# 電影

Movie Reviews in 2020: Personal Review Picks

Dec 28, 2020 (edited)

Stuck at home for most of 2020, watching one or two movies a day. Some of them are interesting, and I will write down two or three sentences after reading them. Among them, there are many works that are seldom discussed but worth watching; some are actually old films. Have you seen these plays too?

1) "Men's Fate Is Hard" (Miyamoto から Jun へ) reflects on the question of "how to be a man". Adhering to ideals and principles, and going head-to-head with passion, is considered naive. So does "real man" mean unscrupulous, bullying domineering? Is the always powerless Miyamoto really a waste? How many people can endure three fingers being cut off by a prisoner without giving in? Rather than saying that he is incompetent, it is better to say that the villain is too strong and evil. "Men's Fate Is Hard" proposes: "Real men" do not care about power, but about responsibility. Being a father is still a turning point, but not exactly the same as "patriarchy," but an empowering sense of responsibility.

2) "Come" : Japanese movies are all about turning all genres into disaster movies or post-disaster movies.

Godzilla: Sci-Fi x Disaster

"Two of Fire": Lust x Disaster

Coming: Horror x Disaster

The evil spirits in "Come" have changed from the family grievances in the first half to the confrontation at the national emergency level in the second half.

And Ryuko Matsuko is the strongest existence in Tetsuya Nakajima's films.

3) "Youth as a Younger" : Maybe you will say that I am biased: I don't think "Youth as a Younger" that won the best Hong Kong film is a Hong Kong movie, just a mainland Chinese movie with the participation of a group of Hong Kong film practitioners. ⁠

For the first time, there is no awards ceremony for the Academy Awards. The epidemic from China has ravaged the world, and Hong Kong's freedom and rule of law have been delayed. "Youth as a Younger" has become a major winner of the most important Hong Kong film awards, and it is also a bloodletting knife for Hong Kong films. ⁠

"Youth of You" tells the story of mainland Chinese people in the mainland, starting with the dragon mark and finally singing it. It is a product of China's censorship system. Once Hong Kong's core value of freedom is abandoned, Hong Kong culture will lose its soul. ⁠

According to the game rules of the Hong Kong Film Awards, as long as a director who has become a "new Hong Konger" through the Talent Program and other immigration policies makes a film for a branch of a Chinese film company registered in Hong Kong, even if the content, The theme and production venue have nothing to do with Hong Kong at all, and they can also participate in the Academy Awards. ⁠

It is foreseeable that there will be more and more themes like "Captain China" and "Operation Red Sea" or other films that have nothing to do with the lives and tastes of Hong Kong audiences. China already has golden roosters and hundreds of flowers, so there is no need for the golden statue award for this small fishing village in the south. Then in the end it is the end of Hong Kong Films and the Academy Awards. ⁠

"This used to be our playground."⁠

Anyway, Dongyu Zhou really did a good job. ⁠

4) "Bliss of Bliss" (Little Devil Flower) is a timely and prophetic work, paying homage to "Invasion of The Body Snatchers", but the threat is not from outside, but from human pride, Attempts to manipulate nature with science involve virus experiments. Most importantly, show that wearing a mask really matters!

5) "Freak" : The director put a lot of thought into the narrative and form. The first half of the film depicts two obsessive-compulsive patients in a quirky style, reminiscent of Wes Anderson's sugar-coated bitters. The second half of the movie turned into real anxiety, the plot gradually became mediocre, and the momentum gradually lost. Only the "twist bridge" at the end was stimulated, but it was a little trite (hit evil/alien/dreaming/psychosis, etc.). Like "Illusionary Love", it boils down to questioning each other and using foam-style romance, with "both not being cute" as the premise of love. One of them gets better, but it is detrimental to the relationship. Negative and negative but not positive, it is better to forget each other in the rivers and lakes. (Originally published in the Hong Kong Film Critics Society's "Spotlight Commentary")

6) "Mulan" (Mulan): It is ugly to treat "Mulan" as a fantasy action movie without mentioning the textual evidence. Invite two big action stars as foils. Donnie Yen, who can't be defeated, steals the spotlight with fancy sword dancing, but Jet Li, who rarely "goes out of the mountain", has to be rescued like Xuan Xuan, which is very wasteful. The biggest flaw is the confusion in the settings of "Qi" and martial arts. "Qi" is a technique, internal strength or magic that cannot be straightened out. Gong Li is clearly strong but hastily ended. In the final decisive battle, the mechanical design of Jackie Chan style, Mulan's victory has nothing to do with "Qi", but because the villain's IQ is anxious fall. (Originally published in the Hong Kong Film Critics Society's "Spotlight Commentary")

7) "Steel Rain 2: Nuclear War Crisis" : Reflecting South Korea's view of international relations with complex geopolitical conspiracies, it is not difficult for today's generation of viewers who like to "burn their brains", depending on whether they care. The situation of "continuation of the Cold War" and "sandwich man" proposed in the film is actually far from the situation in Hong Kong today. Like "Ten Years", the questions and anxieties raised in the play are realistic, but "Steel Rain 2" is different in that its answers return to the ideal happy ending of a mainstream commercial movie - although the role of the President of the United States is obviously a special one. Trump's shadow, but the real South and North Korean leaders will never be like this. (Originally published in the Hong Kong Film Critics Society's "Spotlight Commentary")

