Taipei Exchanges (2010) @ 第36個故事

A junkyard cafe. That's Taipei Exchanges for ya.

At a glance:

Here's one of those dreamy Taiwanese movies I saw in Singapore a couple of years ago. Reportedly backed by the Taipei's tourism authorities, TV ad director Hsiao Ya Chuan's Taipei Exchanges a.k.a. 第36個故事 is a PG-rated fairy-tale approach to the troubled region's political projections on capitalism. If Au Revoir Taipei is exotic, then Taipei Exchanges is definitely quaint. In a movie where almost all if not most of the action (or rather inaction) unfolds in a cafe just like Kamome Diner (2006), we follow Doris (Kwai Lun Mei, Secret, 2007), an office girl who quits her job to start a cafe but finds the place turnin into a junkyard business due to elaborate exchange-only arrangements that serendipitously happen. Her slacker of a sister Josie (Lin Zai Zai) plays no small part in this barter bizarro, which somehow turns the place into a buzzin pitstop of peculiar camaraderie. There's also some romantic subplots mixed into the theme, like a man (Chang Han) who wants to trade bars of soap.

Bad news on the doorstep:

What the fuck are we gonna do with this place?

The gastronomic appeal of Taipei Exchanges starts wearing thin somewhere midway and the sisters' laments turn tiresome quickly, although they may not be trivial. The crux of the story is the interplay between the sisters (maybe even their disapprovin mother) and their conflictin values but this projection is far too weak and too cute to capture an audience that demands deeper drama.

Reminds me of:

Small cafes like Wondermilk in Uptown Damansara.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

It's a pretty picture alright - but the dreamy approach might just have been a tad too detached and loses us at the end. A recommended watch only for viewers who enjoyed Look For A Star (2009) more than A Place Of One's Own (2009).

Chantek (2012)

Love is blind... so fall in love with your Indonesian maid.

Pierre Andre keepin up appearances
with Henri Gundah Gulana (!!!)

At a glance:

I couldn't get enough of the shockin non-chemistry in Gerimis Mengundang (2012) the other day, so I thought I'd endure another awkward Indonesian-Malaysian pairin that has the Malaysian half out-acted by leaps and bounds. Chantek (2012) is a resurgent Pierre Andre's vanity project that is fatally flawed (by his own admission) about a Malaysian actor who falls in love with his Indonesian help under bizarre, comical and frankly, quite outrageous circumstances. Don't we all wish we were someone's son, eh? Movie came and went, to the tune of just RM 100,000 at the Malaysian cinemas, accordin to the FINAS jokers. It played for just 12 days. Yikes.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Wannabe moody movie star.
Twisted genius ooo...

Not content with his real life speech impediment, Pierre Andre plays a blind actor who develops a ridiculous sense of misogyny after an odd openin where he catches his lover (the nymphomaniac Zarina Anjoulie Lavocah) in bed with a cigar-chompin old man. His portrayal of a moody movie star is too self-absorbed and demandin for the audience, even before the introduction of his annoyin pondan manager (Chew Kin Wah in a cheesy gay role that must have Chinese homosexuals everywhere in disgust) or his titular Indonesian house servant Chantek (a resplendent Nurul Ekasari Rosihan Anwar). From there, it's Planet Plot Hole. Tell me if you actually make it to the twist.
Perennial wonderment:

This movie blinds me.
Really.

Funny how the director, scriptwriter and actor Pierre Andre apparently went to Indonesia to cast Nurul out of some 700 hopefuls but she ends up trumpin him in the movie. The winsome 24-year-old newcomer has reportedly received more actin offers in Jakarta after showin producers this Malaysian movie. Bet it was just the trailer!

Reminds me of:

Watchin Pierre Andre and Fasha Sandha in the rom-com 9 September (2007).

Most memorable line:

Abon & Chew Kin Wah

"Nasi goreng gila? Kenapa nama makanan korang pelik-pelik? Tak boleh ke letak nama yang elok-elok? Nasi goreng sopan santun ke, nasi goreng Siti Nurhaliza ke?"

