Almost Buddhist - 戲‧論

  ★★☆☆☆ I checked out 'The Eight Hundred' not because it's the highest grossing film of the year worldwide, or considered the most anticipated war film yet from China. I did just because of 'Mr. Six', the most impressive, outstanding work by director Guan Hu in my opinion. 'Mr. Six' simply stuns me as it's able to keep boosting my adrenaline and stirring my emotions without having to present one single bloody physical fight as it should've been expected in a gangster film like that. That's indeed pure magic of cinema. Plus, it inspires me to ruminate a lot on certain stuff that's supposed to make up a dignified and meaningful life! So instead of 'The Eight Hundred', 'Mr. Six' is easily a better choice if you expect to be thrilled, healed and encouraged in a sense! I'm not saying however, that 'The Eight Hundred' is a total failure. It should be praised in a way that it chooses to be historically correct in some p...

★★★☆☆ As the title suggests, the event takes place in year 1917 during the period of the First World War, where two British soldiers are ordered to deliver a call-off-attack message to their front line forces to stop them from walking into a trap set by the German Army. The film's shot in seemingly one single long take, but I doubt it. There got to be some editing going on to make it up, but whether or not doesn't really matter. What's well done about it is, the one-long-take gimmick doesn't seem to distract viewers' attention to what's going on with the plotline and characters, even though the story's not strong enough to stand and move, and the characters are just paper thin! Compared with those one-take full length features that generally appear to be rather showy and nauseous, '1917' is relatively low profile with its camera work. Meaning it would not distract you from seeing what's going on there, but the problem is, what's goi...

★★★★☆ You don’t have to know about the background to appreciate ‘Dunkirk’, a war film by Christopher Nolan based on a true event during the Second World War. I’m not familiar with the history either. Sometimes I’m confused who’s who and what’s what in there. Seeing it on IMAX even makes me feel a bit nauseous. That’s however, not the flaw of it. That’s the way the film is supposed to make you feel. It’s the charm I guess! A few hundred thousand British and French soldiers are stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk, and waiting to be evacuated while the Germans are closing in on them. Yeah, that’s all the film has to tell about the backdrop with use of captions in the opening. Unlike ‘Saving Private Ryan’, ‘ Hacksaw Ridge ’ or any other conventional war films that usually have main characters, a particular storyline, a few setups to a climax, some extremely gruesome explosives to outline the madness of wars, ‘Dunkirk’ instead drops you in the middle of a climax from film one, and l...

★★☆☆☆ The first film I checked out this year is a relatively old one from last year. BLHW, Ang Lee’s latest, tells how weird Billy Lynn, a solider just back from the War in Iraq, feels to be honored for the worst day of his life when he literally has to kill to survive but still fails to save his comrade’s life. Apart from its technical achievement (shot at 48 fps), the film’s indeed pretty boring! It focuses more on psychoanalysis of the characters than gruesome nature of the battlefield yet I don’t get to feel what they feel anyhow. If you take it a war drama, there’s nothing dramatic or emotional. If you take it a war action, there’s nothing mind-blowing to see. If it’s supposed to make me feel their pain and struggles, I don’t! The film reminds me of ‘ The Hurt Locker ’, another war film that has, I guess, a better insight into a helpless and pathetic situation where a solider has no choice but to go back to the dangerous battlefield again and again since that’s the only p...

★★★★★ Unlike Clint Eastwood busy directing films even at an old age, Mel Gibson takes his time, but he never seems to lose his touch when it comes to being a director. You wouldn’t disagree at all if you’ve seen his award-winning epic works like ‘Braveheart’, ‘ The Passion of the Christ ’. Now 10 years later after ‘Apocalypto’, he took the director’s chair again, and pulled off another true-story-based motivational war film, probably the most ingenious one ever since ‘Saving Private Ryan’! ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ is a true story about Andrew Garfield’s Desmond Doss, an American combat medic who saved a great deal of lives during the battle of Okinawa without firing a single bullet. What happens in the film is heroic and encouraging though how it really happened back there may not be presumably so. No matter what, it’s indeed a miracle single-handedly done by a man who has strong faith that he doesn’t have to kill to save lives even in wartime. For such faith, he’s challenged, question...

★★☆☆☆ ‘American Sniper’, Client Eastwood’s latest, is based on Chris Kyle’s autobiography who’s considered the most lethal sniper in US military history with he himself claimed 255 kills, but 160 officially confirmed. The film itself is certainly overrated. The story’s unexpectedly boring, and goes in flashbacks more than necessary. The action has no thrills at all. Bradley Cooper’s Chris Kyle’s flat and forgettable, and not struggling after all with his day job that seems cruel and just at the same time. Maybe he’s not supposed to, as like he said in his book that he wished he had killed more. We live in a world of contradictions and ridiculousness. When you say something’s right, you’re actually implying something else’s wrong. Chris’s like a hero to the Americans, but he’s also a devil to those he had to kill. The thing is, we all feel like it’s right and just to be there to kill to stop killing. That’s why killing’s never going to stop! Chris said what he was against in Ir...

★★★☆☆ There’s a big contrast in the opening of the film where Brat Pitt’s Don kills a Nazi with much hate but sets his white horse free with much love. To him, it seems like a horse’s life is much more precious than a human’s. Sure this is not his fault. It’s the Government, the propaganda, the madness, the war itself that makes us act like an animal in some particular time. Basically it’s our distinction to blame. And it’s not something we’re endowed with, but we think it is! A matter of fact that I love every film starring Brat Pitt, but of course not every film he’s in is good, including this one. ‘Fury’ has got some gross and haunting images but the story and the characters are not so convincing and impressive. Why Don, with just a broken tank and a few hands left, still insists to stay and fight against an army of heavily armed Nazis instead of retreating and working out a better plan? Maybe he’s sick of having to live and fight over and over again. I don’t know, but the ...

