003: Watch/finish 20 foreign language films/shows - Part 2 (4 - 5)

Today I watched 2 more films for number 3 on my 101/1001 list: Watch/finish 20 foreign language films/shows. 5 down, 5 to go!

Name: Shadow (影)

Language: Mandarin
Year: 2018
Rating: 15
Genre: Period, Action, Royal Court Politics
Director: Yimou Zhang
Starring: Chao Deng, Li Sun, Ryan Zheng
Synopsis:  The story of a man in ancient China who, taken from his homeland as a child, becomes a pawn in the political games of the Pei royal family.

Thoughts: When beginning to watch Shadow, my first thought was 'this film is absolutely stunning visually!'. The whole film is very stylised, but not overdone. All of the costumes, sets and cinematography are absolutely beautiful and I particularly liked the use of black and white theme in the Pei palace. Not only is it a stark contrast to the other scenes in the film, showing that things inside and outside of the court aren't the same, but also the black and white signifies the balance of yin and yang, which is a big theme in the film. I also enjoy media in which parasols are featured as weapons, so I liked that too.

Visuals aside, Chao Deng plays the role of, Jing/the Commander, a man struggling for his freedom through obedience and patience well, while Ryan Zheng plays the King of Pei's ridiculous facade and cunning charmingly well. Li Sun also plays her role as the Commander's role well, though I preferred the storyline of the king's sister (played by Xiaotong Guan) much more.

Overall Shadow was an enjoyable watch with a well thought out plot, strong performances from the actors and gorgeous aesthetics. If you love Chinese period films, which I do, then this is one to check out.

Name: Freaks: You're One of Us (Freaks: Du bist eine von uns)
Language: German
Year: 2020
Rating: 15
Genre: Action, Superhero, Fantasy
Director: Felix Binder
Starring: Cornelia Gröschel, Tim Oliver Schultz, Wotan Wilke Möhring
Synopsis: Tipped by a mysterious tramp, a meek fry cook discovers she has superpowers and uncovers an unsavory, vast conspiracy.

Thoughts: This film could have and should have been a good film. When Wendy, the very likeable main character, first realises she has superpowers (super strength), it's fun to see her confidence growing at the same time, making her able to stand up to the 'bad people' in her life. 

But when the film tries to inject a more serious message into the plot  (ie: just because people are different to other people, doesn't make them dangerous), it just didn't work. The two groups of people who came to mind whilst watching were LGBTQ+ people and the mentally ill (there were subtle references to both groups). But, as I mentioned, it just didn't work, mainly because they showed that both Wendy and Elmar - Elmar in particular -  used their powers to hurt people and enjoyed it, on several occasions and therefore could legitimately be considered dangerous. 

While Dr Stern was obviously one of the antagonists, she genuinely thought she was doing the right thing and trying to help them, and was portrayed quite sympathetically. This also didn't really help the message that was behind the film either. 

Freaks was an okay film, but if you're looking for a superhero film that isn't really about superheros, then, in my opinion, the Spanish film Unknown Origins would be a better choice.

003: Watch/finish 20 foreign language films/shows - Part 1

Yesterday I continued number 3 on my 101/1001 list: Watch/finish 20 foreign language films/shows. I had initially intended to watch films in the languages I'm learning (Thai, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, German), but they may not all be. 3 down, 17 to go!

Name: Inhuman Kiss (แสงกระสือ)

Language: Thai

Year: 2019

Genre: Horror, Romance

Rating: 15

Director: Sitisiri Mongkolsiri

Starring: Phantira Pipityakorn, Oabnithi Wiwattanawarang, Sapol Assawamunkong 

Synopsis: In 1940s Thailand, a young girl becomes a krasue (type of demon in Thai mythology) lives a normal life by day, but at night her detached head seeks out flesh and blood.

Thoughts: First of all, I have to confess that I chose to watch this film because the actor who plays Jerd ("Great" Sapol Assawamunkong) is also in a show I really like - and I'm glad I did! I really enjoyed it. I love films where the "monster" is to be sympathised with instead of feared. If you want a happy feel-good ending, then this is probably not for you, but if you like mythology mixed with some romance and  horror, then you'll probably love it, like I did.

