000066 - iReview - Casshern

CASSHERN (2004)

Directed by: Kazuaki Kiriya

Starring: Yusuke Iseya, Kumiko Aso, Akira Terao

Runtime: 141 minuties

Synopsis: "In a world with an alternate history, a great war finally comes to an end leaving the earth diseased and polluted. The geneticist Dr. Azuma vies for support from the government for his neo-cell treatment that he claims can rejuvenate the body and regenerate humankind. The government leaders, guarding their own deeply entrenched powers, turn down the professor. Driven to complete his work, Dr. Azuma accepts a secret offer from a sinister faction of the powerful military. After an incident occurs in Dr. Azuma's lab, a race of mutant humans known as the Shinzo Ningen are unleashed upon the world. Now only the warrior known as Casshern, reincarnated with an invincible body, stands between the Shinzo Ningen and a world on the brink of annihilation." From IMDb.com

Casshern is a visual feast for the eyes. This film is pacted full of details in almost every scene. Originally a live-action series in Japan that got turned into an animated series called 'Shinzo Ningen Casshan', this movie is actually considered to be in the live-action anime genre. While this film is awesome to look at, unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the plot or the way the story is being told. Japanese music video director Kazuaki Kiriya makes a convoluted feature film directing debut in my honest opinion. War is a very hard and complex theme to deal with, and perhaps in some ways he's done a competent job with Casshern but boy did he beat around the bush to give us the point!

There are two problems for me with enjoying Casshern as a film rather than just a movie with great eye-candy and CG special effects and whatnot. Firstly, I found it hard to personalise with a specific character within the movie. It seems like almost every character is a protagonist. From the way it was scripted to the way it was shot and editted, you are almost made to feel sympathetic for all the key characters in this movie. I found this very confusing and kind of makes it look like the writers of this movie were always on the fence. Yes, I understand the concept that in war, nothing is as clear cut as good and evil or heroes and villains. There are no winners or losers. But it seems like the real conflict was between the original clear cut concept of the live-action anime series and the serious realities and casualities of war and destruction. I think if it was more from Tetsuya/Casshern's p.o.v. it would have been easier for the audience to relate to this movie, rather than a flashy and jumping left and right, from character to character music video collage ordeal (there were a couple of over dramatic death scenes, too).

The other problem I had with Casshern was that it was just a tad too long. Again, I don't think it was really necessary to get into every characters' backstory in this movie. I certainly didn't think it was necessary to suddenly introduce and develop an antagonist/villain of this movie after the whole middle has just gone and past.

In summary, I really liked the visuals and even the audio of Casshern. It's quite inspiring in many ways and achieved a much more interesting and innovative visual flare compared to what Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow tried to attempt. Story-wise and execution-wise, it failed in my opinion to keep me glued to my seat. It could have been great and could have been 30 mins shorter. I felt like it just tried way too hard to impress.

- 2.5 out of 5 stars

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000065 - devil may make me cry

at the present moment, i really don't have the spare dosh or really the spare time to be playing video games. but devil may cry 3 (official japanese site link; lotsa goodies) came out recently and i want it. i had made up enough excuses already, telling myself that i could use the money instead on food and basic necessities, or that i really should be using my brain cells for my uni projects or that the reviews for dmc3 have said that it's really hard and since i'm such a unco-ordinated gamer (i really need that ultra easy/pussy mode capcom) the game would be wasted on me. but all logic and common sense has gone out the window because, well, it's devil may cry 3 (official u.s. site link; not so much goodies)!

anyway, i went in today to my local games shop hoping to trade-in some old ps2 games (gta: vice city and tenchu: wrath of heaven) so maybe possibly i could get dmc3 for less than it's retail price. unfortunately, however, i'm told i'd get a measily 25 bucks for both of them! ouch. oh dante, why thou stab thy heart so violently?

ok, i wasn't expecting much for the trade-ins really. but the killing blow was when the guy said both of these games are excluded from the "2 ps2 games + 49.95 deal" as well. bugger. didn't have much luck with the other local games shop either, they gave me 26. then i told them i wanted to keep my pants on and walked out.

my enquiries regarding the cost for some A3 size framing didn't go so well either. all were near the higher end of what i was anticipating. i came home and my bank account kicked me in the balls, grabbed my bottle of jack and told me to start having relations with myself...

sigh. the plus for my day was receiving the madman anime sampler dvd in the mail. heaps of trailers and full length episodes of gundam seed, inuyasha, peacemaker & mezzo dsa.

