Nameless Post

Hey everyone, what’s new?

It’s been quite some time since my last post, and I apologize for that. If I had both the time and the energy to post more, I guarantee you I would. But, I promise to try my best to make up for the lost time. In fact, I’m going to attempt posting every single day this week. If I’ve got a minute to spare, you’ve just earned yourself a new post.

Anyway, we had a good weekend around these parts. Saturday night, Gabe, Josh and I (and a host of other people) saw Hero at the new Cine Capri. It was amazing. Gabe had shown me Hero months ago, and more recently we introduced it to Josh. Since we all liked the film and wanted to experience it on the big screen, we decided to spend Saturday night in support of Jet Li’s greatest Kung-Fu masterpiece. In short, it was worthwhile to see it at the Cine Capri (but also a bit disappointing). A couple of things I admire about Hero are the performances and the visual brilliance of the film. The performances are of special note since all the actors deliver deliciously bitter, selfish and even poetic portrayals of their characters. Tony Leung Chiu Wai of Wong Kar Wai fame gives my second favorite performance of the film. Playing off the stoic nature of his character Broken Sword, Leung also happens to deliver a solid dose of heartfelt emotion in his role. Any other actor could have left the character as a simplistic “higher then high” master of the sword. But Leung made his role distinctive and immediately separated it from Jet Li’s torrid character, “Nameless”.
That would be my favorite performance of the film. Why? I like it simply because of how anguished and conflicted Li plays his nameless warrior. Where Broken Sword has empathy for the warrior who lays down his weapon, Nameless only seeks to sate the bitterness in his heart. All the other performances are masterfully played and well-executed as well, but I can’t extol them all.

The other aspect of the film I regularly enjoy is its sheer visceral power. The camera set-ups, shots, use of color and frame speeds make this a film a thousand times more visual then any Kung-Fu film to date. Truly, Yimou Zhang was obsessed with the visuals possible for a film like this. (I think my favorite moment is in the ‘Chess House’. The angles and slow-motion really play up the rainfall trickling down and exemplify the ‘lyrical nature’ of martial arts and music.)

I have to admit though that it was also a bit disappointing due to the translation and transfer of the original movie. Gabe mentioned to me during the film that the colors looked a bit darker and the film a little bit grainy. I began to notice this too. As for the translation… well, it left much to be desired. They seemed to take out the poetic nature of the dialogue, and the story even felt a little dumbed down for American consumption. It’s a fantastic movie, don’t get me wrong, but they seemed to loose a plethora of small visual and story qualities in the American release.

I was glad to see it though. I had a long week. As I mentioned earlier, this was my first week back in school. It was good, and the classes were in many cases quite easy, but the sheer amount of homework the teachers assigned quelled my enthusiasm. I’m overjoyed to be busy, but at the same time I long for my lethargy.

Getting back to movies, I’ve been adding plenty of ‘new favorites’ to my DVD collection recently. Just a few weeks ago I purchased my latest favorite film of all time (tied with A New Hope) ‘The Graduate’. And last night I snagged a copy of Dr. Strangelove. I haven’t watched ‘The Graduate’ yet, but I did watch Dr. Strangelove today, and I appreciated it even more since the last time I viewed it. It’s truly a remarkable piece of cinema. Also noteworthy is the fact that it seems even more applicable to today then it may have been ten years ago.

That’s all I can say for now. I’ll post my write-up for my short story “Blood on the Golden Shores” tomorrow. Also, anything else that seems to come to mind will surely be mentioned right here.

Ta ta,

Brock