I've been spending more time at the cinema and on dvd recently, well, sometimes when you realize you are at the lower point of your life, and everything you do end up in vain, the best thing to do is probably just to sit back and enjoy a few movies and read some books to enrich your life, right?

It's interesting that the last few movies I saw are all very good, I mean, usually I only get one good film out of nine or ten I see in a row, but somehow the last six I saw are all not bad.


1. United Red Army (dir: Koji Wakamatsu)

It's a docu-drama about the radical Japanese leftist student organization in the 70s and the outrageous Asama-Sanso incident. Listed as the no. 3 domestic movie of 2008 by the Japanese kinema journal (right after the oscar winning "departures" and my favorite "all around us", followed by "tokyo sonata" and "still walking"), i think it shows a really cruel yet sincere depiction of the red army. Although the film is more than 3 hours long and most of the scenes happen in merely a couple small cottages in the mountain and a holiday lodge, it never makes you feel boring as the drama is so absorbing and performance is so engaging.


2.  City of Sadness (dir: Hou Hsiao-hsien)

City of Sadness is always my favorite HHH's film. In terms of artistic achievement, perhaps "the Puppetmaster" is a better film that I admire more, but talking about viewing pleasure, this is definitely the one I enjoy most. Still remember the first time I saw it was many years ago in a cinema class, but I wasn't really a HHH fan at that time, so it didn't leave much an impression, later when I gotta learn to appreciate his cinema, I only gotta buy the dvd (which unfortunately is full screen and the image quality is quite mediocre), so I really felt great that I could see it again on the big screen... oh and btw, this is the 20th anniversary of "city of sadness", not sure if there's any special screening in taiwan too?


3. Onibaba (dir: Kaneto Shindo)
 
This is a really old Japanese period thriller from the 60s. I personally took advantage of a criterion dvd sale and this is one of the dvd I bought. Shindo's independent films are always interesting, what I like about his films is his rich cinematic language, he's always able to convey his ideas with very limited use of dialogue and through careful framing, composition and lighting, symbolic images and inventive use of music, there are so much to learn from his films. Onibaba is definitely one of his best, sure the dialogue-free "naked island" is another one shouldn't be missed...


4. The Children are watching us (dir: Vittorio De Sica)

I always enjoy De Sica's films, "Bicycle Thieves", "Umberto D" are all so unforgettable, and so I ordered this dvd as well. Even though it isn't part of his neo-realism series (this film was made during the war, before the neo-realism movement), but still, the story and acting are very good, just like his later films, it's told from the perspective of a kid (which somehow reminds me of Ozu's films), it tells how the failure of a marriage can impact the heart of the children, well not exactly anything new, but I dunno, it just left a very very strong impression on me after viewing.



5. Nigt and Fog (dir: Ann Hui)

I just saw it on DVD. Another nice drama by veteran director Ann Hui. The only complaint is that Simon Yam is too smart looking as the fuked up father, I know his performance is very good, but still...Anyway, I like the film, but then I like "The Way We Are" even more...



6. The Message (dir: Chen Kuo-fu, Gao Qun-shu)

Very entetaining commercial film, better than I expected. The beginning setup reminds me of Kindaichi a bit. Acting is superb, Zhou Xun, Li Bingbing, Zhang Hanyu and even Alec Su are dynamic, the only weakness is probably the ending, which is too explanatory and preachy...


As I said, I just ordered a box of criterion dvd, films still waiting to be viewed are:
Mouchette (dir: Robert Bresson)
Empire of Passion (dir: Nagisa Oshima)
2 or 3 Things I know about her (dir: Jean Luc Godard)
Patriotism (dir: Yukio Mishima)
Salo (dir: Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Bergman Island

Hopefully all of them would be good too...

Now I am stil thinking if I should make a second order, considering if I should get the John Cassavetes five films box set.......but I am going broke....

I am just wondering if people actually pay attention to the number of friends on their facebook or the number of fans/friends on AnD? Say if the number suddenly decreases by one or two, can they actually find out who is missing?

I mean, if you only have a handful people on your list, it is perhaps very easy to figure out who is missing, but if you are talking about 100+ people, I really doubt you can find out who that is.

And a follow-up question would be, why is this person missing? Yeah i know sometimes it is just the glitch of the program, and usually they'd reappear sometimes later, but for some, it seems apparent that they are simply gone. why?

Perhaps these online fan/friends numbers are purely some virtual digits and losing one or two probably won't mean a big deal to a lot of people, thinking about that, what is more horrible is probably that in real life, some people around you just seem to suddenly disappear from your life, leaving no trace at all. There is no way you can find them, and what is worse, it is someone who used to be very close to you and all of a sudden, you don't even know why he/she chooses to disappear from you...

I just read Daniel Chan's blog about his "good Samaritan" story, it kinda raised a lot of questions for me about the nature of our compassion...

