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SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! Since previous comments already sum up my feelings well on the story and actors, let me flesh out the special effects and action bits a bit more instead. Or just string a lot of random observations together, as who has time for structured discourse anymore? First, the derivatives: like the alien mother ship, for example. ID4 on steroids replete with low angle dolly reveal, which means it also looks like the classic establishing shot from Alien revealing the refinery in all it's industrial splendor. The cute little aliens look like the ID4 aliens as well, except for the day-glo neon aspects, and are generally well composited. The bullet time stuff is groovy, but also by now internationally known territory, well done but nothing new. Now the Clockstoppers wrist watch device had some fun effects, like the fact that firing a pistol while in hyper speed means the bullets punch through mercenary armor like tiny freight trains while an orbiting camera circles the action to ensure every resulting fountain of red mist erupts past the camera POV. And the alien death ray seems a nice nod to the laser gag in Real Genius. And the girl from the future's costume seems a nod to the genre famous red shawl from Zeiram (sadly, no edible alien shrink wrapped cockroaches in this flick). And the frequent shift of the cinematography to nearly monochromatic amber tones feels a lot like Avalon, a cinematic masterpiece from the director of Ghost in the Shell, which further derives inspiration from the Matrix. On other fronts, the film's multicultural aspects leave me feeling warm and fuzzy. For example, Italians may delight over the recurrent discourse about al dente pasta preparation. Free Tibet supporters will rejoice over discovering that Nepal is man's last refuge from alien invasion. Told you Battlefield Earth had it all wrong (that among many other things, like being made in the first place). The Chinese will be thrilled to learn that the Triad is apparently currently more feared than the Yakuza in Japan, and further, have access to the inside scoop in top secret military & aeronautical research facilities. The Chinese may be less heartened to learn that the super Triad is apparently financed by the dissection of orphans to sell their pint size organs on the black market. Harvesting organs from Vancouver panhandlers and heroin addicts might have been more politically correct. The Chinese can then stake solace in the lead male's boss, an elderly woman who seems to be a chip of Sandra Ng's block while smoking a cigar and blowing baddies up on the interstate. She's incredible, especially her ability to multitask, surfing the web for signs of aliens, Triad misdeeds and likely Morpheus as well (it's the question that drives her) while simultaneously refitting cell phones for the ever demanding fickle needs of the jet set Bounce-Ko Gal baggy sock school girl set. Most impressive. Now the aspects that make this film worth seeing: TRANSFORMERS. Ever wanted to see what Starscream might actually look like in a CGI / real life setting? Look no further, at least until someone makes a worthwhile live action Transformers movie. The Harrier jet and Boeing 747 jet transformations are breathtaking. I only wish the film had had more of this. Also, the nail bomb and alien armor suits are exemplary CGI work, including the compositing. Excellent stuff. And for the gore hounds: the future soldiers explode in tasty chunks. Although the film could have stood to have had more of this to counter-balance the periodic slip into massive exposition, the visceral aspects like the exploding bodies, head shots, slow motion chest fountains and excellent sky rocketing while exploding car are delightful.

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Re-Animator meets Return of the Living Dead and just about any action Yakuza movie. Teaches the lesson of considering rejuvenating relationships with the "Ex" when "Ex" means "dead" rather than "divorced." Nice story of amateur jewel thieves meeting up with their Yakuza buyers at a factory that happens to be a secret US research hot spot in Japan where the all too familiar neon green caught syrup has a tendency to cause carnivorous appetites in the reanimated dead which of course there are a stockpile of pending use as test subjects. Well shot, excellent industrial environment and a less than painful story to boot. A few Tom Savini tricks stand out, like little obvious bits like rubber meat and replacement heads, but frankly no harm no foul there considering how juicy and tight the rest generally delivers. Though not as over the top as Versus this ends considerably better and leaves you feeling all warm and fuzzy afterwards. Liked the added twist of an intelligent zombie, no complaints about her lack of costume for much of the film either. Small grumble that she isn't developed further, relegating her to a mid-level ladder style video game boss or second string average Buffy the Vampire Slayer villain. And while the film explains where she picks up the jacket, the boots had no explanation unless thigh high female boots are standard regulation emergency gear for factories should one of two women on the premises suddenly find themselves in dire need of fetish footwear. Her sudden hair color change could have been left out as this is distracting at best. Yes, I'm nit picking. I can't help wish that she were a stronger element when structurally she is the catalyst for the zombie outbreak and an evolution above the rest of the flesh eaters. She even speaks coherently with her hubby. This was a cool idea, could have been more instead of relegating her into the typical schlock gore ghost ghoul shtick.

