Reviews

Amazing production and visuals but lacklustre and somewhat disappointing story

First of all, the production value and visuals of this film are amazing!! It is definitely on par with that of a Hollywood movie of its calibre like ‘Mirror Mirror’. The costumes and props were also equally well done and executed. Fabulous. Absolutely fabulous.

In terms of the story itself, I’m pretty conflicted but I think I have to say it felt meh overall to me. I’m not sure if it’s because it impedes on the typical fairy tale tropes so dear and well-known to my heart or if it’s truly because the execution was poor. The concept in itself is pretty fresh and interesting. I think it just didn’t seem to execute it as well as it could have while keeping the well-known tropes we all know and love. I did find myself getting, not necessarily bored, but disengaged at some parts throughout the film. I did like the whole Sherlock Holmes type of aspect to it and the whole crime solving was definitely very interesting. I think where it lost me was having Cinderella revealed as the murderer. While yes, choosing her did make it to be a big unexpected shock for a plot twist because of what we know of this iconic fairy tale character already, this same reasoning acts to weaken the story’s appeal. When dealing with such iconic and well-known characters, there has to be a level of consideration for the viewer’s preconceived perceptions and opinions for that character. Especially with a character like Cinderella, this is unavoidable. For this reason, having Cinderella be the murderer left a bad taste in my mouth for this movie overall. I, as the viewer, know Cinderella in many forms of media to be a heroine and a likeable character and I know her backstory very well (which this film didn’t delve too much into presumably because they know we know her character). I, as the viewer, know that her character has a history of severe mistreatment from those around her and being wronged, so having her character end up like that seems like a huge injustice to me because of my preconceptions. Further injustice is felt by the own world that they have constructed to place her in, where the kingdom disregards people like her because she is ‘ugly’ and poor. Additionally, the dude she murdered was a literal creep and bad person, so technically she acted in self-defence. This was literally not even acknowledged like free my girl right now purrr ???

Overall, the film's visuals were very high quality and well produced, but it fell short with its story. The story's execution is quite disappointing because the concept in itself is very interesting. In trying to be bold and shocking in its crime mystery, it neglects the viewers’ preconceived opinions of classic fairy tale characters. The film did have its moments where it was fun and campy, so I will give it that.

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Typical Sports Movie but Fun

It's fairly predictable to the end but if you like sports movies and movies about female friendship, you can't go wrong with this one. I liked that there was no love triangle or too much jealousy or backstabbing or any of those things. The issues that arise are fairly mild . And this might be my bias showing but Hyeri once again proves to be utterly charming.
I will say that the period trappings didn't enchant me as much as say Twinkling Watermelon or Reply 1988 but it grew on me as the movie went on. Overall, it's fairly well done with strong acting and a tight script. I would recommend.

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needed to be expanded into a miniseries, or else rewritten into a tighter narrative.

This film is extremely pretty to look at - and I'm not just referring to the rugby thighs of actor Chu Meng-hsuan! But amazing visuals are just about all the film did for me. So I cannot recommend it, unfortunately. Below, I will discuss the major formal aspects in the same order that I started noticing them while watching the film:

Filming: amazing!! and very, very red.
The cinematography is stylish and gorgeous here. Lighting and colors are dramatic in a way that reminds me of Mag Hsu's 2018 Taiwanese film "Dear Ex" (btw, if you were thinking of watching "The Time of Huannan" but haven't seen "Dear Ex" yet, go watch "Dear Ex" right this second! it's such a good film.). Shot composition is occasionally stunning, especially when neon lights are involved.

Soundtrack: ugh.
The musical soundtrack is way too busy, in a way that reminds me of some Asian drama series. I recognize that busy soundtracks are really a matter of personal taste, and to be fair the film does embrace silence in some sections - I just wish it leaned into that more! Anyways, with everything going on in it, the soundtrack also never actually manages to build a substantial contribution to the mood of the film. This is at least partly because of the specific song choices (which I felt were really mismatched to the film, but perhaps that's also a matter of personal taste): the musical styles of the songs are so different that they don't stand together, because nothing else in the film ties them together. It felt like the director couldn't figure out how to tell a story using music, and he also couldn't figure out how to select music to match the visual+emotional journey of the film. As a result of these problems, the soundtrack was a very annoying and intrusive experience for me.

