My kind of film; I’ve always had a penchant for historical settings, but there are never enough good ones. Since that warm summer night sitting on the steps of Langham Place, Mongkok almost a year ago (remember, Gus? that fateful evening, I will never forget it…), I have wanted to see this, but never really got around to doing it until now. 

I really admire Mia Wasikowska as an actress (finally, it’s not Kiera Knightley cast into the role), she really brought a depth into the film as well as a fresh face (I think I’ve only seen her in Alice in Wonderland prior to this). 

When I read the novel ages ago (maybe 10 years or more since), I remember being so scared, as many strange and eerie events unfolded. The mood was just so completely different from that of, say, Pride & Prejudice, and unlike his predecessors, I think the director, Cary Fukunaga, was able to capture the slightly unsettling and dark mood of the novel.

Fukunaga points this out as quoted in Movieline: “I’ve spent a lot of time rereading the book and trying to feel out what Charlotte Brontë was feeling when she was writing it. That sort of spookiness that plagues the entire story… there’s been something like 24 adaptations and it’s very rare that you see those sorts of darker sides. They treat it like it’s just a period romance and I think it’s much more than that.”

Never Let Me Go (2010) - another British film I set out to watch (the other one being ‘The Edge of Love’, also starring Kiera Knightley but this time alongside Sienna Miller, who happens to be on the cover of British Vogue this month)

prior to my trip to the UK (I’m leaving this Sunday!).

I remember making plans to watch this a long time ago with Micole in Glorietta (the only place where it was showing in the Philippines at the time), but those plans never materialized. I was only able to see it recently after borrowing the DVD from the library at the uni.

‘Never Let Me Go’ stars Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield. 

A few facts about the casting of the film which I found interesting:

Mulligan, a fan of the book, enthusiastically accepted the role, as it had long been a wish of hers to have the opportunity to play the part. Prior to her casting, Mulligan had already read the novel a few times, considering it to be a favourite of hers. Knightley admitted that she only agreed to appear in Never Let Me Go because co-star and friend Mulligan had asked her to.

And, some exciting news from Gus - Carey Mulligan is apparently getting married in the coming weeks to the vocalist of Mumford & Sons at a neighboring farmhouse in Exeter/Devon! I will actually be in the vicinity at the time, and although I’m not the kind to get starstruck, don’t you think it’s cool that I could actually casually cycle past the wedding with guests such as Kiera Knightley in attendance?!

According to dailymail.co.uk, Mulligan ”and the Mumford & Sons star have set their sights on a farmhouse in Exeter.”

Spanks!

“The Dark House” (2009)

Original Title: “Terug naar de kust” (Back to the coast)

saw this Dutch thriller today at the Hong Kong European Film Festival with Kristina and Allyanna. It’s supposedly an adaption of the Dutch novel of the same name by Saskia Noort. The film was casually awesome. We never really knew who was crazy until the end…

Storyline

Single mother Maria starts to receive anonymous death threats. Together with her children, she flees to her former parental home, where her older sister Ans now lives. During those cold winter days in the secluded seaside house she is confronted with her traumatic childhood memories. But as the people close to her begin to question her state of mind, her assailant closes in. 

(Written by Holland Film)

After the movie (in which I ate a disgusting hotdog bun, and I swear to God hotdogs in Hong Kong suck and I’ve been a victim of this for the third and final time today), we stuffed our faces with dim sum at Tim Ho Wan, the Dim-Sum Specialists. This place supposedly has the best dim sum in Hong Kong (!). It’s literally 5 shops down from Mr. Wong’s. While waiting for the food, we were able to talk about the school system in the Philippines and Filipino-Chinese racism against Filipinos. We were then seated beside a young Japanese traveler en route to India, and had a laugh at his antics to get his beer back from the waiter, who literally confiscated his beer for the duration of the meal, as alcohol wasn’t allowed inside the restaurant.

A pretty satisfactory Sunday, I must say. I dread the coming work week, but look forward to returning to Manila on Thursday, finally, after 3 months of being away! 

<3

Finally finished this movie (which I’ve been trying to watch for a couple of weeks now - I watched it in parts for the last three days). ‘Always Sunset on Third Street 2’, as I didn’t realize until I looked it up afterwards, is apparently a sequel to the first one released in 2005. Will not delve into the movie’s intricacies, but will say it’s a simple, touching, heartwarming, drama-comedy of bygone days. I think it will be enough to make anyone feel nostalgic for Tokyo in the 1950’s as if we’ve all lived there, in another life; the setting ‘being as much a character as any of the individuals in the sprawling story.’ (variety.com)

So if you feel like a down to earth movie that reminds you of what it is to be truly human, then this one’s for you.

Thanks to one of my readers, ‘Fishman’, who recommended this film. :-)

Have a good weekend! 

x

One of the best Sundays I’ve had in Hong Kong:

3:30am Skype with Gus

11:00am Wake up

12:30pm Lunch (KFC chicken sandwich! Only HKD10!)

