Asians...

So I've been having fun sparring with racists over in a comments thread on David Farrar's site.

And being fascinated by Tze Ming Mok's take on the Older Generation at Public Address (at which BTW, I scored a CD voucher - yay me! - I think I might get a Straitjacket Fits album with it, since the Public Address guys are such fanboys).

And it occurred to me that I've probably covered more than my share of Asian (Hong Kong) movies here & there.

I remember telling a disbelieving friend, possibly 15 years ago, that Hong Kong cinema was where it was at. At that stage I'd seen only a handful of mega-violent examples - The Killer, Hard Boiled, Once a Thief, Bullet in the Head - all directed by John Woo & starring Chow Yun Fat. But there was definitely something new & exciting about those films, not just the pyrotechnics, slow-motion acrobatic gun-play, and... oh OK, it WAS actually the pyrotechnics & slow-motion acrobatic gun play.

In fact, the first Hong Kong movie I ever saw - since the kung fu craze of the 1970s anyway- I think, was The Iceman Cometh - mentioned in a previous post. In that one, Yuen Baio (grew up with Jackie Chan & Samo Hung in the Chinese Opera) is a hundreds of years old palace guard, who along with a mortal enemy is thawed out of a glacier in modern day Hong Kong, he's taken in by a very young Maggie Cheung, and in one boggling scene, somersaults over a speeding car. This movie also features some of the most execrable subtitle work in cinema history "Meet me on the roof in 5 minutes for a duet" (duel). This was one of the first screenings of such a film in downtown Wellington, it was heavily attended by local Chinese, who I was interested to discover, pretty much all turned up well into the film & then talked loudly in Cantonese throughout (which since it was subtitled, wasn't a problem), amusingly, many in the audience sang along with songs... it was kind of cool.

Later, I caught up with other, less noisy movies... Chungking Express, for instance, Days of being Wild, In the Mood for Love... the list is exhaustive. Gee, I've seen more than I realised... For convenience sake, I have appended a Chinese (because there are some films made on the mainland, not just Hong Kong) movie primer. Also for convenience, I have excluded the extensive Jackie Chan back catalogue, because these are well known, and all worthy viewing - although some are puerile, all are eye-popping & if you've had a good grounding in American cinema history, you'll see that Chan has been highly influenced by silent movie stars such as Charlie Chaplin & Buster Keaton. Ie, He lifts gags & stunts wholesale. I have also excluded Crouching Tiger, because you've all seen it already. Or should have. And it was Taiwanese anyway. Kind of.

So for a good time, do go & rent any of the movies mentioned above, and I also recommend:
Ashes of Time, Song of Exile, Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad and Chinese Ghost Story. I would guess that the last one there would be the only musical, Taoist ghost story you've ever seen? At least until you take in parts 2 & 3 perhaps... or how about A Chinese Erotic Ghost Story?

And I should mention one more, since I've descended to this level... Naked Killer - I have no idea what went on in this movie, except that it was something to do with a bunch of hottie assassins who did despicable things to their targets in hot tubs & the like, and a lot of knives were thrown around & people shot & otherwise killed in acrobatic & photogenic fashion. It was great.

Before I finish, I'll mention some of the actors, who all appear in more than one of the movies above. Chinese films are not just some of the most innovative, exciting & influential being made in the world today, they also feature some of the hottest casts... which after all, is what movies are all about.

Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun Fat, Gong Li, and of course... Jackie Chan

While I'm an enthusiastic aficionado though, if Winston Peters promised to ban all Asian movies from New Zealand screens, he might just get Mrs Llew's vote... No, just kidding, if he did, she'd probably become as big a Chinese movie fan as me.

And so it was that this morning, I set the VCR for Infernal Affairs... which was the initial point of this post.

Actually, I'd really like to get to know some key Bollywood movies now, whose casts are possibly even more spectacular in appearance. But to be honest, I'm put off by the 3 hour plus running times of the ones my local DVD store rents.

By the way... there is one movie I remember seeing, but cannot for the life of me remember what it was called, nor who was in it, possibly Leslie Cheung, and it was the usual martial arts, swords, bandits & princesses sort of deal, except that there was something also to do with a killer whale, which saved the hero & heroine at the end, by jumping over a rock bridge & eating the villain, or something like that, and it was either the best trained killer whale you've ever seen (in which case, big ups to the stunt-villain), or some of the best pre-CGI animatronics you've ever seen. If anyone can remind me what the hell that film was called, please let me know.