Christine's reviews

Yakuza Papers does need a lot of concentration

oh, I bet it doesn't have to have as much concentration as Day Watch or Night Watch, I concentrated and I am still not sure what was going on

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I used to be addicted to crystal meth, now I'm just addicted to Breaking Bad.

The Horse Thief
Directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang

I've been waiting to see this film for some years. The directors film The Blue Kite is one of my favourite films, and The Horse Thief has not been available on dvd and has been out of print on vhs for some time. This mainland china dvd is of poor quality, and features the logo and chinese characters of the distributors sliding across the top of the letterbox screen every 10 minutes, but that can't distract from the beauty of the film, even the sparse english subtitles are fine cos there isn't that much speech in the film anyway.

The story is set in Tibet amongst nomadic people who scratch a living on the plains amidst the barren mountains. A horse thief is captured and cast out from his tribe for his sins. He, his wife and toddler son are forced out into the countryside and are now even worse off as they have no support. Tragedy befalls them and he once again has to resort to thieving to even continue living.

The film is almost silent. It depends upon a series of images and rituals, some if you've watched a few films with Buddhist themes you may pick up on, other rituals are almost closed to our understanding but with a little insight you can piece together what they can possibly mean. However, hardship, death and pain can be understood by anyone and here Tian Zhuangzhuang has shown all of those things in a landscape that's as breathtakingly beautiful as it is harsh on the people who live there.

4.5/5

Christie Malrys Own Double Entry
Director - Paul Tickell
Stars - Nick Moran



Christie Malry. Child growing up in stultifying atmosphere with single mother is shown taking delight in performing acts of vandalism on train tracks. Now he’s an adult, but one of those people who aren’t quite all there, and one who has a vivid imagination specially concerning perceived slights. With his mother dying of cancer Christie has a watershed moment in his life while attending a course about book keeping. If an entry is debited then one has to be credited – if something nasty happens to Christie then why shouldn’t he get his own back? A debit, and a credit – a wrong and a revenge. Makes perfect sense to Christie, but the trouble is that the stakes start to get way too high.

Not without its faults this film, but there’s an solid anarchy about it that makes it a decently watchable, ambitious film. Well acted too, and with a nice edge of humour. Woven through there’s an intercut film set in renaissance Italy with the characters of Fra Pacioli (who’s supposed to have invented double entry book keeping) and Leonardo Da Vinci doing some dodgy double dealing of his own.

Unfortunately for the film makers true life events got in the way and the film can’t make for blase viewing in the same way that it could in 2000. The terrorist acts visited on London in the past few years make it a lot harder to stomach than when I first picked it up in the dvd bargain bin a few years ago, and at times quite shockingly prescient. Ditched from the cinema as its release should’ve been around the time of 9/11, it never quite made it back which I think is a bit of a shame.

Excellent soundtrack too from Luke Haines

Thanks for the review Christine another movie i must track down

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Harakiri (Seppuku)

Director Masaki Kobayashi

starring Tatsuya Nakadai



After the battle of Sekigahara which paved the way for the Tokugawa shogunate a lot of samurai were left masterless. These ronin were forced to scratch a living doing whatever they could to survive. This film is set in the early 1600s during that time.

A ronin, Hanshiro Tsugumo presents himself at the gates of the Iyi clan requesting that he uses their courtyard as an honourable place to commit ritual suicide. The clan leader acts wary - ronin have been using this excuse at other clan houses, then being given employment or money as a token of their nobility. Hanshiro is given permission but not before the clan leader tells him of the other ronin, Motome, that came to commit seppuku. They're unaware that Hanshiro knows, and he's out for retribution.

Set up on the seppuku platform in the courtyard surrounded by samurai witnesses, Hanshiro asks for a certain man to be his second. The man is sent for, and in the waiting period Hanshiro tells the tale that will end up with him exacting his revenge.

This is a film on a Shakespearian tragedy scale with a story that fits together beautifully. Kobayashi is famous for challenging authority so here the clan is faced with the shameful way they've treated Motome, and Hanshiro stands up for the dispossessed to the bitter end. In that courtyard it's almost like he's on a theatre stage, immobile, while the story plays out in flashback around him.

Tatsuya Nakadai burns with an onscreen fire in his eyes in a similar way to how he played Ryunosuke in Sword of Doom, only this time he handles himself with dignity rather than being an evil barstard. This film is so powerful, all the way through right to the end it's mesmerising, Go, see it!

Los Lunes Al Sol

director:Fernando León de Aranoa
stars Javier Bardem, Luis Tosar

The film concerns a group of men laid off from the closing shipyard. Some of them have taken early redundancy and some stayed to the bitter end fighting for their jobs until the riot police intervened and the place was shut down. Two years later the shipyard is being redeveloped as housing and we follow a few of the men who've found no work and spend their evenings propping up the local bar, mulling over life, love, work or rather lack of it.



Javier Bardem is outstanding as the argumentative Santa who still rails against the world, he's overweight and a little shambling but you can't argue with his beliefs and his spirit isn't broken. He can also charming and funny too. In fact there's a good feeling of humour in this film amongst a lot of pathos and some tragedy too. The cameraderie of the men shines through all the shite life has dealt
them.

There's a universal story in here of any depressed city whose working class men have had their pride kicked around and still manage to support each other.



4.5/5

Saw it. Great film. Depressing as hell, but still great...

Thanks...

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Thanks for all the great reviews.... my "to see" list is going to be long enough to stretch across the USA... a couple of times...

