27.5.11

Himalaya, Where the Wind Dwells

Synopsis:

Choe leaves Korea's civilised world and goes to Nepal. Still wearing his suit and urban shoes, he follows the lead of his guide, who is showing him the way to a seemingly endless journey, but eventually they arrive in an isolated village where he stays at a family's place, completely isolated from the outer world and even in a communicational sense as the only person who can really communicate with him is a little boy with his broken English.

Short Review:

Long scenes without music, just scenery shots, beautifully shot moments...simple yet so strikingly deep.
I enjoyed this film very much, indeed, albeit some scenes seemed a bit draggy, yet it was still worth watching the silence and the beauty of nature that is so eminent in spite of the silence, but it's as if this film was talking even without one word being pronounced. Beautiful.

Chicken Heart: a must watch

Synopsis:
Iwano earns his money by letting drunk salarymen box with him for money, he's a so called punch bag. He has two strange friends, Asada, who is remodelling a yacht, stealing random things from strangers, while Maru, who is very superstitious has to get a new job because his family hat business is failing, his new job is to solicit bald men on the street to sell hairpieces, but of course there's a risk involved in this, that the potential customers could take this personal and attack him, which makes his job quite scary and unpleasant ignoring the fact that he only gets paid when he gets a contract signed. To put it short, their life is a complete mess.

Short Review:

This film is  very special in that, that it puts random things from life in a very humorous way forth. I had to laugh quite much because of some scenes. It's somehow an intelligent humour, you know, not the kind that makes you laugh because it's so stupid, no, this is more like it makes you laugh because it's so..intrinsic, so unclear but clear at the same time. You'll maybe realise it, too, once you watch it -- the scene with the cactus was quite ironic.

Absolutely recommended!

3.5.11

Gidam or the scary marriage between the soul of a dead woman and a living man

Epitaph or A Strange Story (기담) is a film I always avoided because whenever I saw it somewhere it had this really bad poster that made me think that this is going to be just an other stupid horror flick, but surprisingly, no, I was wrong. The story tells three storylines that take place in 2-3 days interval, skipping back and forth, trying to, probably, confuse the viewers or to make it not so one dimensional and more interesting, and really it did its job.
Film PosterSynopsis
Dr. Park Jeong Nam receives an old photo album from a hospital where he used to work as an intern when he was still young. This album leads him to remember all the past events related to the given hospital. Having lost his parents at a young age he grew up in a foster family and his foster mother already decided upon her daughter’s and foster son’s future in matters of marriage. As soon as her daughter would be back from Japan they were supposed to marry, in the meantime Jeong Nam has to take care of a dead girl in the morgue who committed suicide with her boyfriend and whose body was completely frozen. Jeong Nam feels strangely attracted to the body, which would only mean his own demise.

SPEC - first episode impression

So, yesterday evening I finally managed to watch the first episode of SPEC, a Japanese mystery series about two detectives of opposite genders that are trying to unravel mysterious cases where seemingly unnatural powers are involved.SPEC poster
Synopsis
The first episode begins with the questioning of the main male character Sebumi, who was involved in a special police forces action, where a colleague died. Sebumi is being accused of having shot him, but of course Sebumi claims that this is not true, that the colleague Shibuma got shot by his own bullets. Of course, nobody believes him and thus he loses his elite position in the police and is moved to the disrespected section, the one that tries to solve unsolved “mysterious” crimes…
Hopes
It’s pretty much entertaining, has a bit of a Conan flair to it. It really does seem promising, so lets hope that the second episode will be even better ;-)

15.2.11

Instrumental Hip-Hop

I have been recently, partially also thanks to marroann, checking out a musical genre that I've been trying to avoid in the past years, because whenever I heard its utterances somewhere on MTV, or any other music channel for that matter, I felt disgusted, mainly because of the primitive and perverse lyrics that were floating along with the beats, destroying their sometimes beautiful nature, and not only that, but also the video accompaniment, where sex hungry female asses were shaking to the beats, big men with big glittery and golden chains hanging down their throat unto their XXXXL shirts, reaching their crotch which is thanks to the pants that hang one meter below normal body proportions somewhere on the ground, standing behind those huge asses shaking in the same rhythm -- all that was synonymous with hip-hop in my brain. No, I didn't bother much to check out whether there's also an indie, or classy scene among hip-hoppers. Yes, that's entirely the fault of my shallowness and laziness, but I think any decent hip-hoppers and producers will realise that they can also send partial thanks to all those fat and ugly, well-hung machos from the "Bronx" for that abominable reputation that is attributed to hip-hop, rap, and so on. 

I thought that good hip-hop and rap is DEAD thanks to those self-pitying golden-teethed beings with bodies full of bullet scars that is probably supposed to show how much they've suffered for being from the Ghetto. 
But look at that, it's NOT dead, and never was. It's just that it never received the attention it actually deserves. While mentally challenged hip-hop producers are monopolising the hip-hop industry with their bad taste, there are actually, in the shadows, people who are striving to bring out the best and most touching tunes out of their musical minds. Kudos to them! While I can't consider myself a hip-hop connaisseur, it seems that in the USA (music monopole) those talented and beautiful minds would have no chance at all, while in Japan their music has been greatly appreciated and promoted, outselling US productions. Thank You, dear Japan, for having given me the chance to meet fabulous tunes by Nujabes, NOMAK, Michita, Raujika, Tsunenori, Smooth-J, LEMS, Blazo, and many more!

Here a few tasters: