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MIFF 2002 SNAPSHOTS
ADDRESS UNKNOWN
Blisteringly angry look at the aftermath of the Korean war and US occupation is two hours of anguish. Some ideas don't quite work on screen, and the American actors are typically B-grade, but Kim Ki-Duk's honesty and despair cannot be denied. At times watching it I was devastated. A tough watch, but highly recommended.
Rating: 9 bloodied baseball bats out of 10
DARK WATER
Hideo Nakata strikes again with this sodden chiller which had me nearly crawling over the back of the seat to get away from it. Less berserk than
Ring and sharing some plot points, but eventually just as creepy and certainly more moving as a mother strives to keep her daughter safe from her ex-husband and that persistent leak in the ceiling.
Rating: 9 creepy abandoned bunny schoolbags out of 10
DEAD OR ALIVE
Miike Takashi's smartarse yakuza flick breaks genres and taboos at random in a way that even Tarrantino has grown out of. Full of sound and fury and bestiality gags, signifying nothing. Great start but never settled between straight story and parody. The midnight audience howled, I yawned. Maybe the sequel is good.
Rating: 5 deep-fried fingers out of 10
MILLENNIUM MAMBO
Slow-moving and hypnotic look at one girl's three relationships in Taiwan and Japan, intercutting different time periods with her spoken narrative. Cinematography by Mark Lee (In the Mood For Love) gets in close with trademarked moments of sublimity. Many folks got bored though, more walkouts than the offensive films.
Rating: 7½ slo-mo shots of Hsu Chi running out of 10
PRINCESS BLADE
This film of secret sword-wielding ninja assassins 500 years in the future has some great swordplay and a compelling lead actress, but harbours a strong anti-blood feud message, which is not what you want when you're expecting to kick back with a genre flick on a Sunday afternoon. The main plotline is only good for about 60 mins, leaving a gap for a second plotline to sneak in and add dull patches.
Rating: 6½ running battles in the woods out of 10
RAY BANG
Middle-aged comedy about Korean cab drivers is basically innocuous. Great characters and pleasant for the first half but flounders with the late introduction of more overtly comedic elements, and has a cop-out ending. OK as a session filler, bit of a dud as 10% of your Mini-Pass.
Rating: $6 cab fare out of $10.
VAMPIRE HUNTER D: BLOODLUST
It was great to catch an anime at MIFF, but this one wasn't too great, alas. The wild west setting blended with continental Europe jarred at first but began to make a strange kind of sense. It may have been let down by the English dub, particularly the constant yattering of the half-vampire hero's sentient demon hand - the five-fingered nuisance was a graduate of the C3PO school of annoying sidekicks. Like the characters, the film gets lost in the wilderness in the middle part, but has a most bloody conclusion. In the end I kind of enjoyed it, but it was many fangs short of MIFF 2000's ripping double of
Jin-Roh and Blood: The Last Vampire.
Rating: 6 rivers of blood out of 10
Reviewed by Mark Morrison
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