Hong Kong Films

Final spotlight of the year shines on Hong Kong.

Divergence (2005, Benny Chan)
Triangle (2007, Ringo Lam, Johnnie To, Hark Tsui)
Who's Next (2007, Chung Kai-Cheong)

A Cop, A killer and a Girl:



Suen (Aaron Kwok who turned in a great performance in After this our Exile) plays a cop trusted with bringing a key witness safely into custody. But along the way, a sniper kills the witness. The sniper has a chance to take out Suen but he leaves him alive (reason is revealed later). Besides this case, Suen is haunted by images of the girl that left him 10 years ago. He thinks the murder case and his girlfriend's disappearance are connected.

After a decent set-up, the film disintegrates towards the end. Still there are some neat sequences in the movie. One worthy sequence takes place when Suen is chasing the sniper through a food market.


The noise of everyday things like fishes being chopped, carts being moved, ice being crushed are all around him. But he manages to tune everything else out and his ears pick up on just one noise -- heavy panting of the sniper. The fight that follows between the two is just fascinating to watch.

Also, a small cameo for Suet Lam. I have grown to enjoy his presence in so many Johnny To films. But in this movie's case, his screen time is just limited to two scenes.


The Three masters:



The concept of three well known Hong Kong directors making a movie together was just intriguing. Of the trio of Tsui Hark, Johnny To and Ringo Lam, I am most familiar with Johnny To as I have watched atleast 7 of his movies. I have seen some old Tsui Hark movies and only saw portions of his last featureSeven Swords. Ringo Lam is the one I am least familiar with.

So with great expectations I tuned into Triangle. But as it turns out, my film version had no English subtitles. Even though I managed to get a feel for the film, I missed out on some interesting conversations and even some not so obvious sub-plots. So I will only focus my attention on the obvious overall robbery plot.

Each director worked on a 30 minute film segment and all three make up a continuous film. While the first two segments have a similar feel to them, it is easy to pick out Johnny To's final segment.

Segment One: Set-up of the treasure robbery:

Tsui Hark kicks things off with the robbery setup. Three men are given information about a hidden treasure underneath a building. The three quickly manage to get the treasure chest out and attempt to escape, despite being chased by gangsters.


Segment Two: The betrayal starts:

The first segment also shows that one of the three men's wives (the wife of Simon Yam's character) is having an affair with a corrupt cop. Sure enough, the corrupt cop wants a piece of the treasure. While the gangsters also want the treasure as one of the three men was in debt to them. So this segment develops the mind games and betrayal further.

Pace-wise, this segment is along the same speed as the first 30 minutes. Although, one scene of violence sets this segment apart. But Ringo Lam has flushed a lot of the character's personality in this segment with the aid of an extended tense torture sequence. Definitely, something I need to revisit with English subtitles again.

Segment Three: The shoot out:

Suet Lam's appearance signals the final Johnny To segment. As all the three men along with the cop and mafia head to one location, Suet Lam's character appears out of nowhere to complicate things further. And when slowly, one by one, the guns start appearing, we can anticipate a thrilling climax.


But unlike the flashy gun shoot out sequence in To's Exiled, the final gun shoot out is more subdued and along the lines of what would expect from his brilliant Election films. This segment was a treat to watch though and with minimal dialogue, it was easy to just focus on the tension hovering in the air.


Overall, it is interesting to see three different directors make one continuous flowing film.

And finally, the Triads:

Johnny To's Election and Election 2 are masterful works which probe the life of the Triads and the violent games that hover beneath the group's democratic surface. Safe to say, his works are the finest in covering the gangster's lives. But I am sure there are (and will be) plenty of imitation films that will attempt to show the lives of the Triad members. One such substandard effort is Chung Kai-Cheong's Who's Next. The film shows a battle that takes place to head a triad group when the existing leader is killed by a rival gang. And thrown in the chaotic mix is an Anti-triad group. Some laughs and plenty of over the top acting.

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Ratings (out of 10):

Divergence: 7
Who's Next: 5

Asian flavours kick off 2007

There is something to be said for continuity. A trip to Asia marked the end of 2006 and the final film I saw as the year ended was the Korean flick The Host on Dec 31. So it shouldn't be a surprise that 3 Asian films were the first movies I saw this year. Of the three, one was a film that I wanted to see for more than 6 months, a second was a movie that I had heard about but was not eager to see and the third was a repeat viewing of a personal favourite from last year.