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easter was pretty relaxing. grabbed granma out of the nursing home and got her to stay with us, together with my aunt, uncle and cousin from canberra. my aunt seems to always cheer up my granma whenever she's down here visiting, which is great. granma did pretty well considering the past couple of months for her.

highlight was commiting the sin of gluttony at this little local taiwanese cafe/restaurant on sunday night. man, i ate so much. if kryptonite is superman's weakness, delicious food is mine! i thought i could eat noodles, sushi, chinese, japanese, italian, vietnamese all day everyday, apparently now i can eat taiwanese as well. my stomach is definitely non-discriminatory, that's for sure.

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caught up with ravelle and jacqs last night which was cool.

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still having a bit of trouble figuring out what to do for my uni projects. i finally sat down and got a rough storyboard done for the knight-edge trailer animation project and that looks to be a lot of work ahead of me already. i have a sort of visual idea of what i want for one of my group projects on wirat. i've kinda settled on the scene i want to do for my 3d project, too. all that's left bugging me is the group project i have to do on myself. what to do, what to do...

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000064 - iReview - Old Boy

OLD BOY (2003)

Directed by: Chan-Wook Park
Starring: Min-sik Choi
Ji-tae Yu
Hye-jeong Kang
Rated R strong violence, torture, sex scenes and strong language

Synopsis: "An average man is kidnapped and imprisoned in a hotel room for 15 years without explanation. He then is released, equipped with money, a cellphone and expensive clothes. As he strives to explain his imprisonment and get his revenge, he soon finds out that not only his kidnapper has still plans for him, but that those plans will serve as the even worse finale to 15 years of imprisonment." From IMDb.com

Old Boy can be summarised as basically a revenge movie. But after watching it, you'll probably agree that this brilliant movie directed by Chan-Wook Park, is much more than that. Winner of the Grand Jury prize in the Cannes Film Festival, Best Foreign film in the British Independent Film Awards, and Best film in the Sitgez International Film festival, this film has just got to be seen to be appreciated.

We follow an average Korean businessman who begins in the movie as a drunk just been released from the police station for disorderly conduct. He wants to get home for his daughter's birthday but is mysteriously kidnapped and locked into a hotel room with only a TV as a companion for the next 15 years! This film gets even more exciting when he's let loose back into the world and he only has 5 days to find out who and more importantly why he was imprisoned.

While the protagonist isn't exactly likeable from the get-go, you'll find his plight and road of vengence sympathetic and he'll slowly grow on you. Perhaps it is this sympathy with our hero that the very violent fighting and torture scenes seem almost acceptable. And boy, are they very violent. There's a horizontally shot non-stop fighting scene that last for quite a bit that's almost like watching a beat 'em up video game in real life with flying blood and guts! The torture scenes literally made me squerm like a little girl (there's something disturbing about pulling teeth out with a hammer...)




There's also a twist towards the end of this movie that left me speechless and pretty much changed my entire view of all the characters. By the time the credits were scrolling onto the screen, a cocktail of feelings were brewing in my head. I was repulsed, twisted, relieved, and awestrucked. Strangely of all though, there was a part of me I wanted to actually see the movie again, just in case I had missed something!

I also realised after watching this movie, that I've recognised the thematics from this movie from another movie I had watched earlier this year. It was actually a short film within a set of 3 anthology short films called "Three". That movie was called Monster and it too was directed by Chan-Wook Park. The similarities are that it was about vengence and torture. And the vengence are very very petty, in my opinion. There was also a twist in Monster, too.