1:30pm Meet with Daniel and Javier at Admiralty interchange

2:30pm Meet with Kristina and Benj in Chai Wan

2:45pm Start hike up the cemetery to Dragon’s Back + Shek O Country Park

5:00pm Hot chocolate at some quaint cafe by the beach (Deep Water Bay?)

8:00pm Skype with Gus + Shower

9:30pm Indian Dinner with 5 Indians, 1 Colombian, and 1 Irish girl in Wan Chai

1:00am Watched this super feel good movie! :)

I kept seeing posters for this movie when I was in London during the Christmas holiday. I remember being intrigued (I barely knew anything about Aung San Suu Kyi, only that she was a Nobel Peace Prize winner under house arrest in Burma), but not enough to actually summon the initiative to get myself into a theater and see it.

Yesterday, thanks to a few friends, I found my butt seated in the cinema, eyes glued to the screen, watching one of the most powerful love stories I’ve seen on film. It was even more moving because I knew it was all factual, and that the story hasn’t even reached its conclusion to this day. Notably, this woman’s love for country and sense of duty is so admirable. What she sacrificed - her entire life (15 years under house arrest), her family, the love of her life - is to me unbearable; I can’t imagine how strong her will and love for country must be.

A few interesting facts:

• Michelle Yeoh studied Burmese for the film, and filmed some scenes (like Suu Kyi’s historic speeches) in the character’s native tongue.
• Once or twice the filming of a scene had to be ceased because Michelle Yeoh’s performance of a speech (in Burmese) elicited outbursts of emotion among Burmese extras who had back then listened to the real Suu Kyi.
• During the shooting of the film, news broke that Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest had been lifted. Luc Besson hesitated to believe what he saw on TV because it looked so much like his recent footage.
• Yeoh used her spare time to visit Suu Kyi immediately.
• On 22 June 2011 Yeoh wanted to visit Suu Kyi a second time but was deported from Burma, reportedly over her portrayal of Aung San Suu Kyi.

On the evening of 13 November 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. On 18 January 2012, Suu Kyi formally registered to contest a Pyithu Hluttaw (lower house) seat in the Kawhmu Township constituency in special parliamentary elections to be held on 1 April 2012.

An American man returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that could’ve changed the course of human history. (IMDB)

 I really hate watching period dramas/films not in their original language. It removes from the authentic feel of the movie. Gong Li, Chow Yun Fat, and Ken Watanabe were speaking the kind of English that Chinese and Japanese people during that time would never have spoken. I’m not saying that their English couldn’t have been perfect (as it very well could have been though highly unlikely), but they were speaking a formal and proper kind of English with a syntax I can imagine being unique to upper-class English (now) or Americans (back in that period) - not even normal, everyday English that native speakers would use. Hence the unnatural feel of the dialogue, at least for me. I can get very nitpicky about these details. However, Shanghai redeemed itself by having a very sound conclusion (sounds unconvincing, but come on, how often is it that a movie’s ending satisfies you in terms of being realistic or resolved?). And usually, in WWII dramas, the Japanese are always portrayed as evil butchers (think Pearl Harbour, Lust Caution); in this film, however, I think a fairer picture was painted. Although there were still violent deaths-by-bayonet and war atrocities, there was also honour, respect, and humanity piercing through that image.

Randomly:

1. There were a few similarities between this film and Ang Lee’s ‘Lust, Caution (2007)’, which I remember seeing with Anna in our room in Rennes (France) back in 2008. 

2. Rinko Kikuchi (who played Sumiko) seemed to be such a promising beauty in ‘Shanghai’, until I googled her and found out she now sports a bowlcut and is otherwise blonde.

3. The movie was written by Academy Award Nominee Hossein Amini, an Iranian scriptwriter - the same guy behind the hit “Drive” (2011), which I saw last November with Alex, Kuba, Juan, Gemma, June, and Felipe. 

4. I’m perplexed by the lack of hype and publicity for the movie. Nobody seems to have said much about it (not the press, critics, whatever) despite its star-studded cast. I felt John Cusack was hard pressed to hold a candle to supercelebrities Ken Watanabe, Gong Li, and Chow Yun Fat (powerful acting, riveting screen presence… deserving of their pan-continental stardom). And to think they had to act under unideal conditions (the script was in a second language). Ken Watanabe and Gong Li, especially, I could literally not take my eyes off.

5. Whilst on the topic, the Weinstein Organization was supposedly hesitant to release the film in the West. From Unseenfilms.com: “It’s ultimately that they are balking at the fact that most people don’t like films with Asians in the lead. It’s sad but true, we in America simply won’t watch Asian films unless they are martial arts flicks or way out horror, and even then the audience for those is limited, since those two genres are looked down upon by many film goers. It’s sad. It really is. If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time you know that highlighting Asian films of note has been one of the driving forces behind it.”

6. Director Mikael Håfström went on to direct “The Rite” (2011) starring Anthony Hopkins. I remember my Catholic university encouraging us to watch this, even holding a premier attended by the exorcism practitioners in the Philippines.