Invisible Waves (directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang): Rating 8.5/10

I had wanted to get this film for CIFF last year and attempted to get it for our upcoming Pan-Asian film festival this year but the producers never replied to our queries. So I was delighted to finally get a chance to see this film as it was released on DVD.

In the end, it is a worthy watch. Ofcourse, since Christopher Doyle shot the film, there were was never a question about the film's visual beauty. Just like Pen-Ek's previous film, Last Life in the Universe, Doyle has perfectly chosen an appropriate palette to match the story's somber mood. The story is that of revenge & murder yet the peaceful mood projected by the film makes one forget that. On that of that, Pen-Ek has ensured the film has no un-neccesary extras or dialogues. The only people one sees on screen are meant to be there. Streets, bars and ships are empty, devoid of any life whatsoever. As a result, we can spend our time focusing on only the characters on hand and drawing our own conclusions.

The main character, a chef (played by Asano Tadanobu), commits a murder hoping that is his ticket to freedom. However, a murder is never that easy. Especially, when the chef has made the mistake of shattering the invisible yet firm boundaries of trust and loyalty. After the chef has committed the murder, his boss, who had hired him for the kill, asks the chef to leave Macau for Phuket. But trouble follows the Chef onto the ship and eventually in Phuket. How the chef evades trouble and returns back for revenge forms the final hour of the story.

The peaceful background score and the earthy visual colors give the film a very dreamy feel. Even though the film drags on near the end, if one is sucked in by the leisurely mood, one won't notice the time ticking away. But if is not enchanted by the film's look, then the last 30 minutes might feel like the work of an over-indulgent self-absorbed director. Either way, there is something to be said for the style that Pen-Ek brings to his films and how Christopher Doyle perfectly manages to give the visual look to accomplish Pen-Ek's vision.

Just like in his previous film, Pen-Ek has chosen the Japanese actor Asano for the lead character. Asano is a worthy choice as the chef (Kyoji) because he only shows the barest emotion required of his character. Kyoji is calm before the murder, while he is having an affair, after the brutal killing and unfazed despite being mugged and beaten up in Phuket. All the characters fit with the film's framework. There is a tiny but interesting cameo for Eric Tsang who normally is found in Hong Kong gangster movies. In the end, while I liked this film, I am still not fully convinced this is a great work. It is certainly good but the deliberate omission of extra characters and background noise makes one feel that they are watching a very controlled film.

Exiled (directed by Johnny To): Rating 7.5/10

Macau. Two gangsters knock on a door. A woman opens the door. The men are looking for Wo. The woman informs them that no one by that name lives there and closes the door. A few minutes later, two more gangsters arrive asking the same question. Once again, the woman slams the door and the men leave. These two men run into the other two men waiting half a block down. They all know each other and not surprised to find themselves at this location. The woman looks nervously from her window while taking care of her baby. A few moments later, a truck packed with furniture appears. The driver is none other than Wo, who sees the four men but continues to drive on. He opens the door to his apartment, followed by one man from each of the pair. The three go upstairs. The apartment is mostly empty but Wo bends down to open the bottom drawer of a cupboard and takes out a gun. He starts to fill in the six bullets. The two men empty out 6 bullets from their multi-cartridge weapon so that they are all on level terms with 6 bullets each. Then the three face off, pointing the gun towards each other (the scene is inspired no doubt from Reservoir Dogs). A moment passes by, the wind blows through the apartment and then poetically, the bullets start flying. After the firing had ended, Wo’s wife enters telling Wo that the baby needs food. Wo looks towards the other two and asks if they can sit down and talk. But one of the men says that there is no furniture. The next few scenes can only take place in a Johnny To movie. The five men (Wo + the 4 gangsters) empty all the furniture from the truck, fix the place up, cook fresh food and all sit down together to have dinner.

