Saturday, July 9, 2011

A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop

Well, the Coen Bros. are making remakes of classics, so why not someone remake their movies.

Taking the same story line and transposing it to China of old, this tale of betrayal, use and abuse is faithfully retold.  The whole film is packed with fascinating visuals, with interesting set dressing, locations, great colours and wonderful compositions.  The very look of the actors is excellent too.  I am now interested in seeing other films by Zhang Yimou, who also directed "House of the Flying Daggers" and "The Road Home".

I know, a short review, but all I can say is watch this great film, relax and enjoy.

I guess I should mention the original was "Blood Simple", the very first Coen Bros. movie.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Somehow I managed to skip part two and ended up seeing this one first, c'est la vie.

I guess I don't remember the book well enough to know if the opening sequence was faithful or not, but with any film version of a book one is looking to see it is faithful to the feel of the book, and this one is.

This is definitely a sword and sorcery film, with all the swashbuckling and epic battle scenes you would expect.  The FX are typical contemporary, state of the art, the CG characters seamlessly blended.

As with all these long saga's about a group of teenagers who defeat evil the cast age faster than the series can be filmed.  In this case however it should work out for the good as the Pevensies should have aged in Narnia for their later appearances in the books, though I seem to remember most of their battles happening in their youth.

Keep cranking them out, I'd like to see the full series now, even the bits where Liam Neeson shows up to be preachy at the end.