 

I am not at all surprise to hear about his story, I mean, even in the 80~90s when I grew up (in HK), it has always been like that. Does it mean Hong Kong people are really apathetic? But when you look back on the charity events in recent years, like the sichuan earthquake  donation drive and other similar events, Hong Kong people have always been praised as the most generous donors and for shows like "tung wah" charity night", the amount of donation breaks record every year... so it is quite ambivalent to accuse HK people  of lacking conscience while we're almost never late to offer help when necessary.

 

So it seems clear and safe to say that HK people are never short of sympathy for the poor. So instead of directing the concern to conscience or compassion, what else should be blamed?

 

Is it because people are just too BUSY to care? I mean, you are busy, I am busy, everyone is busy, but is it a good excuse? When people say they are too busy to care about this or that, I always want to ask them, are you busier than the president or premier of a country? For instance, how come even the US President can take a break once in a while or bring his kids to relax a bit, but you can't even spare a minute to care about your love ones, or even simply make a call or return an email when they really need you? Ask yourself this question: do you remember how many times you forget your love ones' birthday? How many times you miss a gathering with them? How many times you forget (intentionally or not) to call back or write back a friend/family members? And for all of these, your primary reason is  because of your so called busy schedule  (or the truth is, it's simply out of ignorance)? No, I don't mean to make this a lecture, in fact I also make the same mistake once in a while... what I really want is for people who always use "busy" as an excuse to ignore people around them to think...

 

We are not lack of conscience, we are not lack of compassion, then what do we really lack? Actually I don't know. There might be millions of reasons. While I believe technology does actually alienate people more than bringing us closer (think about how much you value an email than an actual written letter you received in the past and the tendency of you responding to an email, and for your reference, the probability of me getting an email response is 10:1, that means, I usually only get 1 email response for 10 emails I send, and these are not emails I send to strangers, most are friends, good friends), which interestingly is against its original purpose,  there probably should be more than that. What is it? you tell me...

 

Going back to the original question, one interesting yet sarcastic point to make is that, we tend to help people far and far away, we'd give our money to them, show our compassion to them, even though these are people we haven't met before, but when someone is right in front of us, we just leave no sympathy and choose to ignore him/her... So in some senses, it means the closer someone is to us, the more we tend to ignore him/her... and trust me, this makes regret. people just regret when it is too late to show their love to those they care (just like the song 愛得太遲).. and it is sad but true to see that even though we know it, we still tend to repeat this mistake over and over again.

 

If we can't even love those near us, can we still call ourselves compassionate??

(sorry for the lack of structure of the writing, it's just quick and disorganized thoughts)

Cinespot on Facebook!


Some of you may know that apart form making films, I am also a writer and admin of Cinespot.com, a bilingual Asian cinema website. I just set up a fan page for Cinespot.com on Facebook. The purpose of the page is to connect friends and fans of Cinespot. If you happen to be a supporter or reader of Cinespot, please join the fan page.

Actually, I am kinda new to this fan page thing, so I am still wondering what can be done through the page. If you have any good idea, let me know. As of now, I think it provides a good venue for our reader to discuss films. I am also trying to get the writers of Cinespot to join in, so if you have comments or questions about specific writers' reviews or articles, you can talk to them directly.

Since Cinespot sometimes get gift offer from film company, the fan page can be used for giveaway offer in the future as well... anyway, in the mean time, just join and see how many fans we can gather!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cinespot/194672246367

部分朋友可能都知道﹐我除了拍短片外﹐也是雙語電影網站Cinespot.com的作者和管理員。近日我剛為Cinespot.com在Facebook架設了一個Fan Page。這個Page的目的是希望加強和Cinespot讀者及朋友們的聯繫與交流。如果您是Cinespot的支持者或讀者﹐記謹立即加入喇!

話說回來﹐對於Fan Page這個玩意﹐其實我仍處於摸索的階段。究竟能夠透過Fan Page做什麼﹐也在研究中。目前來說﹐我想這提供了一個不錯的互動平台﹐讓Cinespot的多位作者和讀者交流電影心得。所以如果您對Cinespot的文章有何意見或問題﹐也可在Fan Page的討論版提出。

另外﹐Cinespot不時會獲得一些和電影公司合作送禮的計劃﹐或許也可利用Fan Page幫忙籌劃送禮吧。無論如何﹐有興趣的讀者或一直支持Cinespot的朋友﹐歡迎立即加入Fan Page。

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cinespot/194672246367

me with other fellow filmmakers from the short film program

I'm just back from Philadelphia, had a great time there looking around and attending the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival.

I spent a day traveling around the downtown, visiting places like the city hall, Chinatown, Museum of Art (the Rocky steps), UPenn and more... Check the photo album I just uploaded for pics.

The film festival was great, it's a growing fest (this year was the 2nd one) but everyone was passionate about the screenings and cared about the films, so I definitely enjoyed it!



Rocky is like legend in Philly..


You can still feel his influence today, these kids're running up the steps, imitating Rocky...