I Can't Eat This

Archive for the ‘Film’ Category

Yes, I admit that I am a Star Wars addict. Since I got the “new” blu-ray edition, I own every episode in two versions at least.I know it could be worse, some people have four or five or six or seven different versions of each Star Wars movie to waste their homes with.

While watching “The People vs. George Lucas“ I noticed an interview partner who is involved in originaltrilogy.com.
Original Trilogy? Sounds interesting, as I still think the un-restored, original trilogy has more trash-appeal (what I like!). So hushed on their site and surfed around a little bit and came across FANEDIT.ORG. And that’s the place where it all happens!

Disappointed and/or highly inspired movie fans re-edit, cut, insert deleted scenes, insert or delete soundeffects, etc. etc.
And make it downloadable for free (if you own the original version)

One of the first fanedits (if not the first one) was “The Phantom Edit” by, guess who, The Phantom Editor. Who made his first edit of Episode I with the VHS-Version, and did a retake of it when the DVD came out.

I must point out that this is more Star Wars than the original edit. In this version Episode I is no comedy anymore. One reason is that most of the clumsiness of Jar Jar was cut!

Give it try! Enjoy the prequel trilogy as you never did before!
There are many other edits of it and more movies, e.g. Matrix oder Kill Bill.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

Intro Edition Asien -- Vol. 2 -- Ruang rak noi nid mahasan (Thailand 2003)

And here are intro-magazine’s sleevenotes:
A bittersweet romance in the style of Wong Kar-wai and Asia’s answer to “Lost” (New York Times).

The film: Kenji (Tadanobu Asano), a Japanese librarian in Bangkok, is a perfectionist: Only he isn’t able to manage his suicide. Over and over again somebody bursts into his regular world. Finally he develops a fragile relationship in the emotional Neverland of contradicting to Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak)…

The director: Pen-ek Ratanaruang shoots a subtle-funny film noir with camera legend Christopher Doyle (“In The Mood For Love”) and Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano (“Zatoichi”). At least since this bittersweet romance in the style of Wong Kar-wai, Ratanaruang is known as one of the best directors in Asia.

Not many words are made here and if so, then mostly English, because Kenji speaks no Thai and Noi no Japanese. So we have a nice accent mixup, beautiful. In addition this film lives on the quiet and sensitive camera work.

To the story: Kenji lives day after day his librarian’s life, how exciting this may be? Apparently not so much, because he often tries to commit suicide. But he won’t make it.
One day his brother pays a visit and brings in his co-Yakuza. Next, brother is shot by the colleague, and Kenji does the other Yakuza. Because he wouldn’t like to live in a flat with two corpses rotting around, he comes along to the search for something else and meets Noi in a road accident. She speaks practically no word with him, but however, takes him up with herself.
As far as I can remember -- it’s been a while I have seen the film -- since then Kenji doesn’t go to work any more. Also he wants her to stay in the house with him all the time. One time, to prevent her from leaving, he simply lies down before the tyres of her car and gets almost driven over. Maybe she hits him slightly with the car, I can’t remember for real.
Funny by all means is a quarrel they have with having lunch, where they want to persuade each other of the fact that one has to eat noisily and slurpy or vice versa.

The film shows how anyone can make his own, in fact simple life (and/or other one’s, too) difficult by any means. Don’t make no compromises! Don’t do anything different than ever! Just beat your head against the wall all the time, again and again and again!

There are DVDs of this movie released in the UK, USA, Hongkong, South Korea, Thailand and Germany. Take a look at your local videostore.

Last Life In The Universe at imdb.com

Intro Edition Asien -- Vol. 1 -- Saibogujiman kwenchana (South Korea 2006)

Commercial quote from intro.de:
Kinky, disrespectful fairy tale of two isolated souls, which breaks the dimension of the imaginable.

The film: Young-gun (Lim Soo Jung) believes to be a Cyborg. In a psychiatric clinic she meets Il-sun (Jung-Ji-hoon), who believes he can steal abilities from other people. Their fantastic romance leads them over the clouds, in a bed pulled by ladybirds, nevertheless it never loses relation to reality.

