aesthetic slop with the chemistry of a wet toad and a leaf blower.
also....yeah its somewhat racist.
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i do think inherentely a movie about family grief and death(and your film is under 2 hours), there is always gonna be members of the fictional family left out and thats still the case here but i think what ultimately makes me slightly forgive it is some of it scenes around chinese culture surrounding family and how in china, a family is a unit.
the film is a great double feature with the last feature, end of the track because they both deal with death and grief but rather then the aftermath in that film, its the lead up. to an extend, i do think its morally qeustionable as to what the central conflict is but thats up to the individual watching and personally i think it borders on bad, its also inherentely due to love that the choice is made and also the nations culture. akwafina steps out of her stereotypical screaming asian lady caricature and gives an actual decent performance, the whole cast does but especially the main lady herself, hong lu who gives a gentle performance throughout. tzi ma is the goat and the fact he is relegated to doing something like gunslinger with nicolas cage and captain man is a same.
To an extend, the chinese boxer is fun but it also doesn't really do anything different from other kung fu films and it also doesn't really have any sort of emotional core to if.
You have with something like a bruce lee film....his persona is still captivating to see and clash with other characters but here, the runtime is to short to give any character anything to work with so its all just really flat.
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If anything, the pigs should've gone full american style colonizing on bird island and enslave them but they didn't. That was their first mistake.
Really good so its a shame its story and characters are clunky as fuck.
It deals with child trafficking and while I do take slight issue with how its basically a backdrop, I didn't expect politically correct or good politics from a Hong Kong action film.
Not to say there aren't good politics to be found in Hong Kong cinema, its just that also a lot from the golden age isn't. I wouldn't say something like john woo's hard boiled is full copoganda but it borders on it despite some story elements.If anything, woo made gun violence flashy. On the topic of flashy, yes this film is that with its fight choreography and in the 3rd act you can see a lot of jackie chan inspiration but I think its mostly unique with its camera work.
I do think it almost borders on weightless but I think the camera moves just the right for it not to be the case.The villains are laughable bad and 1 dimensional and so is one of the heroes. I think besides 2 characters, you won't really care anyone else which is a make or break situation for most action flicks but I think the furious has enough juice and energy to make it somewhat work.
I kinda wished the screenplay was more polished because this could've been one of the greatest action films ever but for now its just "good" but I think if I rewatched this, I would probably get a lower score.
On one hand, not as bad as people who only rate it low due its provocative nature but also not really that smart like a lot of others let you think.
If anything its infamous nature is more interesting when you haven't seen the film. In some parts, its timeless but in some parts its cartoonishly dull and hillarious predictable. Outside of edge lords, I get why this has its fans but to me, its a run of the mill film.
Sure its provocative but like, thats it a lot of the times. Its themes and small narrative and exploration of fascism linked to sexuality but also how it easily corrupts and controls people goes one way and one way only which seems very boring to me and it doesn't help that sometimes, it just points certain things out with its dialogue.Its not really smart or dumb, its just whatever. I get why this is available on 2 porn sites and also not really (considering the teen aspect of the film) but it also just shows the corruption of pornography.
I really like Disney and their versions of classic fairytale....but they always seem to scrub off the weirdness of it all. And no, Alice and Wonderland is not the same weird im talking about.
Thats not like wearing a donkey skin rug weird. And ultimately thats what the titular donkey skin is about, it confronts how the fairytales we love ultimately in some form do have uncomfortable and that includes stuff like the topic of incest.
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Obviously could have been some sentimental bullshit and sometimes it does but it mainly walks that line and thats due to the the two lead performances.
I've seen 3 films that have Omar sy and none of those films have utilized his brilliance in any sort of way and suprise, they all are american, hollywood productions.
Honestly I think it has slightly something to say about the isolation and treatment of disabled people, it doesn't really focus on that much besides a little bit in its 3rd act but its still fine.(Watch my films
The grievance of the day: https://boxd.it/eClxUn
Summer walk: https://boxd.it/ewa1db )
its ideas are really good but it ultimately takes the safe route imo.
yes, i get it, prisons don't wash the violence off of you, it adds to the cycle and maybe because i don't know the relationship between arabic people and french people at the time but it all felt pretty standard for a critique on prison systems. i do like the performance of the main villain but i just generally didn't care for him.
the film looks good and most of its performances are good.
Kinda crazy that this is a better love letter to cinema then whatever babylon was.
While its immature, i think its appropriate that of all animated franchises that the minions (somewhat) dive into 1920s cinema because they are the closest animated characters rn to that era of specifically comedy. Like sure it has a dogshit story but i don't think they even tried and i shouldn't care because its for kids and it still delivers some killer gags and slapstick. Especially when floyd is involved. This isn't some grand film and i think its somewhat sad this is better then half the films i've watched this year but its fun.
It does have a lot of mistakes when it comes to film making in the 1920s but i also can excuse it when the minions are for womens rights and have a mirror towards the time period about how stars get easily dumped and how the language barrier was huge, even now.
a brisk 3 hour feature that both is heavy in its influence, politics and religious text. i've seen legend of the mountain and both this and that are dripping in religious text but whats most interesting about both is that its both portrayed as a gift and a curse. uplifting souls and cursing the ones ultimately seeking power or in the latters case, demons and ghosts.
it allows king hu's film to remain timeless due to the fact religion as a modern concept is so twisted, the allows evil to be in power but it still remains a gift to the good. that and how religion is so intangled into politics which both have major influence on a person and i think the characters are able to channel that really well.
but its most impeccable quality is its cinematography and fight choreography because you can see the birth and groundwork of both hong kong and chinese action cinema which i do qualify as two different beasts. jackie chan, john woo, everything from the golden era you could almost always point to this and it still is one of the best examples despite many taking inspiration from it.(watch my films
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Kinda a rocky film where the problem is more so that its ending choses the philosophy of a 13 year old and also kinda enables the relationship between a 13 and 17 year old by the 17 year old giving the 13 year old pictures of her naked.
I think its first half is its best because it remains with 1 story for the most points and I thought it was very funny(it is in the 2nd act as well, 3rd act gets to sentimental)
Steve carrel is good, ryan gosling is good, Emma stone is fine but its better then lanthimos slop.
But it also contradicts itself multiple times and ultimately I think while it never chooses a specific side....it definitely needed to at some points because it just got ridiculous.
Further more I think it harms itself by having great editing....but it never feels like the film takes over a year, more a week.To a point it does criticize the material and hustle side of dating and love but it also never really does anything substantial with it, it does have a key in cal's arc but thats all it is, trapped in a few scenes and then never spoken about and I just don't think ryan goslings character get punished enough for the objectifying he does.
Also back to the beginning of the review, the subplot with the 13 year old son is abysmal.(Watch my films
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