Movie note

[randy_byers]

I guess I could say a few words about The Warlords (Tau ming chong, 2007), which holyoutlaw and I saw at the Varsity last night. It's a historical Chinese war epic directed by the Hong Kong director, Peter Chan Ho-Sun, and starring Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro. It's set during the Taiping Rebellion in China in the 1860s. The three leads play blood brothers who fight for the Empress Dowager against the rebellion. It's a male melodrama about loyalty and betrayal, patriotism and treason. Although it's a war film, it's less about the battles than about the politics. I thought John Woo's Red Cliffs was probably better, but this is still a good movie, with a number of effective and moving scenes. Unlike the Woo, there's almost no focus on military strategy. The fight choreography by Ching Siu Tung, who was a major figure in the Hong Kong action cinema of the '80s and '90s (he directed A Chinese Ghost Story, for example), definitely takes a back seat to the story of the relationship between the three men. Jet Li won a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor for his role, probably because he was given more to do than kick ass (although he does some of that too). It's pretty violent, but in a bloodless CGI limb-lopping kind of way.

After the movie we went to Samurai Noodle, which recently opened on the Ave in the old La Tienda space. Their specialty is ramen, but neither of us had any. I got the (late-night) happy hour special, which was a pint of Sapporo, four gyoza, and a cup of edamame. A nice post-movie snack. The gyoza were particularly good. They're still working out the kinks of a new space, and apparently were having some kind of flood in the kitchen.

Comments

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I liked Red Cliff much better than I thought I would (I'm not a big Woo fan), although I saw the shortened version. Both movies are definitely worth checking out. Takeshi Kaneshiro double feature! Sure don't get many Hong Kong films in the theaters here any more. But maybe we never really did.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I can never really see HK films at the cinema because my wife's MS causes vision problems that make it very difficult for her to read subtitles. We had to walk out halfway through Inglourious Basterds because of it.

As a result I watch all my subtitled movies on DVD at home, but finding 2 hours at home to watch them is often kind of difficult.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

There are times when I think 80 minutes is the perfect length for a movie. Other times I think it's 85 minutes.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I find a comedy works best at about 85-90 minutes, and a properly plotted action-adventure film works at 120-130 minutes. When I rent a comedy on DVD and discover its more than 2 hours long (like Knocked Up, for example), I generally never finish watching the thing.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I watch a lot of old movies, and it's pretty rare for them to be over 100 minutes, whatever the genre.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

That said, The Dark Knight is an interesting film in that it actually reaches a satisfying point of conclusion at about the 80 minute mark (the Joker escaping the police lockup), and then keeps going for more than an hour.