Movie Review: The Forbidden Kingdom

Director: Rob Minkoff

Right, so we all know what this is about: The Forbidden Kingdom is the latest chapter in Hollywood’s aggressive courtship of the Chinese movie-going public. With its bilingual elements and thoroughly pop sensibilities, it could have been a watershed film. But instead of a cross-pollination of ideas from the East and the West, we’re presented with a movie that reaches new levels of blandness and banality.

Certainly, Hollywood executives Bob and Harvey Weinstein are never ones to turn down the chance to make a quick buck. With the high-profile team-up of kung fu’s biggest hitters, Jackie Chan and Jet Li, they’ve manufactured a cross-cultural adventure movie that panders to every possible demographic. Teenage girls who wince at the thought of Jackie and Jet cracking heads preying mantis-style can swoon at the dashing Michael Angarano – he plays a kung fu film buff who is magically transported from modern-day America to ancient China.

Call it Lord of the Rings meets Journey to the West. Angarano’s character is sent on a mission to return a fabled staff to the imprisoned Monkey King. It’s easy to mock Angarano’s failings – so I will: It’s a disgrace to see this cretin, who ticks every box for white bread mediocrity, share the screen with two legends of Chinese cinema. But even Chan and Li aren’t the men they once were, and it’s disappointing to see them increasingly reliant on short takes, digital effects and stunt doubles to perform the eye-popping feats that forged their reputations. It’s kung fu, Jackie, but not as we like it.

Cinema Feature: In Search of Answers

Ismene Ting talks about the healing power of nature in her new film, Finding Shangri-La

by Simon Fowler

Writing for the screen is often considered one of the hardest disciplines to master, so when the Yunnan New Film Project offered actor and theatrical director Ismene Ting the chance to turn her musical Welcome to Shangri-La into a movie, she was apprehensive. But the temptation of having her work immortalized on film was enough to overcome her initial trepidation and she began reshaping her story into a melodrama, which she renamed Finding Shangri-La. The story focuses on a woman who, after tragically losing her son in a car accident in Taipei, goes off in search of answers in Shangri-La, Yunnan. Shortly before the film’s intended release in May, that’s Beijing sat down with Ismene to find out about the challenges of directing her first movie, her love of the stage and the healing power of Yunnan’s amazing landscape.

that’s Beijing: How did you get involved with the Yunnan New Film Project?
Ismene Ting: It was an accident. I wasn’t really ready to direct films; my entire background has been in theater. I had written a play called Welcome to Shangri-La and, apparently, Lola [producer of the Yunnan Film Project] saw the script, and seeing as there was a place in Yunnan called Shangri-La they approached me about making it into a movie. At first I wasn’t interested in doing it because I felt I had no idea how to even begin directing a film. But after talking with my sister – who is the producer at the theater workshop – she convinced me that I really had to take this opportunity.

that’s: What aspects of directing a movie did you find difficult?
IT: Everything! When you work in a theater you are literally in a theater all the time; you don’t have to worry about whether it will rain tomorrow, or if there will be enough light for you to get all your work done. We shot this movie in Taipei and in Shangri-La, and there were difficulties in both places. In Taipei you had to deal with all the bureaucracy that comes with making a film – making sure you have the right permit to shoot in a certain place. In Shangri-La we had to contend with the local population; it’s not a place like New York where people are used to films being made around them, and you have to remember that. You have to develop a relationship with the local population to make sure things go smoothly. Ultimately I think that’s what making a movie is about: making connections with the people around you in order to get the work done.

that’s: What inspired the main themes of the movie?
IT: When I started writing the script for the play I didn’t really know where I was going with it. After a while I started to think about my mother, and all women in general, and the ideas came from there. Actually, I’m not a mother myself, but there is something about these themes that are really true for a lot of women, and I feel that somewhere deep down I am a mother. I do know these emotions and feelings. The main themes are about forgiveness, love and dealing with loss.

that’s: Were there any directors you looked to for inspiration before you started to make the film?
IT: I like a lot of directors, but as I never really considered that I would be a filmmaker, I never thought about whose work I really appreciated. Woody Allen is someone whose work I have always admired. I recently re-watched Match Point on a plane and it made me remember how much of a master he is. There’s certainly something theatrical about his work, and it’s something I can identify with.