Name: Sputnik (спутник)

Language: Russian

Year: 2020

Rating: 15

Genre: Horror, sci-fi

Director: Egor Abramenko

Starring:  Oksana Akinshina, Fedor Bondarchuk, Pyotr Fyodorov

Synopsis: The lone survivor of an enigmatic spaceship incident hasn't returned back home alone - hiding inside his body is a dangerous creature.

Thoughts: Although the film has a similar feel and theme to the Alien film series (which I love), it takes a different angle on it. The main theme, to me, seems to be how the way people behave and view each other creates the responses they get back. I really enjoyed this film♥

Name: Under the Shadow

Language: Persian

Year: 2016

Rating: 15

Genre: Psychological Horror

Director:  Babak Anvari

Starring:  Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi

Synopsis: A mother and daughter are haunted by a mysterious evil in 1980s Tehran, during the War of the Cities.

Thoughts: This is a film about djinn, set against the background of a family trying to survive during the War of Cities in 1980's Tehran. It's an understated horror and works well. I did find the little girl a tad annoying in places, but not enough to ruin the film. I enjoyed Under the Shadow, but of these three it was probably my least favourite.

101 in 1001 - Watch 20 films: Selkies, Sexuality, and Synthetic Intelligence

As I mentioned a few posts ago, one of the goals on my 101 in 1001 list is:

• 020. Watch 21 films I haven't seen before.

Last time, I opted for a modern Japanese drama-comedy about a cellist turned funeral director, a 1980's US fantasy animation with an evil psychokinetic ice magician, and a 1920's Russian silent docu-drama about the October Revolution of 1917. So, continuing on with the theme of  "films that are nothing alike" - variety is good! - here are the next three.

Title: Song of the Sea (2014)

Director: Tomm Moore

Starring: David Rawle; Lucy O'Connell; Brendan Gleeson; Lisa Hannigan; Fionnula Flanagan

Cert: PG

Genre: Animation, fantasy, adventure, drama, family

Language: English (Gaeilge in song)

Plot: After the death of their mother, Ben, a young Irish boy, and his younger sister Saoirse, a selkie, go on a quest to free the fairies and save the spirit world, as well as their family in the process.

Best Bit: All of the Irish mythology included. Not only the selkies - humans able to transform into seals - but also fairies, Mac Lir (it means "son of the sea" and is probably loosely based around Manannán mac Lir, whose father is a sea god in myth), Macha (the name of an ancient Irish goddess) and the general merging of magical and human realms. Also, the great care taken with everything, from the gorgeous backgrounds, to the storytelling, to the names carefully chosen for each character, really makes this film wonderful. (If you'd like to read more about that, there's already a great explanation of it here).

Worst Bit: The animation style of the humanoid characters in the film was not to my taste, but that's just a personal preference. Also, I didn't like the way that Ben's father put so much importance and on his sister and somewhat neglected him, even though Ben was suffering from his mother's death too. However, it did make sense within the context of the plot, and I understand why the story was done that way. Other than that, sometimes Ben's running around exclaiming: "woo!" when he was having adventurous times became a little tiresome. I realise that it was probably put in to keep the younger audiences entertained, but, I'm a grumpy old person with no children, haha.

Overall: It wasn't a film I had originally intended to see, but someone asked me if I wanted to watch it with them since they know I like both anything to do with mythology and the sea. I wasn't disappointed - it was a wonderful film!

Watch it if you like: Irish mythology; animation; films with a similar feel to Hayao Miyazaki's animations.

Rating: 8.5/10

Title: Shake It All About [Danish: En kort En lang] (2001)

Director: Hella Joof

Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Charlotte Munck, Troels Lyby

Cert: DK7 (It doesn't have a UK rating, but it seems like something that might be a PG or 12 over here?)

Genre: Romantic comedy

Language: Danish (English subs)

Plot: Jacob and Jørgen have been in a relationship for several years and get engaged after Jacob proposes.  Everything seems perfect, until Jacob falls in love with Caroline, the woman married to Jørgen's younger brother, Tom. Things get complicated and Jacob has to decide who he wants to spend the rest of his life with: Jørgen or Caroline.

