Ashes of Time Redux is playing The World of Wong Kar Wai at Lincoln Center

 

This review is of the original cut. REDUX played the New York Film Festival several years ago  and is a rethink of the film that plays slightly better but I realize that I still feel the same way about both versions of the film 

Martial Arts film as spaghetti western.

Wong Kar-Wai makes a martial arts film that is a visual wonder-though its mostly close ups-and a bit hard to decipher because the story is told in what could be generously said to be a fragmented style (and has a great number of close ups). Its has something to do with two friends who meet every year to drink, wine that makes you forget your past, revenge, another swordsman and some other things that I didn't quite pick up. I'm not sure what to make of the film. The dialog is really great, but at the same time walks that knowing sort of edge that makes me wonder what Kar-Wai was up to. Apparently breaking down since in the middle of making this he wandered off to clear his head by making Chungking Express. I liked it as pieces because I can get my hands around the pieces but as a whole I'm not to sure of the plot-if its good-if it means anything.

Kar-Wai has cut the film once more which from reports seems to be close to the original cuts with a few changed shots, some image manipulation and a slight alteration in music. I have no idea if this will improve or detract from the film which some people see as a a masterpiece. Some things I've read have tried to put the film into a context based upon Wong Kar-Wai's other films, implying that if you've seen other films by the same director this film will be easier to digest. Maybe, but I'm not too sure since it plays differently than any of his other films (and I've seen most of them).

I don't know. I'm going to have to ponder this.

In The Mood For Love is playing The WORLD OF WONG KAR WAI at Lincoln Center

Wong Kar Wai's visually stunning romance follows two people as they grow closer and closer as they hash out whether their spouses are having an affair.

Forget it, the film doesn't do what you expect. It doesn't act like you expect, its a film that is ultimately unique and unto itself...its a love story where the lovers really never do anything but talk.

I really like this film. It was my first trip into the realm of Wong Kar Wai and it came at the insistence of Eden who really liked the film. She was right to insist that I see the film since its a film that really helped me break down my expectations about what films should do. I should mention that I had to try to watch this film for the first time on DVD and was annoyed by it's refusal to do anything other than what it was doing.Why aren't these people getting together, why is the film framed the way it is , why is there an occasional insistence on form over content? I didn't know and was fighting it at every turn. Then I talked to Eden who told be to let all my expectations go and just watch the film. Let it be and I would be surprised.

I did and I was.

In it's way this is one of the most romantic films you'll ever see. Why is it that the unrequited or unacted upon romances are the sexiest? My guess would be is that you get to have all of the slow burn and chances to show interest with out all of the smarmy kissy kissy stuff.

For me this is one of those movies where I keep thinking this is the sort of emotion I'd want to feel in my relationship. Its a damn near perfect romance.

In the special features of the Criterion DVD are several deleted scenes, one of which is a sequence which was set many years after the fact where our two near lovers meet again. Its a great sequence, but when it's done you'll be very happy that they left it out of the film. It's not that the sequence is bad, its quite good, it's just that the sequence radically alters everything that happened before and makes a great film an okay one.

As it stands now this is a great film. If you want a real romance with real people give this film a shot, it will amaze you.

The theatrical cut of Wong Kar Wai's GRANDMASTER is playing at The World of Wong Kar Wai at Lincoln Center

This is the review of the cut version GRANDMASTER that played American theaters a few years back

I originally saw the original cut of Wong Kar Wai's THE GRANDMASTER back in May. I was haunted by the film and posted some thoughts on the film (you can read them here).  The Weinstein Organization picked up the film for US release and after making some trims for the International market Wong Kar Wai altered the film further for US release.  Anyone who saw the original cut was flabbergasted. David Ehrich wrote an excellent piece on the differences between the versions which inflamed things farther.(His piece is here)

Several of the Unseen crew saw the film when in played at New York's Museum of the Moving Image and liked the film (though none had seen the original version. So I figured everything was okay. They all suggested that I see the film on the big screen...

Earlier tonight I made a trip to a multiplex and I saw the American cut for myself and my feeling is very mixed.