It turns out all the men know each other -- two men were sent to kill Wo because he had tried to knock off the big boss and two other came to inform Wo out of loyalty. Eventually, the five men sit down and chat regarding Wo’s future. The next morning, the five go off in search of a final job. The rest of the movie is as stylish as most Johnny To films but unlike the Election series, these movies contain a bit of dry humor like that present in To’s P.T.U film. With a lot of the actors being the same from those movies, at times the movie feels like similarly covered ground. What sets this apart from past To films is the choice of Macau and the two stylish gun shoot out scenes, the second one being near the end. For kicks, a Red Bull can is tossed in the air while on the ground, the bullets fly. I have not seen the original Mission film which might have been a prequel for this film as it contained the same actors. If I had not seen enough Johnny To movies in the past, I might have liked this film more.

Khoshla Ka Ghosla (directed by Dibakar Banerjee): Rating 10/10

Very rarely do I see a movie more than once but I had see Khosla Ka Ghosla again, a film I consider as one of the best films of 2006. I had helped book this film for CIFF last year just on instinct that it might be a good movie given the star cast of Boman Irani and Anupam Kher. I barely knew the story and there were no reviews of the film as no one had seen it. The movie was to be released in India on September 22 and it showed at our festival on Monday, Sept 25. The word from India was very good on the opening weekend and that helped ease my worries. Still, I walked nervously into the theatre on Monday evening. I was still nervous during the film’s opening 15 minutes but gradually I eased into the film, got comfortable and duly loved the film.

But on this second viewing, I was able to give this film my undivided attention. And I loved the film even more. It is a perfect movie from all accounts. Not only is the story shockingly realistic, the dialogues are very true of a Punjabi family living in Delhi. One has to listen carefully to how the dialogues are delivered (the tone) and pay attention to the little expressions and acts of fidgeting that signify a character’s mental state (example: Anupam Kher’s discomfort at bringing home a bottle of alcohol). I can’t think of a finer North Indian movie that I have seen in the last decade than this one. The complete cast is excellent with Anupam Kher, Ranvir Shorey, Navin Nischol and Boman Irani giving vintage performances. Even though I have singled out these few actors, the entire ensemble cast & crew deserves credit for giving this story life (Jaideep Sahni wrote this gem).

Despite this movie’s virtues, I still can’t help but ask the question: who will watch this movie? Most Indians used to Bollywood song and dance films probably skipped this comedy as there are no songs, no melodrama (Even though, the soundtrack contains a very lively pulsating Punjabi dance number). And will this movie get distribution so non-Indians can get a chance to see this? I just hope that word gets out and people try to watch this film. The positive thing is a lot of the people I talked with in India last month loved it. I just hope more such Indian movies are made and get wider distribution. Along with Being Cyrus, Khosla Ka Ghosla is proof that good Indian movies can be made within a branch of the nonsense studio system with Bollywood actors. Both these worthy films were released in 2006 and both were works by first time directors. Boman Irani was the one common actor in both films and along with his performance in Lago Raho Munnabhai cemented his status as one of the best Indian actors working in the film industry today.

Best Films of 2006

It was a thoroughly satisfying personal film viewing year. I had more chances to watch festival films than previous years, while at the same time conducting personal film festivals (World Cup Film festival in the summer) or having theme festivals gifted to me (January 2006’s a tribute to Jean Cocteau and a Soccer Film festival for my birthday). In the last 10 years, I made the least trips to a multiplex this year and stayed away from quite a few hyped up Hollywood titles.

I can’t claim to pick an objective top ten as that is just impossible. So I compiled a short-list of all the movies that I loved watching this past year, from which I picked ten out. Overall, it was a truly rich year for movies and the diversity of the films is reflected in the choices. Just a note on the film selections: I only selected movies that I saw in 2006 because they were either released in the theatre this year (commercially or at a film festival) or released on DVD in 2006. Some movies in this list were released in film festivals last year but never made it out to Canada or to my city. Likewise, my favourite film of 2005 was a movie that was Brazil’s official entry to the Oscars in 2006 -- Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures was the finest film I had seen in 2005 thanks to the London Film Festival. However, that film won’t be out in most North American theatres until early 2007. Also, I separated the docs from the features. Each film title is followed by country name and director name in the bracket. So without further delay, here is the list:

Top Ten films of 2006 (in order of preference) :

