Goro's Asian Movies and Stuff Blog

Fox goes Blu-Ray (US)

Ok, this isn't really Asian movies, but it is important to anyone that likes watching movies at home, especially if you have a HD TV.  With the upcoming Hi Def Video Disc format war looming, it's interesting to see how the participants are alligning themselves.  Just announced (although expected for some time), Fox has joined the Sony side and is supporting Blu-Ray [link], apparently b/c it will have a more robust Copy Protection scheme.  Uhm.   Isn't this the same Sony that promoted RipGuard as unbreakable, then got pissed off when DVDDecrypter cracked it as soon as RipGuard was released?  Then, instead of working on a better copy protection scheme (probably realizing that they would just further embarrass themselves), they sent a Cease and Desist to DVDDecrypter.  Is THAT the type of copy protection we're going to see on Blu-Ray?  Bring it on, then!  I predict that the Hi Def DVD format that will win will be the one with the LESS solid copy protection scheme! 

Anyway, the studios and manufacturers are aligned like this so far:

Blu-Ray:
Fox
Columbia/Tri-Star (natch) + MGM (which Sony now owns)
Disney/Buena Vista/Miramax

HD-DVD :
WB
Universal
Paramount

I gotta say that so far, I'm more apt to go Blu-Ray than HD-DVD.  Potentially Blu-Ray will have a much higher capacity and so that's likely to make the 1080p images more beauteous/less-compressed.  Of course, with Sony's track record of making mediocre prints on DVDs and of leaving gobs of unused space on their DVDs other than their SuperBit titles, I'm not sure if this will necessarily result in teh Sony movies looking any better.  BUT, if I had to choose based on the studios, I'd prefer the Sony triumvirate over the Toshiba/HD-DVD guys.

Of course, all I REALLY care about is whether I'll be able to get a nice region free BluRay player... OR, for that matter, what format the Korean/Japanese/HK/Chinese studios will take.

More watched DVDs

I've managed to get through a bunch more DVDs and clearing out my TO WATCH shelves.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), abda keeps me stocked of more and more and more great films.  CRYING FIST, A BITTERSWEET LIFE, GREEN CHAIR are the latest new releases there.  Anyway, here are my latest watchings:

THE LAST PRESENT
Surprisingly effective romantic melodrama with echoes of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.  He's a struggling comedian and she owns a children's clothing shop and their marriage is on the rocks.  They're not on speaking terms anymore and what communication does come out is gruff.  But she's terminally ill and before she dies, she wants to grant him his wish of being a successful comedian.  He finds out about her illness (unbeknownst to her) and wants to grant her her wish of seeing her childhood, lifelong love.  Highly effective performances enhance the dramatic irony as both principals clearly love each other but have lost the capacity to communicate it.  Some wonderful comedic moments, especially by the two conmen cum PIs.  No surprises, but well executed and very satisfying. 

HOW TO KEEP MY LOVE
Mediocre RomCom which echoes NOTTING HILL slightly.  He's a handsome pest control guy.  His girlfriend is an insecure, somewhat crazed, "normal" girl.  She's the gorgeous, movie superstarlet who falls for him.  Now the girlfriend tries to keep him by any and all means.  Some funny moments, but are generally undone by the awful characterization (and performance) of the lead girl.  The supporting actors are generally very good and are suitably wacky, but there's not much real humor or real romance to make this very watchable.  It's nice to see The Bestfriend in PHOENIX (k-Drama) in a movie (i have no idea what the actress' name is!).

MAPADO (MAPA ISLAND)
Really odd movie that plays as part comedy and part drama; has the makings of a fairly strong movie in either genre, but never seems to really feel at ease with itself.  A former gangster is on the straight-and-narrow (apparently) and sends a girl to go buy a LOTTO ticket with "my normal numbers."  As he waits for her to return, the numbers are announced.  Yes, he's won and the jackpot is $18M.  But the only problem is that she never comes back.  So, he hires a crooked detective and sends one of his own men to go with him to find her and get the money back.  They end up at MAPA Island, which is a rural island populated exclusively by middle-aged women, and try to blend in until the girl shows up.  Some humorous moments, but suffers because ostensibly the sympathetic character (the girl) is the criminal.  The "bad guy" only wants to retrive what she stole from him.  It's difficult to reconcile this reasonably in the context of the movie.