My reaction to the film is kind of akin to seeing the various versions of Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, if you don't know the full version, the shorter one comes across as an interesting mistake with lots and lots of things missing. Like the Leone film watching the American GRANDMASTER you kind of like whats there but you know that there is something missing and wrong about the way the film is done. Its clear that either an idiot put it together or stuff was chopped out.

I'm not going to argue which is the better version, the longer one is better. There is a simply lyric poetry to the longer cut that is completely missing from the shorter one. There is a hell of a lot more going on thematically as well. Or more simply put what the film is about differs depending upon which version you see.

The first thing you notice with the shorter version is that the sound mix is different. How the film sounds is completely different with some sequences losing the sound of the fighting/action and replaced by music, some of which seems different. The mere shift in sound makes the film play differently since we are in a different head space.

In trimming the film of some 25 minutes the look of the film has changed. There seems to be much more slow motion camera work. I haven't checked it but a couple of times sequences I remember as playing out in regular speed now are slowed way down. Where in the full version, while there is a great deal of it, it never over whelmed, here it does.

The second thing you notice is everything is explained in titles. We know are told who people are. We are told when we are. Events are explained, occasionally before we even enter a sequence, which makes the film less a dialog with the audience but more like being spoon fed. The narration in the film has been altered as well continuing the over explanation of everything.

The time frame of the film has been rejiggered. No longer does the film shift through time and space, rather the film tells the story, pretty much in order with the result that events that should move the audience don't.

The biggest change is that the film instead of being focused on the Grandmasters and their notions of martial arts and honor, and related matters, has now been changed into the simple tale of Ip Man and his relationship with Gong Er. Its a changed that removes several characters (Ip's wife disappears after one or two sequences) and it dumbs down Er's character to the point of being unrecognizable. In the original cut there is much more going on than the flirtation and the drive for revenge, there is a need to be the best and to be her father's daughter and successor. Almost all of that is gone. Actually they've altered the film so that there now really is a romance, where there really wasn't before.

Astondingly the Japanese are pretty much gone from the story. A large part of what happens in the long version depends on the Japanese and the war but now they are barely a factor. For all that happens it could be simple rivalry between schools not nations.

Actually what we have in the short version is the story of Ip mashed into the story of Er. Because so much or the original plotting is gone you have whole sections of the film where it's as if we are watching Ip's movie or Er's movie, there is no sense that they are really part of each other's story except for a small section where they meet and fight, the letter exchange (which plays here like a big WTF) and the final part of the film.

The short version is pretty much an arty version of a simple martial arts tale that we've seen any number of times before, namely the rise of a master.

And while the long version is infinitely better than the short-even if it will confuse some with the insistence to be poetic, the short version does kind of work on it's own terms.

There is a reasonably okay biography of Ip Man with in it (thanks in part to the frequent titles and altered voice over).

I do like that we get the years when events transpire. One of the problems with the longer version is that its not always apparent when things are taking place. Since we don't know things play out differently. Watching a couple of scenes in the shorter version (say the ones with Ip Man setting up his school) knowing the years the events take place makes it play differently than not.

The short version is also more or less just a straight forward martial arts film and not a meditation on anything more. All the poetry and much of the lyricism is gone. If you want just the fights then it's great, if you want more then it's not.

I would love to try and work out what the Weinstein's reasoning behind the trims are, I mean beyond the money, because they are frequently capable of giving American audiences things that they shouldn't like like silent movies, but at the same time they wreck Asian cinema with a wild abandon that's frightening. They wreck it and then wonder why people don't go to their versions...

...while The American GRANDMASTER isn't quite the normal Weinstein defacing of an Asian film, I don't think it accurately represents what Wong Kar Wai intended even if he did cut the film.

If you haven't seen the full version odds are you'll like (not love) the short version. If you've seen the full version skip it and move on to something else.

The original cut of Grandmaster is playing WORLD OF WONG KARWAI at Lincoln Center

(A note to start: This piece is my reaction to the original cut of the film. The film was trimmed for international release by Wong Kar Wai and then further trimmed and altered for American release thus removing some 25 minutes from it's original 130 minute run time. I will post when I see the American cut. For those wishing to know the differences I'm going to direct you here for David Ehrlich's excellent piece on the changes)

This isn't going to be a review as such, I'm going to let Eden or some of the others here at Unseen review the film (I'm not sure what I think of it) instead I'm just going to comment on some things that have struck me about the film.

