Will’s Reviews

Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972)

Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan [愛奴] (1972)
AKA Ainu

Starring Lily Ho Li-Li, Betty Pei Ti, Yueh Hua, Tung Lam, Man Chung-San, Fan Mei-Sheng, Goo Man-Chung, Chan Shen, Fang Mian, Chan Ho, Sze-Ma Wah-Lung, Lee Ho, Hoh Gong

Directed by Chor Yuen

Expectations: Very high.

If you boil it down to its bare elements, Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan is a simple revenge story. At the same time, it’s something of a revisionist version of the simple revenge story, as the film’s plot plays out far different than any previous Shaw Brothers revenge film (and believe me, there were a lot of those!). The film is also gorgeously well-directed by the one and only Chor Yuen, who is able to construct an artful, rousing melodrama from the base elements of a trashy genre film. It’s something to behold.

The film begins with a green-tinted sequence where an investigator (Yueh Hua) questions a man who found a dead body. The end of the scene connects us to a time years prior, where, now in full color, we are shown the film’s title and a sequence full of slow motion and sheer fabric. The woman at the center of this scene is Lady Chun (Betty Pei Ti), a madam who rules her profitable brothel with a figurative iron fist (gotta make that clear in a Shaw Bros film!). This particular day is a fateful one, as Lady Chun receives a newly kidnapped shipment of young girls, one of which is the divinely beautiful Ainu (Lily Ho Li-Li).

My Brother the Devil (2012)

Starring James Floyd, Fady Elsayed, Anthony Welsh, Amira Ghazalla, Nasser Memarzia, Aymen Hamdouchi, Arnold Oceng, Saïd Taghmaoui, Shyam Kelly, McKell David, Leemore Marrett Jr.

Directed by Sally El Hosaini

Expectations: Moderate.

My Brother the Devil tells the story of a family of Egyptian immigrants who live in the London Borough of Hackney. Elder brother Rashid (James Floyd) is involved in the local street gang, selling drugs and whatever else it takes to make fast cash. His younger brother, Mo (Fady Elsayed), looks up to him and wants to be just like him. Rash does his best to protect Mo from his “job,” but the allure is too strong for him to completely quash the idea in Mo’s mind. So Rash reluctantly asks Mo to perform a quick pick-up for him, but this goes sour when Mo runs into some members from a rival gang, setting in motion the plot’s cascading dominoes that fall until the film’s finale.

There have been many films with this kind of plots, but the plot isn’t what I found compelling about My Brother the Devil. The plot is everything it needs to be, but it’s pushed forward by its characters and how their actions, thoughts and desires inform their actions. It is this quality that makes My Brother the Devil great, as the characters constantly challenged me and had me thinking. There isn’t a lot of communication between the brothers, and this leads to a lot of repressed emotion and frustration for both characters. This emotion is bubbling under the surface of the entire film, and this takes what could easily be a rote, seen-it-all-before film and turns it into something special.

Book Review: Snowpiercer, Vol. 2: The Explorers (1999/2000)

SnowPiercer_2 Snowpiercer Vol. 2: The Explorers [Le Transperceneige: L’arpenteur] (1999)
Snowpiercer Vol. 3: The Crossing [Le Transperceneige: La traversée] (2000)
First published in English by Titan Comics, 2014 (in a single volume)

Written by Benjamin Legrand

Art by Jean-Marc Rochette

Expectations: Moderate.

The end of the first Snowpiercer volume is quite definitive. There’s seemingly little room for a sequel, and even less need for one. But this ending — like a lot of the book — does leave quite a few unanswered questions, so I went into Vol. 2 hoping for some better understanding of these threads. I can’t say that Vol. 2 really does that, though, as it actually just introduces its own share of unanswered questions.

The grand point, I suppose, is that these little mysteries of life are rarely explained and never will be. It is a part of life to wonder and to continue on with what knowledge we have. It is also a natural part of humanity to question and challenge authority, so the story is always informed by the central question: Would you prefer pleasant, placating lies meant to control and influence you, or the hard, honest truth? Like similarly themed stories (Dark City, The Matrix, countless Woody Allen films), it all comes down to whether an individual is happier believing in fantasy or knowing reality.

Book Review: Snowpiercer, Vol. 1: The Escape (1984)

SnowPiercer_1 Snowpiercer Vol. 1: The Escape [Le Transperceneige: L’échappe] (1984)
First published in serial form in À Suivre, 1982
First published in English by Titan Comics, 2014

Written by Jacques Lob

Art by Jean-Marc Rochette

Expectations: High.