When you empower four Korean women with firearms and unleash them into a male dominated society, chauvinists beware. Laden with amusing gags and lots of pretty people, this film is a fun romp that amounts to finishing a bag of Doritos in one sitting, you feel bad for the mass junk consumption, but damned if you don't still feel inclined to wish you had some more left to consume. I wouldn't judge this against anything from serious Asian action genre, it's more like slapstick meets teen coming of age. Reckless, sloppy, unpredictable and sometimes incidentally hilarious. Cool.

There aren't to many times when credits roll on a film and I want to immediately start watching it through again. This is one of the rare exceptions.

Visually stunning with artistic merit to almost every shot. Deliberate frame composition with the eye of a classical painter married to lighting that underscores the narrative with sublime control. The shots alternate between tight intimate shots with strong angles that elude to POV and deep staged shots in full focus throughout that nearly ride the axis like looking down the barrel of a rifle into the deepest darkest corners of our characters' lives.

The light and textures on screen are lush and rich and the focus generally deep like Seven or Silence of the Lambs. Solid DOP, solid Cinematographer, solid Production Designer, Solid Art Director, across the board this film stands up as tight, smart, unexpected, sometimes abusive and always engaging like a car wreck in all the charmed ways.

Dialogue, though minimal, is always apt and loaded. Sign language feels like Tai Chi, delicate here, fierce there, somehow clear I believe even without subtitles.

This gem is deliciously horrific, a complete study of tragedy and of theater grotesque. Like Scarface the film is laden with stomach clenching non-gratuitous gore which is somehow infinitely more disturbing.

The driving narrative is about vengeance, layer upon layer, constantly underscored by social commentary both direct and sub-textual addressing inequities, rights, justice and the cruelty / fairness of commerce, fate and basic karma.

Well crafted, well delivered, well done. Excellent. And absolutely NOT for people with weak gullets, true that.

Grand to see a much simplified version of the basic principles of William Gibson's version of the Cyberpunk genre brought to life. Would have enjoyed more discourse between the two AI, but none the less I'm very happy to see this run it's course without ever targeting the lowest common denominator the way so many would be Cyberpunk contender films might. Also enjoyed the dialogue, the pacing, the use of the limited budget, and in all, the fact that this demonstrates that a film can be light and still be about character(s). A fun romp. Certainly not Matrix, but cool anyway. If nothing else, it proves that it's high time Neuromancer and Headcrash should be brought to the big screen. So I'd consider this a successful beta test.

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Tighter than the first one, true, but not nearly half as entertaining. Timing is stiff and slow, gags thin and spare, and over all disjointed and dull. Did like the voyeur character and his crib, a detail really poorly developed, let alone the potentially really creepy red bikini femme Abbott & Costello team next door and the creepy old leering woman on the bench outside. The 1920's design for the key cover girl ghost was a neat touch, but again woefully under developed and thus goes out with a whimper. This ends with the one character I like tossed away like a Kleenex while the two characters I found progressively annoying stroll away into the cemetery sunset. Does it sound like I'm going to recommend it?