Narrative: uh-oh...
The film has a number of narrative problems because the director/writers tried to squeeze too many stories and threads into the film. For example, one of the queer characters discloses being sexually assaulted, and then that emotional bomb is totally ignored for the rest of the film; such trivial treatment of that topic makes it feel like the film is (hopefully unintentionally) doing a spectacle of queer pain from the perspective of the heterosexual protagonist - a spectacle which is even more one-note than the harshness of Liu Kuang-hui's 2020 Taiwanese film "Your Name Engraved Herein". Because the narrative tries to do too many things with its four main leads, the characterization ends up rather shallow and flimsy. Even though the film is already on the longer end for conventional cinema, with a runtime of 2.25 hours, there just wasn't enough time to develop the characters enough to make me connect with them before the story tried to get an emotional payoff. For most of the film I felt very little sense of interiority in the characters, and not enough understanding of who the characters were to help me empathize with their motivations for their behaviors. The film ends by indulging in melodramatic sentimentality (complete with flashback montages in the style of mass-market Asian dramas) which felt cloying to me because the necessary emotional weight was not properly established beforehand in the characterization, and because of all the plot contrivances made to justify the ending.

Editing: meh.
The problem with this film is that its pacing is driven by a flawed narrative. Unfortunately, the pacing holds back the high-level composition of the film: different scenes are edited together in a way that never really works for me. The result didn't give me a sense of cinematic rhythm comparable to the rhythm of different shots within each scene, and I didn't really feel a sense of temporal coherence. Because of this, the film felt more like a dream of free-association jumps between different moments than the continuous narrative demanded by the plot; this wouldn't have been a bad thing if the film had been constructed specifically for such a structure (e.g. if the time travel had been via dreaming rather than a handwaved science-fictional mechanism). Alternatively, this wouldn't have been a thing at all if the film had instead been constructed as an episodic miniseries.

Missed opportunity 1: a miniseries.
Imagine if the story had been given more room to breathe as a drama series. Then we could've spent time with each character to learn about their background, their hopes and dreams, their worries and struggles. And flashbacks would have actually felt temporally significant. These are all strengths of the 2023 k-drama "Twinkling Watermelon" - and its story also happens to be a "young adult travels back in time and learns about his father as a young adult and encounters barriers to changing history" plot with an ensemble of four main characters. So maybe you should watch that series instead of this film.

Missed opportunity 2: a tighter film.
Or imagine if the story had been simplified in the direction of minimalism. Then we could've spent much more time with the striking cinematography, lingering on gorgeous and thoughtfully-designed shots as the actors traveled through time and space. If we slowed down pacing all the way into the extreme of slow cinema, then the director could even have deleted all the songs from the soundtrack and come out with a better film. A big part of the artistic quality of the slow-cinema films of Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang - which only have the absolute minimum bare bones of a plot - is that they give their shots plenty of room to breathe in order to reshape our experience of time; the striking visuals drive the pacing of those films, in the process showing us deeper truths about the characters. Tsai makes films with powerful imagery instead of strong storytelling, because of what he's good at (e.g. he said, "The storyline might be plain, but it is meant to carry the power of imagery, so as to reveal the essence of cinema. [...] I never thought of myself to be a good storyteller. Therefore, I chose to be otherwise.", in a talk which has been translated at the Senses of Cinema blog); "The Time of Huannan"'s director could probably have made this film good with powerful imagery, instead of trying and failing to tell a good story. But even stopping far short of slow cinema by keeping a more textured story could've yielded a truly great film - perhaps something like "Dear Ex", which has a more relatable, complex, and emotionally moving narrative than "The Time of Huannan" (and also one about a guy learning more about his father! go watch "Dear Ex" instead of this film!) while also being significantly shorter.

Conclusion: a hollow apple.
Because the film lacks a solid core to drive its visual polish, it's like what Scott McCloud describes in his book "Understanding Comics" as a hollow apple: art which has a shiny surface but is empty inside.

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Before Sonny Chiba became The Street Fighter he fought genetically altered humans turned into fish men cyborgs. A diabolical scientist wanted to rule the world from his undersea headquarters and turn all humans into obedient cyborgs. Can Sonny and his plucky female sidekick and the US Navy stop the nefarious plan?

Reporters Ken and Jenny are aboard a navy sub in order to watch a new torpedo demonstration when a mysterious creature swims by the viewing window. Later the two don their scuba gear and go back to investigate. Jenny is confronted by one of the creatures and escapes. Commander Tom Brown says he doesn’t believe her, and like a good man from the 1960’s, recommends she see a psychiatrist. Ken does believe her and the two once again go underwater to see what’s going on but are captured by the strange creatures. They awaken to find themselves dressed in white pajamas and scuffed up white go-go boots. Dr. Rufus Moore introduces himself and explains his plan, showing the transformation of a man into a Creature from the Black Lagoon. Ken and Jenny seek to avoid that fate while their friend, Commander Brown fights bureaucratic red tape in order to rescue them.

