TITLE: In the Mood for Love (Fa Yeung nin wa)
DIRECTOR: Wong Kar-wai
SCREENPLAY: Wong Kar-wai
TAGLINE: Feel the heat, keep the feeling burning, let the sensation explode.
CAST: Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung

Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan move into neighboring apartments on the same day. In the beginning, their encounters are polite and formal, until a discovery about their respective spouses sparks an intimate bond. A story about the devastating ambiguity of feelings and the triumph of moral restraint.

So I finally got around to watching this movie. I’ve always wanted to ever since I saw 2046, which got its hype from the fact that it starred both Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li, two of China‘s hottest international stars. But ultimately for me, it was Tony Leung’s performance that pulled the movie through. His and Wong Kar-wai’s genius for film-making.

Indeed, where else can you find an entire reel of film devoted to wisps of swirling smoke from a character’s cigarette? Or of multiple shots taken of the most intensely emotional scenes as reflected on the mirror? Or of five seconds of the camera gazing at a hand splayed on the banister of a hotel stairway?

I’ve seen movies that use the camera as an effective tool to create mood or dynamism but I have never seen it used as part of the senses quite like in Wong’s movies. To Wong Kar-wai, the camera is his eye, nose, ears and hands, and by extension, ours. Imagine yourself coming upon a room for the first time. You don’t take in everything in perspective. Instead, you notice the details, the tiny things that seem mundane and which you therefore, by instinct, brush aside as insignificant, only the film does not let you, forcing you instead to notice and seek their meaning in context.

I have never seen a film that transcends even the boundaries of its own plot and actually liked it. 2046 had virtually no plot, just a series of vignettes that may or may not have anything to do with each other. The movie was all about mood and technique that genuine lovers of film would find practically orgasmic. I don’t get that part of it because while I love movies, my fascination rarely goes beyond the story or the characters or their little conflicts. But unenlightened as I am, I recognize the value of 2046 as a film and, even more, Wong Kar-wai's love affair with the camera.

In the Mood for Love forms part of an informal trilogy -- the first being Days of Being Wild and the last 2046. I've not watched Days of Being Wild yet but I plan to. In the meantime....

If 2046 could be likened to a dream sequence that could go on and on and on, In the Mood for Love is a lucid dream with a definite beginning and a definite end. It’s supposed to be a prequel of sorts, but although the same actors appear in both movies and play characters bearing the same names, they are not necessarily playing the same roles and not necessarily in the same story.

In the Mood for Love is set in prosperous but crowded Hong Kong in the 1960s. This “crowdedness” is a dominant feature of the film and Wong emphasizes this claustrophobic quality by insisting on shots of the characters brushing against each other as they make their way through the narrow hallway connecting one cramped apartment with another. Beyond the physical, this sense of confinement is carried over to the psyche of our main characters, played to gut-wrenching perfection by Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, two jilted spouses who are in the mood for love but simply cannot be lovers, not physically nor mentally.

Trapped is the feeling you get when watching this film. It’s more than just the physical and visual part of it -- dark mahjong dens and rain-soaked alleys seen through the slightly jaundiced eye of the camera, making everything just a bit sickly and diseased despite the obvious prosperity of the times. It is reflected in the way our characters feel and react to their feelings.

In the beginning, Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) and Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) try to understand their respective spouses, try to grasp what drove them to lie, cheat and eventually abandon their apparently happy marriage to indulge in an adulterous affair. They do this by replaying what must have happened, re-imagining conversations, even to the extent of ordering what each other’s spouse might have ordered at the restaurant that they supposed was where it must have started. But when it came to that moment which now defined their present circumstance, they found that they could not bear it. As Leung’s character aptly said, “What does it matter? It has already happened.”

Yet they continue to see each other, driven by some invisible bond, trapped by a common pain. Sometimes, often without warning, they would lapse into dialogue that is out-of-character and it is then that the audience realizes that they are not playing themselves now but their adulterous halves. It is as if by inflicting this surface pain they hope to numb the other pain inside.

