Brian Zhang Larsen's Blog » 3 of a kind

3 Korean Movies

Brian Zhang Larsen — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 11:57:12 +0000

The Only thing I could get myself to do this Sunday morning, with slight hangovers, was to write about some movies. I have already written about some Chinese and some Japanese movies, so I might as well complete the Asian circle with some Korean movies, in this “3 of a kind” category. You can roughly say that the Japanese are good at bizarre/horror movies, The Chinese at action movies and the Koreans at romantic comedies. For the diversity of it I have once again chosen some very different movies for this one.

Bichunmoo (2000) is a very long, but very cool movie which takes place in the 14 century Korea. Sullie is the Daughter of a mongol General who wants her to get married to some important nobleman. Her previous love affair jin-ha, is then of course killed by her father, to ease the transformation to married life for her. The only problem is that jin-ha don’t die. He get his hands on the secrets to the most powerful martial art, the bichun arts of Korea. He also get a very cool black rice hat by the way, but that is not explained further in the movie, because it is mainly just a prop. Its very cool though, even though I realize that cool and rice hat is two words that are mentally hard to fit together. With this hat and these secrets he is prepared to take revenge and get his girl back. A lot of serious kick-ass is involved.

My sassy girl (2001) is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Everyone I know that have seen the movies agrees with me (not many though). Please watch this one. If you have any prejudgment of Asian humor or comedies, watch this one before you rant or whatever. I think a lot of lame Japanese TV shows have given Asian comedy a bad reputation, but My Sassy girl is not like that at all (even though the visual representation above might indicate otherwise). When the movie came out it stormed most of Asia, and still now it has its effect. The phrase from the movie “Do you wanna die?” became very popular among girls all over the continent and still is to some extend. Well the movie is a romantic comedy, so actually classic Korean. Although I think the genre first seriously went popular after this one. A guy (Kyung-woo) is so unfortunate to meet a very rude and noisy drunk girl in the train one night, and helps clean of her puke of an old mans head… with his sweater. He takes the almost unconscious girl to a hotel, and stay there to watch out for her. It quickly appears that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and he gets wrapped around the finger of this strange manipulative girl. She has massive mood swings and forces Kyung-woo to do various humiliating things. He also lands in jail a couple of times. The movie is based on true events, blogged by the unfortunate soul Kim Ho-sik. Now the movie also gets a US remake, which should be out next year. I really don’t see the meaning in this, because I have trouble imagining how this movie could be made any better. Just watch it if you haven’t already. It is really great. It is also the only movie not directed by a guy with the name Kim.

Spring, summer, fall, winter, spring (2003) is a very quiet low pace movies, which also reflects in the beautiful scenery and the changing seasons effect on it. The movie almost only takes place in and around a floating temple, in a lake. In this temple lives an old monk with his apprentice, and they help to give spiritual advice to visitors. It is a challenge to convert the movie to words. Every line and every scene is executed in a minimalistic way, to sort out meaningless chit chat and info, and bring only the essential touching bits of information that makes your brain settle at ease. Some ignorant people may find this movie boring, however evolutionary progressive people will enjoy this movie and reflect on the important things in life afterwards. Watch this movie alone, to make sure you don’t have any of the first categories of persons near you at the time.

On Beat Takeshi

Brian Zhang Larsen — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 23:14:04 +0000

I just realized that not everybody is familiar with the Japanese movie icon, Takeshi Kitano, which is big a mistake. I myself am a big fan of his movies, about which I have a hard time coming up with one single word they have in common. His movies are just too different, although they are usually very dramatic in some way. I think he would be an obvious theme for my second 3 of a kind posts. Not only does this guy make movies. You might have heard about Takeshi’s Castle, and he is generally very exposed in the japanese media. While I was in Japan in 2004 i was able to watch him several times in tv shows. (Wearing a dressing gown for some reason).
By looking at the pictures below you might notice that there is no Battle Royale, which you might think is utterly insane. But off course you have already watched that movie, and if not, then try by all your powers to wriggle your toes so the doctors will try harder to wake you up from your coma. By the way, these movies are only movies that mr. Takeshi himself directed, which he didn’t do with Battle Royale, even though I suspect a lot of influence from him. I am mainly thinking about the scene in the end where Takeshi is shot several times, and everybody thinks he is done. But then his phone calls and he just have to get up at get it like nothing have happened.