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Three short films from three places, South Korea, Thailand and Hong Kong, each progressively better than the last, and certainly worth the viewing. Memories is a sometimes heavy handed jumper with some very cool gross out moments at the end that begin with a heavy nod to the Ring then carry a few steps further deliciously. Downside, the Tales from the Crypt punchline left me feeling pretty empty, really. Told through two simultaneous inter-cut narratives, one follows the hubby trying to remember what he did, while the other follows the wife waking up with amnesia in a street. The hubby material is generally boring and laden with noise blast jumper moments that are OK, but nothing new, except the visitation from the apparent ghost of the missing wife whole feels a brain is a good thing to waste after all. Nice one. The wife's narrative as she goes through a mini-Memento tracking through the clues and flashes of memory trying to figure out who and where she is kicks ass. This is well shot, well edited, tense and absolutely wonderful. Apparently also too good to be true, because the climax of the short film is apparently a simultaneous realization by both people as to what had happened between them. Neat. Now we've managed to resolve the mystery, true, in the lamest way possible, well, not completely lame, it's definitely disturbing on a visceral level which has appeal on a base level, BUT now we also feel empty, because the wife, who by now we dig, well her whole struggle and journey past the scary construction sites and insane cab driver, now all of that is rendered useless and unjustified, while the hubby rides off into the sunset the tail end of a Viagra commercial. Damn, almost a genius piece of jumper genre fare. The Wheel is a very captivating and almost completely alien yarn that works well and moreover is generally fun to watch. Starts a bit slow, and the appearance of dead loved ones could have been held off until the end, and didn't get the crying blood thing but it looked cool so who cares? Ends extremely well, who can frown on a machete welding preschooler? Moving on. Going Home is what I bought this anthology for without even knowing it. Oh my. Beautifully rendered in every department, the location is an astoundingly effective nearly abandoned pair of adjacent dense apartment towers in the seedier side of HK, where we follow a Dad and son moving in while everyone else is moving out (the building is going to be demolished in a month explains the manager). We meet another couple and a little girl, and we learn through brilliant art direction all kinds of things, like how ghosts do graffiti, how Eastern medicine cures liver cancer, how to best groom and maintain a beloved wife who has taken a three year hiatus from living to get well again, and most importantly, how big a urine bottle needs to be to adequately provide for your well saturated hostage. I'm making light only because I'm giddy with joy over how fresh, beautiful, terrifying, disturbing and ultimately heart touching (did I say "touching", more like "pounding with a meat cleaver and pair of well matched tuna"). Been a long time since I've burst into tears during a movie, not counting tears of frustration. I love this film, and frankly, of the three, this one most deserves to be remade as a full length feature with more characters and intertwined stories, because frankly, the location alone is simply a freak magnet. And here I also have to retract earlier snide remarks about Leon Lai. Although I expect he was massively directed, still, in this he was simply perfect, and trust me, his role would not be an easy one to pull off for most actors, not convincingly anyway. Perhaps he has found his true niche in cinema? And as for the rest of the cast? Although familiar already with the power of Eric Tsang, the rest of the cast was new to me, and further, blew me away as well, astounding as two of the actors I'm referring to are tiny children, not something I'm generally impressed by. And how does the beautiful Eugenia Yuan manage to hold so still playing a stiff and still manage to convey her character? (something I've ironically accused Leon Lai of doing in the past, ha ha. Ok, I did like his album "Sound". So sue me...)

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Best one yet of the Japanese series on the technical craftsmanship side of things. Well shot, well art directed, wonderfully told with generally minimal exposition and delightful visual storytelling. Great sound edit as well except for a couple of the over the top screams in the forest. Solid ending and really a great way to get everyone on the same page at last about who the hell Sadako really is and how she actually died. Sweet. Really enjoyed the Dutch roll camera tilt during the conversation between Sadako and her "dad". And who can forget the excellent reveal of the two dead ladies and their home made instant wall flowers? Sadako is an inspiration to disco floors world wide with her crazy possessed resurrected girl two-step approach. Really something special in that girl, wonderfully portrayed by the stunning Yukie Nakama. Bonus features on the DVD are loads of fun as well, really enjoyed the bonus Sadako material.