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Obviously the film was badly edited to the point of story suicide.You feel sorry for movies like these. Sincerely hope Pierre Andre will eventually make a good movie one day. ★1/2
Bonus material:

Who makes movie posters this ugly?

Nurul Ekasari: A blindin beauty, if you'd pardon the pun.

The day the music died:

R.I.P.  singer Arie Wibowo (5 April 1952 - 14 April 2011)
who immortalised the 1984 Bill and Brod hit Madu Dan Racun,
a number that Pierre Andre confidently bastardised for Chantek.

The Fisherman And His Wife (2005) @ Der Fischer Und Seine Frau

A fish veterinarian, the real McKoi.

At a glance:

What does one do when a woman outdoes a man in just about everythin? Relivin the 19^th century Grimm fairytale, the ageless issue between money and happiness is tackled with delightfully contemporary angles in The Fisherman And His Wife @ Der Fischer Und Seine Frau (2005). When fish vet Otto (Christian Ulmen) meets girl-next-door Ida (Alexandra Maria Lara) on a business trip to Japan, it was love at first sight and they tie the knot instantly. As Ida moves up in life with her brilliant idea of launchin a koi-themed line of clothin, the simplistic Otto refuses luxury or any sort of material improvement in life. Otto can’t understand why a big home is better than a smaller one, no more than Ida can how a man can stay so content with only the simple pleasures in life as comfort. As Otto refuses to do more lucrative fin transplants for the high-society collectors (he says it isn’t good for the fish), Ida’s koi apparel makes it big and her stardom as a fashion designer beckons. All the time, a pair of tategoi (‘maybe-fish’ that might change into an expensive variety as they grow) narrates their marital frustration with casual comic takes.

Love at first sight.

Bad news on the doorstep:

If you look at the visuals, it looks as if they're all from different movies. Yes, it's dissonant cross-cultural adventure that's probably serves a tourist fodder better than box office collection. Naturally, the Germans brought this in for a film festival in Malaysia.

Perennial wonderment:

Koi-themed clothes. For real.

Did you know that koi means love in Japanese? Neither did I but it’s not true anyway. Koi is a homophone for love, in Japanese. No surprise then that the oriental carp is a long-time token symbol of affection to the Japanese, just like Mandarin oranges (“kam”) are gold to the Chinese.

Reminds me of:

Alexandra Maria Lara & Simon Verhoeven.

Director & scribe Doris Dörrie

All the arguments I've ever had with so many women on rejectin material success. I wish I could sit them down to watch this. The Fisherman And His Wife is invitingly poignant without enforcin too much cod philosophy on a general audience, if you'd pardon the pun. Punctuated by catchy English-language songs, it feels like watchin any other Hollywood rom-com, only that it is clever as much as it is colourful. Losin passion is the bane of any marriage and rediscoverin that element is key to keepin a conventional relationship alive – but to have it told in various fish-related analogies (is a bigger aquarium always good?) gives any viewer so many easy anecdotes to amuse oneself with.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Doris Dörrie’s little gem is a winner. Much like its S&M dominatrix outfits and koi-motif scarves to the snobbish elitists and wacky fish doctors, The Fisherman And His Wife is the kind of assorted comedy that provides for anybody with some semblance of a funny bone. How should any fishy story end? Always swimmingly. ★★★1/2
Bonus material:

Looks fun, whatever that is happenin here.

Salmon Fishing In The Yemen (2011)

"There's just this small matter of getting water.
You know that fish kinda like water, right?"

At a glance:

You'd be forgiven for thinkin this was a documentary on aquaculture. Salmon Fishing In TheYemen (2011) is actually an oddball dramedy (with a very misleadin trailer!) adapted off a novel, the bizarre titular activity bein a proposed joint venture by the British government press secretary (Kristin Scott Thomas) to improve Anglo-Yemeni relations by offsettin violent news from the Middle East in the media. A reluctant fisheries expert (Ewan McGregor) has Asperger's but finds unlikely romance with the troubled consultant (Emily Blunt) to a rich Yemeni sheikh (Amr Waked), the "visionary" who's fundin the entire project to the tune of £50 million. The director is Lasse Hallström, whose rather romantic CV includes Hachiko (2009), Chocolat (2000) and The Cider House Rules (1999). It premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, which is serendipitous to me because this is the first movie I've watched in a Canadian cinema since I moved here to Toronto - and also because I attempted to cook my wife the same fish for dinner prior to the show. Both fish and film were a letdown.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Emily Blunt shouldn't be too hopeful
for a sequel return in
Papaya Growing In The Arctic.

