Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with Albert lanier's wrap-up of the Hawaii International Film Festival. He reviews a few movies and the last is called THE GLAMOUROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI, a film I just saw here in Austin. It was my first exposure to "Pink Cinema" which is a sort of softcore level of films that apparently have a large audience in Japan. It's crazy weird. Lots of softcore sex, but coupled with philosophy conversations, bullets lodged in the main character's brain, George W. Bush's cloned finger (complete with the american flag painted on the nail) invading our main character as if she were Iraq. It's not a particularly good movie, but I can't say it wasn't entertaining. Anyway, here's Albert Lanier with his wrap-up!!!
HIFF FESTIVAL NOTES: FROM MADNESS TO SADNESS AND BEYOND
by Albert Lanier
The first weekend of the 25th annual Hawaii International Film Festival has just passed into history.
Thank Goodness.
Although I feel smooth and mellow as I write this, I never felt as tired covering HIFF as I have for the festival's first three days this year.
This may hark back to Wednesday, October 19-the day before the festival officially opened-when HIFF honored the great Chinese director Zhang Yimou who has helmed such now classic films as JU DOU, RAISE THE RED LANTERN, HERO and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The actual award-a Hawaiian spear that was glass encased and framed-was bestowed to the master filmmaker on Wednesday night at a Ballroom in Dole Cannery complex just a hop and skip from the Regal-owned Dole Cannery Theaters.
The award ceremony took place after a special screening of Zhang's NOT ONE LESS at 6:30 p.m. The audience then was invited upstairs to the ballroom where Zhang was feted.
The master filmmaker was deluged with digital camera wielding fans and onlookers who wanted autographs and-of course- pictures with the director.
I watched with some amusement and slight interest as the patient Zhang Yimou posed for pictures with attendees. I had already got a couple of photos with Zhang earlier that day when I sat down with him for an interview at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel from 5:15 to just after 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday then receded into Thursday, October 20, HIFF's opening day which started for me at 8:30 a.m. or so with the festival's annual press conference which featured a panel that included actress Bai Ling who was in town for Fruit Chan's THREE EXTREMES film DUMPLINGS which showed at midnight on Saturday,October 22nd at Dole Cannery, Director Kwon Jong-Kwan and actor Lee Ki-Woo of the opening night film SAD MOVIE, Members of the Golden Maile award (given to Best Feature and Documentary chosen from 10 overall nominees) Producer Teddy Zee and Korean Director Kang Je-Gyu (who helmed the smash hit SHIRI) and local filmmaker Anne Misawa who teaches at Hawaii's embryonic film school the Academy of Creative Media at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Zhang Yimou made a guest appearance at the press conference before departing for his flight to Japan for the Tokyo International Film Festival. I asked about what his cinematic influences were at Beijing Film Academy. Zhang replied through an interpreter that it was all but impossible to watch foreign films during the Cultural Revolution. All that was available filmically were the 8 plays.
I got to interview juror Kang Je-Gyu and Bai Ling after press con. Bai is infectiously fun and engaging to talk to. She gives you more for your money as an interview subject and is extremely talkative. Director Kang was not a highly talkative personality but nevertheless gave a fine interview.
Thursday night featured the World Premiere of SAD MOVIE and of course, the women in the audience broke out their digital cameras and swooned over star Lee Ki- Woo who also made a guest appearance at the Opening night party at Aloha Tower Marketplace as did hot actor Lee Byung-Hun causing a slight frenzy among the Korean and Japanese women on hand.
Friday, October 21st was the second day but the first full day of screenings and so I spent a productive day hopping from one multiplex theater to the next.
First up: Director Pang Ho-Cheung's BEYOND OUR KEN, a ridiculously self-serving dramedy about a waitress named Shirley (played by Hong Tao) who while working at her bar/restaurant meets Chan (Gillian Chung).
Chan has come to the restaurant to talk to Shirley about her firefighter boyfriend Ken (Daniel Wu).
It seems that Ken took nude photos of both of them together and posted them on a website HK SexLover.com. Fired from her schoolteacher job because of the photos, Chan wants Shirley to help her obtain the mpegs and digital photos.
Shirley quite logically balks at this. Why should I help you? Its certainly not her responsibility to help Chan
Still, Shirley finds herself drawn into a slightly madcap caper of sorts as she helps Chan stake out Ken's apartment and get inside.
There are obstacles. For one, Ken's grandmother lives with him and the only window for entry is into his apartment is when she empties the trash outside their flat.
Then, the old key the apartment doesn't fit so the two girls concoct a screwball plan which involves Shirley taking Ken to the movies and Chan heading getting Ken's Wallet along with the key and running like the dickens to find a key shop where a duplicate can be made.
I could go on but I don't want to because BEYOND OUR KEN is an exercise in cinematic self-indulgence and filmic pomposity. Pang takes this script with all the basic comedic plotting though leavened with some dramatic tension and feeling and tries to turn into a more profound film than it is.