1) The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Romania, Cristi Puiu)
2) Dosar (India, Rituparno Ghosh)
3) El Violín (Mexico, Francisco Vargas Quevedo)
4) Tzameti (France/Georgia, Géla Babluani)
5) The Bet Collector (Philippines, Jeffrey Jeturian)
6) Khosla Ka Ghosla (India, Dibakar Banerjee)
7) The Descent (UK, Neil Marshall)
8) The Lives of Others (Germany, Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck)
9) Election 2 (Hong Kong, Johnny To)
10) Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (South Korea, Park Chan-wook)

Remaining short-listed films (in no particular order):
Being Cyrus (India, Homi Adajania), Paradise Now (Palestine, Hany Abu-Assad), Still Life (China, Jia Zhangke), The King and the Clown (South Korea, Lee Jun-Ik), La Moustache (France, Emmanuel Carrère), A Scanner Darkly (USA, Richard Linklater), A Prairie Home Companion (USA, Robert Altman), Requiem (Germany, Hans-Christian Schmid), The Host (Korea, Bong Joon-ho)

Note on Jan 2: I forgot that Three Times (Taiwan, Hsiao-hsien Hou) should also be added to this year's short-list. I incorrectly thought that I had seen this film last year.

Top Docs of the year (in order of choice):

1) Iraq in Fragments (USA/Iraq, James Longley)
2) Bombay Calling (Canada, Ben Addelman, Samir Mallal)
3) Riding Solo to the Top of the World (India, Gaurav Jani)
4) Mystic Ball (Canada, Greg Hamilton)
5) Mo & Me (Kenya, Roger Mills)
6) The Trials of Darryl Hunt (USA, Ricki Stern & Anne Sundberg)

Global Cinematic Duels, Part I

I am tired of people saying that there are no good movies being made currently and that the best cinema was back in the 50’s & 60’s. Ok, back in the 50’s and 60’s, International cinema was something all right. Besides the great directors plying their trade in a number of countries, there were some vintage movies. For example, I don’t think there can be a finer movie than 1966’s Battle of Algiers made today which captures the essence of a society so well. But the same thing can be said of literature as well. The literature of the past meant something but today it is mostly nonsense best sellers. That being said, there are some very good collection of non-fiction work out there nowadays, more so than previously. In the end, it is all subjective really. We all connect with an artistic work at some subjective level, no matter how much we objectively try to judge it. And when it comes to movies or books, sometimes the true merit of a work can’t be assessed until the future. Four decades ago, Philip K. Dick, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell wrote about a dark future where individual freedoms didn’t exist. And yet, in the modern year of 2006 we are living some sort of future that those writers imagined. Life has imitated art or maybe Life has taken its inspiration from art? I will never forget the section from Arthur Clarke’s 2001 where he mentions a future where man can read any newspaper from the world on a small computer like device, which is achieved in the present by reading papers via the internet on a laptop. While some works can mimic or predict the future, others end up remaining timeless because of their inherent humanistic meanings, like Shakespeare. Shakespeare will never go out of fashion and will be forever interpretated and continue to add meaning. And two such interpretations were made in Bollywood recently. One wonders why it took so long? Love, treachery, jealousy and murder are all trademarks of the usual melodramas but this time, those stories are told via the lens of the talented bard's works.

If one is tired of seeing nonsense in the theatres, there are always foreign movies one can rent. If that is not possible, then surely, one can rent the old cinematic gems just to tune out the noise of the big budget crap. I decided to conduct an experiement – over the course of 2 months, I would try to balance my viewings with new released big budget movies mixed with foreign movie rentals from past and present. Then I would set up a competition with the movies divided into different cinematic regions and at the end, just see which country or continent came out on top. The only restriction I put on myself was that the movies would be all that played either in the local theatres or were available at one of the video stores -- no internet renting (something I have been lucky to avoid so far). The end winner really surprised me and provided me with a cliched lesson – quality always wins over quantity, no matter which country the movie is from and regarless of the film's budget!!