The adulterers remain faceless throughout the movie and that is just as well because what they have is common and crass and deserves scant attention. It is the ones left behind, the damage caused, that carries the story through. One especially long-range shot that struck me is that of two people caught in a sudden downpour, standing apart from each other even as they are taking shelter under the eaves of the same house. If you have been paying attention, you will recognize immediately the blatant symbolism of that one scene. These two conflicting senses of closeness and isolation is repeated over and over in the film -- one in particular shows the camera swinging back and forth between two rooms, not necessarily to show the audience that there is only a thin wall separating the two but to emphasize that there are, in fact, two rooms.

But “feelings have a strange way of creeping up on you” and as each of our main character realizes that what begun as a gesture of self-preservation, a mutual gratification of the need to have each other as an emotional crutch, has evolved into something else, the story takes on a different tone. The change is not perceivable even as they, as well as the audience, are aware all along that they’ve been blurring the lines.

“We will not be like them,” says Mrs. Chan, a phrase spoken, perhaps thoughtlessly, in the beginning, but which has become yet another link in the unbreakable chain that binds our characters to their self-appointed roles in this ghastly play of emotional entanglements. I say “ghastly” because our characters are not pure-hearted souls. They can’t be, after all that they’ve been through and all that they’re doing. Because they can’t be lovers in the physical and mental sense, they indulge in this twisted fantasy of role-play. Are they having an affair? Are they in love? Did they sleep together? We don't really know. The camera doesn't tell you and you are left to form your own conclusions about what really happened.

Yet, despite the ambiguity of most everything about In the Mood for Love, there is one certainty in the movie -- that of moral restraint. And this is why there is no happy ending here, at least not the traditional kind we're used to. That is the whole point of the story -- that of two people trapped in their roles, in a cramped apartment, in a packed Hong Kong in the 1960s where money is easy to find and love just as unavoidable, where everything is within the grasp of one’s hand and at the same time unreachable. It must be the apotheosis of restraint to have all that opulence right before your eyes, all the justification in the world to love the wrong person, and then turn and walk away.

The film’s last scene is that of Tony Leung’s character whispering the secrets of his heart to a hole he found on an ancient stone ruin in Cambodia and then stuffing it with grass and mud as though to ensure that they stay there.

Even in this last moment, the sense of confinement remains. You see it in the shots of narrow doorways, one after the other. That is, until you remember to focus not on the narrowness of the opening but on the fact that it is, after all, still an opening and there’s light outside.

THE SCORE

Story - 10
Sound - 7
Cinematography - 10
Picture - 10
Special Effects - 7
Acting - 10

Overall - 9/10

Labels: dark, drama, romance

TITLE: The Queen's Classroom, a.k.a. Jo'ou no Kyoushitsu
DIRECTOR: Iwamoto Hitoshi
SCREENPLAY: Yukawa Kazuhiko
TAGLINE: This story is about elementary school children who challenge a devilish teacher. A record of one year.
LENGTH: 11 episodes (approx. 1 hr. each) + 2 specials
AIR DATE: 2005
CAST: Amami Yuki, Shida Mirai, Matsukawa Naruki, Fukuda Mayuko, Nagai Anzu


Imagine a person with the emotional range of a terminator, the aura of Darth Vader and the Machiavellian mindset of Hitler.

Now put her in a classroom.

What you get is an unusual Japanese drama series that debunks the "heroic" teacher stereotype, presents searing commentaries about the state of the public school system, and gives you a character so evil and negative that the makers of the series had to show a clip at the ending transforming her back into just an actress. The show is called The Queen's Classroom and not for no reason.

SAMPLE CLIP

Sixth grader Kanda Kazumi (Shida Mirai) is looking forward to spending her last year in grade school having fun and creating lasting memories with her friends. But problems arise when a strict new teacher, Akutsu Maya (Amami Yuki) is assigned as their homeroom adviser. Maya ranks her class purely according to merit, punishing harshly those with the lowest grades while awarding those with the highest marks. Soon, her high-handed ways lead to class dissension as the children are manipulated into spying on their own classmates, lying and bullying. Exactly, what lesson is Maya trying to teach?

