Millennium Mambo 千禧曼波 (Qianxi manbo) [2001] • Taiwan

I can only imagine that at some point Hsiao-Hsien Hou found himself with a mad crush on Shu Qi and decided to make a film for her, or of her ... or to her ... or something. People can quibble all day long on whether Hou's anti-cinema springs from genius or pretention, but a film like this ought to be able to escape such discussion because it's really nothing more than a love poem to, or of, or for ... or something ... a beautiful actress. This is a Shu Qi vehicle from top to bottom and the film rests on her shoulders, in her hair, on her lips, in her eyes, on her hips, and everywhere else about her über-photogenic self. Marry that to the fact that one of the best cinematographers in the business, Mark "Ping Bing" Lee is shooting this film and you're going to end up with gorgeous. Add a contemporary throbbing techno soundtrack and you get a hypnotic, slow, empty, and depressing film that's pretty close to cool.

I happen to think Shu Qi is a fine and very intelligent actress. I also like slow, empty, and depressing arthouse films if the characters appeal to me so everything works out as far as I'm concerned. If you don't like Shu Qi you probably won't like this film. There's no real plot to speak of and only a thin story about a woman who likes to hang out in nightclubs, smokes a LOT, does drugs and has crummy sex with her loser boyfriend, meets a gangster, loses a gangster ... fade to black. Awesome.

★★★★

Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou
Starring: Shu Qi, Jack Kao, Chun-hao Tuan, Yi-Hsuan Chen, Jun Takeuchi
IMDb
Beyond Hollywood

If You Are the One (Fei Cheng Wu Rao) [2008] • China

This is [Edit: was] the highest grossing film of all time in China. Hard to believe, as it's not really a remarkable film, except for Shu Qi, she's remarkable. When she asks her date if he believes in love at first sight he responds "I loved the first sight of you!" It's a very pleasant film. Funny, slightly quirky, it's an intimate study of two people's vulnerability, and thoroughly Chinese. I'm sure some of the humor was lost on me due to the fact I don't speak Mandarin. And Ge You's Mandarin accent is as thick as syrup! He does a great job playing a forty-something guy who's made his lot in life selling zany inventions and now has a very specific set of criteria he's looking for in a mate to settle down with. This is a great 'date' movie.

★★★★

Forest of Death (Sum yuen) (2007) • Hong Kong • Danny Pang

It's no secret that the Pang Bothers aren't big on script talent, but good lord, this was embarrassing.

A rape/murder takes place in a forest that is infamous as a mecca for suicide. A botanist is researching the ability of plants to communicate with people. His girlfriend is a tabloid TV reporter sensationalizing the ghostly aspects of the forest. A detective, investigating the rape/murder case, believes that plants can act as witnesses so she gets the botanist to bring his equipment to the forest and sets up a re-enactment of the crime where the plants will act as lie detectors.

I'm not kidding.

I'm not necessarily against inadequate stories but the hilarity of this one infiltrates everything else to the point that it becomes impossible to take it seriously. The actors don't seem dedicated to their characters, nothing appears genuine here. I love the Pangs and think they often make engrossing films, sometimes despite the stories, but this one is just too in-your-face dumb.

★

The Eye 2 (Gin gwai 2) (2004) • Hong Kong • Pang Bros.

Typical Pang Brothers: inventive camera-work, thoughtful sound design, well constructed scenes, a few jolts, and a story line that mixes fantasy, flashbacks, hallucinations and dreams with some present tense reality and impossible events (like jumping pregnant off a building roof and ending up with only a few scratches and a healthy baby). Call it a script.

No secret that the Pang Brothers have their own personal logic and/or they can't be bothered with cohesiveness to their stories as long as there's a general thrust of somebody doing something questionable so that the scaries can come after them until they fess up in some ambiguous way. I don't care. They do everything else well enough for me to enjoy their films.

A big pleasant surprise is anorexic super-model Shu Qi nails her part. She is beautiful and convincing.

There is no reason for this film to be called EYE 2 except for capitalizing on the success of the original EYE which dealt specifically with a blind person getting an eye transplant from ... drum roll please ... someone who didn't die right--the basis of most Asian horror--so they haunt until a remedy is found.

I'm pretty sure Shu Qi has 20/20 vision in this movie, but she is messing around with a married guy which causes his wife to commit suicide (she doesn't die properly) and comb her hair over her face, like a good Asian horror girl should, so she can effectively haunt the nasty mistress who is pregnant with her cheating husband's child.

The MIA husband of some other pregnant girl also haunts our heroine for some reason. I dunno.

They don't show it but at one point Shu Qi practically bites the face off some other guy. That was fun to think about.

★★★★