★★★★★ 影片用憶述的方式，以多人的角度去還原一個立體的人物──宮部久藏，二戰時期日本一位空軍天才機師。再以他為中心去講述日本在二戰太平洋戰區的作為，從偷襲珍珠港到神風特攻隊。雖是戰爭片，但戰爭場面不多，全是空戰。拍得精采，但不壯烈，看完絕對不會有一種「壯志凌雲，沖上雲霄，打個痛快」的衝動。相反，會深深感受到戰爭的殘酷，以及對人性的扭曲，看得人唏噓哽咽。對美軍來說，可能日本空軍個個都是瘋子，但其實他們只是受到戰爭極度摧殘的可憐孩子，在駕駛飛機沖向軍艦的時候，他們喊的是親人的名字，流的是無奈的眼淚。片名「永遠」二字，並非歌誦戰爭，而是提醒世人，永遠要珍惜自己和他人的生命！ 〈永遠的０〉片長兩個半小時，節奏不緩不急，演員的演出也十分自然到位，每一幕的憶述都令人印象深刻，而且更特意留下伏線，造就後半段精采感人的轉折，可以說是一個令人相當驚喜的地方。影片中段出現的一場感情戲，確實拍得細膩感人，催人淚下，反正我是哭了。這些年來，從沒有一場感情戲能如此觸動我，回想宮部久藏的妻子松乃拉住自認卑鄙的賢一郎，不希望他離開的那淒美一幕，心裡依舊覺得悸動，命運的捉弄，緣分的珍貴，真愛的永恆，令我百感交集！ 宮部久藏在戰爭中的強烈求生意志，影響了他身邊很多戰友，讓他們知道生存的目的以及生命的可貴，畢竟在當時政治氣氛的洗腦下，無辜熱血的年輕人個個都準備隨時為國家作犧牲，即使那種犧牲是多麼的無謂。很少人能像宮部久藏那樣清醒地意識到：生存從來都不是一個人的事，一個人的死或許不能改變一場戰爭的成敗，但卻絕對會對某些人的命運帶來深遠的影響。宮部久藏的「為了家人，一定要保住性命」的態度，在當時被視為懦弱，但判斷一個人是否懦弱，不是看他的行為，而是行為背後的動機，所以一個人可能表面上看似懦夫，其實他才是顧全大局、有智慧的英雄！而從這個角度去看，日本在二戰期間的特攻行為看似英勇，其實正好反映出他們相當變態無能！ 但，一向珍惜生命的宮部久藏最終為何會選擇參與特攻任務，影片並沒有給予確切的答案。或許他已經不能再忍受白白看著戰友犧牲，自己卻苟且偷生，他希望為無辜的孩子做一點事情；或許他想以此去證明特攻任務的荒謬，警惕世人戰爭的滅絕人性；又或許那是他最快能回到妻兒身邊的方法。無論如何，事實是，連冷靜理性的他最終也難敵大環境的摧殘與衝擊。面對越來越變態的共業，個人如何自處，確實是...

★★★☆☆ I’ve been unwell these few days, both physically and mentally, but I know it’s all but my mind working in a wrong direction. That it’s nothing compared with what they go through in ‘Lone Survivor’, a war film based on a true story that tells how four SEALs make their way out of excruciating hell! Can’t say it’s good but it’s got some qualities to it like the sound mixing and the makeup effects and the pace that doesn’t seem to rush and end in awkwardness. I like the opening of the film in particular where things look intriguing, calm and kind of peaceful, a great contrast anyway to what’s going to happen next. The setup is gripping. The combat is painfully realistic. The deaths are all heroic. Still I’m not convinced by Mark Wahlberg’s performance. He looks to me more like a clown than a solider in there, and doesn’t seem to fit in at all. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not him. It’s just me! ‘Lone Survivor’ may not be memorable, but it does teach two things, that you neve...

 (2009)  ★★★★ ☆ I never knew there were such bastards to drop behind the Nazi lines and scalp the Nazis after killing them like animals. I never knew the Nazi Germans cared so much about movies and there was such a thing as Operation Kino against Gestapo and Hitler. So I never knew Hitler was killed like that in a cinema owned by a Jewish girl named Shosanna. But I knew I was just joking. There're five chapters, two storylines. One's about how the 'bastards', a batch of Jewish-Americans led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brat Pitt), get behind the enemy lines and carry out their hideous mission. The other is about how Shosanna, whose family are all killed by 'The Jew Hunter' (Christoph Waltz) in a cottage in German-occupied France, comes up with a plan to set the Nazi elites all on fire. So it's basically a film about revenges. You wouldn't expect a real war film from Tarantino, would you? Okay, let's get something straight before we continue. I...

 (2009)  ★★★★☆ Can anyone tell me since when and how those assholes came up with such shit like suicide-bombers? Could blowing yourself up really send you to meet your maker in heaven? I don't think Allah has ever said so. Neither has Jesus nor Buddha nor any other saints. Seriously, if killings could earn you a spot in heaven, I'll be damned. It's not all about suicide-bombs, but bombs to be exact, bombs in the ground, in the buildings, in the trunks, in the carts, inside kids' body, everywhere. Well, not all the suicide bombers are ready to die for what they believe. Some are just kidnapped, drugged and forced to do such shit. That's what makes William James (Jeremy Renner) and Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) have to face up to the true nature of war. But reckless James's been with the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) for too long to resume his civilian life. He's like a monster that seems to have no fear at all when it comes to dancing with bombs. Is he...