Ahhhhh, clever of you, my child, but my identity is still safe! BWAAHAAAHAAA!
Anywho, regarding the wire work. Many eons ago I saw Sandy Duncan fly on stage as Peter Pan (she also sword fought with Capt. Hook, for that matter). It’s a cheap theatrical trick as old as the hills! Fine if you liked it, but…
10 Oscar noms - woohoo! I sure hope it beats “Gladiator”, which totally sucked.
and from there progress into the Pit, if progress is the word for it.
Let me be perfectly clear.
This movie is a turd.
T_U_R_D.
Turd.
It stinks. To high heaven.
This is not La Dolce Vita.
Or, to bring it closer geographically, it’s not Ran.
It’s not even close. It certainly doesn’t deserve 10 Oscar nominations, which is what I see, on a quick glance of the headlines, it got.
Akira Kurosawa could’ve done 10 of these, in his sleep, and they would’ve been 10 times better.
Jackie Chan could’ve churned this out without a second thought, and you know what the diff would’ve been? It would have been funny, entertaining, and featured characters you actually cared about.
If this deserves an Oscar, then Shanghai Noon deserves whatever is higher on the list.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this angry at the Academy.
Actually, I can. Last time was Terms of Endearment, another sentimental piece of total crap.
There’s a ring in Hell reserved for people who nominate movies like this for awards.
And Fifth Element was worth seeing not just because it was so visually cool, but because it moved. It kept your interest. This nonsense couldn’t get out of its own way.
And Nacho4Sara, do not presume to know my taste. And that’s as far as I’ll go with you.
Ooooh, scary. I was just simply pointing out that the opinion of a ten year old child does not have much bearing on whether or not I’ll see a movie.
[sub]That’s as far as I’ll go with you.[/sub]
Given that was the level of the movie, I thought his opinion relevant. It failed even at entertaining the audience it was so obviously aimed at.
::yawn:: pantom, that’s almost amusing for so many reasons. None I’ll bother to get into, but if you’re going to resort to cheap shots, try and do a better job next time.
Phantom, how do you figure this movie was aimed at ten year olds?
Was it the subtle and dynamic relationships, the sensitive and insightful look at feudal Chinese society and legend?
Maybe it was the fact that it was in mandarin with english subtitles. I know the kids go wild for that.
Wasn’t meant as a cheap shot. In relation to this movie, there is no such thing as a cheap shot. You couldn’t aim low enough.
To quote you, “That’s the truth”.
The movie’s makers, and the people who nominated it for all those Oscars, I’m sure have plenty of excuses. There’s no excuse for any other adult who thinks it deserves an award, however.
dave99: it amazes me how little it takes to make people think a character is more than one-dimensional. What subtle and dynamic relationships? If you didn’t know from the second the character was introduced that the girl was the thief in the night, you weren’t paying attention. So much for suspense or character development. Chow Yun-fat remains stodgily loyal to his older-woman love throughout, without any indication that he might feel a perfectly normal lust for this younger creature who suddenly fell across his path. So much for an interesting conflict of emotions, or any subtlety or dynamism in that relationship. The would-be rich boy husband of the girl is a complete cardboard cutout, as is the nomad who falls in love with her. As is everyone, really.
The acid test: no one ever does anything other than exactly what is expected of them, at all times. Even a ten year old can see through that. (For the record, my son is eleven years old, as I pointed out in my original post. And he was not alone. The kid sitting behind him, who I would guess was about 8, said, “That was a bad movie” when it was over. His parents concurred.)
The movie couldn’t even figure out which character was the main character. In the beginning, you think it’s the guy. Then you think it’s the older woman. Then you think it’s the girl, which, as it turns out, is the right supposition, I think. About the only one who wasn’t in the running at one time or another was the witch. It’s too confused for you even to make up your mind about that.
Was the main character supposed to be the sword? And if so, why? It’s not like it was Excalibur, capable of making you Lord of China or something. It was just a sword, with some special powers. Whoop de doo.
The wirework was corny. That, in fact, describes the whole movie. Corny. Amateurish. Uninteresting. Boring.
And whoever wrote it should be forced to take Creative Writing 101. With special emphasis on plot and character development.
I’d rather see real grasshoppers jump and hop and fly than the antics in this dumb movie.
By the way, those subtitles were ridiculous. At the beginning of the movie, Chow yun-fat says to the older woman, “How’s business?” according to the subtitles. Somehow, I don’t think that’s an idiom in Mandarin. I mean, there should at least be a flavor of the culture and the language in the translation. They shouldn’t sound like a couple of small businessmen trading tips in the elevators of the Empire State Building.
Before we continue…
$24 DOLLARS???[sup]*[/sup]
That must be more than the single ticket price…
How?
[sub]* Redundancy with $ sign is intentional[/sub]
I’m sorry, you’ll have to forgive me. For a moment there, I forgot that every good movie obeys the formula of only mentioning or caring about one character, and of watching how that character;s behavior always changes as a blatantly obvious and direct result of the movie’s plot devices.
(hint, hint, Castaway)
Honestly now, did you really expect to see anyone running straight up the walls?
