[Weekly Update] Movies I watched during my flight

Sorry for the late update. I'm doxing myself with this apologies because I'M IN HONG KONG, Y'ALL! After 26 hours of flight and connection, I'm finally in the land of rude waiters and amazing food. But I'm not here for tourism... mostly. I have two days to film an upcoming video, before I have to head to Guangzhou and visit my family. Don't think I'll have time for meet-up, unfortunately.

Anyway...

CHANNEL UPDATE

Hope you all enjoyed our video on Yakuza cinema and the Yakuza games. I've always been consistently surprised by the amount of overlap between our viewership and Like a Dragon fans. Originally, the video was supposed to be about the film adaptation of the game, directed by Takashi Miike. Ultimately, though, I don't have a lot to say about the film. It's weird. It's non-sensical. It's Miike. After a year of reworking the script, I've finally come up with an interesting script. I hope you find it interesting as well. The video seems to be fairly well received. Though view count has been low. Not sure why our channel has been left out by the algorithm lately.

Up next, we'll be releasing our Eclipse video, filmed way back in April. It could've been done 3 months ago, but it was delayed because my camera shat the pants and I had to wait for it to get fixed. Anyway, now it is all done, I'll be releasing it in a week or so.

For bonus video this month, we'll be talking about the Silent Hill movie. It's Halloween. Silent Hill 2 was released to much fanfare, it seems appropriate.

For November, we have part 1 of our Journey to the West video. In this two part series, we'll go over all the major movie and TV adaptations of this novel. Though I'll be ignoring the ones that are super loose retellings like Dragon Ball or Saiyuki, otherwise we'll have a 20 parter on our hands.

Our second video for November will be a tour of iconic Hong Kong locations in Wong Kar-wai films. And this is what I'll be doing for the next two days. It took me a few weeks of on and off research to finally lock down the locations I wanted to go. Hopefully I can pull this off, and my Pixel 8 can pull the weight and deliver some good visuals.

MEDIA TALK

So, I watched three movies on my flights to Hong Kong. Let's talk about them.

Detective of Joshidaikoji (2023)

Yeah this is barely a detective movie. You know how in the first RDJ Sherlock Holmes movie, where the mystery is not really presented, and Holmes just kinda solves it off handedly? This is pretty much the same thing. Based on an award-winning detective novel, it features some very charismatic characters, of which the films managed to mostly pulled of, thanks to its charming cast. But like a lot of other Japanese adaptations, the film is very clearly made for people who are familiar with the source material, and skips over a lot of character introductions, resulting in a film that feels like the second season of an abridge TV show.

I'll be honest, I only watched this because it is a detective film featuring Ayame Goriki in short hair. If that tickles your fancy the same way it did for me, it's not a bad time. Just don't expect much from it.

Anyway, speaking of badass woman in short hair.

Revolver Lily (2023)

God damn the poster is bad ass.

Featuring Haruka Ayase with short hair as the titular character, Revolver Lily is, to put it bluntly, a much less interesting version of Rurouni Kenshin.

Set in 1923, when Japan began to become a militarized nation, Revolver Lily, a retired spy, finds herself in the care of a young boy who, for some mysterious reason, is hunted by the entire Japanese army. In her journey to protect the kid, we get some fantastic action scene ideas that, sadly, didn't work too well.

Lily is like the Japanese atomic blond, always good looking and stylish, cool at every way. But in terms of gun-fu, this movie gets my rating of a C+, which means it's mostly just people standing around and pew-pew at each other. The actress did her best with the choreography given. But man, the choreography is just not interesting in the slightest.

The film's mystery is similarly fantastic. The conspiracy is intricate and the stake is clearly laid out, even if it's mostly done via exposition. Just like the gun fights, this movie is full of great ideas with poor execution. It's a mix bag of a movie with so much potential and so little realization.

Smile (2022)

I finally watched Smile, and it was really good...

And then the monster speaks.

In this film, a curse is spreading seemingly through suicide. Once you witness someone killing themselves in horrific ways, you become cursed to die next. It's a strong premise, one which I happened to wrote an unfinished script on. That means, I have a lot of strong thoughts about this topic, as I spend months delving into this topic.

Obviously, the film is about how trauma spreads. More specifically, people who have close friends and family who passed away from suicide are themselves much more vulnerable to suicide. The film took this concept and made it into a very engaging psychological thriller, in which, for most of the film, you aren't sure if the things happening are real or not. All you know for sure is that the protagonist's closest friends and families are of no help at all. Nearly everyone she turns to sees her as crazy and keep their distance. That's the true horror of the story.

And then the monster speaks.

Sign... This is the same problem I have with It Follows. The moment your antagonistic curse exhibits a personality, it ceases to be scary. There's a reason why the best horror films feature killers who cannot be reasoned with, who cannot be spoken to. Ringu, The Grudge, Hereditary, The Babadook... The only exception I can think of is The Exorcist. And that was truly a lightning in a bottle, judging by the amount of failed sequels and retries.

Indeed, after the monster spoke, every thing in the movie became really silly and goofy. I'm always convinced that the final third of the film was rewrote due to studio meddling. Some exec saw the success of mascot horror and wanted a monster with a voice and a personality that can be marketed. But the ending is so un-Hollywood, I don't think studio has anything to do with it.

And that's not to mention the unsatisfactory ending that renders the film's exploration of trauma rather... nebulous. But that's honestly a small problem in an otherwise great film. Great 2/3 of a film anyway.

Well, that was how I spend my past 26 hours. And my lower back hurts just thinking about it.

in any case, I'll see you in our next update.