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SOUL ON A STRING (Zhang Yang 2016)
This movie made in Tibetan in Tibet by a Chinese director is about a spiritual quest. The protagonist finds a sacred stone in the mouth of a deer he kills and spends the run time seeking to return it to its proper place, the Palm Print Land of the Lotus Master in the holy mountain of Buddha. A gorgeous, epic, comic, spiritual story, with hints of a spaghetti Western. Lots of beautiful, ruddy-cheeked people. And the sheep are pretty cute too. Recommended to lovers of desert and mountain scenery and ethnic color - but be ready: it's 142 minutes long.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-11-2017 at 08:42 AM.
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MAD WORLD (Wang Chun 2016)
A Hong Kong tale of a stockbroker struck down by bipolar disorder who returns from psychiatric hospital (sent because of an incident) to live with his father in a tiny tenement room, and tries to return to life. Inn indie film on an unusual subject for the reason, it misfires in various ways, but has a good restrained performance by lead Shawn Yue and is audacious in its seriousness.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-11-2017 at 09:43 PM.
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DUCKWEED (Han Han 2017)
A time-travel adventure for millennials, this is a silly movie nostalgic about the 1990's and about yough, in the guise of a gangster tale. An interesting artifact from mainland China, and enjoyable enough, if not up to Hou Hsiau-hsien or Edward Yang or Arnaud Desplechin's treatments of youth by any means. From "super writer blogger" Han Han.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-11-2017 at 09:42 PM.
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THE MOLE SONG: HONG KONG CAPRICCIO (Takashi Miike 2016)
This is the second in a series about a buffoonish police undercover agent from a manga, so may be a franchise for genre master Miike. It stars the irrepressible Tômo Kkuta as Riota, the police mole, who keeps fucking up and just gets higher up in a Japanese yakuza gang - and chased by the boo's teenage daughter. In delirious tones of red and gold, perhaps to go with the evil rival Dragon Skulls Chinese mafia gang that also gets involved. Over-the-top pop entertainment from Miike.
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SPLIT (Choi Kook-hee 2016)
This has a nasty final competition sequence that spoils things, but a Korean sports movie about a handsome loser and an autistic kid who can only throw strikes is a fun thing. And the images are surprisingly beautiful.
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GODSPEED (Chong Mong-hong 2016)
From Taiwan (and left field) an odd combination of a hardcore gangster story of pretty vicious drug traffickers alternating with an oddball buddy road picture of a lazy drug mule and a worn out cabbie driving across the country and back. Makes no mainstream genre sense, but the tech aspects are fine and so is the cast.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-14-2017 at 12:59 PM.
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Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-14-2017 at 06:37 PM.
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THE LONG EXCUSE (Miwa Nishikawa 2016)
A jerk learns belatedly to grieve for the death of his wife. He's helpbed by bonding with a simpler man going through the same process. The first big serious film role for Masahiro Motoki since 2008's Oscar-winning Departures. This is an expanded version of an earlier review published in April for the SFIFF.
The film is based on Nishikawa's eponymous novel. It was partly aimed to look at how collective grieving after the 2011 earthquake-tsunami tragedy got in the way of individual grieving in Japan.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-15-2017 at 01:25 AM.
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