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I thought you might like it
Santa was so funny wasn't he? Hilarious when he read the bedtime story to the kid and when I wanted to jump up and go yesssssssss!

Caity, shame we live so far away I could've lent you some of these dvd s
xx

True...and quite charming as well...

Nice reviews. I did not really like Battle Royale. Keep the reviews coming!

The Bank Job

Director : Roger Donaldson

stars - Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows and most British tv actors



Courtesy of Showcase cinemas a free viewing of The Bank Job released on Friday here and next month in the US although I dunno how big a release it'll be.

If I tell you that this film is written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais and you recognise the names straightaway then you'll know exactly what this film is going to be like. Those guys wrote some of the best and most beloved of British tv comedies starting in the 1960s with The Likely Lads, then Porridge in the 70s and into the 80s and beyond with Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and much more tv work and film screenplays (including The Commitments).

and so here we have the story of a bank heist carried out by small time criminals well out of their league. They're sucked in by a plan to make them money when they're really being set up to recover certain compromising photos from a safety deposit box in the vault. As Terry (Statham) slowly realises what's going on and what they have in their swagbags, things start to get a little twisted.

Supposedly based on a true story, but as always 'based on' gives that frisson of reality that film makers love to dangle in front of their audiences. How much is true and how much is embroidery is something we'll not be able to discover as apparently the whole fiasco came under a Government D-Notice,well hmmm...But anyway, there are some real life figures in there such as Michael X who I remember as someone who filled the pages of the News of The World for weeks, so maybe there is some sordid truths being covered up. We all love a little conspiracy huh?

Being written by Clement and La Frenais guarantees some comedy, but the film does have it's violent moments and probably suffers a bit from not quite handling that shift between light and dark - it's a little clunky in that respect.
It's all a bit larger than life, a bit tv-ish. You keep on seeing these people that've been admitted to Casualty with appendicitis or been a baddie in Spooks or arrested in The Bill..except Jason Statham who's virtually downbeat after the hyper roles he's had recently . However it's a very British affair complete with Cabinet ministers photographed in bondage, posh birds, low life porn and bent coppers...all very reminiscent of the 1970s and the story is entertaining enough.

3.5/5

You don't mention the most important thing, does Statham show some skin?

I want to see that

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heh no, sorry.

I wouldn't mind catching that one purely for Clement and La Frenais.

Whether the Lidl Bruce Willis gets his kit off or not matters to me not a whit...

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

The Warlords (Tau Ming Chong)

Director Peter Chan
Starring Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro.

General Pang Qing-Yun (Jet Li) is the sole survivor of a huge battle. At the end when the dust clears he's surrounded by the dead bodies of his men for as far as he can see, trouble is that he's played dead to survive, and that's not an honourable way for a general to behave.

Wandering amongst refugees he's taken in by some bandits led by Er Hu (Andy Lau) who's accompanied by the young Wu Yang (Takeshi Kaneshiro). After bravely helping them storm an army column to get food, Quing Yun is sworn in as a blood brother to the two bandit leaders. As the story commences, Qing Yun persuades the bandits to join the army firstly for food and money, but soon the bravery of their men means that more and more victories are won and the men climb the ladder of power. A struggle begins between Er Hu and Qing Yun, a battle of wills and minds that's played out throughout the film is only resolved in the end.



There's enough battle in this film to satisfy a blood thirsty viewer, and well filmed it is too, looking nice in its colour leeched way, a big contrast with some of the epic historic Chinese films of recently which have tended to hurt your eyes with their brilliance.

I thought it had a slow, meandering start. Just when I was thinking that it was going to be one of those action only films, it started throwing up the first of several moral dilemmas which put the two leads into opposing positions. This had the effect of challenging the viewer, are these actions right? Did Er Hu make promises he couldn't keep? Was Qing Yun justified in doing what he did? Interesting film now, with the characters strengths and weaknesses exposed.



Some dodgy cgi, some magnificent male bonding, some terrific set piece battle moments, and no martial arts from Jet Li, but he's dead hard tho, despite now looking his age and with a slight double chin (!) . I enjoyed The Warlords immensely and would recommend it to those who like Chinese or HK epic adventures.

In Bruges

Director (and writer) Martin McDonagh

Starring Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes.



Two hitmen, old hand Ken (Gleeson) and beginner Ray (Farrell) are hiding out in Bruges after Ray's first job. This is to the delight of Ken, who's quite happy to trail around medieval architecture, but to the disgust of Ray who can barely bring himself to pronounce Bruges without the f'ing prefix...

Gleeson and Farrell are an inspired combination of actors to play the hitmen, one stoical the other bouncing off the walls due to circumstances that become more apparent as the film unfolds. The genius of this film is its mixture of hilariously tasteless dialogue with suddenly realised dark touches that bring you back down to earth with a bump - these are hitmen after all. As the story develops, Ray's bravado slips, and Farrell does his stuff with his naive boyish charm , this in turn gives Gleeson a nice turn in fatherly concern, but not without some dark surprises.

Another unlikely but sharp piece of casting is Ralph Fiennes as Harry the hitman's boss whose psycho tantrums and threatening delivery bring to mind Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast.

We laughed a lot all through, it's good to have decent black humour and as well rounded as this, it's a pleasure to see.

I started watching The Warlords a while back but gave up half an hour in. It just seemed like just another cliche-y historical drama and I'd seen quite enough of those. I think the Chinese have pretty much sucked the genre dry...:\