A PUBLIC ENEMY
A really sizzling, energetic cop drama that stars one of my favorite korean actors, Sol Kyung-gu (from RIKIDOZAN, SILIMDO, OASIS, PEPPERMINT CANDY).  He's a cop who doesn't go by the book, in fact he's so far gone he has no idea there IS a book!  There's a double murder case and he's on it, although he's seemingly screwing things up more than solving it.  Powerful performances all around, interesting plot, electric cinematography.  It's a must-see.

WHITE VALENTINE
Being a Jeon Ji-hyun fan (*swooN*), after seeing MY SASSY GIRL, WINDSTRUCK, and IL MARE, I sought out her other major movie.  Unfortunately, this was not even remotely up to the previous standards.  WHITE VALENTINE is a by-the-numbers romantic drama that plays out as more a tedious exercise is emotional manipulation than a decent movie, which means that it's a mediocre romDram.  He's a petshop owner whose girlfriend has died.  She's a girl who writes letter to strangers and wants to fall in love.  They meet (and correspond) via his messenger pigeon.  You can imagine the rest...

A BITTERSWEET LIFE
Stark, electric, dynamic, powerful mob drama film starring Lee Byung-hun (JSA, EVERYBODY HAS SECRETS).  He's the Mob Boss's loyal right hand man but because of circumstances, is now on the run from the Boss.  Unfortunately, it's gone farther than that and he's now targetted by the OTHER Mob Boss as well and, for good measure, some gun-runners, too.  The story evolves and unfolds beautifully and inexorably.  The performances are excellent, being mostly stoic facades with emotions within.  What is most amazing about this movie is that it ventures into familair scenarios, but (for the most part) deals with them in fresh and anti-cliche fashions, some to the point of making you think, "Brilliant!"  There's a battle sequence that's as excellent the Hallway Sequence in OLDBOY, but (imo) more emotionally charged. 

The only negatives are a few inconsistently unbelievable moments near the end.  As much of the movie was starkly rooted in reality, some of the over-the-top moments felt awkward, but overall, absolutely excellent. 

My nexty DVDAsian order

I've gotten through much of my TO WATCH list.  Still not enough to allow me to buy any new DVDs, but I'm getting close.  I figure that by next weekend, I can get another batch of DVDs and that's good because a BUNCH of Korean DVDs have come out that I desperately want.

Here's my next order:
ANTARCTIC JOURNAL - $27.95
A BITTERSWEET LIFE - $26.95
INNOCENT STEPS - $27.95
BLOOD RAIN - $27.95
BE WITH YOU - $18.95
MEMORIES OF MURDER - $28.95
MY TUTOR FRIEND - $19.95
MY TEACHER MR KIM - $23.95
A GOOD LAWYER'S WIFE - $29.95
GREEN CHAIR - $27.95
CRYING FIST - $28.95

ugh.  I think that's over $300... :(

Korean movies are long

I've been watching quite a few Korean movies as of late and one thing that I have noticed is that the movies' running time tends to be quite long.  No, I'm not talking TITANIC or LORD OF THE RINGS-long, but just noticeably longer than they need to be.  Generally, romantic comedies run in the 100min area, with 95 min not being unnnatural.  For lightweight content, this is about right for the pacing.  Much longer and it can drag.  Korean movies are almost universally 115-130 minutes long.  RomComs, melodrama, dramas, actioners, they all tend to run right around the 2 hour mark.  And what I've noticed (often) is that most of these movies do not need to be this long.  Lots of extraneous scenes, lots of long, dragging scenes.  As a result, the movies tend to feel even longer and many tend to not be as enjoyable as they could be with tighter editing.

I recently watched HOW TO KEEP MY LOVE, a rom-com with a nice concept.  The middle-third was so bogged down, though, that I started to wander mentally.  There were lots of nice elements and some really good scenes, but there were just so many unnecessary scenes padding it that it lots most of its positive energy.

This is not to say that all long movies are problematic.  Far from it, but if a movie only has 90min worth of real material, dear Lowered, please don't pad it out to 120 min!

GODZILLA FINAL WARS US DVD coming in Sept (JPN)

According to MonsterZero [lnk], the new Godzilla movie GODZILLA FINAL WARS will be released in the US on an R1 DVD in "early September."  So those of you who, like I, were ready to buy the R2 DVD (even though it's unsubbed) for teh Y4800 or so can wait and get the US R1 dvd only a month or so later.

And here's a page full of teasers and tv spots [link]  (thx to Twitch [link]).

