Cinema Suicide

I’ve been away far too long. While every day I scoured for something worth posting, I just couldn’t find any news. The writer’s strike has taken a real toll on the American film market, even in indie circles and what isin production or on the slate for release is just weak-sauce. Finally, there are some things to talk about and other people doing the reviews to save me the effort, not that I don’t love hyping the movies that I enjoy.

I’ve given Asia the cold shoulder in recent times and I’ve listed my reasons for doing so in the past. Namely, inconsistent output from Japan and Hong Kong’s love affair with pop-singers as action stars. However, I always take it easy on Thailand and I have a really good reason for doing so. Prachya Pinkaew is a director whose name I couldn’t possibly pronounce out loud. He’s also a director that I try to keep a close eye on. I was won over big time with Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong and in spite of his use of script as a cheap excuse to drape exciting action sequences around, I couldn’t ask for more. The review of Pinkaew’s latest, Chocolate, at Twitch knocks off points for Pinkaew’s inability to tell a worthwhile story but when it comes to Thailand, I leave storytelling expectations at the door and look at their movies purely as exploitation spectacles. If it’s a Thai boxing movie, I’m really only going to be let down if the fighting and stunts are sub-par and if it’s a horror movie, I’m really on the lookout for excessive bloodshed. Rarely am I ever let down. Chocolate’s set up sounds like a lot of fun as an autistic girl, using her savant ability of muscle memory to fight dudes in order to collect on old mob debts, sounds like a lot of fun and in the Pinkaew tradition, features a climactic title match of 30 on 1 that I just have to see. After the brilliance of Tom Yum Goong’s one take Hotel lobby fight, the bar was set pretty high.

Back in Hong Kong, Stephen Chow has finally come around and released CJ7, a family-friendly toy from outer space story tha, unfortunately, hasn’t really grabbed my attention like talk of Shaolin Soccer and Kung-Fu Hustle did. Now those movies I can watch a million times. Chow was a big deal throughout the world in the 90’s as he ground out a new comedy every year but in recent times he has slowed down. I’m really not sure what to expect from CJ7, though, and the cutesy story about a little boy (portrayed by a little girl) just doesn’t sound like something I’m going to five a shit about, but come on! This is Stephen Chow we’re talking about! This review suggests that Chow is an alien, Jesus, Captain America, Superman and a bunch of other ridiculous superlative characters fictional and otherwise but also gives the impression that the movie didn’t jive with them and they just can’t reconcile with the fact that maybe Stephen Chow dropped the ball and took four years to do so. This review is a little more to the point.

I have a stack of movies sitting at home awaiting my own review. Hopefully soon, I’ll have some real time to sit down, watch them and then come back here to tell you whether or not they’re worth watching.