Category: Foreign

I have a high level of tolerance when it comes to art-house type of movies but “Ploy” seems to be out of my league.  I don’t mind those long minutes of waiting for something to happen like that one foreign film with a boy and an old man watching the sunset, in real time.  So long as there is a reward in some forms after the wait.  Maybe it’s a subtle theme, maybe it’s to communicate a certain emotion, or maybe it’s just beautiful to watch.  Without rewards, I feel stupid spending time watching an art-house clip.

Some clips from “Ploy” are pretty brilliant.  I like the conversation between the husband (owner of a restaurant in US) and his wife (an ex-actress from Thailand) on why after 7 or 8 years of marriage, the guy doesn’t say “I love you” anymore.  And the subsequent conversation on the same topic with the husband and a little 19 years old girl (called Ploy whom they met in wee hours at a hotel bar).  The mixture of real and unreal clips within the movie at times adds interesting twists.  Some one-liners are bizarrely wicked.  Like before a date rape, the guy said [to the unconscious girl in bed], “Don’t worry, I will use a condom.”  Huh?!  Where does that come from?  We all chuckled.  And we chuckled when one of the actresses suddenly turned the film into a musical (pretty much like a French art-house movie).

Most clips are slow and excruciatingly painful to watch.  No, the sex scene between the bizarre side story of a bartender and a hotel maid is not at all sexy, way off the chart, and doesn’t contribute much to the main story.  It’s a shame though.  If the storyline was to be tighter and unfold a certain cohesive theme, that would have worked better.  During the interview, the director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang mentioned that the 12-hour long shooting on the sex scene was no fun to make.  I read that those sex scenes in “Lust, Caution” were hard to make too (took days).  But Ang Lee has made the scenes beautiful to watch, non-pornographic, and meaningful to the storyline.  If there was one suggestion I could offer to the “Ploy” team on those scenes, dim the light please.  OK make it two, change the casting.

The young girl, Apinya Sakuljaroensuk, who plays the character Ploy is perhaps one of the few rewards I can take home with.  The filmmakers should have exploited this advantage much more.  The film does leave me pondering on what is real, what is not.  And for better or worse, from a country that is famous in making horror and action movies, an art-house Thai film that was premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival could be special to some.  It’s just not my cup of tea.

Woke up at 7am on a Friday morning, I switched on my phone an hour later and a text message arrived at my inbox: Murder Of The Inugami Clan?

Not a big fan of the genre of crime but I am happy to do a bit of give and take.  Who knows, one day the rest of the Movie Review Squad may yield to the genre of horror – something I love, and often watch alone.

Do you remember the days when you were still a young adult, grew impatience, and started to read books for the adults?  And you might have struggled to finish reading the books like me?  I remember vividly what types of books I read when I was very young: the genre of Wuxia and the Japanese detective novels translated in Chinese.

What hindered me back then hindered me this evening.  Japanese detective novels usually involve quite a number of characters and it is not easy to memorize who is who (in Japanese) as the stories develop.  “Murder of the Inugami Clan” triggers my childhood memory because the story is so similar to those that I have read when I was young: the sheer number of characters, the mystery, and the indescribable dark mood that overshadows the entire story.  The Japanese can be so creative, however illogical the stories can sometimes be.

Notable Japanese director Kon Ichikawa’s final piece of work (he passed away this year at the age of 92) has a certain darkness and bleakness within but not without a dose of humanity.  The story is set after the World War II and the wealthy Inugami patriarch passes away leaving behind a strange will with strange conditions.  A series of murder take place even before the will is announced; a series of past history begin to surface as the plot unfolds.  It is our detective’s job to put the pieces together and solve the puzzle.

I believe what Kon Ichikawa wished to retain is the traditional approach to film making as “Murder of the Inugami Clan” is a remake of his own movie created 30 years ago.  Some audience may chuckle at how unrealistic some of the murder scenes are.  I doubt if any such scene was at all realistic three decades ago.  Pockets of humor are scattered in making the film relatively more uplifting.  I personally enjoyed watching the acting.  Very old school.  (Yes, I did at times allow to watch TV when I was young and my favorite was and still is Japanese dramas).

Not necessarily a film to entertain but a film to admire without having to think too hard.  When our main character Kosuke Kindaichi, the detective, first checks into his hotel room, he looks out of his window, captivated by the beautiful greenery scenery of the mountain behind the lake,and he said something like: where a nation is defeated, nature endures.  So subtlety describes the feeling of people after the war.