8) The relationship between the play " Never Rarely Sometimes Always" and "April 3 Week 2 - Abortion Diary" is like it's always with you in the play Walking sisterhood. The film shows that there seems to be room for "choice first" in the Western free society, but in fact the oppression of women is like an atmosphere that permeates and penetrates into people's body and mind. The audience can pay attention to those moments of silence, pause and the subtle performance of the actors, and feel the unspeakable pressure, shame and helplessness, suffered by women, but done by men and women, not limited to individuals, families or "aid organizations". ". (Originally published in the Hong Kong Film Critics Society's "Spotlight Commentary")

9) "Prison Break" is positioned as the dark and ridiculous route of "Dragon" (2015). The characters and interpretation of the four protagonists are the most proficient in themselves, lacking sparks with each other, and lacking the hilarious look of "Assault Vehicle". In the first half, each person's past events are a little repetitive and cumbersome, and the plot of the gang infighting also distracts the focus of escape from prison.

The background is set in the late British colonial period, and even if there is a negative description of the prison guards in the play, it can be inferred that it is an old disaster.

However, when I watch this play with an excessively subjective interpretation, I can't help but see the imprints of the times such as escaping from a siege, saving siblings, and (prison) police and black cooperation...

10) National Gallery : After my last class out in London, I wore a mask to the National Gallery as a gift to myself before self-isolation. The National Gallery was still open during the bombing of World War II, but now it is only accessible through Frederick Wiseman's documentary. Wiseman's lens took me to things I wouldn't normally see: behind-the-scenes restoration considerations, meetings on marketing, painting tours for the blind, and explanations of paintings by different guided tours. Wiseman is particularly interested in paintings from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, presumably because they all tell rich stories, whereas the Impressionist collections have only a few shots. The last time I went to the National Gallery, I only saw Impressionist paintings.

11) Bacurau is reminiscent of Seediq Bale, only colonization is not the past, but the present and the future.

The water source of the remote town of Bacurau is cut off, just as the upper Mekong River is cut off by Chinese dykes, and the small downstream country suffers from drought. The mayor is one of those behind the scenes, on the one hand shamelessly visiting before the election, sending expired supplies to pretend to be the benefactor, on the other hand hiring English-speaking mercenaries to kill. The combination of capital, colonization and armed forces brings a commonality across regions and time to this Brazilian film.

The real slaughter plan is not just to kill people, not to let go of the small roads, but to erase the town from the map, block the telecommunications, cut off the electricity, and then all the staff are dispatched to erase their past, present and future. .

So the young villagers who had left to be gang killers also returned to defend their homes with the villagers.

There are two particularly impressive:

First, the foreign mercenaries invited other Brazilians to the village to perform their tasks. The Brazilians killed two villagers on their way back, and were held accountable by the boss of the mercenaries when they returned. scare? The whole team is killing people. The two men from a wealthy region of southern Brazil considered themselves higher-ranked and "white" than the townsfolk, only to be ridiculed by the mercenaries. This group of Westerners still regards the two Brazilians as inferior races other than our race. Their killing is "murder", and killing themselves is a task.

The town has its own history museum, and the inner world will not be revealed until the last mercenaries enter the village, because this is also the ambush. The town used to have a tradition of bravery. In the past, it fought guerrillas against foreign enemies. The exhibits in the museum included guns, all of which were taken down. Another tradition is beheading, which is similar to the "Grass" in "Sedek Bale" to show "savage pride".

Here are some classic old movies I watched this year

12) "The Will of Orpheus" : "Every artist paints a self-portrait." Gaucteau sketched flowers from life in "The Will of Orpheus", but he painted himself. It was a change in the classic image of the mirror image of the water surface in his previous work. It also reminded people of Dali's painting The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. Perhaps the way for narcissistic geniuses to understand each other is to completely drown in their own mirror images.

13) "Red Circle" : Mayville's "man's romance" in "Red Circle" is cold and deep. From the first meeting to the risk of life, no need to say, lighting a cigarette, a trigger, a phone call, a look, all in silence (then you will see that those who put their fists on their chests and "in their hearts" three How different is the level of expression in each word). This kind of love is like sinking into the blue ocean: the deeper, the colder, the darker it is.

14) "The Great Dawn" : Mayville's posthumous work "The Great Dawn" continues to be as cold as the deep blue sea, taciturn, the more turbulent the emotions, the tighter the mouth. The fly in the ointment is that in this "man's play", the first beauty, Catherine Danlu, can only stand aside, but she is also like a little flame in the cold ocean.

15) "Army of Shadows" : Mayville's "Army of Shadows" has a section that fully reflects the British Keep Calm and Carry On culture: The hero who organized the anti-Nazi in the French underground went to London, was attacked by an air raid, and took refuge in London. Entering the clubhouse, the young British men and women continued to dance and dance, ignoring the bombardment above their heads. In contrast, what is an epidemic? No wonder people ignore government bans and go to parks to bask in the sun.

16) "The Countess of Hong Kong" : The Hong Kong where Charlie Chapling bid farewell to "The Countess of Hong Kong" is just the background, a ghostly place where the heroine is eager to escape. Sophia Loren plays the descendant of the White Russian aristocracy, who experienced two communist revolutions, and lived in Shanghai and Hong Kong (after the war, Hong Kong was just a substitute for Shanghai?), and became a high-level courtesan. Hong Kong is a place where male foreigners seek flowers and willows and fireworks women seek escape. The main scene of the story is a huge cruise ship, which is also a place of mobility rather than a home to live in, echoing the one-sided impression of "Hong Kong as a place for tourists".