Best Bit:  Jacob's purple shirt (it made me think of Violet). The ice skating scene. Oh, and the ending because it was so cheesy. Jacob driving, then running, then riding a horse to the airport to stop a plane with a bouquet of flowers was really silly and too much, but it amused me all the same! (There were better bits than these I'm sure, but I can't remember without watching it again).

Worst Bit: Some of the things Jacob did didn't make a lot of sense and his behaviour was pretty immature and selfish at times. Caroline too, but it seemed like she had more reasons than Jacob did. I understand that he was finding himself or whatever, but if your fiance's in hospital because he was upset that you had sex with someone else, got drunk and had an accident, you should probably not continue to have sex with said person. Just a thought. Ah, but it's a romantic comedy, so it all works out in the end!

Overall: A friend recommended this to me because it has an actor in it (guess which one :P) from some other things that I like and I hadn't seen it. Well, romantic comedies aren't my thing, but I chose it at random from my "to watch" list, and it did amuse me in places. It was a pleasant enough film.

Apart from that, I liked that it didn't suggest that Jacob just hadn't "met the right girl yet", and didn't explain his choice of partner that way. Jacob's behaviour seemed to be more about the fact that he was panicking because of the impending lifelong commitment to Jørgen. Also, he didn't really fit into the "gay community", he really wanted to have children (at the time of this film, it wasn't possible for a gay couple to adopt; it is now), that his parents didn't really approve of him being gay (though they never mentioned it until he was with Caroline), and then that he realised that he also had feelings for a woman and might be bisexual. 

Caroline too was unhappy with things about her life and marriage (to Jørgen's brother, a pilot), so the relationship was something of an escape for both. It's really just about Jacob and Caroline figuring out what they really want, but they hurt other people in the process, as a side effect.

Watch it if you like: Romantic comedies; dramatic relationships with happy endings; Danish language films; frilly purple shirts; guys riding on horses to airports to stop planes.

Rating: 6/10

Title: Ex Machina (2014)

Director: Alex Garland

Starring: Alicia Vikander; Domhnall Gleeson; Oscar Isaac; Sonoya Mizuno

Cert: 15

Genre: Sci-fi, drama, mystery/thriller

Language: English

Plot: Caleb, a 26 year old programmer employed by the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at the remote private mountain retreat of the company's CEO, Nathan. When Caleb gets to the compound, he discovers that the real reason behind the competition was to find someone to interact with and carry out an extended Turing test on the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful gynoid.

Best Bit:  Caleb's interactions with both Ava and Nathan. The similarities between Ava and Nathan that made them almost like an extremely dysfunctional father and daughter (Nathan even comments on him being "like her dad" at one point). The workshop Nathan built Ava in (the brains!). Kyoko getting to interact with Ava. The ending, because even though it seemed unfair to one - two if you count the events leading up to the very end - of the characters, as they didn't really do anything wrong, it actually completely made sense. (Also, if you go for Roko's Basilisk theory, then I guess it was inevitable at some point anyway). I liked that you don't get to see what happens to everyone once the experiment is over, as well. Even though it's pretty obvious what happens after the events of the film, it's left somewhat open-ended. 

Worst Bit: N A T H A N. I don't think I've disliked a character so much in a long time. But, that was the point really. He wasn't supposed to be likeable. Oscar Isaac did a great job of playing him though! And, maybe the worst bit is really that I started to understand his point of view by the end, whether I liked it or not, even though he just got worse.

Overall: This was one of the best films I've seen in ages and I wish it hadn't taken me so long to see it. It manages to balance hard sci-fi based in the real world, with entertainment, beautiful cinematography, solid effects, and an original take on the AI genre of film. Brilliant!

Watch it if you like: Sci-fi; artificial intelligence; gynoids; androids; robots; horrible "bad guys"; programmers who fall in love with robots; random dance scenes; Turing tests; technology; search engines.