I watched this show purely on a whim. While I've seen quite a number of Asian movies, I haven't been paying much attention to their television counterparts. The Queen's Classroom is only my second foray into Japanese drama. The first was Engine. Interestingly enough, both shows are primarily family-targeted dramas, although they are polar opposites of each other when approaching their respective storylines, and both are able to achieve their purposes with visceral effects.

The premise of The Queen's Classroom is nothing new. I have seen and read my fair share of strict adult vs. rebellious school kids stories, growing up as I did on movies like Matilda and Princess Sara. So what makes "the Queen" different from the villainous grownups of all those other shows? Maybe it's the fact that Akutsu Maya, despite her name (aku is Japanese for "evil" and if you contract her name, you'll come up with akuma which means "devil"), is not what she appears to be.

On the surface, she is truly frightening. She dresses up in entirely black clothes with a high-necked shirt and high-heeled shoes the sounds of which echo eerily in the hallways. Her hair is pulled back tight to show a face that is seemingly incapable of emotion. She never speaks louder than the normal speaking voice but she can cut with her words. From the first moment you see her, the only conclusion you can draw is: BITCH. And the only worse thing about it is that she is probably the most intelligent, knowledgeable and talented bitch you have ever encountered. For Akutsu Maya excels in everything, whether they be academics, sports, music or martial arts.

The character is probably one of the most fascinating anti-heroes I have ever seen on television in a long time. Right off the bat, there are only two other similar character types that I think would come up to par and one of them is an anime character. Not only that, the character is also one of the most effective in all her perceived purposes. Much may have something to do with how the character is written. The writers made no compromises whatsoever with Akutsu Maya. Even at the finale, when the melodrama reaches its peak, she remains absolutely in character. In fact, the only two times she sheds that mask happens in a dream sequence and when she breaks the fourth wall at the end of The Queen's Classroom.

However, no matter how good a character is written, it would all come to naught if the person portraying it can't deliver. Thankfully, we don't have that problem in The Queen's Classroom. Amami Yuki plays the character so well that when watching her I have no doubt in my mind that she is Akutsu Maya, with all her perceived faults and hidden sub-layers. By a less capable actress, the character would have been ridiculous. Indeed, there are plenty of moments in the series where the character is ungenerously treated as to make her an object of scorn rather than of a kind of deferential fear. They even went to the trouble of darkening the screen filters or flickering the hallway lights every time the character appears. That along with an unforgettable, flute-based operatic score almost always achieves the same reaction from me: hysteria. I always have this urge to laugh myself silly or run away in terror. The one saving grace is the actress' performance. You look at Amami Yuki's face and you know -- you just know -- that there's more going on there, like she's capable of great feats of self-sacrifice even at her most cruel, thus, achieving the writers' goal all along: that of creating a deep, multi-layered character whose intentions and aspirations won't be revealed until the very end.

Aside from Amami Yuki (who is apparently no stranger to playing strong, mannish characters), the actors and actresses in The Queen's Classroom, most of them under 15 at the time the series was made, display notable acting potential. The expressions may be a bit exaggerated at times. Shida Mirai (Kazumi) especially overacts in the beginning but as the series progress the actress is able to hold her own against the veteran Amami. In fact, the exaggerated expressions are an essential counterpoint to Amami's blank wall. However when it's time to deliver the goods, the children prove to be more than capable. In fact, most of the emotionally-ridden situations in the show involve the kids while the adults are mostly there for comic relief.

Believable performances of believable characters is a mark of a good show. But when you use this as a tool to deliver a relevant message, then you don't just have a good show but an excellent one. The Queen's Classroom comes very close by tackling highly controversial issues about the public school system. The series isn't just a story about kids trying to fight against the harsh system that their teacher imposes upon them but a bold commentary about the state of education today, bearing great relevance not only in Japan but in most other countries as well, not least of which is my own, the Philippines. Through Akutsu Maya, the show paints a harsh picture of reality and at the same time asks a question that fosters both initiative and critical thinking, as if to say: Those are the breaks. Now, what are you going to do about it?

