Taiwanese Cinema About to Hit the UK in a Big Way

August 31, 2015by Hayley ScanlonLeave a comment

This is kind of another link post, but bear with me! First up Ang Lee’s first three films finally became available on DVD in the UK. Cunningly titled The Ang Lee Trilogy, you can now feast your eyes on Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman for the first time. Feast is the right word too as all the movies feature food in a very prominent way so make sure you have the proper supplies arranged before you sit down to watch them. You can read my review of the trilogy over at UK Anime Network. They’re all great, but I particularly like The Wedding Banquet because it’s just so funny!

Here’s an awful old school trailer for The Wedding Banquet (the film is better than this, I promise).

OK, moving on you can also pick up the award winning debut from Chienn Hsiang EXIT on DVD and VOD courtesy of Facet Films. I reviewed the film when it played at the Glasgow Film Festival and you can read that at UK Anime Network too. I also had the opportunity to interview the film’s star Chen Shiang-Chyi while she’s over here shooting The Receptionist. Contrary to expectations, Chen Shiang-Chyi was actually very chatty and super nice so the only reason the interview seems a little short is because she gave very long and detailed answers! You can checkout the interview over at UK Anime Network.

Which brings me on to the upcoming Hou Hsiao-Hsien season at the BFI which begins tomorrow. Pretty much everyone is expecting his new movie The Assassin starring his regular muse Shu Qi to appear in the film festival (it would be really strange if it didn’t right?) and I for one am really looking forward to seeing it.

Hou Hsiao-Hsien will be appearing in conversation at the BFI on 14th September (tickets apparently still available) ahead of a screening of one of his greatest films, The Time to Live and the Time to Die. I was lucky enough to see this one during the BFI’s extended season of Chinese films last year and though it’s not always an easy watch, Hou’s biographical tale of mainland refugees and their Taiwanese offspring is nevertheless a moving and fairly universal coming of age tale.

I’d also recommend Dust in the Wind

and A City of Sadness

but I just have to post this scene from Three Times again because I love it so much

They’re also showing Hou’s Ozu tribute and Japanese set Café Lumière starring Tadanobu Asano if that’s more your speed.

That’s a lot of Taiwanese cinema all of a sudden right? It’s a good thing though! If you still want more I’ll direct you to the films of Edward Yang as mentioned in Chen Shiang-Chyi’s interview:

Yi Yi: A One and a Two

No trailers for a Confucian Confusion or A Brighter Summer Day though – both are a little more difficult to get hold of but worth the effort. A Confucian Confusion has a great Rom-Com style ending (though not as good as Comrades: Almost a Love a Story which has the best ending of any film, ever, but I digress) and A Brighter Summer Day which is an epic at four hours long but a total heartbreaker.

Life of Pi 3D

December 26, 2012December 26, 2012by Hayley Scanlon2 Comments

Ever since Yann Martel’s Life of Pi won the Booker prize in 2003 there has been intense interest in translating it to the screen. Considered by many to be unfilmable, it seeks to tell the story of one boy’s journey from an idyllic childhood as the son of a zoo keeper in French India to his present life in Montreal by way of a terrible, life altering ordeal – becoming the victim and only survivor of a shipwreck. Only human survivor that is, the boy, Pi, is alone for his 227 day odyssey across the Pacific save for a Bengal tiger with the incongruous name of Richard Parker that managed to escape the wreck and climb aboard his life boat.

Rafe Spall’s Martel stand in, having thrown out a recently completed novel, has come to hear Pi’s story after being told that it could ‘make him believe in God’. A bold claim indeed, it seems younger Pi was something of a spiritual enthusiast – collecting religions the way other boys collect heroes, and attempting to practice them all at the same time! It’s mostly down to this pan-spirtituality that Pi attributes his miraculous survival, that and of course the tiger. Having to fend off Richard Parker and find ways the two of them could co-exist together kept his mind focused and prevented him on dwelling on his greater fears or the earthly loneliness that comes from being the only one of your kind for hundreds of miles.