Rating: 9

101 in 1001 - Watch 20 films: Cello-playing Morticians, Psychokinetic Ice Magicians, and The Russian Revolution

Goal number 20 on my 101 in 1001 List is:

• 020. Watch 21 films I haven't seen before.

So, here are the first three!

Yes, that is a child's cello

Title: Departures [Japanese: おくりびと] (2008)

Director: Yojiro Takita

Starring: Masahiro Motoki; Ryoko Hirosue; Tsutomu Yamazaki

Language: Japanese (English subs)
Cert: 12

Genre: Drama, comedy

Plot: Concert cellist, Daigo Kobayashi,  finds himself questioning his choice of career after his orchestra disbands. This leads him and his wife Mika from Tokyo, back to the town Daigo grew up in, and a to a new career as the assistant to a nokanshi (ritual mortician).

Best Bit: The way that each of the corpses Daigo and his boss prepared were all shown to be people, by giving little glimpses of their backstories via their family, friends, and the items they had with them at the funerals, and how their families finally said things they'd wanted to say before but didn't. Also, I liked the scene when Daigo goes to see his boss at his house and every available space is filled with plants - filled with life.

Worst Bit: The octopus & later the salmon (not entirely sure the salmon in the water were real though). Also, Daigo was a little overwrought and over-reacted to things at times, but another character mentioned that when he was a child he "kept everything inside, but cried when he was alone". So I just took his outbursts as being a result of bottled up emotions or something like that. Possibly it was just due to the actor not being that good. I still liked the character though.

Overall: It's a cheesy, feel-good, drama with comedic moments (AKA really not my thing) but I actually enjoyed it. Maybe I was just in the mood for this kind of movie, but I didn't even notice that the running time was just over 2 hours, or get bored by the end.

Watch it if you like: drama-comedies; films about life & death; morticians; funeral directors; nokanshi; cellos; light-hearted Japanese language films.

Rating: 6.5/10

Title: Fire & Ice (1983)

Director: Ralph Bakshi

Starring: Susan Tyrrell; Maggie Roswell; William Ostrander; Stephen Mendel; Steve Sandor

Language: English
Cert: PG

Genre: Fantasy, action, animation

Plot: The evil Ice Lord, Nekron, uses his powers to conquer the Fire Keep, a great fortress ruled by the good King Jarol. After Jarol's daughter Teegra is kidnapped by Nekron's forces, a young warrior, Larn, begins a quest to save her and avenge the people of his homeland, who were also killed by Nekron. 

Best Bit: This guy (Nekron), and his evil cackling and magic! 

Getting ready to throw an ice tantrum

His mother, Queen Juliana, was pretty interesting too. Oh, Darkwolf also amused me, but only because he reminded me of a fantasy version of Batman.

Worst Bit: It's pretty difficult to choose just one, but the Ice Kingdom's warriors made me cringe (the film was made 30 years ago, but even so, I don't know what the creators were thinking with these characters). Also, the fact that people from a Fire Kingdom never once think of putting on more clothing than loin cloths and bikinis when travelling to a frozen realm controlled by an ice magician with psychokinetic abilities. What could possibly go awry?

Overall: The rotoscoping was great, some of the backgrounds/scenery were beautiful, and Nekron and his mother were fantastic villains. It's just a shame that the script and certain other things about the film were so ridiculous. Still worth watching once though.

Watch it if you like: 1970/80's fantasy; rotoscoped animation; mind-controlling psychokinetic ice magicians; characters that look like Batman but in Conan the Barbarian; men in loin cloths; women in bikinis.

Rating: 5/10 (and two of those are probably just for Nekron)

Title: October (Ten Days that Shook the World) [Russian: Октябрь (Десять дней, которые потрясли мир)] (1928)

Directors: Grigori Aleksandrov; Sergei M. Eisenstein

Starring:  Nikolay Popov; Vasili Nikandrov; Layaschenko; Boris Livanov

Language: Russian (English subs)
Cert: PG

Genre: Docu-drama

Plot: Set after the forced abdication of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. It focuses on the subsequent Revolution of October 1917, which was led by the Bolsheviks against the Provisional Government. The film was made in 1928 to celebrate the ten year anniversary.