As the kids try to figure out the answer, we see the different faces of humanity throughout the show: there's the self-centered, the bully, the slanderer, the thief, the escape artist, the indifferent, the insecure, the smart, the mediocre, the optimist, the pragmatist, the dreamer, the advocate, and finally the admirable. At times, the series can reach so low that it makes you wonder about the message it's getting across, but that only makes you look forward to the bright little pockets of humor and cheer that come in equal abundance. Yes, The Queen's Classroom can be unrelenting in its portrait of the dire world but if you "open your eyes" you will see that nothing is set in stone and that regardless of anything you have a choice.

Truly one of the finest television dramas I have ever seen in a while, The Queen's Classroom can be highly predictable with its simple plot, but what it excels in is its delivery.

Labels: drama, humor

TITLE: Departures, a.k.a. Okuribito
DIRECTOR: Takita Youjirou
SCREENPLAY: Koyama Kundo
TAGLINE: The gift of last memories
CAST: Motoki Masahiro, Yamazaki Tsutomu, Hirosue Ryoko

This film won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2009. It beat out Ploning, the Philippines' official entry for the same category in the 2009 Oscars (read vatski's review of Ploning here). While I am not about to compare the two (and I can't anyway since I never watched Ploning properly), I can honestly say that Departures more than deserves its spot at the Oscars.

Daigo Kobayashi is a cellist for an orchestra in Tokyo with dreams about making it big in the industry. Unfortunately, the orchestra gets disbanded, leaving Daigo without a job and 18 million yen in debt. At his wit's end, he and his incredibly agreeable wife return to his mother's old home in the countryside and start again. Eventually, he finds a new job that has something to do with "assisting departures" and gets hired on the spot. Of course, it's too good to be true as the job turns out to be that of an "encoffiner" and his task is not to assist in departures but to "assist the departed." Ostracized by friends and even his wife, Daigo begins to take a certain kind of pride in his work, mastering the role of the gentle gatekeeper between life and death and between the souls of the dead and the family they leave behind.

Before anything else, there is something you need to understand about this film. Daigo's work as an encoffiner is not a socially accepted occupation, at least, not to the Japanese. The encoffiner's closeness to death connotes "ritual impurity" -- i.e. the person is "unclean" because his occupation is considered "tainted" with death. The closest Japanese term for it is burakumin, and even though it is not entirely correct, it does explain a little of the social stigma that Daigo experiences in the movie.

That said, this film is BEAUTIFUL. I know, it seems like an odd thing to say for a movie that is about death and dying. But watch the film and you'll know exactly what I mean.

To begin in the middle: Departures opens with Daigo performing his first "encoffinment" under his boss' watchful eyes. We look at what he does with the eyes of a stranger. The work is precise and flawless. There is no wasted movement, no stray gestures. There is something almost mechanical about the whole thing. Each motion is ceremonial; each movement, an expression of reverence and respect. And then, as our main character washes the dead girl's entire body, he discovers something. The flow is disrupted. He draws his boss aside.

"It has the thing," he says.

"What thing?" The boss asks. It takes him about three seconds to figure it out just as Daigo, with the usual flourish, offers him the washcloth. After the boss checks the corpse for himself, then comes an unusual dilemma for our encoffiners.

The boss quietly approaches one of the watching family members and very politely explains that after the cleansing they will apply make-up to the deceased. "We have different make-ups for male and female...." And just like that, the solemn proceeding turns into an amusing microcosmic family squabble.

Departures is comprised of many great, encapsulated scenes like that littered all throughout. A strange mixture of great solemnity and humor that borders on irreverence but without, however, throwing disrespect on the material. If you are familiar at all with Japanese films or television, you'll know that this combination is not exactly unusual. But what puts Departures a cut above the rest is its ability to make flawless transitions from seriousness to comedy, making you go from crying buckets to giving wry smirks. Make no mistake. This is a serious film that deals with a loaded subject, but that does not mean it can't draw a smile or a laugh from its audience.