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Raised the bar for noir scare thrillers in my eyes. In the vein of Silence of the Lambs and Nude Fear with a very up to date sense of style and technique. The lighting is amazing, the set decoration is despotic delight, to the point of getting the chills just from dolly reveals the way a few hours immersed in the game Silent Hill 2 could, including an abandoned hotel that had me screaming at the television for someone to please for the love of God and Buddha call the freaking cops, the army, the mattress police, anyone to keep the fear at bay in this and other creepy joints. Who can forget the simply luscious shoreline clinic with its spacious tattered rooms, picturesque debris and thousands of victims photos nailed to the ballroom ceiling? And the industrial hallway opener had me wanting to remake Palace of Broken Glass immediately. Nice nod to Pi in the drug scramble, gobble, chug bathroom scene, and really a cool touch looking at what Mom does at the office. Gore / forensic examination hounds won't be disappointed, remember the autopsy scene in Silence of the Lambs? Much more disturbing with a 6 year old cadaver, trust me, and if I never see a box knife and a nipple together in the same shot again I'll won't complain a bit. And the editing, oh my goodness. The flash frame inserts and mini-montages were the stuff of The Ring VHS tapes (any version) mixed with 8mm psuedo-snuff and Dave McKeen directed music videos. Had me single frame progressing until I got to spooked out, especially after I shot a few stills of the screen with the digital camera. Not cool. With all that wonderful video noise lives a matching sound design that seriously squirmed under my skin like food poisoning. Sure, cops should have been called and sure, Dad showing up was the least surprising moment of the entire film, but all that is forgotten (pretty much) when the meaty weight of the ending begins to really settle into the bones. To sum up, excellent craftsmanship in the making, and fully unsettling, if not outright chilling over all.

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Ah, another fine boys trying to get their first shags under their belts while simultaneously conquering the Ibiza DJ universe comedy. Although wanders around a bit, it has tons of great gags, the mega-huge inflating winkies in the trousers were a huge hit as a recurrent gag, the explosive zits Tetsuo: Iron Man style and the rest of the femme grooming sequence a total joyous gross out, DJ Eyeball Paul's antics and lingo banging, lotsa coastal clubbing eye candy and the beats throughout were ab fab fly. So the real question is whether I would have expected too much, or lacked the cultural indoctrination being American and never having heard of the show this is derived from? Perhaps, but never have I seen Germans teased as such, seldom see a new twist on a winkie gag (that's saying a lot by itself) and appreciated the very quick gesture conveying Eyeball Paul's ill intention that belys a deft grasp of the physical humor many hammer you over the head with it American comedies lack. True, American Pie is better wholistically. True, I'd rather have seen the full troupe from the TV show in the film because if a measley 2 can carry a show, I can only imagine what a hoot a dozen plus would have been. So I give it an average score, because it's a good place to start and I can only hope for more and better.

Brilliant in every respect, slick sense of humor ALA RoboCop meets Delicatessen and LEXX with a dash of Accion Mutante and a couple of nice nods to the sets of Blade Runner. I loved this. Laughed, cried, laughed again. Excellent! On the technical tip, great Production Design throughout, and very snappy editing and sound design. A total winner!

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Beautiful to look at, touching to endure. The frequently POV and semi-handheld camera work is quirky but successful. The locations portraying Shanghai are deliciously chewed up, layered, soiled and water stained Pleasantly moist so to speak. Lurid and fetching the way Cyclo is, but delivers at a far faster pace like Swallowtail Butterfly, though without the humor generally. Really a nice though sardonic love yarn. Did I mention yet that many of the visuals in this need to be taught to our young ones IMMEDIATELY? The shot of the courier Mardar perched on the ladder leering down thoughtfully at unwitting hostage Moudan, their heads on diagonally opposite intersections of the grid, static yet breathing, a masterpiece to behold and a desktop wallpaper waiting to happen with the quiet disturbed power of Leon without quite the pedophiliac undertones (although perhaps not completely without). Excellent work, and some really interesting credits if you ever want to see how the Germans and the Chinese might work together to produce a tweaked out love story. Last note, really appreciate and respect the move to anchor the tale to a narrator that is a partial, biased yet generally passive voyeur. Certainly an exploration of existentialism, at least more candid and blatantly than most flicks, as truth be told all flicks are a degree of existentialist experience, the very notion of an audience of passive voyeurs vicariously living another's life through the medium. And so on.

