I’ve been waiting for a good day to watch this film, but it never came. I don’t know when I’ll ever be in the mood to watch a movie on the Nanking Massacre, but if anything, why not the day before Remembrance Day? Ok I lied, I didn’t realize the significance of the day until much after I finished the movie, but we’ll pretend that I planned it out this way.
A friend of mine posted the trailer on her Facebook and urged people to watch this movie. She called it the Asian Schindler’s List. I try not to say things like that because of how wrong these comparisons tend to end up. It’s shot in black and white and took place during World War II, and that’s more or less where the similarities end. Where Schindler’s List focuses the story on the good that one man does amidst a horrific genocide, City of Life and Death is pretty much two hours of Chinese people getting slaughtered. It’s Schindlers List without Schindler. I don’t blame them for making it so bleak, this was probably one of the most systematic destruction of a city I remember reading about in history, they only really needed to salt the earth to make it more complete.
It’s a good movie but it’s not one that you will enjoy. I was constantly getting angry and upset at the stuff going on in the film, but it’s also not showing me anything I haven’t already read about. Back in high school, when Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking was huge, learning about this part of history really blew my mind. It was always the European side of war that we learned about, so when I read about the atrocities that the Japanese army inflicted on Nanking I wondered why more people didn’t know about this. She referred to it as the hidden (or secret, I forget) holocaust of World War II. She was right. If I had watched this movie before I read (or knew about) this event, it would have had a more profound impact on me. I guess because I was already familiar with what was going on, the things I saw in the movie didn’t shock me as much as was intended. The things I’ve read were actually much worse than what was depicted in the film, so I’m glad that I didn’t get to see some really depraved stuff.
I still think it’s really well done. The way it’s shot, how everything looks, and the guerilla warfare battle sequences were all excellent. I’m always impressed with modern directors who can shoot an action sequence without the camera feeling like it’s being wheeled on a cobblestone road. And they get extra cookies for not having soundtracks that overpower the movie. While it is a violent movie, it’s not gratuitous at all. People die in droves, get mowed down by machine gun fire, but there’s nothing “cool” about it. It just is.
I can’t throw out a recommendation for this movie. It’s a damn good movie, but I don’t think I enjoyed a single minute of it (you’re not really supposed to). If, however, the Nanking massacre still interests you then watch it, just don’t expect to take anything new out of it.
I finally got around to watching Point Break today. I’ve wanted to watch it since I saw it parodied on Hot Fuzz, but never got around to it. My first impression is that it was a pretty ridiculous premise. The immortal Keanu Reeves plays FBI agent Johnny Utah, who goes undercover to infiltrate a group of professional bank robbers who are also surfers. The premise is only ridiculous because it completely defies all my preconceived notions of what a surfer and a bank robber is supposed to be like. All professional bank robbers, in my eyes, are supposed to be like the crew from Heat. They are incredibly disciplined, serious people who know the risks involved with their job and thus approach it with the appropriate level of intensity. Surfers, to me, are free-spirited people and I just don’t picture them being disciplined enough to rob a bank the way they do. When the theory that the bank robbers might be surfers is initially floated in the film, everyone laughs at the idea. They’re probably thinking the same thing. “Really? Surfers?” And the movie runs with the idea. When you meet the crew, you realize that, man, they really are your prototypical surfers. They’re impulsive adrenaline junkies who wake up at 5am to go surfing, and who go surfing in the middle of the night as well, because they can! And want to.
How does a group of people who live life so spontaneously, and impulsively, turn off that behaviour to be cold, precise bank robbers? I don’t see it. These aren’t personality traits that you can turn off. That’s not the craziest thing in the movie though, but I don’t really want to pick on this movie too much because it’s a popcorn flick, and on that level it succeeds. It’s fun to watch and not as cheesy as I thought it would be, and that skydiving sequence was fantastic. How anyone manages to have a conversation while skydiving is beyond me though.
This movie is no story and all action. You can tell by the title of the movie which is essentially “Bangkok Knockout: Bangkok Knockout.” You’re not getting anything else from this movie. It’s not BKO: The Curse of the Elephant, or any of that nonsense, just plain fighting. With that being said, I’ll try and recap the plot for you (as best as I can):
Two finalists in what looks like a stunt team competition fight for the right to be in a Hollywood movie. The protagonist team wins and celebrate at a party, where they are drugged by the catering staff. They wake up in a warehouse (where all action movies eventually end up) and find that some of the members of their team have been kidnapped and a team of mysterious assassins seem to be behind this. Turns out the organizers of the competition are also a part of an underground gambling ring, and they have matched the stunt team against a group of deadly assassins! This has all been arranged so evil rich people can bet on real fights (those bloodthirsty rich people!!)
Alright, I understand how movies like this work. No need for a plot, no need for good acting (and you will get none of that in this film), everything is set up so they can give you the craziest action sequences possible (and it was crazy). The fighting is brutal in the movie. It seems like every punch and kick is prefaced with a running start because it’s all haymakers. There’s this scene where guys are fighting near a car and people are getting beat into the car. It’s as if it was made of cardboard or something. There’s a ton of people taking massive falls, through buildings, tin roofs, and off the hood of cars, you know, full of those “OH SHIT” moments that you can laugh at with your friends. Thankfully, the movie has more of this than talking.
