East Asian Cinema and TV and...

[Dil Bert]

Woman Knight of Mirror Lake (China, 2011; Huang Yi, Anthony Wong) - "Solid action, good performances and a focus on character-over-nationalism make The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake an enjoyable historical biopic.  Facts are loose, but that's perfectly fine."

The film is a fictionalized version of revolutionary/woman's rights campaigner Qiu Jin's life.  Overall very enjoyable, though the constant flashbacks are a bit much.

[zombeaner]

Both of those films will be coming to this country this year. Woman Knight is a FUNimation title and Legendary Amazons is with Well Go

[elizabethbennet]

Wish Upon a Star There is nothing new or original in this drama. If one likes K-dramas then she/he'll probably like this one as well. I have an Achiles heel when it comes to dramas though, it is children. If there is a kid in it I'll probably like it. This one had 4 kids and a baby - so it owned me. Also I did like the message (roll your sleeves and get to work to be independent, instead of waiting for that prince)

Recommended if you already like K-dramas but I doubt that it will convert anyone.

[LinKarish]

Wish Upon a Star There is nothing new or original in this drama. If one likes K-dramas then she/he'll probably like this one as well. I have an Achiles heel when it comes to dramas though, it is children. If there is a kid in it I'll probably like it. This one had 4 kids and a baby - so it owned me. Also I did like the message (roll your sleeves and get to work to be independent, instead of waiting for that prince)

Recommended if you already like K-dramas but I doubt that it will convert anyone.

I had watched it as it aired, but gave up maybe after the half way mark. I hated the stalking element of the female lead. I didn't understand how he was a "bad guy," or why he should've apologized for not being receptive before. i think it was around then I stopped watching, too. 

There were plenty of hilarious moments though. And it did its upsides.  The kids are worth watching for, though. Very much.

[shhrkh]

I have recently learned that there are two sister writing teams called 'Hong Sisters' and the other Hong sisters team wrote a drama called Beethoven Virus starring adorable Jang Geun Seuk. Now I do like Beethoven (second fave composer - currently listening to Archduke?) and have a serious crush on Jang Geun Seuk so is there any chance that this drama is horrible and I must stay away despite everything in its favour?-I have watched Nodame Cantabile but I really didn't like it at all-

This drama is really good. Nothing like Nodame Cantabile which I didn't find that interesting either. Music is really emotional and well used within the story and all the characters and their stories are interesting. I loved the main lead and JGS too.

[elizabethbennet]

I hated the stalking element of the female lead.

Oh she gave that up by the third episode - cutting her hair and declaring that she'll be a "mom" not a "woman". But in the course of the series, she has understood where she had done wrong and how uselessly she lived before, learning from her mistakes and constantly improving herself. Yes she was not very intelligent but her heart is definitely at the right place. I liked the fact that the show pointed out that the object of her affections was immune to her advances when she was leeching off from everyone to make herself prettier but he became interested in her after she took charge of her siblings and worked hard to provide for them. (To be honest they hit the viewer a bit harder than necessary with that message but I didn't mind in this case)

This drama is really good. Nothing like Nodame Cantabile which I didn't find that interesting either. Music is really emotional and well used within the story and all the characters and their stories are interesting. I loved the main lead and JGS too.

Thank you! This is great news to me, a drama to look forward to is always welcome.

[Dil Bert]

East Meets West (Hong Kong, 2011; Eason Chan, Karen Mok, Kenny Bee, Ekin Cheng, Huang Yi) - Absolutely nuts.  Somewhat fun to watch.

[elizabethbennet]

Capital Scandal   This one is highly recommended by anyone who had seen it and despite not really like Kang Ji Hwan and Han Ji Min I have decided to give it a try. And yes people were right, this one grabs you by the heart and hugs you with all the melo and I have found in the end that it is a keeper. Do not let the wacky costumes or weird overacting from the comic side kicks turn you off, proceed and you won't regret.

Sungkyunghwan Scandal Another scandal, another drama everyone loves and yet another instance where I agree with everyone. This is the happier, fluffier version of that Chinese story where a girl pretends to be a boy to get an education in a highly established uni. Well I said happier but only in comparison to the tragedy. There is enough melo to satisfy anyone seeking it accompanied by cuteness and warmth galore. If one is not averse to young love and becoming an adult stories then it is guaranteed that you'll love this one. And despite not liking the male and female lead actors and for the second time in my Korean drama viewing history, rooting for the secondary male, I enjoyed this one a lot and even marathoned it. 

Spoiler (hover to show)

The ending is very pat in comparison to the rest of the series but I shouldn't complain, at least everyone didn't die.