This is especially apparent in his choice of music which mixes accordion music, classical and up-tempo pop in a vain effort to heighten and elevate the story and characters. Even when Chan takes chicken from a takeout place, put it on the plate and sticks it into the microwave to heat up, a mournful, elegiac piece of music is laid on the soundtrack. WHY? Is she heartbroken because she has to microwave chicken? Why try to elevate such a mundane moment when there is no need to?
And don't give me any of that underlying emotional residue shit, I'm not buying it.
BEYOND OUR KEN is actually well made, DP Charlie Lam does a fine job setting up the shots for Director Pang and the film's USUAL SUSPECTS like twist ending is not bad. When Pang doesn't get in the way of his story, he can do halfway credible job of directing. Also the performances by Gillian Chung and And Tao Hung are fine.
Still, BEYOND OUR KEN ends up a mediocrity. As Pang demonstrated in the puerile and moronic AV (which unfortunately happens to be playing at this festival this year), it is not enough for him to do a conventional narrative and genre picture, he has to play director games by trying to infuse the content with more gravitas than it has.
My advice to the director: save the drama for your mama.
Hany Abu-Assad's PARADISE NOW was the next film.
Winner of a couple of awards at this year's Berlin Film Festival. PARADISE NOW tells a powerful story about two Palestinian men, Khaled and Said, who are told one night they have been selected as suicide bombers for a mission inside Israel that will take place in a day or so.
Both men go through the rituals of such bombers: trying to make fierce video messages which will be sent to family and authorities, having their long hair cut off and mustaches and beards shaved off, standing still while explosives are taped to their chest.
They get into formal wear-blue suits-and are told that their cover story is that are going to a wedding. Most importantly they're not to be seen or to get caught. if that happens, they are to blow themselves up and hopefully take as many Israelis with them.
Khaled and Said are driven out to an area near a fenced off border. They make their over into Israel.
Something goes wrong. A car pulls up. Khaled and Said both hightail it out of there but the two separate. Khaled meets up with a member of resistance unit that planned the mission and Said is stuck in Israel.
It is at this point with the mission seeming;ly scotched that the story PARADISE NOW really kicks in and the film starts crackling with tension.
To say more would be to ruin PARADISE NOW, a lean, well directed drama made with clear storytelling economy. Director Hany Abu-Asad shows clear talent as he sticks to the essential narrative elements without shortchanging the implicit emotions surging throughout such as fear, anxiety and anger.
Part of the film success besides the crisp pacing and crackerjack editing is the film's script co-written by Abu-Asad along with Bero Meyer which has room for some political and social arguments but allow this to dilute the thriller-like structure of the story.
In the end, PARADISE NOW tells an emotionally expansive story within fairly well-defined and contained dramatic borders so well that it makes many films dealing with international political issues look long-winded and stem-winding by comparison.
Finally, Lodge Kerrigan's KEANE and Mitsuru Meike's THE GLAMOUROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI were the final films of the evening.
KEANE revolves around its major Character William Keane (played by Damian Lewis), a character on the margin obviously suffering from some sort of mental illness (possibly delusional) but who haunts the Port Authority Bus Terminal at the opening of the film taking a clipping and asking people if they seen a little girl.
We watch Keane's doing and his behavior: buying coke, having sex in the bathroom of a nightclub,making the rounds of small business asking if they have any work.
At the low-rent hotel where he staying. Keane meets Lynn, a woman with a seven year old girl named Kira. Lynn is having money problems and Keane gives her unsolicited $100 in order to help her out.
One day, Lynn knocks on Keane's door and asks if Keane can take care of her daughter for a few hours.
It is here that KEANE really gets interesting for it is clear that William is wrestling with personal and emotional demons and that Kira may represent an opportunity of sorts.
KEANE is a gritty, raw film aided immeasurably by its strong performance by lead actor Damian Lewis. Lewis trying provide the contours and the shape of William Keane not just portraying him as just a whacked out crazy but a man battling the detritus of pain and other emotional forces swirling inside him.
Director Kerrigan also takes a sort of Cinema Verite approach, using a lot of hand-held camera work and close ups. KEANE is not easy viewing for all but it is a good, effective little film that shows a ragged slice of urban humanity.
What is there to say about the GLAMOUROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI? If you like to see a fairly-well stacked Japanese woman climax sexually while having an intellectual discussion about Philosophy that this is the movie for you.
I won't ruin the fun (or is it horror?) of this movie. If you manage to see it, you will probably be forever altered...or just offended.
Either way, this is the only movie I've ever seen where the name Noam Chomsky is uttered as a turn on.
I know one thing: a lot of guys will hardly be able to contain themselves.
To view photos from HIFF's opening day press conference held on Oct. 20, click on this link!!!
(Caption error - Korean actor identified as Jung Woo-Sun is actually Lee Ki-Woo of SAD MOVIE and one of two Korean directors identified as Kang Je-Gyu is actually Kwon Jong-kwan, the director of SAD MOVIE.)
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