Zatoichi is a remake of an old series of movies featuring Zatoichi, the blind swordsman. Off course he took the role as Zatoichi himself, which he does very well. A thing about Beat Takeshi, which he is also called, is that he very often acts in his own movies. It is about a blind guy who enters a village, and meets badguys and….do nothing!! But only for a while. Then he ofcourse kicks ass, which he is fairly good at even thouh he is blind. Unfortunately I haven’t seen any other Zatoichi movies, but I guess this one is the weirdest. There are episodes where normal everyday situations, generate rhythmic sounds, which is totally out of context. In the “hmm, that was kind of weird” kind of way. For instance some farmers use their tools in the field in a way that it generates a rhythmic beat, which is never mentioned or referred to again. Another cool thing is Kitanos normal dislike of traditional swordfights. They are too often trying to hit the sword of the opponent more that the opponent himself. In this movie he has tried to do it differently, and the swordfights turn out cool and bloody. Although there could be more.

Kikujiro no Natsu is a whole other kind of movie. Takeshi plays a lowlife hustler kind of guy (Kikujiro), who is taking a young boy to see his grandma. I don’t really remember if they are related or not, but I guess that is not really important. The movie is not very action packed, nor is there bloody fighting scenes. But it is still a good movie, filled with very funny an entertaining elements. Kikujiro is such a “to the bone” loser, so he is surely not the ideal traveling companion for a young boy. And in the early beginning of the movie it Kikujiro has success in loosing all the boys money on the cycle racing tracks, and it sorts of takes of from there. The movie itself is kind of low pace, with steady humorous features.

The last Movie in this Post is Dolls. Surely the strangest movie I have seen from Takeshi Kitano. It is actually three small intervened stories, and yes, that idea have been seen before. This movie is very tragically and emotionally though, and is mainly about love and insanity. And this movie shows just how close these to mind states are to each other. I wont write about the actual content of the movie because nobody reads this far anyways. And I wouldn’t recommend this one, unless you are really into Takeshis movies. But it the movies really generates a mood, and the play with colors are nice, as you might see from the cover. And by the way, the strangest thing about this movie is that he does’nt appear in it himself…

3 chinese movies

Brian Zhang Larsen — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 16:29:02 +0000

I now start off my new category “3 of a kind”. Posts in this category will contain three short reviews of movies which is similar in some way. The similarity can be of different kind and can be about the nationality, genre, plot or whatever. I think i owe to say that i am normally very uncritical about movies, and enjoy most genres no matter the budget, plot or kind of digital sound (although this one is important!). I love hollywood blockbusters, and i am certainly not to posh to say that a large budget (mostly on CGI) and nice effects can save a movie from an awful plot, and still make it cool. So you should take this into consideration if you should happen to get influenced by my recommendations. I start this off with three Chinese movies which is relatively new, and worth noticing. They are all action movies and epical/historical in some way, and none of them is starring the Chinese actor Andy Lau, who normally appears in every movie produced in China.

I watch a lot of asian movies partly due to interest, and partly because of my Chinese girlfriend. She is the main reason why i fell over these three movies. An obvious Chinese “3 of a kind” would be Crouching tiger hidden dragon, Hero and House of flying daggers which all are great movies, but you have surely already watched those… Instead i chose the following:

Seven swords is directed by Hark Tsui which also directed the legendary movie Knock off (please read the plot outline at IMDB, it is hilarious) and the movie (or was it a Coca Cola commercial?) Double Team. Movies known in the west, unlike this chinese tale. Some military guy (bad guy) wants to become rich and at the same time enforce the new law of the country, which is to ban all martial arts. Some people (good guys) want to put an end to this, and seven “chosen ones” goes to a mountain where some other good guy lives. He gives them each a sword, which each has its special ability, and they then go back to save their village. Stuff like poisoned water, spies and a Korean girl also appears in this movie. All in all the movie is quite good, although maybe a bit too long. The fighting scenes has many quick cuts, which make them hard to follow and confusing. But i like the twist with the different swords…

The Myth stars Jackie Chan in a rare non-cop role. He is an archeologist who is trying to uncover the location of the Qin emperors tomb. Because of his lively dreams that he is a Qin dynasty general (who actually lived), parts of the movie is about this old dynasty … and of course the movie also has some kung fu scenes. This movie taught me a lot about the Qin dynasty and the first emperor which tomb actually have never been found to this date. The Qin dynasty was the first Chinese dynasty and the closest anyone have been to finding the tomb was the discovery the terra cotta army, which first was believed to be the tomb. But no… the tomb is of many thought to contain a big treasure, and many people have tried to find it through history. Well, without revealing too much, Jackie finds it, and he practices some kung fu there…

The Promise is kind of a strange movie… I really don’t know what to think of this movie, because i don’t have much to compare it with. This movie uses a lot of CGI and has very beautiful scenery… And the main plot is ok too. Witch gives princess course, slave saves princess, princess fall in love, general also wants princess, bad guy wants to kill everyone. But some elements is just too lame.. the slave eventually learns to run faster than time… Of course this is not tried to be explained using any kind of science which would only make this more lame. And there is more of these too far fetched supernatural elements, which kind of annoys me. This movie also contains kung fu scenes by the way.