Best Bit: The often repeated line: "Peace! Land! Bread!" (a quote from Lenin) summed up the message of what the Revolution was about. People didn't want to keep fighting in the First World War, they didn't want to work the land for the middle and upper classes, whilst owning nothing themselves, and they didn't want to keep living in poverty, without food (bread). So the Bolsheviks' gave them hope and the push they needed to do something about their situation and make things better (well, supposedly). Unless you were one of the bourgeois, of course. Then you were shit out of luck, for a little while at least.

Worst Bit: It was all from the point of view of the Bolsheviks and obvious propaganda for the winning side. However, I suppose that's understandable for the time in which it was made. There were also scenes of a horse that I personally found disgusting, but again, that's just from my point of view, looking back at a film made in Russia nearly 90 years ago. Apart from that, the repetition of certain scenes for no apparent reason became a little wearing in places.

Overall: I enjoy silent films and 1920's cinema in general, but even if I didn't, this was an interesting chance to see something relatively contemporary to the Russian Revolution, made in Russia, in the original language.

Watch it if you like: 1920's cinema; Russian history; silent films; Russian language films.

Rating: 7.5/10

Films: Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad flyer & tickets

Today, I went to see the film 'Suicide Squad', which is to a certain extent based on the comics of the same name and the animation 'Batman: Assault on Arkham'. Being a fan of Batman villains/anti-heroes - though none of my absolute favourites were in this - I've been looking forward to the movie for a while. Also, my friend, Miseria, came to see this with me, and their favourite character from the comics was in it and I'm pretty sure Killer Croc's never been in a live action version before (besides perhaps extremely briefly in 'Gotham'), so my friend was happy!

I will try to keep this spoiler-free, so sorry if I'm vague about anything.

The initial reviews of the film were extremely poor, but after watching it I honestly don't see what the big problem was. I thought it was good! It was an action film, yes, but it had a decent storyline too and it made sense. Perhaps having the Joker & Harley Quinn sub-storyline slightly detracted from the main plot a little at times because the had to give screen time to setting up that relationship.

So, Harley Quinn and Joker: I don't really enjoy these two as a couple usually. In the animation,  [slight spoiler of 'Batman: Assault on Arkham' coming up here] Harley has been away from Joker and has actually realised how abusive and horrible he was to her and doesn't love him anymore...at first. Until he convinces her to go back to him again. [End of spoiler] I have no problem with Joker being like this, because he's a villain. I don't like that he does it, but as a character, I don't have a problem with him doing it. He's not supposed to be a nice guy. He's not "nice" to anyone at all actually. But in 'Suicide Squad' their relationship is somewhat changed. 

Harley Quinn poster

Well, you can't really say he's "nice" to Harley I guess, but at the same time, he tries to protect her and anything he does to her he does to himself as well (pretty much). This is not usually how this relationship is portrayed. Usually, she's just his and he likes having her around to manipulate and use because it's fun or useful or he gets attached to her. He doesn't care about her feelings much - or even at all. So I have to take this as a different version of these two, because it's really not like them. (Though Harley does have sudden outbursts about "sociopaths", and I think maybe in a scene when she's talking to El Diablo about his past she gets so angry with him because of her previous experiences with Joker, too...). 

Joker poster

Aside from that, I thought it was great to see all the characters that haven't been in live action before brought to life (as I said, technically Croc's been in 'Gotham', but it was for such a short scene and they never actually called him by name). I was pretty pleased with the selection of rogues that they chose.

Killer Croc poster

Enchantress poster

My personal favourites in were Enchantress/June Moone and El Diablo, which is unusual for me because I normally like characters that don't have supernatural powers, like Riddler, Scarecrow, and Mad Hatter. To be honest though, I quite enjoyed all of the characters in 'Suicide Squad', and even the ones I didn't like (Amanda Waller, I'm looking at YOU), were good in their roles. My friend's favourites were Croc, Enchantress, and Captain Boomerang (his pink unicorn toy appealed to them :P).

El Diablo poster

Captain Boomerang poster

The film seems to have had a lot of negative reviews already but I enjoyed it and If I had to give it a rating it would be 8.5/10.