I Come With The Rain  Now this film is universally hated and deemed unworthy by everyone who watched it. I got the dvd for free and actually liked 2 out of 3 of the films of this director (the only one I didn't like was Cyclo and it was not a bad film, just not one that like). And I love Kimu Taku, always happy to watch Lee Byung Hun so I went for it.
Well, it is not a good film. Nothing in it really worked. Some visuals reminded me of early Cronenberg and late Mann. Some of it was truly sick. But it had a clean cinematography and lots of close up shots. So this was not the horrible viewing I imagined. I wouldn't watch this one again for a long time (the way for instance I Saw The Devil did, that is a film I wouldn't be able to rewatch for different reasons) but I kind of appreciated the failed attempt at... something. At least he genuinely tried. Also this film is a good example of the difference of a good actor and a great one. Of all the cast Lee Byung Hun was BY FAR the best one there. He didn't have a big role but he did so much with it. And of course the hottest to me was Kimu Taku (despite all the gore and the bugs and bad English). Anyway, listen to the majority and stay away.

[Bollywood Fanatic]

Has anyone here watched the Korean film When I Turned 9? If so, does it come highly praised? I was recommended this by someone on a another site after saying that I love The Way Home (2002).

Edit: I have just finished watching this movie and found it unbearably cheesy. I also have a question about the end

Spoiler (hover to show)

did the main young boy's teacher commit suicide over his unrequited love for a woman? It seemed that way to me.

[shhrkh]

Currently watching 2 k dramas as they air...just had to post to say that I just love love love History Of A Salaryman so much. I started watching because I didn't want to see another Romantic comedy. Anyways, I just got through episode 12 of 20. It is so much fun. The writing is fantastic, lots of dark comedy which I love, great character development, unpredictable situations, brilliantly acted by the 4 leads. Hope it continues through to ep 20.


Another one I am watching is Padam Padam. This one is a melodrama... again, Solid writing and brilliantly acted. It has supernatural elements which so far have been effectively integrated. I think it ends this week but I am only at ep 14.

[Deewani_Aurat]

Currently watching 2 k dramas as they air...just had to post to say that I just love love love History Of A Salaryman so much. I started watching because I didn't want to see another Romantic comedy. Anyways, I just got through episode 12 of 20. It is so much fun. The writing is fantastic, lots of dark comedy which I love, great character development, unpredictable situations, brilliantly acted by the 4 leads. Hope it continues through to ep 20.

I've heard quite a lot about History of a Salaryman lately.  I too am a bit fatigued of romantic comedies, especially after My Princess.  What a painful uneventful show.

I'm currently looking for something to reinvigorate my love for Kdrama. Maybe Salaryman is it.

[elizabethbennet]

I have finished Robbers (aka The Robber of My Heart) and I do understand why this show had such low ratings. The story is interesting but without any real light or optimism - (

Spoiler (hover to show)

despite what you can call a happy ending

) Now I do like Jang Hyuk - in fact I kind of love him - but not enough to watch every drama he stars in (so Midas and Tazza are not in my to watch lists ) but the plot seemed interesting with lots of potential for melodrama, also involves a kid so I gave this one a chance. Jang Hyuk's performance is amazing. No one cries as beautifully as this guy and there are scenes where he has to cry in real for a fake situations and even those are different. Kudos. I cried with him all the way.
The female lead Lee Dae Hee is one I think very pretty and enjoyed watching in My Girl. She was still pretty but didn't leave an impression in Chuno and here she is just not that good. The weakest link in a not so tiny cast. Didn't really like her in this one despite the fact that I LOVE angel character trope in K-dramas.
Ok this show is a bit like Hubert Selby Jr. light and mixed with melo but I do like melo and fiction induced crying so I ended up being a happy viewer. I cannot recommend this to anyone though.

On an unrelated note, it was really refreshing to watch two leads who didn't undergo any visible plastic surgery.

[Dil Bert]

Don't Go Breaking My Heart (2011, Louis Koo, Gao Yuanyuan, Daniel Wu) - Wildly unrealistic romcom which is nonetheless entertaining.  Normally Johnnie To's pay-the-bills romances leave me cold, but I enjoyed this one.


Our Chinese group is showing Our Sister Hedy this Saturday.  I don't think any of y'all are in the area (RTP, NC) but PM for details if you are and are interested.

[Darshana]

Just saw a wonderful Koren movie called Poetry - it is about a woman in her 60s, from a modest situation - she's a pensioner and works sometimes as a maid to make extra money - who enrolls in an adult ed. poetry class in the town where she lives.  She is having some trouble with her memory.

