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E D I T O R I A L
Flickering Lights in a Dark Room
Tuesday, September 25, 2001 — The horrific images from the recent terrorist attacks on New York and Washington still continually rewind and replay in my mind whenever I watch anything on television. I spent four days away from movies and television, yet sitting down again to watch a movie, even an escapist entertainment like Stephen Chow's likable blockbuster Shaolin Soccer, was very difficult to do.
Since September 11, I have watched two Hong Kong films — From the Queen to the Chief Executive and Shaolin Soccer. Both are very good, albeit quite different in their goals and methods of reaching out to their respective audiences. I also watched the first half of Kikijuro, Takeshi Kitano's gentle film, and will probably finish that up this week. Beyond that, it's hard to decide what to pop into the DVD player. A whole lot of films that I ordered from HK retailers have stacked up, but I find little desire to watch "Girls With Guns" flicks or installments in the "Young and Dangerous" series or several Milkway Image productions that I had long desired to catch up with. And I can only watch a limited number of romantic or tender comedies at a time.
I feel like The Grasshopper. That's not a reference to the 1970's American TV series "Kung Fu," it's the name of a 1970 film starring Jacqueline Bisset as a Canadian small-town girl who hitchhikes to Los Angeles to live with her boyfriend and have babies. She quickly becomes bored and the film can barely keep up with her as she jumps from boyfriend to boyfriend, Vegas showgirl to kept woman, Jim Brown to Joseph Cotten, and on and on. The plot makes you dizzy and is fairly ridiculous. Yet it barely stops to breathe, and so reminds me of certain HK films with their relentless pace and shameless desire to entertain — and distract.
Movies become a way of life for some people; a means of passing time for others; and a method of dealing with pain for still others. I'm reminded of Sullivan's Travels (1942; directed by Preston Sturges), in which Joel McCrea plays a successful Hollywood director of meaningless comedies who wants to make a serious, important drama called "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Eventually he witnesses the power of laughter on a group of downtrodden men and reconsiders the value of escapist entertainment.
The one HK film that roughly parallels that experience for me was Chungking Express. Before, my exposure to HK films had been limited to Jackie Chan and John Woo. The first segment of Chungking Express was moody with just a glimmer of wistful hope. The second segment simply latched onto my heart and held on tight until the final explosion of discreetly painted joy. The ending always makes me feel like dancing (as long as the room is dark).
Maybe I should find a copy and watch it again . . .
Site news: Hope to post reviews of From the Queen to the Chief Executive and Shaolin Soccer by Thursday. I have just a handful of new releases left to review, until I can clear some space on my credit cards. Hope I can, because a lot of interesting new stuff is about to come out, or just did, including Full-Time Killer, The Legend of Zu, Love on a Diet, Born Wild, and Gimme Gimme.
As an experiment I've expanded the upcoming release news to include Hong Kong releases, but the news is rarely available more than a few days in advance, seems to change every day, and is not always 100% reliable. I'm not sure how useful it will be. In any event, it's compiled by checking the web sites for DVD Shelf, DDD House, and other based-in-HK sites.
The U.S. cinema release of Iron Monkey may have been pushed back an additional week, from October 5 to 12. Conflicting reports are circulating. The official web site looks pretty nifty. No matter when it's out, I'm there!
As always, please feel free to e-mail me your comments, whether positive or negative.peter
Editor / Reviewer / Webmaster
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