Old Boy is a richly made, well thought out, well written and thought provoking film that will have you in your seats eagering anticipating what the hero will do next in order to seek revenge on his captor. In some ways, it's also sick and perverted but just like in real life, you have the good, the bad and also the ugly, too. Highly recommended.

- 4/5 stars

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000063 - reality gone south

this is me, if i was a south park character (created by canadians). call me kwang!

do you like reality tv shows? i was never much of a fan of these shows until i started getting hooked one by one. i'm pretty sure office gossip during coffee breaks when i had my 9 to 5er kept me in the loop. my favorites includes: the amazing race, the apprentice, survivor and my restaurant rules. other shows like big brother and idol don't really interest me as much however (i'd fall asleep over the former and only watch the auditions of the latter). i've thinking about how i'd never ever qualify for any of these...

the amazing race: i love travelling and this would be the reality show i'd most like to go on, but i couldn't run further than a mile before collapsing. plus my fear of heights and my inability to swim (i can barely float) makes me an unlikely candidate. i think i can tough it out but i highly doubt i could convince anyone to partner up with me.

the apprentice: mr. trump would have one look at me and say, "you're fired!" no, seriously, if you think about it, this is the only reality show where you'd have to work after you win (yes, technically so does an American/Austrailan idol after they win but their built up fame throughout the series probably has done half their work for them). so logically going on this show makes no friggin' sense. i'm no lawyer, entreprenuer or someone who's made any significant business milestone in the last decade. so unless they start looking for career metamorphising unemployed uni students in Australia to be on the next season of the show, i highly doubt i'll get in breathing distance of mr. trump and his lovely hair.

survivor: i barely survive on instant noodles / ramen, and i haven't seen nissan or maggie sponsoring any food type products on the shows so far, so why put myself through more pain?! plus i'm not too keen about no hot showers or sharing the same dirt or grass patch with other people who haven't bathed for more than 3 days! i think i'd do quite well in the co-op and group/team settings though but again, my own back would literally be tattooed with targets when it comes to backstabbing.

my restaurant rules: don't know if there's any overseas version of this show, but i love watching it. i love food and the whole process of making it, serving it and running a business in order to shove it down people's throats mesmerises me for odd reasons. again, the pressure of all these would get the better of me. i find preparing food for others a very responsible task and since i'm no wizard in the kitchen (unless it involves making love, ha), this kind of responsibility would drive me insane, so i'm not going to qualify for this show either unless they are looking for insane contestants who jokes about having relations in a food preparing area.

heck, they really should make a show called: the amazing sex apprentice surviving chef race for the queer eye in the city!

right. i think it's the pressure of too many upcoming uni projects and the time of the night that's influencing what i'm blogging. good night.

(also lunch with the gang was great, nice to catch up with most of everyone over a nice meal yesterday. bon voyage to Rads!)

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000062 - living on the edge

the above, calvin & hobbes, is one of my all time favorite comic strips (i used to cut them out of the newspaper and paste them in my own scrap book collection). it's created by bill watterson and you should all read this inspiring speech by him if you have some time. i can't wait for the 1440 page complete calvin & hobbes hardcover coming this september!

meanwhile, in real life (ouch), i'm back at uni for one more year. so far so interesting. looks like we are mainly concentration on 2D and 3D animation this semester which is something i'm very very much interested in, particularly 2D. the group project subject is kinda interesting this semester, too. we're basically making documentaries about each other! my head is currently pacing to come up with different ideas for all these projects. we also have a 3D mini-project to complete for our maya classes, which is also quite daunting.

continuing on with my current street fighter obsession, i got more action figures. this time, i got ken, blanka, cammy & vega. i also got the udon street fighter: eternal challenge capcom art book, which is just awesome. lots of fantastic art and a very detailed (almost too much) historical account of the street fighter video game series.

and the new knight-edge.com redesign and upload went very smoothly. now it's just a matter of updating a couple of new sections and fixing any issues that might pop up.

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