Wong Kar Wai’s only martial arts film was recently given a face lift and a re-release with hopes of finding this visual and creative assault on the mind that will keep you engaged and intrigued by the complex characters thrown on the screen.
Now first things first, this isn’t really a great martial arts film, as the action is quick and few and far between in the picture, and to add to the pending disappointment of an action junky, it is shot in a way that it is hard to tell what is going on exactly. But that is okay for everyone else, as the action is a nice mix into the great character study of the film, and it even adds more to the characters as it shows us who they are at their core. Broken up into 4 parts, the film is mainly narrated by Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung) is a hired killer living in the desert and we follow him through the four seasons each with a different person entering his life at this time and he tells us their story. Coming across his path are a delusional woman with split personalities, a “blind” swordsman who has come out to fight before he will no longer be able too, a young/reckless hired hand with a lot of skill but a need to harness it, and his good friend who visits at the same time every year. [Read more...]
Review: Ashes of Time Redux
Review: My Blueberry Nights
Wong Kar Wai makes his American debut with this sweet and very good little picture about love, finding it, losing it, and fighting it.
Elizabeth (Norah Jones) is down on her luck, her lover is with someone else, and worse she finds this out third party from a diner owner, Jeremy (Jude Law), that over saw them at his restaurant. Elizabeth informs her lover that her keys to his place are at Jeremy’s diner and that he can pick them up whenever he wishes. Jeremy adds them to a jar of other unclaimed keys and when Elizabeth comes back to see if the keys have been picked up or not yet, the two begin to bond over the stories of the keys and unwanted blueberry pie. The two form a sweet friendship before Elizabeth decides to hit the road as she tries to find herself.
In Memphis, she is stuck working two jobs as she tries to save up to buy a car for her travels and she befriends a local cop/drunk, Arnie (David Strathairn), who spends his lunches at the diner she works and drinking the night away at the bar she closes down. Arnie is in love with his wife, Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz), unfortunately she has moved on as he empties his sorrows in the bottle. [Read more...]