And when the drama hits, it will hit you hard, even as you can see it coming from a mile away. It helps that the film explores many contemporary and timeless themes. It deals with unemployment (you can't be more timely than that in this hour of the recession), personal dreams and destiny. But most of all, it deals with relationships, not only the ones we have with the persons closest to us, but even to those we meet along the way without even realizing the impact we have on that other person's life. Like a metaphor for its title, the movie will take you for a ride through life and its eventual end, with all its hardships and joys, adventures and mishaps, meetings and partings.

But Departures, for all its beautiful story, would not have quite the impact without Joe Hisashi's delightful score. From rich orchestrations (there's a fantastic performance by the Tokyo symphony orchestra of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, watch for it) to sustained string passages and back to sprightly waltz-like themes, the film score delights and subdues and touches the deepest part of the soul. You can always tell a good soundtrack from its ability to set the tone for a piece of film without taking center stage and with Departures, Joe Hisashi's undeniable elegance and mastery in that aspect shines through.

Much of Departures is filmed with the Japanese countryside as a backdrop. This serves only to enhance that "quiet" quality of this film. The scenes are beautiful and this beauty is never more effectively utilized than in that one particular scene of heartbreaking parting where a woman stands amid falling cherryblossoms. No words. Just stunning visuals. On that note, dialogue is sparse in Departures. Much like the funeral ritual of cleansing, dressing and putting make-up, every word spoken is loaded with meaning, and entire conversations can happen in the silences in between.

As for the cast, all of them are credited for making their characters as believable as they ever could be. It's not hard to sympathize with Motoki Masahiro's Daigo, a cellist forced to orchestrate a new life for himself in the funeral business when his dreams of being a musician collapses. At first, I found Daigo's wife, Mika (portrayed by Hirosue Ryoko), a bit unbelievable -- sweet (in that sickeningly genki way) but UNBELIEVABLE in her being so agreeable even in the face of her husband's losing his job, his borrowing 18 million yen without telling her, and their moving to the countryside from their relatively posh life in the city. But this is the ideal Japanese wife: she will follow her husband from two steps behind, stopping only when he stops. So when the mask shows a crack, we see a glimpse of Mika's true personality and it is human, and it is brave. Another striking character is Daigo's father figure, the boss (Yamazaki Tsutomu), who embodies the wise old sensei stereotype but expands it a bit by adding personal quirks that makes him a standout.

I could go on and on about the movie's positive sides, but Departures is not a perfect piece of film. Indeed, it is a moving story and I can't quite remember the last time I was touched by and in awe of a movie like this; what Departures lack, ironically enough, is a nice, tight and clean ending. Instead, it ends twice, and because of that, it feels prolonged and a little bit forced. But other than that, Departures is a beautiful movie about enduring, and occasionally funny, life lessons on death and living in spite of it.

THE SCORE

Story - 7
Sound - 10
Cinematography - 8
Picture - 10
Special Effects - 8
Acting - 8

Overall - 8.5/10

Labels: drama

TITLE: Ploning
DIRECTOR: Dante Nico Garcia
WRITERS: Dante Nico Garcia (story); Dante Nico Garcia (screenplay) ...
CAST: Judy Ann Santos, Gina Pareño, Mylene Dizon, Meryll Soriano, Ces Quesada, Tony Mabesa

This movie changed my perception of Judy Ann Santos. I don’t remember liking or watching any of her films in the past. But thank God I watched Ploning. It’s remarkable, I enjoyed every bit of it.

Set in the 70s or around the time when the late President Marcos was still in power, the movie plays the simple life and culture of the people of Cuyo (Palawan) at that time.

It is not just a two-hour story-telling, it is a visual treat.

The shots are splendid. It was like watching a slide-show of sunsets, long beaches, and other still-lifes, which are not actually still. The film opens and finishes with a grand artwork: Cuyon’s bay area, slowly illuminated by gas lamps. So artistic!

If I had not read reviews of the film earlier, I would have thought the movie was shot elsewhere, like outside the country.

Director Dante Nico Garcia picked Cuyo, Palawan, for his fist full-length film, being a place where he spent most of his childhood.

He might be a neophyte filmmaker, but Garcia was really good. I don’t know how he did it, kept me focused to it even if I don’t normally enjoy movies with subtitles. Even if the story is so ordinary, not even catchy. it is in how it is delivered that makes it extraordinary.