Countries/Continents and Film Selections:

USA: Pirates 2, A Scanner Darkly, The Devil Wears Prada, Serenity, FlightPlan

The first movie of this competition was a movie that I relunctanly watched its opening day – Pirates 2. I loved the first movie but I didn’t expect much from the second one. Yet I found myself in the theatre on opening day at the 4:20 pm show. And I was really surprised – the movie was much much WORSE that I could have imagined! In fact, it was the worst movie I have seen this year. It is solely responsible for sinking the overall rating of the USA category. Is it fair to let a commercial crap sink other worthwhile movies? Yes!! If junk is made from one country, then it deserves to shame all other movies from that region. For the record, here are the other ratings:


Pirates 2: Rating 5/10
A Scanner Darkly: Rating 9.5/10
The Devil Wears Prada: Rating 8/10
Serenity: Rating 8.5/10
FlightPlan: Rating 6.5/10

Overall rating: 37.5/5 = 7.5


The only true brilliant movie in this list is A Scanner Darkly with Serenity getting a good nod. Linklater has taken a typical Philip K. Dick story and added the classy animation technique used to success in Waking Life and produced a wonderous paranoid big brother drug induced nightmarish reality. Serenity does proud to the much put down sci-fi genre and brings a fresh far away universe to cinema, and along the way, proves that film (and even tv) fans know more than studio executives, who never wanted the original tv series or movie to exist in the first place. The Devil Wears Prada is sheer fun. Nothing extraordinary here, but plain fun. The first few minutes are one of the best sequences in the movie, which show different women getting dressed. Just by their clothes, we can tell a lot about the different women and that scene captures the classiness of the film, which really is thin on substance but has plenty of style. The less said of Flightplan the better. In fact, I don’t think I can better review this film than Pacze has on his blog – his review is just wicked and completely spot-on.

Asia: Omkara, Mixed Doubles, Good Men, Good Women (Hsiao-hsien Hou), Ab Tak Chaphhan, Maqbool, Election 2

Gangster central really. 3 out and out gangster movies, with 2 of them of them being Shakespearean adaptations and the third being a Godfather mould. A 4th movie is gang related but shown from the side of cops, often left out in gang movies. The remaining 2 movies may be out of place but they capture a time and place of Asia that is worth showing, one modern (Mumbai in Mixed Doubles) and the past (Taiwan in Good Men, Good Women). The biggest disappointment for me was Hou Hsian-Hein’s feature which really was the weakest showing in this category. Having loved his other movies, maybe I had set the bar too high and was not engaged with a story whose fragments can be found in his other movies.

When it comes to the gangster movies, it seems a common theme was present – power won by unfair means will never result in peace and will always end in destruction. Typical story of Godfather like mafia movies that cine flicks around the world have emitted previously, but this time Vishal Bhardwaj has taken that story and wrapped it around the core of Shakespearean plays. Maqbool was a remake of Macbeth and got plenty of praise when it was released. It is a very good movie with excellent acting from all but one main character – Lady Macbeth’s character. Of all the actresses that Bhardwaj could have taken, why did he have to take Tabu? Tabu is over-rated and has been useless in the last few films that she has been in. She was the dull muse that could not inspire anyone and sank M.F Husain’s Meenaxi and has since been playing the stupid innocent_woman_ role for a few years now. In Maqbool she was dull, uninspiring and certainly not as manipulative as she should have been. That is why I had to take my points off my rating for this movie. Omkara on the other hand was far more superior in the acting category as the vibrant Konkana Sen Sharma lit up the screen with every word and Saif Ali Khan and Ajay Devgan played their roles perfectly while enacting Othello in a rural Uttar Pradesh setting. The only negative was the unnecessary songs which hampered the otherwise cool flow.

The first Election movie was perfect as it added a layer of democracy to the gang genre. The second one picks up where the first one left off and has a wicked ending which promises more feature sequels with far more destruction in store; the cycle will be complete surely in future such sequels. At the end of the first movie, Lok is democratically elected to rule all the triads and it seems that peace will reign. The second movie picks up 2 years after the first when another election is coming up. Lok can’t think of giving up his position and his greed makes him far more ruthless (Shakespeare would have understood Lok’s situation). Jimmy on the other hand just wants to be a "businessman". But he finds that he can’t go clean until he becomes the chairman of the Triads himself. So starts a ruthless battle between Jimmy and Lok which ends only when Jimmy hacks (literally) his way to the top. But a tasty twist leaves Jimmy in a precarious position where he might never be just a "businessman".

