I've seen a lot of average-to-okay films recently and two noteworthy ones.
The Butterfly Murders (Tsui Hark, 1979)
Tsui Hark's first feature was this low-budget martial arts fantasy, with a good deal of gialloesque mystery and horror thrown in for good measure. The setup is a sort of locked-house murder story, in an abandoned fortress that features a subterranean maze, flesh-eating butterflies, exploding attack crows, and a rope-swinging maniac in high-tech black armor. Tsui's recent Detective Dee mystery is a bit of a throwback to this with a more-lavish (and no-less-imaginative) production design but the mystery and story elements in this one are both weirder and more satisfying, with a narrator who leaves the story right before the climax and possibly imagines the rest of it.
Pale Flower (Masahiro Shinoda, 1964)
Grim Yakuza film that portrays the life of a nihilistic gambler and his ambiguous relationship with a thrill-seeking femme fatale. The film seems to fore-go social commentary or moralizing in favor of stylized black and white cinematography and layered, visually rich cinematic storytelling.
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953)
The Mysterious Mr. Wong (William Nigh, 1934)
Kung Fu Panda (Mark Osborne & John Stevenson, 2008) +
The Ugly Truth (Robert Luketic, 2009)
Mission: Impossible 2 (John Woo, 2000)
Son of Kong (Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933) +
Eagle Shooting Heroes (Jeffrey Lau, 1993) -
Sugata Sanshiro Part 2 (Akira Kurosawa, 1945)
Burn After Reading (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2008)
The Butterfly Murders (Tsui Hark, 1979)
Tsui Hark's first feature was this low-budget martial arts fantasy, with a good deal of gialloesque mystery and horror thrown in for good measure. The setup is a sort of locked-house murder story, in an abandoned fortress that features a subterranean maze, flesh-eating butterflies, exploding attack crows, and a rope-swinging maniac in high-tech black armor. Tsui's recent Detective Dee mystery is a bit of a throwback to this with a more-lavish (and no-less-imaginative) production design but the mystery and story elements in this one are both weirder and more satisfying, with a narrator who leaves the story right before the climax and possibly imagines the rest of it.
Pale Flower (Masahiro Shinoda, 1964)
Grim Yakuza film that portrays the life of a nihilistic gambler and his ambiguous relationship with a thrill-seeking femme fatale. The film seems to fore-go social commentary or moralizing in favor of stylized black and white cinematography and layered, visually rich cinematic storytelling.
-
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953)
The Mysterious Mr. Wong (William Nigh, 1934)
Kung Fu Panda (Mark Osborne & John Stevenson, 2008) +
The Ugly Truth (Robert Luketic, 2009)
Mission: Impossible 2 (John Woo, 2000)
Son of Kong (Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933) +
Eagle Shooting Heroes (Jeffrey Lau, 1993) -
Sugata Sanshiro Part 2 (Akira Kurosawa, 1945)
Burn After Reading (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2008)
Last edited by linespalsy; 03-25-11 at 11:58 AM.