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Almost a Peter Greenaway number, could have been, the seeds were certainly in place, and the environments & costumes were definitely rich enough, and the actors absolutely of caliber (see "Undu", "Inugami" or "Angel Dust"). Excellent cinematography throughout, although some of the steady cam work could have been smoother, or done with a dolly, as the operator appeared to be running through the woods hopping roots and rocks. This works great if the shot is chasing someone, but feels very distracting when the shot is orbiting an otherwise static central point of focus. The plot has schisms, perhaps from a desire to adhere so religiously to the very letter of the novel the film is based on that annoyances like continuity, suspension of disbelief and a minimal amount of clarity were sacrificed for the master aesthetic goals. The opening scene, for example, is so swift and unclear that as it has so much bearing on the outcome of the story, through either coincidence or fate (never really clarified) this scene of all scenes should have been expanded or at least expounded upon. Especially when trifles like the couple being lit from a mirror while having sex in the bushes after just being robbed by bandits (an odd in of itself, but one I'll go with) are pondered on at great length. Or how the husband got tied up exactly. No recounted story addressed that, and worse, all accounts heavily weighed in the fact that the husband at some point had to be freed by someone. Sure, the base plot, what really happened to the dead guy and how'd the hand get lopped off certainly entertains, as each time the story gets revisited for a fresh perspective the forest environment radically changes and every version looks stunning. Seeing Yuki Amami being undressed for each remembered account has merits for some, I'm sure. Inversely, seeing the master bandit Red Lizard evolve through the accounts from a brutal rapist into a kinder gentler rapist into a sensitive hard lover into just a man enchanted is very disconcerting. And the notion that you can keep your eyes closed while your wife is being raped so that you might better pretend she is actually having sex with you is something only a male could come up with. And back to the opening scene, I get that the Red Lizard has twice brought tragedy into the protagonist's life. Don't have any idea why, or worse, why I should care. A thought: Red Lizard might possibly be an homage to Ash in Evil Dead 2, which really would explain everything after all.

Excellent introspective / interpersonal piece that really had some teeth to it without feeling hopeless or worse, manipulative & artificially gratifying. Might be a good double feature with American Beauty as well. Best performance to date that I've seen from Anita Mui, and every actor in this seems like a powerhouse. Hats off to Ann Hui for the direction and Ivy Ho for the brilliant script. Seriously one of the best dramas I've seen in a while, especially if you have a taste for classical literature ALA poetry. Again, excellent.

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Hsu Chi and Sam Lee are fun to watch, and for the most part this film is fun and clever. The attempt at the end to pull a Sixth Sense turnabout fails horribly, too many plot contradictions, seems like an afterthought invoked late in the production. At least this film has a playful sense of style, and doesn't over saturate every scene in shades of lime green. The possessed characters are wonderfully over the top.

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This fits snugly into the universe of Starship Troopers & the Showtime series Total Recall 2025, while exploring a completely different tangent all together. I love this flick, honestly. Great cast, incredible art direction (except for the horrid Logan's Run arachnid style laser scanner thing in the hospital), luscious albeit limited sets (still a small budget production after all). Some really nice turns in the plot and character arcs. Overall a really solid piece of work, and I wonder how it is I could have never heard of it until happening upon it at a DVD shop in Richmond next to all the HK cheesy ghost flicks? Really does a sweet job of capturing Dick's paranoia about nukes, self-identity and general distrust of fascist / nationalist government. Interesting too because themes here overlap with Minority Report without ever feeling derivative or redundant. Rather this one seems to have a bit more psychological meat and noir discretion at play. Like the nod to Starship Troopers in the score and the armor of the security guards, nice touch.

