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E D I T O R I A L
Sunday, November 26: The fantasy begins again
Another cool and rainy week highlighted by my first viewing of The Odd One Dies tonight. Also saw the American films Chicken Run (talk about your completely non-HK film!) and Gladiator, as well as spent time recuperating from the usual illnesses brought on by the approach of cooler weather.
As a fan of the Wallace and Gromit short subjects, it's difficult for me to resist the charms of claymation chickens and terrorizing farmers, so I loved Chicken Run.
Gladiator was brutal and too-reminiscent of Spartacus, but the lead performance by Russell Crowe was exciting and muscular -- he seemed to split the scenery whenever he appeared. The flashes of poetic imagery that director Ridley Scott wove into the film tended to temper the savagery. The musical score was outstanding - stirring and majestic without resorting to overt sentimentality. Overall not a film to enjoy -- how can you really say you "enjoyed" a movie that features men tearing each other to pieces as entertainment for the crowds?
Also started watching The Bride With White Hair again, this time listening to the commentary by director Ronny Yu. It occurs to me that I have never really been enthralled by fantasy films. In my early teen years I was captivated by science fiction - the stories and novels more than the cheap movies in that pre-Star Wars era. Personally, I liked stories that are tied (however tenuously) to reality, or an extrapolated reality. Out and out fantasy, sword and sorcery, never really appealed to me. The main reason I've explored HK fantasy films is because so many critically-acclaimed movies fall into this category. I still have a stubborn residual knee-jerk resistance to flying swordsmen and similar manifestations of the fantastic, but my resistance is gradually being eroded.
As usual, please feel free to send feedback, criticisms, etc.
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