STEAMBOY DVD : Screwed again (JPN)

I just bought the Sony US R1 STEAMBOY DVD and watched a little bit of it.  Interesting, visually pleasing, and it looks very good.  So I (naturally) check the files on it with DVDDecrypter (I'm particularly interested b/c it has a COPYPROTECTED icon on it, which I assume is the new RipGuard).  That Sony is taking measures to CP their media is no surprise; what is a Pisser is that I checked the file structure and the movie .vobs are ~5 GB!!!   Argh, a single layer dvd?  What a pisser, would it really be that much trouble to make it an RSDL dvd?  (actually, I'm being lazy, but I think that the 5GB is just past the ~4.7GB size of a single layer disc, so this might actually be a duallayer disc with tons of empty space, which would be even MORE of a pisser).

As I said, I've watched a bit of it and it does look good so far, but I'll know more when I watch it at home on my big teevee, but I'm sure it'll still look very good.  It just bothers me to know that there's all this space left over where they could've upped the bitrate.  Would it have made any difference?  *shrug*   But in a couple of months, Sony'll likely release a SuperBit edition....! 

Double-dipping jerkoffs.  At least it doesn't have close-captioned subtitles in the middle of the damn screen (thank you Dreamworks)

An update on the DVD:

Despite the "CopyProtected" icon, DVDDecrypter ripped it just fine.  No, I'm not looking to distribute it, nor am I encouraging bootlegging this dvd, but I was especially curious as this is the first time I've noticed a DVD cover with that icon on it.  Funny that it doesn't work.

Total space taken on the DVD: 7.37GB, so it's definitely a dual-layer DVD9 with about 1.5GB empty space.  Total space taken by the movie: 4.91GB.  They make a Big deal about it being "Mastered in High Definition" and then effectively give us HALF the bitrate; does this make sense...?

Non-Anamorphic trailers.  What a pisser, especially since FINAL FANTASY VII: ADVENT CHILDREN was one of the trailers.

A fair amount of space eaten up by Extras:

• 3 Screen Exhibition (listed as "Multi Screen Landscape Study"): 600M
• 5 scenes in different developmental stages (no sound, fullscreen): 137M
• Animated menu : 300M
• Featurette (Fullscreen): 580M
• Otomo interview (anamorphic 1.85, overdubbed, no audio options, no subtitles) : 160M
• End title sequence NO CREDITS (Anamorphic 1.85) : 97M
• Production drawings - 170M
• + trailers (~450M)

I'll watch this and do a full review, but production wise, things like having the translater talk OVER THE TOP of Otomo during his interview is a total pisser, as are the non-anamorphic items.  And then 300M for a stupid animating menu?!

To be sure some of the extras really did seem way cool, but I'd have been happy if this edition would have been (say) SuperBit and the Special Collector's Box edition had all the extras in it.

FINAL FANTASY VII : ADVENT CHILDREN US English Language trailer (JPN)

Just bought the STEAMBOY dvd and it has an absolutely beauteous english language trailer for FINAL FANTASY VII: ADVENT CHILDREN.  It continues to look amazing and even moreso than the previously released one [link].  I'm pretty excited to see this and this implies that Sony will be releasing this in the US pretty soon, hopefully (but not likely) date and day with the Japanese R2 edition.

As I snoop around, it looks like the DVD trailer [link] is the same as the one on Ign.com [link].

STEAMBOY US R1 NTSC DVD released yesterday (JPN)

The good news:  STEAMBOY, Katsuhiro Otomo's first full-length work since AKIRA, released on DVD in the US yesterday. The DVD features original Japanese track and a dubbed US track including Anna Paquin and Patrick Stewart.

The bad news:  The reviews from Japan have been mostly unkind and has been on some WORST OF and MOST DISAPPOINTING lists.
Midnight Eye [link]

MSRP : $26.99

Best Buy: $17.99 [link]
Amazon : $18.87 [link]
DVDPacific : $19.96 [link]

There's also a GIFT SET with the following features:

• Available subtitles: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese
• Available Audio Tracks: Japanese (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0), Portuguese (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Director's Cut of the feature film
• "Re-Voicing Steamboy" Featurette
• Interview with Katsuhiro Otomo
• Multi-screen Landscape study
• Ending Montage
• Production Drawings
• Animation Onion Skins
• 10 Steamboy Collectible Postcards
• 22 Page Manga
• 166 Page Booklet containing character designs, mecha designs, and selected storyboard sequences

MSRP : $49.95
Amazon: $34.96 [link]

It's also out on UMD... !

