, the Edgar Allan Poe fan and graphic designer, certainly could remember the day and date (2010, June 8) he knocked over 王斤斤 Wáng Jīn Jīn ’s desk. Her face and name stuck in his memory, not only because of the strange meaning of her name (a “catty”, 斤, is a traditional Chinese unit of mass used across East and Southeast Asia, notably for weighing food and other groceries) but also because of her unusual Gothic hairpin.

Bai Xiao Yu (his own name meaning “white”, “dawn” and “universe”), having failed to follow her all the way home on his bicycle when she took a taxi, immediately drew a portrait of her.

He came across her again after college and following her, overheard her mentioning Poe in a Beijing bar on Liangmahe bar street (an area which existed, north of Sanlitun, but which has undergone lots of changes and demolitions in the early 2020s ; the Seven bar looks fictional - I know none of that name thereabouts). When Xiao Yu ordered two newly invented cocktails (I liked the recipes!) with titles from Poe’s stories, JinJin turned to face him, and they went home together after a long night's intellectual communing reintroducing themselves at dawn, and next, traveling on a dare, all the way to their hometown, hooking up and living as a married couple for a year.

But Jin Jin feared routine and the “mundane” life. She was insecure about her talent as a writer, despite Xiao Yu’s comforting words. She drifted from tourism to script assistant, with her job taking her away for months on film sets.
Xiao Yu had also experienced setbacks at work, and changed his job to set up a business of escape rooms and refurbishing the hometown horror theme park. His eyesight worsened and he was wistful when he described to a fellow sufferer the beauty of the sunset seen from the hospital window.

It was thrilling to hear the budding couple, at the dawn of their relationship, excitedly recite the excerpt “I mean to say that, subsequently to the period when Ligeia's beauty passed into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine, I derived, from many existences in the material world, a sentiment such as I felt always aroused within me by her large and luminous orbs.” Although Wang Jin Jin was not like the fictional heroine, from a “decaying city on the Rhine in Germany”, sporting dark curly tresses, she was in a way like Ligeia, fascinated by literature and yearning for more learning. But unlike Ligeia, she did not die and come back taking possession of a corpse. The last images of the movie, where the horror theme park was revamped with a secret room designed specially for Xiao Yu, provided an esthetic and welcome surprise.
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The movie is adapted from the novel 《被我弄丢的你》 ("You Whom I Lost") by Zheng Zhi (郑执) also screenwriter for it ; the director was Han Yan (韩琰). Filmed between February and May 2023, it was announced to be airing for the anniversary of filming wrap, on Women’s Day March 8, 2024.

On February 20, the film released a trailer with the theme song “You Whom I Lost” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQG-t0nmFiU ; MV with pinyin & English translation here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u4Zm9S5MkM), composed by Jia Wang & Chen Wenhua, lyrics by Guo Dongnan, sung by Chinese diva Karen Mok (Mok Wenwei).

The movie was widely anticipated with over 20 million pre-sale tickets and breaking 100 million at the box office on March 11.

Zhang Jingyi played the free spirited but finally regretful JinJin, who missed her love repeatedly, figuratively, and physically when the train and the truck went in opposing directions. Some will be shocked by the fringe and hair style JinJin kept (although attenuated in the end): whatever, nothing can really make her ugly.

Tan Jianci played the young man cursed by upcoming blindness, with delicate movements of his eyes and posture as the lights dimmed for him. Xiao Yu wanted to treasure his happy past and the moments with JinJin whom he could never totally read the mind of, but whom he never totally lost the memory of, despite she had broken up with him.
The mention on screen in the end of the movie is 你就是我的想要生活 (you are my life’s yearning).

For those who would like to read “Ligeia” or more of Poe’s work, here is a link : https://poestories.com/read/ligeia

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