Snowpiercer is a graphic novel that is just coming to prominence in the West. It has recently been translated and published in English for the first time by Titan Comics, in anticipation of Bong Joon-ho’s 2013 film version that will hit the States at some point in 2014. The film is Bong’s English-language debut, as approximately 80% of the film was shot in English, with notable American stars — Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, etc. — filling out many of the roles. So with that in mind I dove head-first into the unique and desolate vision of the future that Snowpiercer provides.

The title refers to the unique setting of the comic, a 1001-car train which never stops. At some indiscriminate point in the book’s past, there was a cataclysm that caused the Earth’s climate to be completely and irrecoverably damaged, sending our world into a neverending, harsh winter too cold for humans to survive. What remains of human civilization is aboard the Snowpiercer, but even in these dire times social classes and economic inequality segment the population. Those in the tail cars are cramped together and left without food to eat or even windows to provide light; they are prisoners of a rolling ghetto (to use one of the book’s terms). Meanwhile, those in the cars closer to the engine live in luxury.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Starring Louis Wolheim, Lew Ayres, John Wray, Arnold Lucy, Ben Alexander, Scott Kolk, Owen Davis Jr., Walter Rogers, William Bakewell, Russell Gleason, Richard Alexander, Harold Goodwin, Slim Summerville, G. Pat Collins, Beryl Mercer, Edmund Breese

Directed by Lewis Milestone

Expectations: Moderate. I’m not too excited to watch this for some reason.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a remarkable film for its day, and it’s one that still holds up impressively well today. It is a war film that contains everything you could possibly want in one: battles, boot camp, camaraderie, patriotism, disillusionment, the list goes on. The film opens on the patriotic high of classmates enlisting for their country’s greater good, spurred on by the rousing words of their professor, and it eventually works its way through the war to a very natural and emotional anti-war ending.

Set during World War I and focusing on the German side of the struggle, All Quiet on the Western Front is largely plotless and driven simply by the various episodes and struggles the characters go through. There’s no grand goal for them to achieve; the film doesn’t even attempt to convey the context of the war and which side is which. This one is specifically from the point of view of the enlisted man, the man who must die for his country and who stands to gain nothing more than the right to go back to his life if he survives the war.

About Last Night (2014)

Starring Kevin Hart, Michael Ealy, Regina Hall, Joy Bryant, Christopher McDonald, Adam Rodriguez, Joe Lo Truglio, Paula Patton

Directed by Steve Pink

Expectations: Moderate.

I don’t even know what to write about About Last Night. The film was very entertaining, and offered up just about everything you could want in a romantic comedy/drama. It’s also one of the few worthy remakes, spicing up the original enough to justify its existence as a separate film. Many of the story beats are the same, but the 1986 About Last Night wishes it was as funny as this new film. The sexually frank dialogue of the original is pushed to the wall in new and hilarious ways, and there’s a cluckin’ hilarious sex scene that you won’t soon forget (or if you do, you’ve explored the depths of the Internet far too long and too often).

About Last Night opens with Bernie (Kevin Hart) and Danny (Michael Ealy) walking down the street to the Broadway Bar. Bernie is describing his previous night’s sexual escapades with a girl he just met, Joan (Regina Hall). This scene crosscuts with Joan telling her friend Debbie (Joy Bryant) about her experience with Bernie. We don’t hear either side of the story completely, but as the audience we get the full picture by hearing both sides. This opening is a good microcosm of the movie overall, as even though Danny is the main character and the film is almost always from his perspective, there’s always a feeling that the audience is peering into these people’s lives in something of an objective way. We see the good, the bad and the steamy, for better or worse.

Something New (2006)

Starring Sanaa Lathan, Simon Baker, Blair Underwood, Donald Faison, Alfre Woodard, Earl Billings, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Katharine Towne, Stanley DeSantis, Mike Epps, Julie Mond, Lee Garlington

Directed by Sanaa Hamri

Expectations: Moderate.

Something New begins with a picture-perfect wedding — until the blaring sound of an alarm shatters the peace! Turns out it was only a dream for our main character, Kenya McQueen (Sanaa Lathan), a workaholic accountant for a major Los Angeles firm. She simply doesn’t have the time for a relationship, and even if she did, there isn’t a guy she’s met that can stack up against “The List,” AKA all the things Kenya just won’t do or tolerate in a man.

But her loneliness is strong, so after the prodding of her girlfriends, she decides to agree to her co-worker’s offer of setting up Kenya on a blind date. But she never expected her date to be Brian (Simon Baker), a white landscape architect that ticks off just about every negative on Kenya’s list. What Something New does exceptionally well is walk the line between interracial cultural drama and romantic comedy, painting its story and characters with equal swaths of both. This makes for a film that is always entertaining and charming, as well as thought-provoking.