Two Words, One Answer.
Joan Chen
 Wild Side $7.98 This is just a rehash of the old Lion's Gate version that was cut beyond belief. If you really want to see this film there is an affordable "Director's Cut" available from Tartan Video in England and available from Amazon.UK. All you need is a DVD player that can play PAL (a surprising number of low-end DVD players will do the conversion). You can google your model and see if it will handle PAL broadcast format. You can order the Brit DVD here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wild-Side-DVD-Christopher-Walken/dp/B000050GOU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1247449628&sr=8-2 Just don't bother with any of the current US releases.  Tai Pan $14.99 James Clavell is known for his blockbuster best selling novels about the historical orient. Shogun and Gai-Jin are both sagas of more than 1000 pages each. This movie is an abbreviation of one of those novels about the founding of Hong Kong and the place it played in the Opium, tea and silk trade. The enslavement of Chinese to the opium smoking habit made many British trading house fortunes. This movie is a fictionalization of life of such a trader Dirk Struan and his feud with another trader. Since there are more than one book in these series, the movie has a kind of incomplete feel to it. The revolving morals of these tycoons involved father two or more families,one entirely English and the other half Chinese. Understanding and misunderstanding lead to strange crosses of destiny between Chinese and English that end in a change of ownership caused by a large storm.  Saving Face $14.94 I liked this movie so much, I bought the DVD. The movie is hilarious with a great happy ending. It also hits home because I am an Asian lesbian with a very old fashion mother who pretty much gave me the same reaction as Ma did to Wil. Luckily for Wil, Ma has a change of heart unlike mine. Stereotype or not, it's very real, the messages that it Alice Wu is trying to portray that is. However, the way it was directed and acted, makes it light-hearted and easy to watch. Most of my Asian lesbian friends are very attractive and pretty. It's refreshing to see a number of Asian lesbian movies(Butterfly, Spider Lilies, The Bontanist's Daughter, Love My Life) where the actresses are very beautiful and cute, unlike some of the American lesbian movies I've seen which sets a different tone for lesbians. It is also nice that the ending isn't tragic. I think we've seen enough of that already. I am very impressed with Alice Wu and all the cast in this movie. |
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