The Good – The Eighth Wonder of the World
This is actually a short tourist doco presented shown at the Terracotta Warriors Museum in Xi’an, China. Partly for the century-spanning plot from crazed despot who wanted to be buried with an army of life-sized soldiers right through to the accidental farmers who dug a well in 1974 and hit terracotta paydirt; partly because it’s in CIRCLE VISION, which means you stand in a big round room and the warring armies run *right past you*, which everyone knows is just cool; but mostly because I was in China, and standing right next to a Terracotta Warrior and glimpsing the original man as rendered in clay moved me in the way that seeing Once Upon a Time in China for the first time did, and then some.
The Bad – The Good, the Bad and the Weird
Yes, it inspired our categories this year, but it gets no love from me. A favourite director (Bittersweet Life! Tale of Two Sisters!) tackles a favourite genre (Westerns!) and turns in a meandering, pointless, dusty, confusing mess o’ beans. I’d shoot a gun at this movie just to watch it die.
The Weird/ – Sukiyaki Western Django
Miike’s mad-arse Japanese Western succeeds where the Korean Western failed; larger than life, colour-drenched, ridiculous and hilarious. It’s not fit to drink at the bar alongside a true Leone Western, and in the Eastern-Western sub genre it’s slower on the draw than Peace Hotel, but it’s a lively comic book cliche that’s faker than fakey fake fake.