CHA NO AJI (Taste of Tea) Mini-review (JPN)

CHA NO AJI, aka A TASTE OF TEA, is about Japanese family comprised of Father, Mother, daughter, son, Uncle, and Grandfather all living under one roof.  Since it is directed by SHARKSKIN MAN AND PEACH HIP GIRL director Katsuhito Ishii, it's naturally not about a NORMAL family.  Far from it.  The father is a hypno-therapist, the mother is a former manga artist looking to return to the field, the (approx 10yo) daughter has visions of a giant version of herself following her around who is convinced it will go away if she does a backflip on a playground monkeybar, the (approx 15yo) son is a shy Go player with a crush on a beautiful girl in class, the Uncle is a sound mixer who was once stalked by the ghost of a Yakuza, and the Grandfather is a former famous manga artist and singer who carries a tuning fork around and has a habit of checking his pitch every now and again.

The movie is a collection of little strange (very strange) and funny (very funny) episodes that comprise to tell a curiously unified story.  Aside from the main family, there are asides to various other colorful characters including a Super Meteor Defense Force (or something like that) Cosplay duo who board the train in full dress, a manga artist who wants to record a demo tape for his birthday song, a Yakuza who has a talent for hitting rocks with his baseball bat, and many others...

It's a quiet film and has that very calm, Japanese-ish restraint to it, despite the fact that it is filled with such outrageous scenes.  There'sa scene where the mother presents her demo reel to the animation house in front of all the animators.  The boss proclaims, "I want full dialogue and sound effects," so the animators adllib the sound effects and dialogue a la MST3K, except in a more positive fashion.  It is one of the coolest and funniest sequences in recent memory.

It's bizarreness handled with restraint and given a healthy dose of heart.  The sweetness feels natural and the culminating scene doesn't jerk tears, but rather makes you sigh and smile.  Humor.  Heart.  Character.  Personality.  It's all there.

Great film.

Score: 92 (A-)

What I watched this weekend (My mission continued)

I've made more progress towards cleaning out my to-watch shelf.  I was extremely lucky in this latest batch as they were ALL varying levels of great.

THE TWINS
Twin brothers, one a thuggish, brothel protector who was expelled from middle-school, the other the valedictorian heading to Seoul Nat'l University Law School.  Feels like Prince and the Pauper a bit and also has a touch of The Picture of Dorian Gray.  The younger brother takes on all the sins of his brother, going to military service for him, going to prison for him.  The younger brother meets a mysterious woman who claims to be a bank robber but has a more serious agenda, which involves both brothers in the end.  Engaging, interesting, slightly silly/trite as twins-films tend to be, but overall very good.  And it co-stars Yun So-yi, the girl from ARAHAN (*swoooN*).

A WORLD WITHOUT THIEVES
Andy Lau, Rene Liu.  They're a team of thieves.  Now, after this last job, she wants out but he wants to keep going and he wants her with him.  They take a passenger train ride together where she meets a naive, good-hearted boy returning home with his life-savings in his bag.  There's another gang of thieves also on board the train.  In an act to redeem her karma, she decides to protect him.  But she has to protect him from both that other gang as well as Andy Lau.  Excellent.  Andy Lau and Rene Liu play well against one another. 

SURVIVE STYLE 5+
Hip, stylish, cool, insanely over-the-top, black comedy with no real point.  5 disconnected threads somewhat winding together at the end that are ostensibly from the mind of an insane screenwriter and director.  That's cool.  Trying to make sense of it and to pin it down is pointless, but just going along for the ride and enjoying the visual and energetic scenery is a blast.  Reika Hashimoto is hawt!

SPIDER FOREST
From the director of FLOWER ISLAND and FEATHER IN THE WIND.  This is a David Cronenberg-type mind-fsck film that works on a metaphoric level, but taken strictly literally, fails.  It's bizarre at times, with flashbacks and stories within flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks from non-reliable storytellers.  A guy awakes to find himself near a cabin in a forest.  He enters the cabin and finds a double-murder scene (a man and a woman).  He sees and gives chase to (perhaps) the killer, only to be knocked unconscious.  He awakes and wanders into traffic and is struck down by a speeding SUV.  Suffering head trauma, he's questioned by police as they try to piece together what happened. 

CRYING FIST x2
Young juvenile delinquent and aging ex-boxer each seek redemption thru boxing.  Compelling and electric, it's the best movie I've seen in a while.  I love CRYING FIST and I'll give a thorough review later.