SPOILERS!!!SPOILERS!!!SPOILERS!!!SPOILERS!!!SPOILERS!!! Considerably better than the sequel, but only for the quality of the actors. Francis Ng is seldom a disappointment. Some nice shots but in general frustrating as the tensions seems to come more from frustration at the key characters keen ability to remain inactive and stand by stupidly while their friends are slowly, horribly killing themselves one way or another. Really annoying and difficult to buy into. Some fun scary ghost shots derived directly from Japan's The Ring, including a very funny bit where a character receives a VHS tape that actually has footage from The Ring's infamous scare sequence on it, followed by a cute punchline with Francis Ng inviting the hapless viewer to lunch. I respect a film that will acknowledge who it is ripping off within it's own content openly. Then the audience can accept the liberation of creative content as simple respectful homage. One the flipside, the poster for this film is the BOMB. Love it. Oh well.

SPOILERS!!!SPOILERS!!!SPOILERS!!!SPOILERS!!!SPOILERS!!! Considerably better than the sequel, but only for the quality of the actors. Francis Ng is seldom a disappointment. Some nice shots but in general frustrating as the tensions seems to come more from frustration at the key characters keen ability to remain inactive and stand by stupidly while their friends are slowly, horribly killing themselves one way or another. Really annoying and difficult to buy into. Some fun scary ghost shots derived directly from Japan's The Ring, including a very funny bit where a character receives a VHS tape that actually has footage from The Ring's infamous scare sequence on it, followed by a cute punchline with Francis Ng inviting the hapless viewer to lunch. I respect a film that will acknowledge who it is ripping off within it's own content openly. Then the audience can accept the liberation of creative content as simple respectful homage. One the flipside, the poster for this film is the BOMB. Love it. Oh well.

CONTAINS SPOILERS!!! CONTAINS SPOILERS!!! CONTAINS SPOILERS!!! This is a film that argues the vitality and worth of living beneath the rule of government, society, peers or even gangs of skirted schoolgirls. A sometimes heavy handed film about a group of disenfranchised guys who suddenly feel alienated in their own country as their employers, the British Military, pulls up anchor and leaves them behind during the hugely weird hand over of Hong Kong in 1997. Set against the backdrop of the largely uncertain and extremely anxiety ridden hand over, from a few months prior to just past the hand over the story arcs through a string of events that force each man in the group to confront himself on some level, and if surviving, to come out changed and scarred. Sam Lee, younger than I've seen him before, is amazing in this. The cadence of the film is often uneven, but forgivable. The filming often feels very impromptu and gorilla. The relationships among characters in the film seem as congruous as being lucky enough to twice drive beneath children chucking rocks off an overpass. There are some fresh visuals to haunt you afterwards, like the kid on the subway with the hole straight through his head, and the hole is an improbably healed hole, and we even get another child's POV view through the hole to gaze down the length of the subway aisle, or the story of how he got that way, the story that turns out to be oddly incidental, nearly unrelated. Maybe a bit too much like how real life works, I dunno. Still, the scene where Sam Lee, after being called a mainlander redneck by the loudest of an obnoxious group of school girls, chucks the offending girl out of the open 2nd story window of the moving bus down into traffic below makes this film worth the rental, not because I have anything against obnoxious gangs of HK schoolgirls (although the director appears to, they are a recurrent theme in the film, and often end up getting done over, a metaphor about karmic rewards apparently), but I have to applaud the unprecedented sudden burst of horrifying action this scene accomplishes. Now that is good shock cinema!

I dug this TV flick for several reasons. First of all, the design sense is wonderful, so much eclectic retro-Victorian meets 1920's fashion meets 1950's hot rods, my gosh, what isn't to like about this much eye candy? The story is simple yet engaging. The performances are strong enough. The editing technique is playful, sometimes distracting but often surprisingly effective (like the window in window frames and transitions allowing multiple perspectives). The humor is tight and often felt surrealist the way LEXX often does. Over all this felt like a pilot, a light hearted romp that would have played well back to back with the more hard nosed BRIMSTONE. Groovy stuff though, hep cats.

