It’s finally over! After I left my three hour East Asian cinema exam today, I walked away from exams and studying for over three months! I’m finally free! For those wondering, the Japanese exam went quite well I think, and as for East Asian Cinema, well I didn’t really study that much for it but again I feel it went reasonably. Let’s just hope the results are OK, and I can get into my second year!
Anyway, over the course of my East Asian Cinema course I was supposed to watch 11 films, most of which I did aside from when I was falling asleep in the lecture theater. Reguardless, here’s a quick review (and I mean really quick) of each one, in order of when they were made. Some of these reviews are probably quite unfair, but to be honest I’m just dashing through them and it’s simply what I felt about each film.
Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950) [MY REVIEW]
It’s a great film, a Kurosawa classic and one of the reasons Japanese cinema is so big in the West. 9/10
Tampopo (Juzo Itami, 1985) [MY REVIEW]
The perfect film to get a few friends around for and sit there asking what on earth is going on. Mad, but with a lovely message and a pretty warm feel throughout. 8/10
Qiu Ju (Zhang Yimou, 1992)
This is meant to be a comedy about a woman who’s husband is kicked in the crotch so she goes off to get the law to do something about it. The problem is this film is incredibly boring. I’m sure it’s interesting if you’re really intrested in Chinese culture, but I wouldn’t advise it otherwise. 3/10
Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige, 1993)
Starts off with kids being brought up in the theatre and being tortured by their teachers and it’s awesome - nice and cutting. Then they grow up and it goes all political, and it’s pretty plodding. It’s way too long though. Every time you think it’s over, you get another three scenes. Not bad though. 6/10
Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai, 1994)
Two love stories tied together very loosely by a take away in Hong Kong. It’s alright, I suppose. Not a huge fan though. They also play the song ‘California Dreaming’ about three hundred times throughout, and believe me after a while it gets really really old. 7/10
Swallowtail Butterfly (Shunji Iwai, 1996) [MY REVIEW]
Probably my favourite movie of them all, simply because of all of them this is the one I didn’t expect I would like, but I really did. Edgy, with lots of references to foreign life in Japan. Maybe not loved by all, but for me this is a masterpiece. 10/10
Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997)
If I like an anime film it must be amazing, because I don’t get 99.9% of them. But this is really cool - enough violence and action to make it interesting and plenty of clever meanings and so forth. Bloody hard to write an exam answer about, though… 9/10
The Tale Of Chunhyang (Im Kwon-taek, 2000)
This is a visually stunning film adaptation of a traditional Korean folk story, but other than the aesthetics it’s not overly great. Passable. 7/10
Address Unknown (Kim Ki-duk, 2001)
Easily one of the most depressing films I’ve ever seen, but it’s not bad. Just don’t watch it with your kids. 7/10
Beijing Bicycle (Wang Xiaoshuai, 2001)
This is a pretty cool Chinese film about some kid who gets his bike stolen then goes to get it back. It’s a bit confusing at times but there’s some good stuff in here. 7/10
Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
The most awesome revenge film ever. Come on, if you’ve not seen it you probably should get on with it. 9/10
Well, I hope that was interesting. I want to do a proper review of Princess Mononoke at some point as I did with My Neighbour Totoro, so stay tuned for that.
In other news, now that the exams are over I have little to do but prepare to leave for Japan. I’m going to post one more big update about that before I go, and then it’s time to fly! I’m really hoping I can teach myself how to do video blogging before I go so I can mix it up a bit and do some video blogs for the site, but that’s pretty unlikely as I am pretty dumb. But there’s no harm in hoping, right?
Japan's Culture, Sheffield University
