Flowers of War – Review

Finally, reviewing a newer film… I was extremely busy during the last few weeks and the only source of films for me was DVD’s or Blu-Rays that my parents bought. That’s why I haven’t been reviewing new films. But today, as it is Chinese New Year, I went to the movies with my parents and saw this film – Flowers of War. Directed by Zhang YiMou, and it stars Christian Bale as the male lead, and Chinese actress Ni Ni as the female lead. The film focuses on a story that happens in a Church during the Japanese invasion towards China, Bale, a mortician went to this church supposedly to help bury the priest who died from the war, but was required to play a larger role in the story of 13 students who were living in the church, and 12 prostitutes who forced their entry in the church in order to hide from the war. That’s as much as I can tell without spoiling the film.

Before the actual review, I have to say that movies like this, movies that are loosely based on true events, have to be seen as what they actually are – movies. I do believe that directors try to create thought-provoking films to generate polemic, but I do also believe that directors are not making movies to create war between two nations, and after reading some comments from YouTube, I would say that people are starting their own “verbal war” for this film, specially the veracity of the war and the current political position of China and Japan. Films are meant to be seen as a source of entertainment, and that being said, when a film starts a debate like this, it’s just quite disrespectful towards “movies” as a whole.

Now the actual review: As a Chinese, I have seen some of Zhang’s previous works, including Hero with Jet Li, and I would say that this is one of his better films in the recent years, and that’s because this film does not feel dull, and does not feel that the director is trying to put his style down your throat, it’s artsy without being too slow, there, I said it. The performances are phenomenal, considering that most of the performers are inexperienced children. Bale’s performance was OK for his standards, considering his records (come on, the guy was in American Psycho, was in Nolan’s Batman and convinced me that he was a cracked out asshole in The Fighter!), it’s not that it’s a boring performance, because it was not, you can actually feel the emotional arc of the character.

The female lead, Ni Ni, gave a brilliant performance as the leader of the group of prostitutes, she was charming without overacting, appealing without seeming slutty, and I give her props, because acting in a foreign language is extremely difficult, and she did it splendidly.

This was a great film, but not a flawless film. Although the director did a better job in this than most of his recent works, the film’s plot is still a bit forced, in the sense that Bale’s characters starts in being a drunk asshole and ends in being this heroic dude, but the only thing that made him that way is that he witnessed a scene in the invasion, but earlier in the film he says that he’s been in China for a while, we have to assume that he witnessed death during this war, and all of the sudden, he went from being a money-seeking drunk to this hero? It’s just a bit difficult for the audience to follow. Overall, the story is a bit forced, but the film flows really well, and the performances were amazing with what they were given, specially the kids and Ni Ni, I would, for the first time, rate a film, and my rating scale is between F and A+, and this film would be a B film.

I will try to write more reviews as I can see more films, please be tuned.

Duo Review – Midnight in Paris and In Time

For the first day of my long Chinese New Year holiday, I watched two movies that I have wanted to watch ever since I saw the trailers – Midnight in Paris and In Time. Now, it’s part of me being a movie lover that I would have to like some Woody Allen movies, however, I have never seen the so-called classics of Woody Allen, and I think that’s mainly because where I live and how old I am, which means that it’s difficult for me to measure Midnight in Paris in contrast with other Woody Allen classics. That’s being said, I say that the movie is beautiful. The scenery of the first 10 minutes of this film is the perfect advertisement for Paris. I swear to whatever it’s to be sworn, but after the first 10 minutes, I had this urge to go to Paris, not that I am going to, but I would like to. The movie stars mainly Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Kurt Fuller and many more, and it’s a beautiful time-travelling story with a fascinating message behind it. I have heard that most of Woody Allen movies that don’t work happens because Woody Allen wants his protagonists to act like him, and his neurotic personality is not something that everybody can do, but for this film, because Owen Wilson has this easy-going presence that helps the audience to invest in such premise. I am not going to spoil the movie more than saying that it’s a time travelling film, but the way that it was portrayed was awesome and the message behind it is…well, it’s something that we all should at least think about, so I would recommend it.

The second film, In Time, stars Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, which we see a future that time is the currency, and people in the ghetto live day by day while rich people live forever. Justin Timberlake met a dude that wanted to die, and gave Timberlake all his time, thus making Timberlake rich, but also telling him the true reason behind people’s deaths. Seyfried is the rich girl, and through the film, I would say that these two become partners in crime. The film was…well, the thing about this flick is that nothing is well-explained, we never know the transition between the modern times and this future, and apparently, facing such important evolution, the only thing that changed is the currency, because every other thing is the same. The cars are the same, the houses are the same, it’s just a bit weird. However, the movie is not bad, Justin Timberlake was badass! The concept is cool, the acting is acceptable, the execution just fell flat, a bit.

So, here are my reviews for today, and I will try to write as often as possible.

50/50 Review

I know that there's only a limited number of readers (if there's any), but there's this - I have been heavily sick for the last 6 months, which was kind of a deal breaker for writing, because I did not have the inspiration for almost nothing.
Anyway, I will try to do more reviews, I will try.

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This is a movie that I only got the chance to see recently, and before watching, I heard incredible things about it. It was said to be one of the Oscar movies of 2011 and it was released in September, and that Joseph Gordon-Levitt knocked it out of the park with his performance, and that Seth Rogen finally is NOT annoying.

The plot of this movie is fairly simple, yet heavy. The movie follows Adam, played by Gordon-Levitt, who is a fairly healthy man, receives the worst news of his life, that he has a rare form of cancer, and that his survival rate is only 50%. The film follows Adam’s fight towards the disease. Through the film, he is accompanied by Rogen, his best friend since high school, his girlfriend, played by a hot actress that I don’t know her name, but a b*tch, for the purpose of this film, his mother and a therapist played by Anna Kendrick.

There’s a lot that can be said about this film, but I am going to summarize all that with one word – amazing. This movie is simply amazing, first, the performances, Gordon-Levitt is definitely one of the better American actors of this generation (although I like Fassbender and Gosling, but one is British and the other is Canadian), his performance was so f-ing moving, specially towards the end of the movie, and that’s probably old news by now, but he only decided to be part of this film 10 days before shooting, and given that he only had 10 days to prepare for this role and he was able to deliver such a grounded performance, I would say that I hope that he gets his Oscar nomination this year. Rogen is also awesome, by offering one of the least annoying performances of his career (I don’t like Knocked Up, I kind of liked Zack and Milli Made a Porno and I thought that Green Hornet was…I nothing-ed the film, I felt nothing), he was definitely more grounded here, and his personality was more inclined towards a real person instead of a goofy presence. Anna Kendrick’s portrayal of therapist was adorable. I think I fell in love for her just because this performance, seriously, she was that cute.

Writing and directing wise, the film was fairly good, I heard that this movie was inspired by one of the writer’s real experience, as he really did have cancer and survived it, and I think that because of that, the film was much more real than most of cancer films. The best part of this film is the balance, the balance between comedy and drama, and both these parts are extremely effective, the film is funny when it needs to be funny, and it’s emotional when it needs to be.

The movie is inspired by the true story of one of the writers, so it’s no spoilers that Adam survived, but the journey was amazing, and the ending was extremely effective. I highly recommend this film, but it clearly targets an adult audience, if you are younger than 18, you might not get this film, it’s just fact. So, please, watch this, it’s really good.