I have a high tolerance for cheesy old monster films, but this one tested that tolerance. With the exception of Sonny, who looked great here I might add, the acting was abysmal. Not even in the cheesy, “Welcome to my lair, Mr. Bond,” kind of way. The costumes had issues with gaping spots and one was literally coming apart at the seams. The cyborg commands were rudimentary of which they showed only two, “work” and “fight.” But what happens if they become short-circuited and turn on their masters? They livened up the movie after a lot of yakking from the humans! Jenny’s sole purpose was to scream or cry loudly and look pretty which became quite annoying. Sonny’s street fighter powers were greatly reduced here. Instead of fileting the fishmen, he was routinely dominated. But I will say the evil scientists made good use of their label makers by neatly labeling every can of atomic waste dumped at the bottom of the ocean clearly and succinctly.

Fans of Sonny Chiba or old monster flicks may be disappointed by this film. The underwater installations, subs, and torpedoes were all well-crafted. If only as much attention had been paid to the acting and costumes. Even graded on a curve, Terror Beneath the Sea barely made a passing grade.

23 October 2024

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"We're all sick of Baker's vampires and bullying!"

Some movies are so bad they are good. Some movies are so bad they are bad. And then there is Ninja the Violent Sorcerer that is so bad it is WTF? Spliced and diced from The Stunning Gambling (1982) with new footage added for a story told in English, assumed director Godfrey Ho created a Frankenstein film of gambling, ninjas, a vengeful ghost, and hopping vampires.

Gambling pro Mr. Myer, is tricked into killing himself during a gambling bet with the evil Mr. Baker. Myer’s dead wife appears in ghostly form to his brother Roger and tells him he must avenge her husband. Baker cheated by using hopping vampires…somehow. Collins works for Baker by shaking down people who owe the baddie money and using the invulnerable hoppers as muscle. What Baker and Collins don’t know is that Roger is secretly a ninja (white). His buddy, Ken, is also a ninja (green) and amateur Taoist. They have Myer’s son contact Webber, an incredible gambler who has turned into a drunk. Webber is the only man who has a chance at beating Baker. Roger and Ken gear up to take on Collins and his jianshi hitmen while Webber attempts to bring down Baker.

I was lured into watching this film with the promise of Angela Mao and hopping vampires. It was false advertising in regards to Angela. She appeared briefly in one scene where she handed Webber, who was suffering from the shakes, a bottle of booze. The hopping vampires did appear fairly often. And I actually bumped my score up for the actors’ commitment to their craft. Despite two ninjas attacking them, they kept their arms in front of them and continued to hop. The ninjas were at a loss as to how to stop the hoppers. Where’s Lam Ching Ying when you need him?

Godfrey Ho had 40 different pseudonyms and most people are convinced Bruce Lambert was one of them. If you enjoy his patented form of theatrical chaos and mania, you might want to try this. Of if you are curious how not very good ninjas would stack up against hopping vampires, you might want to try this. Otherwise, best to hop on by.

23 October 2024
Trigger warnings: Brief nudity. Really bad acting.

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Sumptuous

Simultaneously a distant sequel and retread of the original film, A Chinese Ghost Story III keeps things together a bit more than II did, following the tradition of the previous two films this closing chapter once again gifts us with equal doses of comedy, action, romance and horror. The photography is as gorgeous as the previous entries, playing with colour, light and smoke with an abundance of stunning direction throughout, Tony Ching Siu-Tung certainly pulled his weight with this series balancing his style with Tsui Hark's eccentric sensibilities. Instead of Leslie Cheung's bumbling tax collector, we get Tony Leung as a bumbling novice monk, a worthy successor, adding a great charm and likeability to his character thanks to Tony's comedic timing. The film delivers a cinematic seductiveness that greatly benefits from the fast-paced plot, chock full of crazy magic spells and action sequences, spellbinding female ghosts, hair-raising demons, a touch of humour, drama and romance, a parade of crazy special effects and a sumptuously enchanting score for a third time courtesy of James Wong and Romeo Diaz. While it may certainly have many similarities to the first, A Chinese Ghost Story III almost plays like a parody of it at the same time, all without being too ridiculous and closing the trilogy out in style. The lengths men will go to for Joey Wong hey?

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When you find your calling in life

I always admire people who have found their calling in life, and dedicate large parts of it to their passion. This film is about this kind of people -- who work steadily towards one goal, with a lot of hard work, attention for detail and perseverence.

It's very Japanese in it's slow story telling, the lights and colours and the detailed sets. It's, again, a story about a small group of outsiders doing a work which is underappreciated by others, who find solace and satisfaction in what they do, not necessarily in what others think of it.

I'm not a het romance fan, but I liked the love story between the main protagonist and the landlady's granddaughter. They are full of respect for each other and the other's passion and interests, even though they don't quite understand them.

And one aspect I also liked: It's a story about words, but in moments of great emotion, the characters fail to find the right words to express them; and in the story telling, silence and the gentle background music is at least as important as the dialogue.
Well worth it.

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