When you first see the film, it's clear that the film is a Wong Kar Wai film. From the first frame to the last. Each image is carefully composed to the point of ridiculousness. Reality never looked this good, ever. This is a beautiful film that you could just play it as a moving work of art.

The trouble is that the film is so gorgeous that all of the tiny shots, flames, burning tobacco, dripping ink take precedence over the main story. I got frustrated by all of the little shots that distracted me from the human element. It wasn't until hours after the film had finished that I got past the small shit.

One of the most frustrating thing about the film is that the film is being billed as a film about the Yip man.... the trouble is that while he is a character in the film, he is not the main character. The main character is in fact the Zhang Ziyi character. She is the daughter of the master of the 64 Hands technique, and it's her journey that drives and shapes the final 100 minutes of the film. As the film stands now Yip man is merely a means into the story and a way of steering things around to the real character.

Watching the film for the first time I was frustrated and annoyed. Why spend ten years, as Kar Wai  had done, trying to make a film about a character only to push him aside? Per haps the change came in the editing which resulted in THE GRAND MASTERS becoming THE GRANDMASTER.

The film is very much like Andre Tarkovsky's ANDRE RUBLEV where the film is nominally about one character when in fact its about something else. Ultimately though unlike ANDRE RUBLEV, the film is ultimately titled correctly, it's just not titled in regard to the person we think it is.

The fights are masterful and in a way even more unreal than most other martial arts films. Think about the impossibly long train that travels behind the combatants in the final fight. There is also no rawness to the combat, it's all poetry as the men and women trading blows are seen to be partaking in the ART part of the martial arts

Some of the film vexes me. The opening battle in the rain is  incredible but what is it and why is it at the start. The fight promises a film that doesn't follow. Additionally the narration promises something that we don't see either, this is never really Yip man's story- even to the point where he sets up an office in order to teach martial arts the sequences have no real narrative point although they do end up acting as a Greek chorus to the main story.

How is the film? Taken on it's own terms and after careful consideration it's actually quite good, You have to get past the film not being a biography, and instead being an examination of philosophy- it's really about  who will be the successor of the Gong clan- and how the differences in philosophy will determine it. Yip man is merely a person outside of the battle. Yes he ends up anointed at one point, but even so  he disappears, and in the course of the film found not to really be the one.

Is the film worth seeing? Yes it is,just go in completely open minded and expect whatever  the film throws at you and not what you may think the film is about

My Blueberry Nights is playing The World of Wong Kar Wai at Lincoln Center

 

This is a repost of a piece I did for IMDB before Unseen was ever started

Wong Kar-Wai's first English language film. Nora Jones stars as Elizabeth a young woman who walks into Jude Laws Cafe after her boyfriend dumps her. After several nights there eating blueberry pie she heads off on the road where she meets a cop in Memphis and a gambler in Nevada.

A decidedly uneven mix of a movie that doesn't add up to much. Kar-Wai's beautiful camera work produces some great images but his some time use of slow motion is over used to the point you'll want to hit the fast forward so you see something at normal speed. How the film is shot also produces an overly cramped sense. Much of the Jude Law sequence seems to have been shot through the windows of the café and from one angle. The Memphis sequence is like that as well.

The story about relationships rarely springs to life in more than in fits and starts. Its all moments not a whole film. I have no idea why Elizabeth goes traveling other than as an excuse to meet the people we meet. It fragments the film and takes us away from the most interesting thing in the film the chats with Jude Law.

The cast is good with the up and down Natalie Portman in up mode as a gambler who meets Norah Jones (fair at the start but gets better as it goes) in Nevada and travels around with her. Rachel Weisz as the wife of the Memphis cop is far from English herself as a woman with a thick southern accent.

The joy of the film is the music. This has a stunning soundtrack that drives the film when the writing lets everything else drift. I kept going just to hear the music.

The weakest of Kar Wai's films I've seen. There is a good movie in here but it needs to be remade.(I'd love to see the Jude Law bits in a different context)