Reviews

This is one of the most visually impressive martial arts movies I have seen in a while. The outside shots and camera work is stunning and I barely detected any CGI. Overall a very old school feel with a high budget and current standards of filmmaking.

On the other hand, I realize that most Chinese martial arts films are fairly nationalistic and sexist (it comes with the genre) but this one kind of dials it up to an extreme. Like all foreigners are basically untrustworthy devils, all women are in constant danger of being raped by madmen if they stray on their own, etc. It's almost to the point of parody here and for example the girl who is supposed to be an innocent village girl is treated like a Lolita figure, the young man who is the protagonist and "decent common man" has incestuous feelings, etc.

Very strange film as a result..

I wanted to like this film, but overall it had too many problems in terms of dialogue-writing, editing, and especially pacing of the scenes.

The main character is portrayed by a number of different actors, which is meant to show his ageing process. However, the difference in appearance and mannerisms of the actors was too great and it didn't really work.

There were problems with sound and editing, especially in a scene in a hotel room in the middle of the film, where there were cuts in the film between almost every sentence uttered by the 2 characters. If it was done on purpose, it didn't work; if there were things that needed to be taken out, they should have just re-shot the whole scene! The dialogue and pacing of the scenes also needed a lot of tightening up. There were too many long shots of characters looking angsty and some of the dialogue was awkward and didn't feel believable.

As for the plot overall, it wasn't too bad and could have worked if it were portrayed better. They should have shortened some of the segments or added more visual interest, and cut some of the segments such as the extended scene in a gay nightclub which was boring and clichéd.

Great movie. I don't think I've laughed this hard, or been so horrified, in a theatre for a while. It's a dark satire about backwards village life and the lengths the villagers will go to in order to get rid of a crazy, impulsive guy who is ruining their lives and who is seemingly impervious to warnings, beatings or banishment.

The plot doesn't proceed in chronological order; events are retold to a visiting doctor who came to the village to investigate rumours of a mystery illness. Sometimes, the same event will be shown again but with different details, as the doctor's understanding of what happened changes. Somehow, I couldn't help but sympathize with the insane, violent and anarchic villager no matter what he did.

I read some really bad reviews of this movie before going to see it. In the end, I liked it better than I thought I would. However, a lot of the political humour is very basic and wouldn't make sense to people with more than a passing knowledge of communism, activism, etc.

However, as a teen comedy, not to be taken seriously as a political film, it works very well for the most part. A lot of the scenes, acting, and one-liners are quite funny.

Some of the acting done by secondary characters is not really up to par. Even Leon's character or that of his co-stars (his parents, principal, would-be wife, etc.) tend to be one-dimensional. I think this film could have been improved by occasional moments of self-reflection or doubt. As it is, Leon's character tends to come across as a quirky cartoon a lot of the time.

Still, as a light form of amusement, it works quite well.

I was a bit disappointed by this documentary, as someone who has long been interested in the Spanish Civil War and European Colonialism. It was described as somehow reinventing the perception of Spanish colonialism in Morocco and the use of colonial troops in the Spanish Civil War. However, I didn't find that it went very far in explaining why the troops were used, beyond just interviewing combatants saying they did it for the money and were disappointed when they didn't get to stay in Spain. The interviews were interesting for sure, but someone with a stronger critique of the whole situation could have made a stronger documentary.