that’s: Did you find the setting of Shangri-La to be influential?
IT: Shangri-La to me is a really beautiful place; there’s something so powerful about the huge mountains that you just have to surrender to nature. The landscape is Mother Nature itself. The start of the film takes place in Taipei where a woman is dealing with the loss of her child. She sets out to Shangri-La to kill herself, but really she has no idea how to go about it, and it’s in the powerful setting that she discovers how to live and love again. Once people see it, I hope this is what they will feel.

Movie Review: Southland Tales

Director: Richard Kelly

The great thing about directing a cult classic like Donnie Darko is that you have total freedom in choosing your next project. You could, for instance, make a sci-fi-political-musical, cast an assortment of popstars, B-list comedians and wrestlers, and contrive the most preposterous plot imaginable, and the studios would still shell out USD 17 million for the production. And that’s exactly what director Richard Kelly decided to do.

The plot (which is so ridiculous no synopsis can do it justice) focuses on America in the years after an atomic bomb was dropped in Texas. The country is divided between the evil Republican Party and their Orwellian control tactics and the neo-Marxists (who look like extras from a Cindy Lauper music video). Amidst this political struggle, Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson) wonders around suffering from amnesia (which could have something to do with a perpetual motion machine called “fluid karma”). Boxer tries to find out what caused his amnesia, and his search brings him into contact with porn stars (Sarah Michelle Gellar), veterans of the Iraq war (Justin Timberlake) and policemen (Sean William Scott), and the fate of the world seems to hinge on him finding the truth.

Southland Tales is unsure of what it wants to be. Quantum theory is discussed as regularly as fellatio, with the actors so spectacularly miscast that they appear lost when spouting their lines. Although it will probably enrage more than it will entertain, it should be given credit for attempting something completely different from the cookie cutter blockbusters that are filling up the multiplexes. But ultimately it gets everything so terribly wrong that you wish it had remained the idle daydream of an obviously talented director.

Book Review: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

Author: Guo Xiaolu

The English language in Guo Xiaolu’s novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is so important that it takes on the role of a plot device and almost a character itself. Zhuang, a naive Chinese girl sent to London by her parents to study English, arrives with limited English ability, as clearly illustrated by the dense Chinglish of the first chapters. As the narrative progresses, so does Zhuang’s ability to comment on the environment around her, all of which she records in her diary.

Apart from linguistic challenges, Zhuang finds it hard to come to grips with the beguiling metropolis of London and the peculiarities of the British, constantly checking her dictionary to interpret the world around her. The mild misadventures described will endear Zhuang to the reader, but the trouble she encounters with language is frustratingly stereotypical; the use of an “l” instead of an “r” and the ubiquitous present progressive tense seem more like a foreigner’s painful imitation of pidgin than anything authentic.

After her first few months in London, a chance encounter with a fortysomething drifter leads Zhuang to the first meaningful romantic relationship of her life. Guo attempts to characterize the male character (referred to only as “you”) as a pained artist who is unable to settle down, but despite acting as a force for development in Zhuang’s life, he comes across as little more than a self-obsessed starving artist with few redeeming qualities.

Despite its weaknesses, the crowning achievement in this curious book is its ability to make the plight of Zhuang universal, and it will have specific appeal to anyone trying to come to grips with a language, city or lover from a different culture.

Movie Review: Rambo IV

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Stallone’s inexplicable reinvention continues as he exhumes the character of John Rambo, the all-action Vietnam vet, for one final (or do I speak too soon?) slash-and-shoot rampage. Having single-handedly killed dozens of rednecks, Vietnamese and Russians in the previous installments, Rambo turns his attention to the totalitarian regime du jour: Burma. As always, Stallone (who has written or co-written every film in the series) brings his own particular brand of right-wing flavor to a visceral and glorified view of combat.

