Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I’m with Harry on this. I love festival season. It’s like one interesting report after another, all giving us the heads up on stuff that the rest of us won’t be able to get a peek at for weeks or months or, in some cases, years. Rotterdam in particular sounds like a blast, and here’s Mr. Tough Guy with today’s report on what he’s seen...
Hey Harry,
Back again with a quick update from Rotterdam, Yesterday I saw The Mad Fox, which is one of the movies by Director Uchida Tomu. Uchida Tomu is a well known director in Japan, but is little known outside of Japan, Just visit his IMDB page and you’ll see that his films have one thing in common, almost no info and all are waiting for 5 votes to get a rating, This is mostly because subtitled versions of his films haven’t been available before, though this year a total of 7 of his films are shown in Rotterdam. Yesterday I was lucky enough to catch Koiya koi nasuna koi (The Mad Fox).
The Mad fox tells the story about the successor of a fortuneteller that is driven mad after his masters adopted daughter, and lover is killed, he returns to his lover’s village where he finds her twin sister, but ends up marrying a fox who has taken the disguise of his former lover’s twin sister. The movie starts as a traditional period piece set in feudal Japan but as the movie progresses and the main character goes mad the movie becomes heavily stylized and starts borrowing elements from the stage, as well as including animation, kabuki and butoh. Overall it was a very enjoyable yet unique experience; the style of the movie is incredible, though there’s one scene in the middle of the movie where the main characters starts dancing in a field of yellow flowers against a yellow backdrop that I personally could have lived without. I’m seeing another one of his movie later this week and even if it’s only half as good as this one I should be in for a good time.
This morning I saw paradise Girls, the second feature by Dutch-Chinese director Fow Pyng Hu. The director was present for an introduction and a Q&A; He started by saying he was glad that his friends and family liked this movie since they didn’t like his first movie “Jacky”. The movie tells three separate stories, each one about an Asian Girl, and her relationship with a man. The first tells the story of the Japanese Miki and her relationship with her Dutch boyfriend, the second tells the story of the Dutch-Chinese Pei Pei and her relationship with her father, and finally the last story tells the tale of Shirley and the relationship with her son Lok Lok. All three stories come together in the end as all three girls end up on the same tropical beach.
Apart from some technical mistakes, in a few scenes you can see the mikes on screen, the movie was better then I had expected, while the stories are simple and maybe a bit cliché they are excellently done and give a great view on Asian lives and culture. After the screening the director returned to answer some questions, and here follow some of the things he mentioned: The last of the three stories is longer cause it deals with some heavier material, namely the sick son of the main character, and it needed to be set up correctly, while the first is shortest cause it’s a lot lighter in tone and is about something we can all recognize.
The boyfriend in the first story is Dutch but for the story the boyfriend could just as easily have been an American or from any other country. The reason he is Dutch is because most of the money for the film came from the Netherlands, so they spend that money in the Netherlands, though the second story which was set in the Netherlands is actually mostly shot in Germany with German money.
Mr Tough Guy
Thanks, man. Nice work.
"Moriarty" out.
