July 2, 2003

Girl Flies Thru Window -- In Cantonese!

Tonight Cinecultist took the long train with the sweaty rush hour hordes up to Lincoln Center's Walter Reede Theater to meet the darling W for one of the Heroic Grace movies. CC loves to watch girls kicking ass and she trusts the choices usually made by W, who's taste includes hotness like Tony Leung. Except, W forgot to mention that tonight's feature, The Six Fingered Lord of the Lute Part 1, had no English subtitles. Seeing that CC speaks no Cantonese, it was slightly difficult to follow even with a handy synopsis by Berenice Reynaud provided by the Film Society.

You know it's not going to be simple when the historian describes part of the plot as "a McGuffin" (a technique employed often by Hitchcock to throw the audience off the story). She also writes, "The protagonists are endlessly traveling, fighting their foes at crossroads, spending the night in sinisters inns, arriving uninvited at the mansion of other evil clans, jumping in the air or through windows, are ambushed, drugged, challenged to duels, and even killed." Yeah, all that good stuff is in there, in between long stretches of arguing and exposition. In Cantonese. Damn my lack of Asian languages! I did like the scene where two girls fight on a tower's overhangs, jumping through windows and attacking each other with a long chain. Ouch.

CC's set to see another film in the series, Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time on Friday. This time with subtitles, hopefully, and a little Tony, Maggie Cheung and Brigitte Lin goodness. Will report back.

As a slightly related aside, if CC was so inclined to actually make movies with girls flying through windows instead of just critiquing them, we could use the handy DIY special effects step by step supplied by this month's the Independent. Friend to CC and small furry animals, Greg Gilpatrick breaks it down and though we still don't think we could do it but it's nice to know it's possible. Cool.

Posted by karen at July 2, 2003 10:59 PM