Ab Tak Chaphhan is a Ram Gopal factory production which is quite good much to my disbelief as I had previously rejected this movie on a quick viewing a year ago. The story is about cops who have to break the law themselves in order to keep the balance with Nana Patekar giving a riveting performance. Mixed Doubles is an decent comedy about a young couple living in Mumbai who are duly going through the stages of their marriage until the husband gets obsessed with the idea of ‘swinging’ to spice their married life up. The one bright spot in the movie -- Konkana Sen Sharma!


Omkara: 9/10
Mixed Doubles: Rating 7.5/10
Good Men, Good Women: Rating 5.5/10
Ab Tak Chaphhan: Rating 9.5/10
Maqbool: Rating 8.5/10
Election 2: 9

Overall rating: 49 = 8.17


Europe: Man Bites Dog (Rémy Belvaux, Belgium), Pusher (Nicolas Winding Refn, Denmark, 1996), Buffet Froid (Bertrand Blier, France, 1979), I, Soliti Ignoti(Big deal on Madonna Street, Mario Monicelli, Italy, 1958), Element of Crime (Germany), Descent (Neil Marshall, UK)

A completely mixed bag of European flicks with my favourite being the Brit thriller The Descent. The story is simple but very well done – 6 women go cave exploring until they find something sinister hidden beneath the earth. Blood and darkness are the main elements in a gripping edge of the seat thriller that is truly worth watching in a dark theatre. The only negative has to be the chopped up ending for the American version which tries to give a glimmer of hope but I rather would have preferred the Brit version which really ends in darkness. Man Bites Dog is an interesting experiment – a film crew follows a killer who randomly picks his victims and executes them in unique ways. Shot in black & white, it is not a tasteful watch but was made long before the crazy of American reality tv shows started to dominate popular watching so, in a way this movie was a landmark in how cinema is observed. With TIFF 2006 showing two movies where the audience simply observes two characters, one a soccer player going about his job of entertainment, and another where a woman is going about her deadly task of killing, Man Bites Dog fits in with that category of observing different people try to make sense of their lives.

Pusher has a lot of hype around it and that is all it is, just hype. It is nothing great! In fact, I wish the movie was in reverse like Gaspar Noé's Irréversible as that really would have made this watchable because the best parts of the movie are near the end. The movie chronicles a week in the life of a drug pusher. At the start of the week, things are looking good for him as he is collecting his payments and is happy (these are the boring parts of the movie which one has to painfully endure). But a few bad situations leave him in debt and as the week goes on, he sinks further and further. This is probably the most interesting segment in the movie as we desperately see him trying to stay afloat. And in the end, just when things might finally turn around for him, all his hopes are snatched away in an instant. Two more sequels have been made for this Danish indie but I think I will pass on those ventures.

Element of Crime was one of Lars Von Trier’s earlier movies and it is a seductive crime thriller viewed through a cool yellow lens. Everything appears yellow in the film and this filtered lens heightens the mood of the film and punches certain features up a bit more, for example, a pool of blood stands out more in the background. A detective is on the trail of a killer but in order to catch him, he tries to mimic the killer’s ways until, he steps too far and starts acting like a killer himself. Not a perfect movie but a great start from a director much known to controversy nowadays.

The mad caper comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street starts out really well but ends up dragging itself to nowhere. Bordering more on slapstick comedy, it has a nice role by Marcello Mastroianni but overall the film feels dull. Dull is the farthest thing from the Gérard Depardieu starrer Buffet Froid which requires perfect attention to detail as a dream like situations led to the killer becoming the victim, enemies becoming friends and buildings swapping forests (shades of Surrealism & Luis Buñuel's works).


Man Bites Dog: Rating 9/10
Pusher: Rating 6/10
Big deal on Madonna Street: Rating 6.5/10
The Descent: Rating 9.5/10
Element of Crime: Rating 8/10
Buffet Froid: 8.5/10

Overall rating: 47.5 = 7.92


South Africa: Tsotsi, Son of Man

These were 2 late movies that were added to my viewing and honestly, South Africa was not a country that I had planned to cover this time around, but I got lucky here. I had missed seeing Tsotsi on a few occasions so it was only fair that I finally saw it. And Son of Man had a special festival screening in our city and I have to say, I was very impressed. Son of Man is a modern interpretation of Jesus live in the slums and streets of Africa – a time where gangs, religion, politics and corruption reign. It really seems that nothing has changed in the last few thousand years, really? :) Just that we have tv and radio which can transmit news of miracles and tragedies faster than ever before! And guns are readily available to those who need to kill people easily. A very commendable film, not perfect but worth seeing!

Amazingly, the two South African movies stood narrowly beat out the 3 other regions and won this contest. A real surprise indeed for a country whose movies were the last ones to make the cut!


Tsotsi: Rating 8.5/10
Son of Man: Rating 8/10

Overall rating: 8.25

Heroes and Thugs

X-Men 3 – The Last Stand? Maybe!

What is the point of reviewing such a movie? Even if the critics trash it (which they did), people will still go in record numbers to see the film (and they did just). In a particular theatre (city X), all the opening day evening screenings were sold out and so the theatre (in its infinite greed) decided to have a special show at midnight just to accommodate all the numbers. Now, considering this multiplex was running shows every 30 minutes (more or less) starting from 11:40 am Friday morning, you would have thought that the line-ups would not have been that bad. But all those timings catered to a variety of crowds and ensured all age groups would be present to see the movie -- the die-hard fan probably could not sleep the night before so he/she might have seen the special Thu Midnight screenings; remaining dedicated fans would have taken Friday afternoon off from work to see the movie; Friday evening was reserved for the Teeny boppers who treated this as a date night flick and the weekend afternoon shows brought in kids between the ages of 8-13. Yes a truly great movie for every age group! So if that is the case, then who the hell cares if this movie is any good or not? Heck, a monkey could have directed this movie. Because the truth is all the hard work in order to build this franchise was done in the first two movies. Bryan Singer, who didn’t return to direct this 3rd installment, build such a good reputation with the first two films, that this movie would have made money no matter what. For example, here are some of the things done right with the first two parts:

1) Casting – It was a brilliant idea to cast the two powerful Brits, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as the battling foes. There is nothing better on screen than to see two intelligent good friends turn their wits against each other, all the while respecting each other. Then there was the discovery of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine (in fact, his character has grown so much throughout the series that he will have his own spin-off movie); Famke Janssen's presence added to the film’s glamour and beauty and Halle Berry's inclusion ensured crowds (even though she is the least favourite character of mine in the movie).

2) X-Men 101 – The first movie was so basic that anyone could have understood it. That opened the door for people not familiar with the comic book or the cartoon series. The second movie was much better and only added to the interest.

3) Special Effects – Ice, Fire, Storms, Claws, Lasers, Mind waves and other cool super powers ensured that the audiences were treated to amazing special effects in each movie.

So what is X-Men 3 about? And what could this movie possibly offer?

Well it is hard to constantly find plots for humans and mutants to keep fighting each other so the only possible angle left was the anti-mutant gene factor -- for every proton, there is an electron. So for every x-gene mutant, there has to be a gene which can take away (or negate) the x-gene! Sure enough, the humans find the anti-mutant gene and try to ‘cure’ the mutants. Oh-oh. Bad idea!! That leads to yet another political debate about acceptance and tolerance (‘God loves you the way you are’). Ofcourse, all this ties in very well with the spirit of X-Men (the original story was developed with an eye on civil rights) and the story incorporates modern day issues of equality and societal integration of ‘different’ people. New characters with even more cool powers are added, some are killed off and the stage is set for ending it all. But ofcourse, it is difficult to finish this money making series that easily. The teaser clip at the end of the credits gives a taste of possible future movies. But the fact is, if this had to be final movie, it should have had more punch to it. The movie is too tame and even the effects are pointless. The biggest special effect in the movie is when Magneto uses his powers to dislodge the Golden Gate bridge and re-locates it to form a connection to the island prison of Alcatraz so that his army of mutants can get to the prison. Seriously, why this much effort? Would it be un-cool for the mutants to go on speed-boats to the island prison? Could Magneto not have acquired a classy stealth fighter for his gang? Atleast in most other movies, there is a reason for having special effects. In this case, it was absolutely pointless. But what difference does that make? People came to watch the movie and it made tons of money. That is all Hollywood cares for!

Rating -- 6/10

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Election – Voting for Thugs!

The Godfather introduced the cool gangster to the silver-screen. From then on, countless copies were made. Eventually, the winds blew the genre far East where film studios in Japan, Hong Kong and India polished and build on the ideas and crafted their own masterpieces. In recent years, Hong Kong and Japan's quality of this genre has been so high that Hollywood and Bollywood have started making their own copies of these Eastern gangster talkies. Johnny To’s Election is just another addition to this firmly established cool gangster genre. This time around, we are introduced to the inner workings of a triad’s leadership selection process. This particular triad elects its chairman through a democratic process as opposed to having the leader inherit his position through familial ties (like a rival group’s mentioned in the movie). But in reality, democracy is only good on paper. Sooner or later, someone will find ways to manipulate the process and buy the votes. And this is exactly what Big D does in the film. But the elders find out and vote for Lok instead, much to Big D’s dismay. But Lok can’t officially be the chairman until he gets the sacred baton, which has been in the gang for centuries. The movie then moves into a search and hunt film to retrieve the baton (feels very similar to To’s 2003 movie P.T.U which was about a search for a missing gun and had a lot of the same actors as Election ). Back-room dealing ensures that the Baton is properly handed over to Lok. Even that does not ensure forever peace. The movie ends with a feeling of more to come and sure enough, Election 2 premiered this year and even played at Cannes last month. Overall, I really liked this movie even though it has nothing new to offer; the story takes the corrupt model of democracy, mixes it with the Godfather theme and adds a few sprinklings of P.T.U . The final product is an interesting movie, which will surely be copied by Hollywood and Bollywood in the near future.

Rating: 9/10

Pianos, Karmic Cycles and a Joint Security Area

The Beat that My Heart Skipped (Directed by Jacques Audiard): Rating 9/10

The only reason I went to see this movie was because of Romain Duris and I was not disappointed. Duris is quite good as the reluctant gangster. He plays Thomas, a real estate enforcer who is brought into the business by his dad. Thomas and his gang hunt for open real estate property, take it over and then sell it for redevelopment. Sometimes they have to be tough and kick people out, but it is all part of their shady business. One day, Thomas runs into his old Piano teacher. His teacher always felt Thomas had potential and was Thomas’s mother’s teacher. He wonders if Thomas is keeping up with his training and after Thomas replies in the affirmative, his teachers asks him to come for an audition. That gets Thomas motivated and he finds a new zest in life. The music moves him and he believes that is his one chance to escape his current way of life. So does Thomas succeed? Well the movie is very realistic in its approach and manages to show an ending which is alternate to the two obvious options – one where Thomas succeeds in music and the other where he fails and returns to his old way of life. It is an engaging movie for sure.

Running on Karma (directed by Johnny To): Rating 7/10

The second half of the movie is not your typical Johnny To stuff but it works, somewhat. A beefed up male stripper is arrested by the cops. But as it turns out, this former martial arts monk has special powers – he can see people’s futures based on their karma, meaning he knows what will happen to someone based on that person’s former actions. The fake body suit on Andy Lau looks funny as first but after a while, you get used to it. The karmic angle to the second half of the flick is interesting enough but I wish the movie had gotten there earlier. Ofcourse, the required fights and chases are necessary in the first half. The transition between the two halves gives the feeling that Running on Karma is really two movies spliced together.

Joint Security Area (directed by Chan-wook Park): Rating 7.5/10

Long before there was the Revenge trilogy (OldBoy and the two Vengeance movies), Chan-wook Park actually worked on normal movies. Plain, simple stories with no chopping and cutting! This movie centers on a border check post between North and South Korea. A massacre has taken place and a neutral party consisting of Swiss and Swedish personnels is sent to investigate. It so happens that one of the Swiss investigators is a woman of Korean heritage who has never been to Korea before. As she works to peel the truth and tries to understand the accused and defender, she learns a little about her father as well. JSA is an interesting movie which highlights the absurdity of man made borders.