The movie begins - in silence, as I recall - showing us a lake, and then eventually showing us that a girl has drowned in it.

The main character of the movie has her grandson living with her.  The drowned girl was in his class in school.  The boy is more or less a slacker and we see soon that he and his set of friends are agitated by what has happened.  Grandmother soon finds out more.

The movie is so sophisticated and the story quietly told.  I won't say more, I'll just recommend it.  One more for my list of truly grownup movies about women. 

[MinaS]

Just saw a wonderful Koren movie called Poetry - it is about a woman in her 60s, from a modest situation - she's a pensioner and works sometimes as a maid to make extra money - who enrolls in an adult ed. poetry class in the town where she lives.  She is having some trouble with her memory.

The movie begins - in silence, as I recall - showing us a lake, and then eventually showing us that a girl has drowned in it.

The main character of the movie has her grandson living with her.  The drowned girl was in his class in school.  The boy is more or less a slacker and we see soon that he and his set of friends are agitated by what has happened.  Grandmother soon finds out more.

The movie is so sophisticated and the story quietly told.  I won't say more, I'll just recommend it.  One more for my list of truly grownup movies about women. 

I loved this too. Fantastic performances by all and a very subtle yet scathing portrait of Korean society. 

[elizabethbennet]

I'm currently watching City Hunter and sort of enjoying it but

How come a really poor girl who works in all the part time job she can get to pay her father's hospital bills owns an iphone4 and has three different colours of the same designer bag? She should have sold them all to pay some of her debts. These are small details maybe and you really have to suspend disbelief for a show like this (for instance the action star main lead of the show can't do any action but at least they bothered to cover it up with smart editing and great stuntmen) but not being careful for details like that turn me off - especially right after viewing a show called Robbers where poverty was given a serious treatment.  It is a shame since the female actor is likeable and she is a very good crier too but I no matter how hard I try, I can't sympathise with her owning expensive stuff while supposedly she is very very poor (and her poverty is a repeated plot point and gets mentioned more than once in every episode - I have just finished Episode 9) Also she is constantly in short shorts bordering on hot pant territory and wears really high heeled shoes while her character is a bodyguard who is not that into her appearance. I know Korean dramas can do better since Ha Ji Won was a poor stuntwoman in Secret Garden and she looked the part too. The people who worked on this show are either lazy or sloppy.
Rant over.   

[Dil Bert]

The Greatest Civil War on Earth (HK) - A Mandarin-speaking tailor opens a shop right next to a Cantonese-speaking tailer.  Sparks fly at work and at home, as it turns out they both rent rooms in the same house.  I found it quite funny, mainly for the performances of the Cantonese tailor and the daughter of the Mandarin-speaker. 

[zombeaner]

Just saw a wonderful Koren movie called Poetry - it is about a woman in her 60s, from a modest situation - she's a pensioner and works sometimes as a maid to make extra money - who enrolls in an adult ed. poetry class in the town where she lives.  She is having some trouble with her memory.

The movie begins - in silence, as I recall - showing us a lake, and then eventually showing us that a girl has drowned in it.

The main character of the movie has her grandson living with her.  The drowned girl was in his class in school.  The boy is more or less a slacker and we see soon that he and his set of friends are agitated by what has happened.  Grandmother soon finds out more.

The movie is so sophisticated and the story quietly told.  I won't say more, I'll just recommend it.  One more for my list of truly grownup movies about women. 

Poetry was in my top ten Feel Bad films of 2011:

[elizabethbennet]

I found it quite funny,

This is probably my favorite Cathay film. I do prefer them to Shaw brothers films in general.

[Dil Bert]

This is probably my favorite Cathay film.

Have you seen The Greatest Wedding on Earth?  Brian thinks it's funnier; I hope to watch it soon.  So far nothing I've seen from Cathay has impressed me as much as Our Sister Hedy, though I still have about 12 films to watch.  There are a lot of nice individual moments in some of their other films, but often the stories are too predictable for a modern watcher or certain characters are really annoying.

I do prefer them to Shaw brothers films in general.

I can't compare ~40 Cathay films to 500+ SB films.  I do like the naturalness of some Cathay films, and the way they deal with difficult social topics.

[Deewani_Aurat]

Just finished The Princess' Man - my first sageuk drama and one of the first dramas i've managed to finish for a while.

I'm normally quite against sageuk, i thought they would be really flowery and boring.  Despite the Princess' Man's 24 episodes it is very well paced.  I very rarely felt the story dragging.  I feel the story dragging more in those 16 episode dramas with no real story outside the romantic couple.  The great thing about this show was it wasn't just the main romantic couple (although there is a lot of it) but as well there is political intrigue, fighting and very compelling/interesting secondary characters.  The show is well written (thank goodness!), has strong female protagonists and the romance is believable.

I almost want to try another Sageuk but i'm afraid it won't be as fast paced and compelling as The Princess' Man. Anyway strongly recommend to people.  It took me an episode to kind of understand what the hell was going on, but you get it soon enough.  The ending is a tad disappointing, but after some thought makes sense.

I'm currently watching City Hunter and sort of enjoying it but

Let me know what you think of the show when you have finished it.  It was a show I saw reviewed quite positively from last year.  It seems to be a show you either hate or love.

[elizabethbennet]

Let me know what you think of the show when you have finished it.  It was a show I saw reviewed quite positively from last year.  It seems to be a show you either hate or love.

Well I'm sort of in the middle because

* I liked the revenge story and the fact that there are two revenges - the more the merrier.

* Sudden arrival of makjang with birth secrets and

unexpected deaths followed by obvious slow mo parting shots

now the latter may be a con for some people but I just love it and it gets me everytime.

* The cast was very good and just on the right side of acting as a group. I love the female lead and the second male lead.

* The message was good.

* I like how everything is found out by everyone very soon and there were no misunderstandings or events just caused by lack of communication.

* The first part of the ending was spectacular.




* I love action films and consequently I have seen more than a few. Despite the fact that this is an action drama, the leading man is not an action star and it showed. One can only do so much with careful editing and stunt work. IRIS did it better in that regard

* I didn't like the male lead. He is not my type of man but I could have gotten over it if he was acting better (I do not like, say, Kang Ji Hwan either but I'm always not only impressed but also got into his performances unlike Song Seung Hun a man I can forgive his not so great performances since he is the visual type I like) but Lee Min Ho is in neither category

* The first part of the show, the main female lead is presented as a very poor but upright and hardworking girl (a common female lead drama type) but she not only used an expensive mobile phone but has lots of designer bags (one in three different colours) and this bothered me since it is something so easy to avoid. But they chose not to and I was annoyed by that.

* The second part of the ending - the aftermath - was a bit too pat.


All in all I was won over as soon as the female lead's money problems cease to be an issue - about the beginning of the second half - and the last 4 episodes simply flew by (if this one got an extention they did a very good job with it) I can easily recommend if one likes fast paced dramas not burdened by communications accidents.

[Bollywood Fanatic]

One Fine Spring Day (2001) - To be honest I found this film quite dull. I usually enjoy slow paced movies but to me not much seemed to happen plotwise. I wasn't big on the main actors and felt a bit disappointed after loving 2 other films by the same director. The only aspect of One Fine Spring Day I liked was the scenery and cinematography.

[elizabethbennet]

The only aspect of One Fine Spring Day I liked was the scenary and cinematography.

This is my favorite film of the director. I felt the story of the relationship is well told in each stage. Everything felt so realistic but in that certain fictional way. I have watched it more than once and its effect on me still continues in the repeated viewings. I'm in the minority though. The actors both are faves of mine but I would have liked the film even if it starred someone I didn't care for.

I can't compare ~40 Cathay films to 500+ SB films.  I do like the naturalness of some Cathay films, and the way they deal with difficult social topics.

I have stopped watching Shaw Bro films after 10 or so but continued to view Cathay since Cathay films reminded me of old Turkish films I like a lot. I guess I was caught up in the nostalgic value.

Oddly I don't really watch that many HK films anymore. The main reason is that there are not any good ones but I guess I also feel a bit over filled and need a break (same happened with the Japanese films, I'm currently very much into Hollywood films for some reason). The HK films in my to watch pile are

Shamo
Gallants
Shaolin (I know that film sucked but I'm a Nic Tse completist)

[Darshana]

I loved this too. Fantastic performances by all and a very subtle yet scathing portrait of Korean society. 

Yes!  her grandson and all the fathers of the boys, and the older man stroke victim she looks after, all quite disgusting in a realistic kind of way.  Just along the lines of her being a woman, as well as her being an older woman, there is so much to say - and such resolution a is provided by the ending has entirely to do with an emotional bridge from woman to woman.

She's presented as having early stage Alzheimers - but in my mind was always the alternative or additional way to think of her lapses, which was as deadenings and blockings in her mind that corresponded to how much she, and what she had inside her, was not seen.

And the dvd extras on this disk are wonderful - actress and director both have great things to say.