While fishin punters seem to have a litany of grouses about the tech aspects of the premise and also the fishin that is depicted in the film, a casual moviegoer can nevertheless still complain that this movie simply lost itself midway and didn't know what it wanted to be. The McGregor-Blunt romantic pairin and various backstories took themselves too seriously and destroyed the winsome quirky comedy that this should have been, somethin that only Kristin Scott Thomas's overzealous character tried correctly to achieve. The feelin at the end credits was similar to havin had watched Larry Crowne (2011).

Perennial wonderment:

There's somethin terribly romantic about the life cycle of the salmon. You know - swimmin all the way back to the place that you were born just to spawn and then to die. This was somewhat referenced in the movie, when McGregor's character starts to turn around in a crowd that was movin in one direction; and also in another shot when the first fish swims upstream. It alluded to not wantin to live a pedestrian life, somethin that McGregor's character found himself doin. Someone really ought to make a superhero movie in the vein of Kick-Ass (2010) or Super (2010) and call it Salmon Man or somethin.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Some of the big name media were too kind to this. Should've been a much better movie.★★1/2
Trailer for the curious:

Bonus material:

Emily Blunt - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Interview at TIFF 201

At Cineplex Odeon Sheppard Cinemas in Toronto

Cease Fire (2006) @ آتش بس

At a glance:

Please pardon my ignorant Hakka ass if you find this review culturally insensitive - but I do know a thing or two about movies and this is what I believe. When I read that the director for Cease Fire (2006) @ آتش بس is Tahmineh Milāni the foremost feminist face of Iran to the Western world, I knew that the film would be difficult to watch. Jailed for her socio-political activism, I foresaw 120-odd minutes of gender politickin, thinly veiled behind a rom-com settin of urban Iran.
Bad news on the doorstep:

"If you love me, I kill you."

Never would I expect that it was much was much worse – Milani did not even achieve her ideological projection through the film, at least to this reviewer. Her idea of pairin pretty faces Mohammad Reza Golzar and Mahnaz Afshar in a mainstream release is reported to have gone down, at one point, as the best sellin movie in Iranian history, although I wouldn’t be able to verify this. What is certain though is that Cease Fire is one of the most intolerable “good” movies that I have ever come across, in the sense that it is technically sound and yet conceptually difficult to watch. Not that we could complain of not bein able to understand Farsi – the subtitles seem competent enough (although a cat-and-mouse analogy involvin the Chinese Year Of The Cat is suspect). It’s simply the sheer tedium of havin to watch a couple play out the unbelievable premise that the two are together still despite hatin each other so very, very much. For a rom-com to sustain itself, we need to root for its characters or understand the motivation behind their actions. Here we are put through endless scenes of ridiculous domestic squabbles, so much so that it stretches film logic.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

If one could bear with such reckless story-tellin, challenge yourself further by learnin how this movie’s credits mention how it is based on an Italian self-help book, “Recovery Of Your Inner Child”, and goes on the extremely literal approach of expoundin it. Sayeh and Yousef goin about cuttin up each other’s clothes and sawin off their matrimonial bed in two isn’t only outrageously childish – it represents a diversion that discredits the story. Cease Fire should be consigned to Farsi-speakin audiences who want to watch some comedy for a change. For others who do not accept that things may be lost in translation, it may go so far as to be deemed irresponsible filmmakin. One and a half stars.

Trailer for the curious:

My Rainy Days (2009) @ 天使の恋

Gravure model-turned actress Nozomi Sasaki (佐々木 希) for all your lolita needs.

At a glance:

Cute as a button. In other words, jailbait.

