08-20-2012, 11:14 PM
So last Friday, I had an interview with RZA in Chinatown and that evening, I was working Phish at BGC, so I figured I'd stay in SF, work from home on Saturday, and treat myself to either Expendables 2 or Miike's Harakiri, which I assume is playing in SF somewhere. Century at Embarcadero had neither, but Metreon had PS2. Metreon is AMC and AMC recently got bought out by a Chinese company, so they are playing some new Chinese movies. So I caught that and Dark Knight as it started right after PS2 ended. I should add that PS2 just broke box office records across China and that the showing I attended was essentially empty (there was one Asian couple, and then some theater hoppers ducked in but escaped quickly when they saw the subtitles).
Man, I wish I saw this in 3D. Like Avatar, a lot of it is CGI, so it is probably fairly robust 3D. It is visually stunning, like Legend of Zu was in its day. The color schemes are outrageous, cascades of flowing silk, glittering golden armor and ghostly white hair tentacles. I'm delighted to have seen this on the big screen. It's so visual and psychedelic. Vicky Zhao Wei and Zhou Xun return but this story is only loosely connected to the first. Vicky is a scarred princess general and gets to cry hell of a lot, which is her forte with those crazy frog eyes of hers. Zhou is the fox demon and she also has freaky eyes, perfect for a demon. And Yang Mi perfectly chirpy as the bird demon. It's sappily romantic in that Chinese sacrifice-love-for-station-and-circumstance, and some of those scenes get a little long, but the musical interlude is a traditional melancholy ballad and all three actresses are just stunning in their roles. It's funny, sexy, tragic, campy and stylish, and apart from a few romantic scenes, moved at a decent pace to keep me engaged. The romantic scenes are redeemed by the literal giving of hearts, as demons have no hearts so they must eat them regularly and have one given willingly to become human.
Plus there's some fun sword fights. It's magical flying about coupled with some decent chopping.
Loved it., loved it, loved it, but I'm as much a sucker for Chinese myth and Vicky as I am for Catwoman, so take that into account.
Man, I wish I saw this in 3D. Like Avatar, a lot of it is CGI, so it is probably fairly robust 3D. It is visually stunning, like Legend of Zu was in its day. The color schemes are outrageous, cascades of flowing silk, glittering golden armor and ghostly white hair tentacles. I'm delighted to have seen this on the big screen. It's so visual and psychedelic. Vicky Zhao Wei and Zhou Xun return but this story is only loosely connected to the first. Vicky is a scarred princess general and gets to cry hell of a lot, which is her forte with those crazy frog eyes of hers. Zhou is the fox demon and she also has freaky eyes, perfect for a demon. And Yang Mi perfectly chirpy as the bird demon. It's sappily romantic in that Chinese sacrifice-love-for-station-and-circumstance, and some of those scenes get a little long, but the musical interlude is a traditional melancholy ballad and all three actresses are just stunning in their roles. It's funny, sexy, tragic, campy and stylish, and apart from a few romantic scenes, moved at a decent pace to keep me engaged. The romantic scenes are redeemed by the literal giving of hearts, as demons have no hearts so they must eat them regularly and have one given willingly to become human.
Plus there's some fun sword fights. It's magical flying about coupled with some decent chopping.
Loved it., loved it, loved it, but I'm as much a sucker for Chinese myth and Vicky as I am for Catwoman, so take that into account.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse