I try to cover as much of Asia as possible, meaning not just from East Asia (China, HK, Japan etc) and South Asia (India) but also from South East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia etc), West Asia (Israel, Turkey etc) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan etc).
- HUI PING
everything_in_its_right_pika.png
GOODBYE, 50 FILMS
Starring Loo Hui Ping & Jasmine Tay
This is a reenactment of a typical scene from Goodbye, Dragon Inn by Tsai Ming Liang (2003). The characteristic long take in a carefully composed shot is simulated here in our very own NTU style environment!
The long take allows us to observe everything that is happening in the surroundings and we give careful attention to the character’s move. In Goodbye, Dragon Inn however, there is not so much of things already happening but more of waiting for things to happen because of the dark environment. We see a character in his theatre seat for sometime fidgeting before another character joins in and breaks the still shot.
I really love how the whole story of the closing down of the Cinema alongside a little interesting revelation by the Japanses tourist that someone in the audience resembles the character in the movie being screened at that moment (Dragon Gate Inn) unfolds in this style. It is also interesting that the non-diegetic sounds become diegetic as the sound from the silver screen acts as the sound for the action in the film itself as well, like how whenever a character enters, the sound effect from Dragon Gate Inn plays out at the right moment as well.
Goodbye, Dragon Inn is an interesting take on film form that is definitely worth catching.
And here ends my 50 films project journey as well. Thanks Bee Thiam for the interesting Asian films that you have exposed us to!
Three Times by Hou Hsiao Hsien (2005) & Blue Gate Crossing by Chih-Yan Yee (2002)
The 21st century Taiwan Cinema
The late 20th century to present time saw a new shift towards more experimental filmmaking and wider range of themes explored. Previously I have put up a podcast of King Hu’s Dragon Gate Inn that defines the old cinema of Taiwan in the 1960s. The 1960s saw popularity in wuxia which spawned many other films of the like. The New Wave cinema began in 1982 with a more realistic and down to Earth portrayal of the Taiwanese life. Their style is often compared to the Italian Neorealist movement where stories are set around the poor or working class with non-professional actors and filmed on location. This era saw a rise in popularity in directors such as Edward Yang (Taipei Story, 1985) and Hou Hsiao Hsien who came to fame with A City of Sadness. Many of these films explore the issues and conflict with modernity and political authority.
The present time saw more experimental filmmaking techniques and innovative storytelling style as seen in Three Times by Hou Hsiao Hsien (2005). Three Times is a three part story told in different time periods with the same coupling of Shu Qi and Zhang Zhen – A Time for Love, A Time for Freedom, A Time for Youth. All three segments are 40 minutes long each and is not for the viewers with short attention span. Each story is so slowly executed that it becomes quite tiring and frustrating to finish it. I like the slowness in pace in the first segment (A Time for Love) very much but the second segment (A Time for Freedom) told in a silent film style in a period drama is too difficult to follow. The third segment (A Time for Youth) redeems a little with its interesting viewpoint of how the youths are so caught up with themselves and self imposes isolation. Overall, it is told in a slow, obtuse way that really seeks the patience of viewers. However if you look past the slowness and see the beauty in each composed shots, you will learn to appreciate Hou’s experimental and naturalist style of this film. There is little dialogue and shots can drag for too long but the underlying social commentary through this innovative storytelling is worth the watch.
Another film that defines a new sentimentality of Taiwan cinema is Blue Gate Crossing in my opinion. It is a simple coming-of-age film on a love triangle between two girls and a boy that comes in between in high school. Chih manages to evoke innocence in both heterosexual and homosexual relationship without the tacky sentiments, “sweetness without sacrificing realism”. The beauty of Blue Gate Crossing lies in its beautiful cinematography. The characters are often basked in the sedated peaceful summer atmosphere, like a rite of passage retold in memories. The poetic style is emphasised by repetition of shots and sequences, especially Zhang (the boy) cruising down the Taipei streets on his bike with his Hawaiian shirt fluttering behind. The teenage awkwardness portrayed by the characters evokes a sense of nostalgia for innocence. While Taiwan is now more well known for their reality pop culture TV shows and teenage drama serials, I believe this new sentimentality in filmmaking by the new wave of directors will eventually bring back an interest in the film industry.
Bibliography
Web: A Taipei Love Triangle by BRYAN WALSH http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,471206,00.html
Three Times http://www.lovehkfilm.com/panasia/three_times.htm
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge by Aditya Chopra (1995) & My Name is Khan by Karan Johar (2010)
The Maturing of Bollywood
Both films feature India’s favourite Bollywood on-screen couple Shahrukh Khan and Kajol over two different periods of time. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, or DDLJ, was made in the 90s where Bollywood candyfloss romances made in blockbuster productions with catchy song and dance and tacky storylines were popular. My Name is Khan however, proves a new age of Bollywood that transpires out of India and onto the International stage. The thematic concern in DDLJ is simply true love and the struggle of keeping a balance between the traditions in a modern world. My Name is Khan touches on the issue of religion and terrorism amidst a powerful love story with Kajol as Mandira, an independent single mother.
DDLJ, one of the biggest Bollywood hits of all time, which sees it running for 15 years non-stop in Mumbai theatres, shows a new Indian attitude that is prevalent in the modern westernised India. Raj (Shahrukh Khan) and Simran (Kajol) are the young first generation of English educated Indians residing in London. While their parents still hold to traditional values and rituals of arranged marriage, their children have been exposed to the idea of western love. Simran is supposed to return to Punjab to marry to an egoistical man Kuljeet who takes pride in being a hunter but meets Raj while on her Europe trip with friends and eventually falls in love with him. The story unfolds as to how Raj devises plots to get the approval of Simran’s father for his daughter’s hand. In the end the father relents and realises what is best for his daughter and that no one can love Simran as much as Raj. This theme is somewhat prevalent in all successful films thereafter that feature the same coupling like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
The cinematography in DDLJ is a classic Bollywood style of vibrancy and bright colours in their costumes. There is the usual over-the-top song and dance sequences that seem incongruous with the setting yet still as charming. The most iconic scene is where Simran runs to Raj in a golden field of wheat. The bright colours with the banjo music in the background are the definition of melodrama in Bollywood.
In My Name is Khan, Shahrukh Khan is no longer the cheeky Rahul or Raj that we are so familiar with but a highly intelligent Rizwan who has Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism with halting voice and inability to communicate. Instead of the light-hearted social commentary thematic issues, we are forced to question the religious and national identity while having to combat an isolation that stems from the behavioural disorder. The issues at hand are too heavy for the usual Bollywood crowd to handle. Romance is no longer direct and easy with the disorder. We see a breakdown in Shahrukh Khan’s usual masculinity in this film. We see a new movement in Bollywood. Karan Johar, the director of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai treads on unfamiliar territory and does a fairly good job on it. We lose the song and dance, the colourful cinematography and the one-dimensional charcters. It is a powerful Hollywood plot with a story that still tugs at the heartstrings of many like in Bollywood films. It is heartwarming to see the two coming together again after so long and it is even more refreshing to see that they have changed the dynamics in their characters albeit still having the same chemistry that we so loved in DDLJ.
Bibliography
Web:
http://www.realbollywood.com/news/2010/02/my-name-is-khan-review.html http://www.rottentamatar.com/movie-reviews/dilwale-dulhaniya-le-jayenge-movie-review/
![Grave of the Fireflies by Isao Takahata (1988) and Noboby Knows by Hirokazu Koreeda (2004)
Abandoned Children
I have realised that much of my films actually touched on the subject of children in difficult situations. The animation Grave of the Fireflies depicts a brother and his younger sister from Kobe being made homeless by the bombs. For a period of time, their aunt took them in but she is cruel about feeding them which led to Seita’s (the elder brother) decision to move out of the house with his sister and reside by a hillside cave. In Nobody Knows, 4 young children are neglected by their mentally unstable mother who has remarried a couple of times in an apartment to live on their own. These 4 children all have different fathers but they are very close to each other.
Film critic Ernest Rister compares Grave of the Fireflies to Schindler’s List and calls it the “most profoundly human animated film [he has] ever seen. “ When it comes to animated films, we often think of it as innocent didactic stories of moral values for children with the likes of Pixar’s Toy Story and Disney’s Lion King, but Studio Ghibli’s Grave of the Fireflies forces a reimaging of animation with its heavy themes of death and war. It is not to say that Studio Ghibli is an expert in this area, they are known for fantasy-themed stories like Princess Mononoke and My Neighbour Totoro , much less controversial. Grave of the Fireflies is adapted from a semi-autographical novel by Nosaka Akiyuki—who was a boy at the time of the firebombs and his sister had died of hunger because of the priority for himself and have been guilty of it since.
The choice of an animated film to reenact the account instead of a live-action film is said to be appropriate by film critic Roger Ebert as “animation allows Takahata to concentrate on the essence of the story” without having to be weighed down by the need for special effects and action of the bombing. There is the part where the firebombs dropping from the sky were depicted similar to how the fireflies were in the sky, which is only possible in animated films. The metaphor of death is prevalent in the whole film; the film even begins with Seito’s death from starvation in a subway, revealing other children of the same plight, already evoking a sense of foreboding. By beginning with such powerful image of the death of children, the film already sets out to be a hopeless disaster as we are being told the tragedy through a flashback.
The film juxtaposes serene images like quiet shots of the scenery, grasslands and fireflies with extremely noisy images of the chaotic firebombings, emphasising the turmoil of the land and perhaps even reflecting what the loneliness that children is undergoing at the moment amidst the chaos. These images of serenity and loneliness is a trope that studio ghibli likes to use in most of their animated films thereafter. The scene of the two children by themselves in the train crossing through the sea is reminiscent of the quiet transmute in Spirited Away.
While the children in Nobody Knows did not have deaths as the ending, it is just as poignant in another way. While the children in Grave of the Fireflies were forced into such dire straits due to war in the olden days, the children in Nobody Knows is a result of the neglect of parental duties in a modern context. The themes dealt in Nobody Knows are closer to our times as the issues of education and parental duties are brought up. What is so poignant about this film is watching the children wasting their lives away cooped up in a cramped apartment. The camera takes on a very tight shot in showing the children moping around in the apartment, emphasising the isolation and loneliness in the apartment. They do not have schools to attend. At one point Kyoko, one of the elder children asked her mother whether she can attend school but her mother laughs it off and says she will be happier at home, which is an irony.
Many would have known the director Koreeda from the fame of Maborosi (1995) which is about a widow who remarries and takes her child to live in a small village. Unlike Maborosi which uses very few shots and long takes, Nobody Knows seem to take on a more personal touch with the handheld shots, as if documenting the lives of the children as they waste their lives away.
Bibliography
Web: Roger Ebert on Nobody Knows and Grave of the Fireflies http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050217/REVIEWS/50203006/1001 http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000319/REVIEWS08/3190301/1023](http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/50filmsramblr/2164247969/1/tumblr_ld7ir0B7ov1qdm54z)
Grave of the Fireflies by Isao Takahata (1988) and Noboby Knows by Hirokazu Koreeda (2004)
Abandoned Children
I have realised that much of my films actually touched on the subject of children in difficult situations. The animation Grave of the Fireflies depicts a brother and his younger sister from Kobe being made homeless by the bombs. For a period of time, their aunt took them in but she is cruel about feeding them which led to Seita’s (the elder brother) decision to move out of the house with his sister and reside by a hillside cave. In Nobody Knows, 4 young children are neglected by their mentally unstable mother who has remarried a couple of times in an apartment to live on their own. These 4 children all have different fathers but they are very close to each other.
Film critic Ernest Rister compares Grave of the Fireflies to Schindler’s List and calls it the “most profoundly human animated film [he has] ever seen. “ When it comes to animated films, we often think of it as innocent didactic stories of moral values for children with the likes of Pixar’s Toy Story and Disney’s Lion King, but Studio Ghibli’s Grave of the Fireflies forces a reimaging of animation with its heavy themes of death and war. It is not to say that Studio Ghibli is an expert in this area, they are known for fantasy-themed stories like Princess Mononoke and My Neighbour Totoro , much less controversial. Grave of the Fireflies is adapted from a semi-autographical novel by Nosaka Akiyuki—who was a boy at the time of the firebombs and his sister had died of hunger because of the priority for himself and have been guilty of it since.
The choice of an animated film to reenact the account instead of a live-action film is said to be appropriate by film critic Roger Ebert as “animation allows Takahata to concentrate on the essence of the story” without having to be weighed down by the need for special effects and action of the bombing. There is the part where the firebombs dropping from the sky were depicted similar to how the fireflies were in the sky, which is only possible in animated films. The metaphor of death is prevalent in the whole film; the film even begins with Seito’s death from starvation in a subway, revealing other children of the same plight, already evoking a sense of foreboding. By beginning with such powerful image of the death of children, the film already sets out to be a hopeless disaster as we are being told the tragedy through a flashback.
The film juxtaposes serene images like quiet shots of the scenery, grasslands and fireflies with extremely noisy images of the chaotic firebombings, emphasising the turmoil of the land and perhaps even reflecting what the loneliness that children is undergoing at the moment amidst the chaos. These images of serenity and loneliness is a trope that studio ghibli likes to use in most of their animated films thereafter. The scene of the two children by themselves in the train crossing through the sea is reminiscent of the quiet transmute in Spirited Away.
While the children in Nobody Knows did not have deaths as the ending, it is just as poignant in another way. While the children in Grave of the Fireflies were forced into such dire straits due to war in the olden days, the children in Nobody Knows is a result of the neglect of parental duties in a modern context. The themes dealt in Nobody Knows are closer to our times as the issues of education and parental duties are brought up. What is so poignant about this film is watching the children wasting their lives away cooped up in a cramped apartment. The camera takes on a very tight shot in showing the children moping around in the apartment, emphasising the isolation and loneliness in the apartment. They do not have schools to attend. At one point Kyoko, one of the elder children asked her mother whether she can attend school but her mother laughs it off and says she will be happier at home, which is an irony.
Many would have known the director Koreeda from the fame of Maborosi (1995) which is about a widow who remarries and takes her child to live in a small village. Unlike Maborosi which uses very few shots and long takes, Nobody Knows seem to take on a more personal touch with the handheld shots, as if documenting the lives of the children as they waste their lives away.
Bibliography
Web: Roger Ebert on Nobody Knows and Grave of the Fireflies http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050217/REVIEWS/50203006/1001 http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000319/REVIEWS08/3190301/1023
Film in review: Infernal Affairs by Lau Wai Keung/Alan Mak (2002)
Pt 2 of 2
Sound podcast! By Jasmine and me.
Film in review: Infernal Affairs by Lau Wai Keung/Alan Mak (2002)
Pt 1 of 2
They Call Her Cleopatra Wong by Bobby Suarez (1978) & 4:30 by Royston Tan (2005)
The progress of Singapore films
After watching these two films, it is apparent that Singapore has come a long way in the film making industry. While They Call Her Cleopatra Wong is homage to the popular escapist Bruce Lee films in the 70s, 4:30 reveals a sentiment to the new alternative group of filmmakers concentrating on the social and real issues of modern Singapore.
The golden age of Singapore Malay film industry came to an end when the Cathay-Keris closed its Singapore film studio in 1972. This gave rise to a new group of independent filmmakers with the passion to direct films that they enjoyed from the international cinema. As the 70s were bombarded with the boom of popularity in Hong Kong martial arts films that star Bruce Lee, many filmmakers began to follow under such rules to create their very own B-grade martial arts film. One such example is the famous They Call Her Cleopatra Wong directed by Roberto “Bobby” Suarez (he is credited as George Richardson). Cleopatra Wong stars Marie Lee as an Interpol agent who destroys a counterfeiting ring.
The obvious homage to Bruce Lee movies is at the scene where Cleopatra Wong has to defeat a group of Indian wrestlers and a group of karate fighters who surround her ‘Bruce Lee movie’ style in a circle. Tarantino has also cited this film as one of his influences in action movies. However, despite the enthusiasm for an independent film industry, the 1970s saw a production of less than 10 feature films, a huge drop compared to the 24 films per year during the golden age. The 1980s saw no film production at all with the rise of popularity of TV, especially Chinese TV drama. The film industry stagnated as much investment was in TV drama serials from overseas. Right till 1988, the Singapore authorities decided in renew the interest in having a film industry, which led to policies for incentives in film production and related activities. The 90s show a slew of films made that are Singapore-centred. There is an obsession with showing the working class life in films like the previously reviewed 12 Storeys by Eric Khoo and Jack Neo’s Money No Enough (1998), which broke all the box-office record success in Singapore.
Now in this new decade of the 21st century, the film industry is moving towards inward self-reflective films such as the recent feature Sandcastle by Boo Junfeng (2010). Royston Tan, the most talked about filmmaker in Singapore right now came into the industry with emotionally charged features like 15 and 4:30. Premiered at the 56th Berlinale, 4:30 is about a relationship between the protagonists Xiao Wu, a boy whose life revolves around school and a dubious confined apartment with a Korean tenant Jung. The film is very slow-paced and rather silent (there is no obvious dialogue, just lines), emphasising the loneliness of Xiao Wu who finds comfort in instant noodles. Time is not really apparent in the film; it seems to always be in the present. The scene intensifies this withholding of information of how time passes for Xiao Wu where Xiao Wu tapes the clock down to the auspicious hour.
A far cry from the 70s glamour and fast-paced action films, Singapore has really evolved in its themes and messages in independent films. Perhaps it is a trope of modern Singaporean films; there is always the complain of the lack of time to appreciate life, hence the slow and thought provoking films being made in recent times.
Bibliography
Web: http://www.sinema.sg/2008/02/19/reflections-on-%E2%80%9C430%E2%80%9D-by-royston-tan/
Book: “Being and Becoming : The Cinemas of Asia”, 2003, “Starting Over” by Philip Cheah
Video podcast on sense of space in ASIAN HORROR!
Films in review: Shutter by Banjong Pisanthanakun/Parkpoom Wongpoom (2004) and Dark Water by Hideo Nakata (2002)
Notice our framing in this podcast.
I’ve decided to change some of my films as I needed more variety (in terms of genre or time period) in the particular region/country. Click to view.