Not that this is a Vatican daily and we're too uptight - but Cathay-Keris Films release My Rainy Days (2009) @ 天使の恋 @ 出租天使 (Romanised Japanese transliteration: Tenshi No Koi) is first and foremost, a very dangerous movie. No, we're not even talkin about the sleazy-lookin poster, which depicts the glorious bare back of Nozomi Sasaki as Rio, the schoolgirl whore who falls in love 35-year-old history teacher Kouki Ozawa (Shosuke Tanihara) after a chance meetin. We're talkin about how a popular mobile phone novel now gets NC16 screen time in a social irresponsible movie that glosses over the serious issue of child prostitution with glam halter tops, credit cards and Louis Vuitton umbrellas, making it merely incidental in what is, in essence, a love story with no moral resolution.
Bad news on the doorstep:

If only he could resist.

The danger in making a commercial movie for general release that intentionally overlooks opinion (especially when one is obviously needed) is that people, regardless of age, might really think that these things are normal and socially tolerated. This is ironically worse than the position where a movie glorifies lolita lifestyle from the outset. In My Rainy Days, we are treated to a two-hour long doomed (and potentially illegal) relationship between two people, which is stylishly shot but frighteningly hollow. Undertones of abandonment, bisexuality and feminism carry the film but everythin is incidental to the plot and the sum experience is largely unrewardin.

Love hurts.

Perennial wonderment:

Lolitas.

Reminds me of:

Lolitas.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

If none of this bothers you and you really are looking for a movie with some pretty movin pictures to look at, My Rainy Days is by and large an unlikely Japanese romance that is mildly entertainin in patches (despite replicating the overdone brain tumour plot device you get in every other Korean drama) thanks to the MTV chemistry between the lead pair and some unexpectedly rich story detail. You feel that writer and director Yuri Kantake knows exactly what he wanted. The problem is whether it's what you want as well.★★
Bonus material:

Surely you could do better than this.

Weather Girl (2009)

At a glance:
Here's a synopsis: Sylvia is a Seattle morning show weather girl who learns that her boyfriend (who is the anchor of the show) has cheated on her. She freaks out on-air and is fired. Forced to move in with her little brother and to cope with being 35, single and unemployed, she begins an unlikely romance with a younger man - her brother's best friend.
Bad news on the doorstep:
It's really just an offbeat and borin comedy that doesn't work, starrin TV's Tricia O'Kelley (far right). She also produced it. Musta been a vanity project. She's not exceptionally beautiful and her role is more forgettable than last week's briyani. No sex. Nothin. Just look at the pic. Mediocrity comes in pearly white. Ugh.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Avoid this American bore. I could only do 30 minutes of it. One star.

Romeo And Juliet Get Married (2005) @ O Casamento De Romeu E Julieta

At a glance:

Like a dream, really.

Startin off like Bend It Like Beckham, this 2005 Brazilian rom-com is a light-hearted, loose re-tellin of the Shakepeare tale where Luana Piovani and Marco Ricca are team-crossed lovers whose households are not Capulet and Montague, but Palmeiras and Corinthians, two of the best-supported football clubs in the country. Alfredo Baragatti (Luis Gustavo) is a passionate football fanatic in the board of directors for Palmeiras. However his leggy, footballin daughter Juliet (Luana Piovani, pic) falls in love with nervous eye doctor Romeo (Marco Ricca, pic), a die-hard supporter of rivals Corinthians who chairs of the fanclub. From a field injury, a chance encounter at the clinic now blossoms into a romance but an all-out family war beckons when the couple find their love tested by fierce objections of their union. That is, after they even get to admittin their allegiances to each other.
Bad news on the doorstep:
A little too light for some.
Perennial wonderment:
If the Brasileirão will ever be free of match-fixin.
Watch out for:
Luis Gustavo (pic, rightmost in white hair), playin the excitable board member and forbiddin father, can be singled out as the highlight performance of the movie. His energetic and completely sincere portrayal is so convincin that you start believin how it's morally wrong for two people from different teams to be mere friends, never mind lovers!
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Good opportunity to learn about traditional team rivalry between football clubs that we don't get to see every day. Match-long runtime is welcome. ★★1/2

Bonus material:

Some might call this a spoiler.