The actors had to learn the Cuyunon dialect so they could say it with ease. In the movie, it seems they are natives of Cuyo.

Ploning is a nickname (a Cuyunon must have a nickie) of a lady (Judy Ann). She is admired by the people around her because of her strength. And this strength the people are drawn together like they are one big family, it constantly keeps the fervor in them to live their daily lives as happily as they can, even if they only have each other.

At the first half of the film, I was wondering when this Tomas would finally come out, if he would come out at all. Tomas is Ploning’s boyfriend, who had gone to Manila to work, and has not returned since.

For the many years that he was gone, Ploning has been telling to the people around her that she would go to where Tomas is to reunite with him. Everyone has been looking forward to that day. If Ploning has kept them happy, they would also like to see her happy.

In another of her dramatic moments, with knees bended to the muddy ground, Gina Pareno screams at God of how unfair He is to her. First he took Tomas and now He melts away all her salt with the rain, when all she wanted was to earn from it so she could take home the bones of her son, Tomas, who already died of some sickness years ago.

Everyone is shocked.

Ploning could only give them a half smile. She will not cry, as she does not want to burden her neighbors and the people she loves with her own sadness.

She is a friend to everyone, even to a 6-year-old Digo, who would then turn into a seaman and would then be looking for his “Nay Ploning” 25 years later.

Everyone loves her. And still talks about her even after her death.

One scene from the movie I can never forget is when the big brother is punishing Digo after the latter, while spoon-feeding their paralyzed mother, asked: “Nay, kailan ka mamamatay?”

The question earns the child a punishment, he is tied to a tree at their backyard, and while the big brother is pouring his anger to the wood he is chopping, the paralyzed mother, half lying to her bed, shouts to the latter to stop punishing the “bunso,” as he was only asking a question.

I loved how the mom repeatedly begs the big brother to forgive the little boy, even if the process is almost killing her. I wish I could quote the exact words she is saying there.

There are other remarkalbe scenes in this movie, scenes lifted from our very own culture.

Ploning is one of the few best movies we have.

Labels: drama, indie, romance

TITLE: Casshern
DIRECTOR: Kazuaki Kiriya
WRITERS: Dai Sato, Shotaro Suga, Tatsuo Yoshida (Characters)
CAST: Yusuke Iseya, Kumiko Aso, Akira Terao, Kanako Higuchi, Fumiyo Kohinata, Hiroyuki Miyasako

Marketed as a scifi action-adventure story, Casshern is not quite what it says it is. It's a serious yet bizarre piece of film, rendered almost entirely on the greenscreen with special effects that so closely border the Rule of Cool you don't really care what's going on half of the time.

Let's begin at the beginning.

Casshern is set some time in the future right in the wake of a fifty-year war between two great countries. The world now is a dark landscape, covered in pollution, but as with any great wars, the aftermath has resulted in a bubble of technological advancements. One such advancement is Dr. Azuma's breakthrough discovery of Neo-Cells, which are not unlike stem cells that can endlessly regenerate. Dr. Azuma first comes up with the idea in an effort to find a cure for his ailing wife but tries to get the government interested by highlighting the possibilities of such technology. At first rejected by the government, his research eventually finds secret funding from Naito, the government's military adviser.

While Dr. Azuma is busy playing god, his only son, the idealistic Tetsuya, volunteers to join the army and gets killed in the ensuing fight. Dr. Azuma receives the news of his son's death at the same moment he realizes that his Neo-Cell research is a failure. Just as Tetsuya's body is escorted to Dr. Azuma's laboratory, a huge bolt of lightning suddenly descends upon the facility. The incident causes a phenomenon, resulting in the creation of artificial humans called "Neo-sapiens." The government soon eliminates all save for three, who manage to escape into an abandoned city filled with dormant robots. There, they vow to take revenge upon humanity which rejected them.