The plot follows a group of missionaries wanting to bring medical supplies to the people of Burma. They happen upon Rambo, seemingly retired and working as a snake catcher in the Thai jungle, and hire him to guide them up the river into the heart of darkness. Inevitably the group comes under attack from the Burmese army and become separated, and it’s up to Rambo and a team of grizzled mercenaries hired by the missionaries’ church to rescue them.

Rambo IV feels like a film groping for relevance; severed limbs flail, the blood flows freely, and the body count rises to new heights as if to court a younger, more desensitized audience. The big man himself is obviously getting on in years, and at points he seems to wear every one of his 60-plus years on his face. Still, amidst the action, popcorn history lessons, and wooden acting, Stallone nevertheless manages to conjure up images of the action hero he once was – but as he is running out of franchises to resurrect, it seems that this action hero might be on his last legs.

Movie Review: There Will Be Blood

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

“No blood for oil” read many of the placards brandished by protesters of the US-led invasion of Iraq. As Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), the protagonist in Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest offering, might put it: “No oil without blood.”

In many ways, There Will Be Blood is a standard “American dream” story: Plainview, a lowly oil prospector at the start of the 20th century, builds his own oil empire through grit, determination and some questionable methods, and at the expense of everyone around him. His insatiable appetite for oil leads him to the impoverished ranch of moon-faced evangelical preacher Eli Sunday, played with suitable self-righteous piety by Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine). But even the threat of eternal damnation will not steer Plainview from his greedy path.

Portraying a character obsessed comes easily to Day-Lewis, whose commitment to method acting is well known, and he really does embody every aspect of Plainview’s mania alarmingly well. Anderson’s direction has matured from the cocaine-fueled Boogie Nights and Magnolia, but his striking attention to detail and ability to drive a narrative remain. The film’s opening ten minutes are wordless but manage to establish the sheer single-mindedness of Plainview and transport you back to early 20th century America. The most disjointing aspect is the film’s original score written by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, which screeches its way through the movie and adds little to the experience. Anderson’s film is perhaps the best crafted of his career, and also a damning indictment of our current attitudes and dependency on oil.

Cinema Roundup

For Chinese cinema, 2007 was a year characterized by outstanding performance on the foreign festival circuit. If the events of the first months of 2008 are anything to go by, we can expect more of the same.

Hoping to get in on some of that action is director Wang Xiaoshuai. His new movie, In Love We Trust, is in competition at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival later this month. The story focuses on a distraught mother who goes to unusual lengths to try and save her child who is suffering from cancer. The film will face tough competition from Paul Thomas Anderson’s already critically acclaimed There Will Be Blood, but it would be great to see Wang go one better than his movie Beijing Bicycle did, which won the Silver Bear at the same festival back in 2000. Also screening at Berlin (those Germans just can’t get enough of Chinese films) is Johnnie To’s Sparrow. To has suggested that his new film will have more romance and a kind of child-like innocence – quite a change from his shockingly brutal triad movies Election and Election II. The film follows the fortunes of a pickpocket, played by Hong Kong heartthrob Ren Dahua who also starred as the ruthless mob boss in the Election movies.

Someone well used to basking in the accolades of film festivals is Wong Kar Wai, but his most recent cinematic effort received lukewarm reviews from critics. Part of the reason, as the director recently suggested, might have been that he instructed first-time actress Norah Jones not to undertake acting lessons so that he could “capitalize on her inexperience.” After watching her performance you’ll probably agree that she should stick with singing.

But it’s not awards that make a film successful, as Peter Chan is well aware. With a distinct lack of American blockbusters to compete with, heroic action flick The Warlords was able to rake in a hefty RMB 260 million (USD 35.7 million) in ticket sales from December to early January, making it the highest grossing Chinese film for 2007 and only the second film ever to gross over RMB 200 million domestically.

Another homegrown talent looking to make a pretty penny at the box office is Stephen Chow. The Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer actor-director is set to release his latest film, CJ7, over the Spring Festival period. The film is a departure from Chow’s usual cinematic fare, with trademark kung fu-slapstick style being replaced with a sci-fi flavor, to tell the tale of a down-on-his-luck dad who discovers a strange toy from another planet ... Expect big laughs, and huge box office takings from Chow’s homage to Stephen Spielberg.