That said, for all the film’s constant talk about gods and the universe some of its philosophising can’t help but feel a little trite. As for the tale’s claim that it will make you ‘believe in God’, it’s difficult to see how this could be the case. Yes, the boy’s survival is, literally, incredible – miraculous even, as is the way the universe functions as a whole but this story isn’t necessarily any deeper than any other meditations of a wandering soul about why the world is as it is, or indeed how one chooses to view it. Ultimately the film suffers from never being as quite profound as it would like to be and perhaps feels it is.

The real strength of this film is in its visuals which are extremely impressive. There’s no arguing that what Lee has created is revelatory, a series of beautiful, digital vistas more akin to a moving work of art than we are used to seeing from mainstream cinema. The use of 3D might well be the first that justifies its use as a valid artistic tool that is part and parcel of a film’s artistic vision rather than something that can be tacked onto a movie’s name in order to add a few pounds onto the ticket price.

This artistic vision is what makes Life of Pi such an interesting film. Though many will find its storytelling banal or unconvincing, its technical and artistic proficiency cannot be denied. The weaknesses of the central narrative and its slightly saccharine tone mean that Life of Pi may not stand up to repeated viewings, however resisting a first viewing on these grounds would be a mistake as it represents a true evolution in the art of filmmaking.

Weekly Rundown 10-16th December

December 17, 2012December 17, 2012by Hayley Scanlon2 Comments

Seeing as I never have time to write about half the films I’d like, I thought I’d try keeping a weekly list of all the films I’ve watched during the week – mostly first time views with the occasional old favourite, plus anything else that crops up. I’ll just write a few words about each of them and expand some into full reviews.

Pickpocket

BFI – Passport to Cinema screening

I haven’t made things easy for myself have I? Bresson’s tale of redemption through love reads like a mid twentieth century French Crime & Punishment but is full of Bresson’s usual spiritual complexity. The pickpocketing scenes take on a sort of balletic quality and almost glamourise the crime being committed but leave the audience in no doubt that it is also a violation. Elusive but essential.

The Family Friend

L’amico di famiglia

Curzon on Demand

Not as beguiling as The Consequences of Love or as studied as Il Divo, Sorrentino’s The Family Friend is a modern day fairy tale with a central character so loathsome it’s difficult to see how the audience is expected to endure a whole film in his company. Certainly a very strange film but very Sorrentino and all the more welcome for it.

Battles Without Honour and Humanity

Jingi naki tatakai 仁義なき戦い

MOC DVD

An out and out classic, Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honour and Humanity is a landmark Yakuza movie that shows the gangster lifestyle for what it really really is – senseless violence fuelled by pride and greed. It was so successful it spawned FOUR sequels (and I can’t wait to watch them all)!

!I’m sorry about the weird aspect ratio and the German subs but it seems like there’s no other footage around!)

The Hobbit

Odeon Leicester Sq, HFR 3D

Full review already up, short story – eh, it was OK.

Life of Pi

Odeon Covent Garden

I’d heard really mixed things about Ang Lee’s latest but actually I was pleasantly surprised. Nowhere near as profound as it seems to want to be but the visuals are truly astounding. Look out for a full review soon.

Magic Mike

Mubi

Came up as Mubi’s film of the day and having heard quite positive things about it I decided to give it a go despite my misgivings – unfortunately my I should listened to my intuition, this film did nothing for me and I’m baffled by some of the critical praise.

Thermae Romae

HK Blu Ray

Hilarious movie about a Roman bath architect who accidentally time travels to modern Japan, steals all their modern bath technology and so ends up having to design baths for Hadrian and some of his cronies. Full review coming soon but this is so much fun!

35 Shots of Rum

35 Rhums

Channel 4 HD

Claire Denis’ homage to Ozu’s Late Spring set in a French lower class tower block – to quite as moving as Ozu’s film but brings its own lyrical sense of transience with perhaps more of a political component than you would generally find in an Ozu film.

Midnight Express

Film4

An oscar winner much trumpeted in its time that helped to jump start Alan Parker’s career but more than thirty years on it’s starting to feel its age and its extremely harsh view of the Turkish people is quite difficult to take.

The Keep

Film 4

Apparently the full version of this film was close to three hours long but studio execs were so unhappy with it they hacked it down to 90 minutes! It’s quite obvious a lot of material is missing and the film doesn’t really make that much sense but then how much sense do you really expect a movie about a strange rubbery monster accidentally let out of its cage by a bunch of greedy nazis to make?