The director: Park Chan-wook (“Oldboy”) is known for his revenge trilogy. “I’m A Cyborg, But That’s OK” should’ve become his first romantic comedy. The result has amazed himself. Last but not least for this enchanting pleading for love the Korean director has to be one of the outstanding directors of Asian cinema.

So much for intro magazine’s sleevenotes. I just can say: This is the first movie I watched from this series and still the best one for me. If it’s for the camera work, the story, the special effects, or the performance of the actors (ok, a little overacting here and there) it get’s 10/10 points in all.
Right at the start at the movie I was amazed when the credits are written on little mechanical parts and signs in a factory, shown by a camera move all over them. This factory is where the first scene takes place. You can see several workplaces from above where they put transistor-radios together. You hear, what I first thought was a radio commentary, but is a spoken work instruction instead. Then camera zooms to Young-gun’s workplace and the instruction tells her to connect herself to the transistor radio, and she does! This is a little bloody and with that she will fall off her chair. A few scenes later we’re in the psycho hospital where she will meet Il-sun and other strange characters.

Strange and nice to see also is that Young-gun thinks she cannot and does not have to eat anything (because she thinks she’s a Cyborg, remember?), but just has to hold a battery between her forefingers to load herself up with energy. Crazy shit!
Then there are the outstanding dream sequences, which remind me of the things Terry Gilliam does. In one of them scenes Young-gun morphs into a killer-robot with gun-barrels in her fingertips and an ammunition magazine in her mouth. There she runs berserk!

So that you won’t think that this movie is just about crazy things (oh, but it IS) with blood and violence, let me tell you that it is also silly, romantic and a little magic. In a few scenes I choked on laughter, maybe you will, too?

If you can’t get the intro-DVD in your country, open your eyes for the UK, Hongkong, South Korean or Thailand version.
Maybe available at amazoon, but better check out your local dealer instead.

I’m A Cyborg, But That’s OK at imdb.com

Rapid Eye Movies is a German film distributor based in Cologne. I knew the company only for their various Bollywood Movies – I can’t do anything with these – Then my interest in their programme was woken up by the publication of a special edition about the Asian cinema. In cooperation with the german intro magazine, r.e.m. published a twelve-part series of remarkable Asian films. If I had nothing to do with eastern cinema before, of course I knew the box-office hits Hero, Tiger & Dragon, and Tsui Hark‘s trilogy A Chinese Ghoststory or some old kung-fu-smashers, it was above all the attractive presentation of the DVDs which let me dive deeper into the world of movies beside the American or European cinema.
And I must say, on one side it has been worthwhile, on the other side doors opened I’d wish they never had.
First of all the way the asian, especially the japanese society deals with sexuality and violence, has frightened me more than one time, and also has confused and pushed me off in some cases. Indeed, I had never seen films before, in which wonderful, nice pictures alternate with explicit representations of violence and sex.
In addition comes the “overacting”, which is “normal” in Japan, and various fatuities which if you don’t get involved, quickly can work out silly and spoil the pleasure watching the film. If you do get involved, despite the fact that, e.g. some actor grins excessively stupid the whole time, and if you can forgive one or another sexual gaffe, be sure to get some nice, extreme and also arousing hours in front of the screen. Some of the films even brought me to speculate over his sense and real message for days. Also I often have the impression, that all appears to be just an evil parody.
However, every filmmaker tells his story as he does and that’s a good one about it.

This was the small excursion to the different qualities between the Asian and the western (restern?) cinema (at least those I fell over), now back to something completely different, to the

intro Edition Asia: The attractive appearance of the DVDs: Cardboard cover with inbound booklet, including interviews and background information about film, crew and actors, as well as a standard design make a whole thing.
Meanwhile parts 13 to 24 are to be published.

In between r.e.m. has decided to issue four own special editions, which should give essentials and outstanding works of the Asian cinema to the German film lover: Editon Asia, Edition Anime, Nippon Erotica and Nippon Classics.

I have decided to watch every movie issued in these five editions and to publish a review here afterwards, to wake up the interest for Asian cinema in you, or just to handle the things I’ve seen and heard, what can be really necessary with some of these films.

website of Rapid Eye Movies
website of intro magazine’s edition asia