This has become my most anticipated movie of the year, now that I've seen Troy and Shrek two. I will have to go back to China to see it though. Although Sony Classics has bought the rights and will release in America. The basics: Directed by Zhang Yi Mou, aiming for that Oscar he was slighted of. Stars Zhang Zi Yi, Hong Kong screen legend Andy Lau, and Japanese superstar Takeshi Kaneshiro (Returner, 2002) <-- but he will always be known to me as Samonosuke from Onimusha. There are some cool scenes if you are willing to google it. The Chinese name has nothing to do with the English translation it's Shi Mian Mai Fu (surrounded on all sides). But yeah... anyone else excited about this?
Excited? Well, before Cannes kicked off it was indeedily doodily on radar. Especially with the evolving form of Cannes and, on paper, a perceived weaker total effort. Plus, not to mention the solid coverage of "House" at monkeypeaches.com. But, per usual, the ever present sea-saw buzz has lifted and dropped, swirled, swooned, and swept all kinds of titles across my board. Boards and radars, that fancy deanbtechnology. It seems now "House" has taken a back seat to others. Minor Blip of a tangent. Don't get me wrong. "House" looks groovy, and will be seen. Since my eyes fell upon the celluloid of Raise the Red Lantern, I've been a fan of Zhang Yi Mou's. And because of that film, I'll always have a draw to his work. But, one of the points of interest in "House" was how Zhang Yi Mou would follow up Hero. A film which I did appreciate, and enjoyed many areas of. But I must admit to one of it's often remarked criticisms. Too much style over substance. Now, I myself would consider a comment like that lazy, but in this case it felt for the most part justified. Even with the style being of such caliber. Now, add that with the perplexing cross border war, the press, the reactions, the fanboy reactions, the studio buffoonery, lawsuits, fine tuned MiramAxe humor, petitions, a QT as champion, a QT as spokesman, a QT as savior, plus the always expected Harvey-ing. Eeesh. Any ways, a complete mess to bring in before a film, let alone after. When attempting to rank it's place. And somehow I've ignored the topic and rambled on about a mish mash of thoughts. Posting exhausted. It may not be as good an idea as rumored. So, how about that knuckleball?
The knuckleball was nearly unhittable for seven innings the other day. I have some good tickets to the Boston v. Seattle game next Friday, maybe I'll get to see it in person. I like your signature "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Pine." Speaking of which though, you know I've just given up taken into account all the extra political BS surrounding movies. I religiously avoid it. You can't even enjoy movies otherwise. I'm taking the naive, mindless approach, and that works. I like Zhang Yi Mou, I definitely like Andy Lau ("Needing You" is one of my favorite movies, and I just wached "Running on Karma" today), and Takeshi Kaneshiro, very cool. So I'm gonna try to watch it without any pre-conceived notions, although I will probably hype it up so much for myself that even if it's horrible, I'll still kind of like it. But with the quality of talent involved that will be hard. My only objection is that Zhang Zi Yi is way more popular than she should be, there are many more prettier, better, actresses than her. I guess she's just been lucky and slept with the right people. By I definitely feel you about the press and the politics that tend to marr Chinese films. Say Zhang Yi Mou churns out a movie that's a modern Citizen Kane with a dash of Lawrence of Arabia, it's still not gonna get no Oscar. Steve Francis will be on the Olympic team before that happens.
Most certainly. It would seem logical that as time progresses so would the film industry. But, if there is one market that makes my head explode with confusion, it's film.
