Saturday, February 24, 2007

Sex and Fury

Jannicke:
The movie starts out with a little girl watching her father getting killed, and then the rest of the movie is about her sought for and longing for revenge. She wants to kill the three people that were responsible for her fathers death. Three people that have the tattoos of a deer, a boar and a butterfly.

Both boas and I have a distinct liking for the japanese. Anything japanese really, and we have a tendency to watch any japanese movie that comes our way.

But this movie was a little different from our typical japanese watch though. This one stands out in perticular due to its dramatically exaggerated sexscenes, and its way too much blood and goryness. The acting was also at times way over the top (in such a bad way that it was great). The Cream-of-the-Crap-Prize went to the Swedish actress Christina Something who was terrible both at speaking japanese and english (we both used to think swedish-english was very cute before we heard Christinas go at it). Christina had the role of a spy who was in love with a japanese boy. Her talents as an actress came to its right in her sexscenes, and I told boas I suspected her to be an adultfilm actress. After the movie was over I checked her IMDB profile and right I was, there were wonderfully titled movies in her resumé such as The Milkmaid, Swedish Schoolgirls (or something up that alley), to my amusement I also clicked her; Read more, and discovered that she has now left adult film-making and went into editing a Swedish magazine about planes, Flygrevyn. It is so wonderfully, wonderfully wrong. Read more about it here: http://www.flygtorget.se/flygfakta/flygrevyn

The movie started out great, and the vengeance theme, is as always, a great one (Sympathy for Lady Vengeance as one of my favourite ones), the scene where the maincharacter fought around a dozen men, naked in slow motion in the snow were one of the best moments (might probably have been one of Quentin Tarantinos favourite scenes from this movie aswell before he made Kill Bill).

It was basically a movie about sex and fury. A gory japanese sexploitation movie about fury and vengeance. And I guess, a good one at such. At least, higly amusing because of Christina. She was (to use a phrase boas most recently tought me) "the comic relief".

I liked some parts of this movie better than others. But all in all, I liked it.



Bóas:
Alot more Sex than Fury. This is a soft-porn movie, complete with bad make-up, over the top lighting, ridiculous soundtrack and strange costumes. No expense spared. The romance between Christina and the japanese samurai will have to be a contender for least inspiring on-screen love affair. Got a lot of laughs out of me and must be considered an achievement in being such a bastardization of well known themes in asian and western cinema.

The Passenger

David Locke: Now I think I'm going to be a waiter in Gibraltar.
The Girl: Too obvious.
David Locke: Maybe a novelist in Cairo.
The Girl: Too romantic.
David Locke: How about a gunrunner?
The Girl: Too unlikely.
David Locke: As a matter of fact, I think I *am* one.
The Girl: Then it depends on which side you're on.
David Locke: Yes


Bóas:
A very low key movie, I like the pace of it, giving plenty of room for thought, while luring you into the plot. Reminded me a little of one of my favourite movies, John and Mary. A movie from the same era about romantic relationship although the circumstances are very different, well the man has a relationship with two female characters in The Passenger and in John and Mary there are two men to one woman. The cinematography was beautiful with plenty of long hand-held shots and interesting angles involving vehicles, made me want to see a 70´s car chase movie. To me this movie is about taking a step out of whatever life you have built around you, an opportunity leading into unforseen adventures. Making your own adventures in fact. Memorable dialogues for me where something like, it is not the places we visit that are the same it is us that give the same meaning to different things, like we use the same codes for analysis of different situations. Which can only be true.

Jannicke:
Sometimes this movie was a little bit too slow paced for my liking. What I enjoyed the most about the movie was its cinematography, its beautiful cars and architecture (especially in the part of the movie shot in Barcelona, where the main characters visit some of the houses that the great architect Gaudi has made). I have never been to barcelona, and I had never heard about Gaudi before a few weeks ago, so I found this particular part of the movie especially intriguing. the movie put an extra spark in my longing for travelling.

other than that; I found the characters somewhat not believable. some of their lines were quite quirky, and a bit out of place at times.

I didnt find the plot too exciting either. (had I not read the word thriller on the back my expectations would have been quite different and I wouldnt have demanded so much of the plot) I was a bit restless as we watched it. my computer died from battery half an hour from the end, it was late, and in stead of finding the plug and watching the rest, we went to sleep and then we saw the rest of it this morning together with our breakfast. when we watched the last bit this morning I liked the "world of the movie" much, much better. maybe I was in the wrong mood yesterday, or the movie had grown on me overnight. who knows..

I also though the main characters were very beautiful and hot which is always nice.