Meanwhile, back in the lab, Dr. Azuma tries to revive Tetsuya by putting his body in the Neo-cell tank. The attempt is successful and Dr. Azuma tasks Dr. Kozuki, his colleague who also happens to be the father of Tetsuya's fiancee, to treat Tetsuya's yet-unstable body. Eventually, Tetsuya heals but by then the Neo-sapiens have waged a full-fledged war against the humans, destroying cities and killing humans without mercy. It is now up to Tetsuya to stop them but he is not without his own nightmares to battle.

That's about as straightforward a summary as I can do with this loopy, dense, and outright weird post-apocalyptic movie. To add more to the confusion, nearly all characters are conflicted. There's Dr. Azuma, who only wants to cure his wife but ends up playing god and "giving birth" to the Neo-sapiens, the enemy of the human race. There's Tetsuya, who starts off as extremely idealistic and nationalistic only to find that the war he is so proud to take part in turns out to be nothing more than manslaughter of the mass variety. And, of course, there's the Neo-sapiens themselves who, for all intents and purposes, are the children of the human race but who find themselves targeted by their hatred.

Like its characters, the movie is multi-layered. It's quite an accomplishment, when you think about it. In an attempt to connect all characters, the film manages to squeeze so much information in just forty minutes. Even so, I can't say that Casshern did not suffer as a result. At several points, it did feel like the movie is needlessly detailed. It tries to be political, sci fi, action, drama, romance and philosophical all at once, and while for some people, that's what makes this movie special (at least, when compared to other CGI action movies out there), it begs to be told: Make up your mind. Unfortunately, the film never does and we are left with a story that's confused with itself.

That said, let's move on to the more enjoyable aspects of Casshern. There is no doubt that the best part about Casshern is its clever use of CGI and the digital backlot filmmaking method. The picture is beautiful, hands-down. Rather than try to be realistic, the film, in noir-esque fashion, saturates many of its scenes with unassuming colors to reflect the maudlin mood, puts its characters in stark contrast with the background by putting undue emphasis on such negligible objects like Braishin's cape or Luna's eyes, and then makes everything -- literally -- explode once the action starts. The film even employs stop-motion animation like you would never believe: screws and bolts flying about as Tetsuya rips through the robot army, holy crap!

Casshern's script may be weak in terms of character development and plot execution, but the story concept is fascinating by itself. Add to that the astounding visuals and the movie does what it's meant to do: entertain.

THE SCORE

Story - 5
Sound - 6
Cinematography - 7
Picture - 8
Special Effects - 8
Acting - 5

Overall - 6.5/10

Labels: action, adventure, cgi, dark, drama, futuristic, psychological, scifi

TITLE: Kino no Tabi: Byouki no Kuni -For You-
DIRECTOR: Nakamura Ryuutarou
WRITER: Sigsawa Keiichi (light novel)
STUDIO: Shaft
TAGLINE: "The world is not beautiful. That, in a way, lends it a sort of beauty."
VOICE CAST: Maeda Ai, Aigase Ryuuji

For every thing of beauty is an ugly side. This is never better played out than in the latest Kino no Tabi movie, titled "The Country of Illness" (second of three installments).

The movie follows Kino and her faithful talking motorbike, Hermes, into a highly advanced subterranean city where people live inside a sterile and sealed environment. By request of one of the city's more important citizens, Kino spends time with a sick girl and relates to her the tales of her many adventures.

This movie, as well as the original TV series, has no overarching plot. Every episode, every movie can pretty much stand on its own so that there is no need to get your hands on either the series or the first movie to make sense out of it. Because of this, the movie is very easy to watch -- what, with a straightforward plot and a rather puerile script. But I think that because of this sheer simplicity, the movie is able to evoke so much atmosphere it's hard to put in words.

Kino no Tabi does not have pretensions to depth. Indeed, it is not meant to be a very deep, psychological, mature piece of film. It is exactly what it appears to be: an anime about a traveling kid. Its genius lies in its ability to look through the eyes of its main character, Kino, and feel her sympathy without, however, getting involved. The resultant effect is a somber film that just hints at depth and melancholy but with a complete lack of irony.

It is something that is hard to achieve in an anime, especially an anime that uses the art and the style of Kino no Tabi. The simple yet effective lines, the use of cell-shading to add dimension to otherwise static-looking characters, and a powdery palette make this series look like a children's picture book. And complemented by the leisurely way the story unfolds itself, Kino no Tabi is a prime example of the slice-of-life genre where everything else is subdued to emphasize the least focused aspect of storytelling: the building of atmosphere.

Labels: adaptation, anime, futuristic, slice of life

TITLE: City of God
DIRECTORS: Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund (co-director)
WRITERS: Paulo Lins (novel), Bráulio Mantovani (screenplay)
TAGLINE: "If you run you're dead...if you stay, you're dead again. Period."
CAST: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Phellipe Haagensen, Douglas Silva, Jonathan Haagensen, Matheus Nachtergaele, Seu Jorge

Story: Gangsters killing one another. But this is a no non-sense film, it is even touching at some point.

Set in the 60’s in a ghetto of Rio de Janeiro, the film brings you to the lives of those people living in the slum, to their violent world: young armed thuds smashing other people’s properties to steal and their younger siblings watching them like heroes as they do it.

Then these younger fellows grow up to be just like their older brothers, who at this time, are already long dead.

There are several characters in the story. I’ll talk about Rocket and Li’l Ze being the most significant ones. Rocket wants to be a photographer while his neighbor Li’l Ze wants to become a hoodlum just like his brother. While still young, Li’l Ze has already seen the danger of living in their world: police ransacking their homes to find their brothers held as suspects and killing them if found or their brothers killing innocent people for money, and has come to love every moment of it. Cruelty is actually an understatement for this movie.

Already grown up, Li'l Ze, who at a young age (called Li'l Dice) just for the love of being in control killed several people while tasked to serve as lookout while his brother and friends were robbing a hotel, becomes a powerful drug dealer in their city. He is not only a drug lord that manufactures and sells drugs to everyone who wants it, he also kills everyone who tries to stop it. And while he is busy building up his empire and killing people along the way, the other boy Rocket is still living in poverty. The boy’s only dream is only to become a photographer anyway.

Then comes another interesting character of Knockout Ned, a man whose girlfriend was raped and murdered before his very eyes by Li’l Ze because she refused to dance with him. To take vengeance for his girlfriend (and members of his family who became Ze’s next victims) Knockout Ned then becomes a part of another group that wants to end Ze’s killing spree. You may ask what is the police doing at this time? The police is, as you’ve already guessed it, also plays its own part of the gangster’s game by receiving its share of drug monies. Why, peace should have been there had this force been doing its job.

So it’s war between the two rival gangs now. It starts with the chasing of a chicken by Ze’s group. The runaway chicken crosses to the other side of the road where Rocket, who at this time is already a photographer of a local daily after his picture of Ze and his gang members accidentally got published, is walking with a friend. And while the young photographer is trying to catch the chicken to give it to the waiting party at the other end, Knockout Ned’s group arrives at the opposite end. Rocket is now caught between the two clashing parties, all armed and ready to shoot.

And then war breaks free.

Fortunately, Rocket is saved by his amazing power to duck and roll. And gets the best shots of the war that is going on around him.

The war kills Knockout Ned, who is shot by their new recruit, a little boy who only wants to get even with the killer of his father. It turns out that that killer is Knockout Ned, who died while trying to save the avenger.

Then police comes in the scene a bit on time. Leaders of the two groups are arrested including Ze. Police chief then brings Ze to his lair to get payment in exchange of his freedom. And since Ze invested most of his money on guns, he only has so little to give to the police. He is so broke. After getting a few of Ze’s money, police then leaves the broke drug dealer alone, who promises to bring his empire back. But even before he could say it, the little boys, I mentioned earlier, now with their real guns, mercilessly shoot him to death. They take over his business.

That’s how brutal it is.

There is no happy ending to this story.

You will learn that this is based on real events. There is even a clip of an interview of Knockout Ned before he died. He said there something like how the police at that time turned a deaf ear to their cries….

The movie in 2004 was nominated for 4 Oscars.

Labels: crime, drama, thriller