Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I’ve seen NATURAL CITY, and I’ve got all three of the INFERNAL AFFAIRS movies sitting on one of my shelves, ready to be viewed in one massive marathon as soon as I can find the time. I’ve never heard of the third film, but it sounds cool, and I’ll definitely try to track it down.
For now, let’s see what this guy thought:
Hi –
A couple more SIFF reviews, dunno if you'll wanna run these.
"Natural City" - A Korean take on the Philip K. Dick universe, with a huge budget and some really cool (and also some really lame) production values. Basic premise, a renegade cyborg is running around Seoul, and the MP (Military Police) have to take him down. They have really cool but apparently useless uniforms and gear. R, the finest MP of the bunch, is straying further and further from the pack as he falls in love with a dancing cyborg who's about to expire, though he tries valiantly to save her by programming her memory/personality into someone with a compatible DNA composure.
This is a Really Stupid Film. It starts out dark and cool and interesting, but eventually gets bogged down in overhyped melodrama (complete with operatic Korean pop music and a bizarre "dancing underwater" love sequence) and cheap action set pieces that seem like the best stuff from the Bourne Identity, Matrix and Daredevil all rolled into one. A ton of editing cliches, old and new, are employed en masse here (deep blue color correction, bullet time, jerky slow-motion, smooth slow-motion rapidly changing back into regular and then faster speeds, and back again, etc) and it never really amazes. One pro is that the movie is well-paced and very interesting stylistically, however, it fails in its attempt to bring anything new to the soap opera/martial arts genres of filmmaking. Most neo-noir stories don't permit this kind of weepiness. The film is hilarious in its own lameness, though, and so I would recommend it as a fun movie to watch with a bunch of sarcastic friends and probably some beer.
"El Alamein: The Line Of Fire" - Also amazing, this is an Italian antiwar picture about the Fucked-Up-The-Ass situation of a ragtag, slowly diminishing platoon of soldiers who were basically posted on the outskirts of the Sahara desert and neglected by their government. Specifically, it's about a naive collegiate volunteer who joins their division, and has his idyllic image of war dismantled immediately. It sounds a lot like a ton of other movies, but I still really loved this one. The performances are great, and even though the movie gets a little touchy-feely at parts, the harsh reality of war and the desolation of the desert immediately bring the audience back into their discomfort zone. The movie is also beautifully filmed.
"Infernal Affairs" - I wish the Weinsteins would can Martin Scorsese's plan to remake this instant classic and just pull out all the stops in the widest domestic release possible, because I think this is the best (non-Brazillian) crime movie I've seen since "Se7en". Obviously, my wish is a pure fantasy, but the fact remains. This is a brilliant piece of movie. (Note: On the Miramax website it DOES list Infernal Affairs as a coming attraction, but I doubt it'll go any bigger than the arthouse circuit.)
To be honest, the first half hour or so is a little convoluted, and I lost focus on the characters. However, a series of outstanding plot twists, and some really taut dialogue immediately regained my attention. The acting by Andy Lau, Tony Leung and Eric Tsang is amazing, and the story arc is perfect. I haven't seen either of the sequels, so I don't know how this works interconnectedly with the other parts of the trilogy, but I guarantee as a stand-alone crime picture this one is aces. A few of the same qualms I had with Natural City apply (color correction, lame slow-motion, operatic music, this time in Chinese) but Infernal Affairs is absolutely a deeper, more subtle, visceral achievement. Now I'm just going to list off a bunch of stereotypical adjectives usually applied to movies like this, because they all work: crackling, taut, high-octane, pulse-pounding, slick, and gritty. "Infernal Affairs" is like Greek tragedy, and reminded me of something a more literate John Woo would have made before he sold his soul to Nicolas Cage and Ben Affleck.
Thanks, man. Nice work.
"Moriarty" out.