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Unbelievable! Stylistically cutting edge, simply the best CGI and wirework I've seen to date from Korea, loads of brilliant color and compositional choices that are like a crash seminar in how to do dynamic shots for action cinema. Costuming is sublime, simple yet perhaps the best ensemble of classically driven school uniforms and work out scrubs I've seen since Shanghai Triad. And lets not forget one of the consistently most stunning elements of this film, the fantastic collection of tremendous females driving half of the story (oh, there really is one, albeit mondo archetype driven). Never, and I mean NEVER have I witnesses so many women that are all well defined, strong and dynamic. Not a bunch of one dimensional high pitched screamers needing to be saved, oh no, this is a truly awe inspiring eclectic cast of women who I only wish could have their own sequel films, so that we might learn what happens when a 2000 love letters have finally been written, or how will the fox of nine tails that eats young men's livers fares as a new transfer student? To quote 2001 "My god, it's full of stars..." And I give this tasty piece of schlock a bunch, can you dig a 10 out of 10? Yeah. And who needs "bullet-time" when you've got "CHALK-TIME" ?!?

vague SPOILERS!!! The brilliance about this film, as with most films from this studio, is the subtle excellence that permeates the film like sweat on a cow. Like toes on feet being more defined than a typical Disney wedge, or knuckles on fingers, or individual spokes on bicycle tires, or feathers on crows, or even foreground blades of grass and straw. All of this humbling detail without ever distracting from the story at hand. Further, I deeply respect this film's ability to be at it's most powerful when also being most quiet. A girl's slow progress along the side of a curved coastal road becomes an encapsulated Homer's Odyssey, the heroes journey against all odds. Sure, the 10 year olds watching this with me were bored stiff through the first half, "this is no Samurai Jack" they decreed. Sure, they're right, that is a completely different kind of masterpiece. Still, to my older, supposedly more refined pallet, this is one of the finest things I've seen in a long time, and then I have to wonder, what took me so darn long to watch it? Oh, yeah, I remember, Samurai Jack was on. ;)

First animated feature I've seen from HK, and hopefully not the last. Brilliant and unconventional, with an amazingly whimsical style of narrated recalled episodes interwoven with introspective investigations and loads of imaginative tirades. Wonderful mix of styles and techniques in the rendering, covering pretty much the full gamut of potential animation disciplines. Great comic writing, lovely recurrent jokes, terrific voice talent and really excellent songs, especially the one about tasio bau (steamed pork buns). Excellent for the kids, heck, the whole family! Really smart stuff! And no, I'm not biased just because my favorite female comedian Sandra Kwan-Yue Ng is one of the voice talents in this. ;)

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Confusing at times, largely visual and often unsettling, this yarn explores the strange bond between a victim and her antagonist. Wonderfully shot with loads of clever visualizations of reflections real, pretend and metaphorical that range from the immediate two sides of the looking glass to the macroscopic layers of social class within contemporary Korean society. The plot notion of a slighted thug entrapping an unwitting young woman into a life of prostitution is perhaps a stretch beyond believable, especially the red tarp roadside brothel on wheels film resolution, but there are enough interesting and meaty characters and situations to make this film worthwhile to watch on several levels. Also worth noting is the lead male character having to navigate the entire film relying on facial expressions, body language and defining actions to communicate his character as his voice had been diminished to a minute whiny squeak by an incident that'd left a monster scar across his throat. And yet another sweet moment of bonding through bile, something Korean cinema accomplishes like no other.

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I hate romantic comedies. I abhor them. Keep that in mind as you read this: I LOVE this film. The comedic moments have teeth, the set ups are sublime, the story has beats within beats and the film is reward upon reward for patience, attention and acceptance, nigh, surrender to its reversals on all conventions relevant to the genre. The leads are atypical casting choices that help to sell the characters to the hilt. The films within film actualization of the girl's scripts are sheer genius. The film's tangents and recurrent gags are delicious. I could go on for hours, really. Damn. And here again, a bonding through bile moment, although this is perhaps the most hilarious chuck scene I've ever seen, and that is saying something considering how many I have seen. At least on par with Caddy Shack without being completely beyond realism like Bad Taste. In other words, apparently not everyone chews ramen before they swallow it, and toupees are not nearly as moisture absorbent as I'd initially reckoned. Amen.

burning question, was the soup still warm?