I can’t stand this new crop of Thai action movies, particularly the ones with Tony Jaa in them, because none of their stars have any charisma. It severely limits what the movie can do, because unless you’re sitting down in awe of what he can do, you’re probably getting annoyed at his horrible acting or constant scowling. Their movies are made to be cut into Youtube clips. You can enjoy BKO, Ong Bak, and all those other movies without wasting 90 minutes of your time. Just check out the compilation videos that are inevitably going to be on Youtube, and put it on mute, unless you want to listen to Drowning Pool or something.
My friend (who I helped get hired into my company) sent me this trailer a month or two ago. She sounded fairly excited about the movie, and I was pretty surprised that they even bothered making a documentary on parking attendants (because we really don’t do anything sometimes).
It’s about the people who work for the Corner Parking Lot, this independently owned lot that sits behind a university (I forget which one), and the group of people that work there. They’re all more or less artsy people, and most of the film is hearing them wax poetic about their experiences in the parking lot. I’ve never heard people use the words “existentialism” and “parking” in the same sentence before, but it gets bandied about a couple of times in the movie. Apparently being alone in a booth has the same effect as a sensory deprivation tank, because it allows you to think about your life and get to know yourself better. I read a lot if it’s quiet, and I do a lot of day dreaming, but I don’t think I’ve come out of a shift knowing myself more, but that’s just me. It’s much too distracting to go that deep.
Their lot is pretty simple, they don’t have a computer, they don’t have a gate that the exit, they charge people at the exit using only their watch, and the till is their pocket. It’s a very simple way to run the lot and there’s two lots I know of that are like that in my company. One of their attendants considered their basic setup as the purest form of being a parking attendant and griped people in booths with heating and computers “don’t know what it’s like to be a parking attendant.” Oh, I beg to differ! We get the same shitty customers, with the same shitty questions, the only difference is that I’m a bit more comfortable than they are. They make the job seem a lot more special than it is. Maybe their experiences there are unique, but I think it’s the people there that make it special, not the job itself. They point out that their employees are all essentially too smart for the job, which has created this different environment, and that I agree with. Almost all their employees are attending a nearby university, and one of them became a law student. My job doesn’t nearly employ people as smart.
I think I’m harsher on the film because I work as a parking attendant and I can pick out parts that I feel are exaggerated, which is why I didn’t enjoy the film that much. It was still interesting to me though, because I realized that no matter where you are in the world, parking customers suck all over.
This movie wasn’t that great but I enjoyed it anyway. I don’t know why I had the impression that Kurt Russel was the villain in this film because he turns out to be one of the heroes. The whole time I thought he was going to betray Daniel, but I guess he just scowls all the time anyway. I’ve been conditioned to think the bad guys are the ones that never smile, but that’s what you get for watching bad action movies all the time.
I love this one sequence in the film where Daniel (played by James Spader) more or less learns the language in a span of 2 hours because it’s a “slight accent change.” That is the equivalent to learning Mandarin in an hour if you already know Cantonese. Is that even possible? I’d like to say no because I know Hakka but don’t know Cantonese or Mandarin. Then again, he’s a scholar with a PhD, and I just bought a wallet with the map of New York on it because I thought it was cool (it’s not and functions terribly as a wallet).
I can see why I didn’t remember this movie at all because it’s not a very action-packed film. I loved those as a kid and Stargate had way too much talking to keep a 7 year old Redford’s attention. The first half of the film is the characters trying to figure out the language and the customs of the new world that they are in. I thought they were going to cop-out and have everyone speak in an English accent, as is the custom in most movies, but they didn’t! The first half of the movie shows the characters miming actions and trying to communicate with each other. They exchange food with each other, in one of those token of friendship moments, with the bizarro Egyptians (I don’t know of a better way to describe it) giving the Americans some food and the Americans offering…chocolate bars in return. This exchange is probably the most plausible thing in the movie because what other American food would they offer? A McRib? It’s not until Daniel “cracks the language” that you know what’s going on, and this is after an hour or so of this stupidness. It’s annoying, but, I’ll give credit that he actually showed it like that.
The main villain is Ra (the Egyptian Sun God), who is actually an alien seeking immortality. He’s incredibly strong and seems to have the ability to melt someone’s brain by touching their heads, and he also has a bed of some sort where he can heal himself up if injured, but, none of this really comes to play because he’s the most passive villain in any movie I’ve ever watched. He doesn’t do shit! He just parades a bunch of boys around in thongs feeding him grapes and stuff. It was weird.
I’m glad I went over and watched it again. I wish I remembered more of my childhood movies because I would love to revisit them all and see how they hold up.
Until next time! Kudos!
- Red
PS: I haven’t forgotten about my messed up movie quest. It’s coming back. I’ve been tired at night after studying for my CSC exam. I’ve got a massive rant up about that, but I’ll save that for another day.