How about the student/mentor flirtation between Jen and Mu Bai? If you didn’t see sexual tension there, you must have no longer been paying attention. Consider the loving soft-focus closeups during the treetops scene, or Jen’s line near the end, “Is it me you want, or the sword?” Then watch Shu Lien’s stoicism turn to concern at Mu Bai’s growing interest (obsession?) with the girl. I’ll grant you, these aren’t the most demonstrative characters, but if you look up from the subtitles often enough to watch the acting, these emotions really come through.
pantom – I for one try to respect other people’s opinions. If you didn’t like the movie, fine. But you’ve brought up a couple of points in your criticism that I think are unfounded and I’m going to address those.
I’m not sure what you mean by that. As far as I can tell there are two possibilities. I’ll take them one at a time:
Everyone does what society expects of them. – One of the major themes of this movie is women who become sword fighters and warriors (or their attempts to) in complete contradiction of their patriarchal society. This provides most of the plot and much of the tension.
Everyone does exactly what the audience expects. Let me try an example. Early in the film, when we meet Jade Fox in her cover as Jen’s servant, she tries to warn Jen away from Shu Lien. I personally thought she was doing this because she didn’t want Jen running off and learning martial arts. I had no idea she was secretly teaching the girl martial arts herself as part of her plan to get revenge on her old dojo. Maybe there were numerous clues that I missed. Maybe you could tell me what they were.
dave99 deals nicely with this. I don’t know how you could have missed the sexual tension, especially with a line like “Is it me you want, or the sword?” Perhaps you feel the characters weren’t three dimensional enough because they didn’t act on their feelings. But I fail to see how jumping into bed equates with character development. I was glad to see people act like adults for once in the movies.
Finally, I am not surprised that your son didn’t like this film. What I am surprised by is your use of that fact in your criticism of the movie. Should I have the same criteria as an 11 year old? Shouldn’t my tastes have developed since I was that age?
Yea…um…sure. Or maybe Screenwiting 101. Or maybe you should just take a class in film apprechiation.
A.) It was written in Chinese, which is a notoriously hard language to translate literally.
B.) The characters came across fine, for those of us capible of following thier development. I think I covered this in my former post.
C.) Despite what you think, I still loved this film. I know it might be hard to believe that not everyone in the world agrees with you 100%, but that’s part of the fun. I’m not an automiton. And as someone who studies film at school, and works with film at work, I feel that I have enough authority to say that while you may not have enjoyed it, this film deserves all the accolades it’s getting. It’s complexity in character is very consistant with feudal Chinese philosophy, the use of color and the general appearance of the * mese en scene * was very representative of the character’s emotional states in the film. For example: the first fight scene took place at night, on the roofs, between two women. Possibly symbolic of the escape these two women were making from the traditional Chinese family structure. I do this for a living.
D.) You keep making general derogotory statements about both the film and people who enjoy the film, and yet you never make specific criticisms that could hold water. What SPECIFICALLY did you have issue with?
Whine, whine, whine. If Americans aren’t bitching about the subtitles in the movies, they’re bitching about the dubbing. Get over it. Learn Mandarin if you have to.
You want to know something? If you see it in Hong Kong, the dubbing and subtitles still suck. They’re released in a multilingual environment.
Re: wire-fighting. One of my friends from Malaysia points out that martial arts can fly in legends. Yup. It’s a cultural myth. We have myths equally silly: why is it every time someone gets shot in a hollywood action film, the miniscual mass of the bullet is somehow enough blow someone through a window. We also have roaring engine noises in outer space. Etc.
First off, apologies all around. I went a little overboard I have to admit. As I’ll soon be going on vacation and so not posting for a while, you can feel free to start a Pit thread and beat up on me all you want.
On to the movie:
Noted. I’ll learn Japanese before I try to see Ran again.
I’ve already contended that there’s zero complexity in any of the characters in this film, so that’s one basic disagreement that’s not going to get resolved. As for the feudal philosophy bit, well, it’s good that they know their own culture. At least we know that they’re functioning at a basic motor-skill level. And that they possibly can even employ symbolism. What an accomplishment. Doesn’t make the case for anything like an Oscar-level performance at all.
Specifics I covered above in previous posts, so I won’t repeat myself.
But I will ask a question:
What was the central conflict? I have three candidates:
1 - the marriage of the girl and/or her fate.
2 - the romance between Chow and the woman.
3 - possession of the sword.
One of the completely unsatisfying things about this picture was the lack of a central conflict. How can you have a good resolution without a conflict?
I know, I’m dense, my family’s dense, and the people who sat around us at the theatre are also dense. So enlighten us: what was the central conflict in this picture? Or is this an Eastern form of storytelling that doesn’t employ conflict and resolution?
You want just one conflict? I think you’ve been watching too many kiddie shows with your son. Many good movies have multiple conflicts. American Beauty, Requiem for a Dream, and Wonder Boys are among the films that had multiple conflicts of equal magnitude. If you’re looking for stories with a single problem and a single resolution, may I suggest the adventures of the Berenstein Bears?
In Seven Samurai the leader says “He’s my right hand man” or something to that effect. According to the commentary on my Criterion DVD what he said it Japanese was something like “he was/is my old wife.” Those of us unfamiliar with Japanese would be hard pressed to realize what he meant by calling him his old wife but we all understand what one means by calling someone their right hand man.
But that’s the price we pay for watching subtitled movies instead of knowing the original language. Hopefully you get a good translation that conveys the intent of the writers accuratly.
Marc