nc-17

Lust, Caution (Widescreen Edition)
$19.98
This film seems to receive high and perhaps exaggerated regard because of the famous director, Ang Lee. I'm sorry but - in actuality I found this a boring, hard-to-understand movie. What's going on?

Following up on Brokeback Mountain, which was for Americans, Lee made the next one for his Chinese public. A young girl is recruited a spy to seduce and bring down the head of the Chinese secret police collaborating with the Japanese occupiers. Unfortunately he wins out in the end because she supposedly falls in love with him and can't bear to see him killed. Without hesitation, he kills her instead. The story is disturbing and unsatisfying. The characters do not seem to explain themselves. Why would this lovely young girl fall in love with her target, who is a traitor to her country, whose sexual relationship with her starts with a brutal rape, and who is daily engaged in torturing and executing her comrades in the underground resistance? At the end, her saving Mr. Yee at the cost of betraying her friends and condemning them and herself is difficult to accept - it just seems the gesture of a stupid girl who let her emotions get the best of her.

The answers to all these questions have a lot to do with this being aimed at Chinese audiences. For one thing, Chinese do not need to have the historical background, the traumatic occupation of China by Japan from 1938 to 1945, explained to them. Further, as the director himself said in an interview, the movie is made in way which is culturally "very Chinese." It's also in the Chinese language with subtitles so that Westerners are certainly missing many subtle clues. This is probably why the actors seem wooden and hard to believe. Tony Leung's take on the sadistic Mr. Yee is to remain expressionless throughout. The subtext is an Asian belief that men and women are from different planets and love between them is associated with obsession and pain. Have you ever seen one of those Japanese music videos in which "love" is invariably depicted as a reason for tears? It is a strange idea to Westerners. Finally, one more factor - Eileen Chang who wrote the short story behind the movie was herself married to a man who collaborated with the Japanese, and many Chinese know this was not uncommon. The long mah-jong games which are so boring to most viewers are intended to convey that daily life among the privileged collaborators went on normally.

Much has been made of the NC17 sex scenes but these are also boring and not at all erotic. What we see is a skinny guy wiith an awkward girl, making up for a lack of passion and intimacy with changing positions. They say nothing and show no real excitement. Again, the depiction of sex is designed for Asia, where there is married sex or pornography but little inbetween.

One of the intriguing moments is after the girl and her cell of resistance fighters are captured and Yee's second in command reveals that the security police had known about them all along. When Yee asks his underling why he was not told, the answer is that Yee himself was suspected by his colleagues of cooperating with her because of their relationship. If this tension had played a bigger role in the movie, there would have been some drama. But it's not a spy thriller - it's about the the subtle relationships of the two protagonists, and personal issues which are not issues outside of Asia, all matters you or I are not going to grasp from watching it.

The best thing about the movie is the lovely photography of WWII Shanghai, the fashions and sophisticated upper class lifestyles depicted. For 100 years, Shanghai was a cosmopolitan, almost European city. But the movie is made for a Chinese audience who will understand more about the significance of rape and the odd distance between men and women in Asian culture, and the association of sex with violence and love with pain. For non-Chinese, the movie is just period eye candy with a depressing ending.

Bad Education (Original Uncut NC-17 Edition)
$19.94
This film was amazing! Everything about this film was perfect. Gael Garcia Bernal gives an Oscar worthy performance, and Pedro Almodovar gives superb direction. I will not go into the story, since you can find these details elsewhere, but I will tell you that this was one of the most rewarding cinematic experiences that I have had in a long time. Most viewers have complained that the film is hard to follow, but I did not find this to be true. The narrative structure of the film is indeed complex, but it only adds to the mystery of the film.

This film in many ways is a tribute to Hitchcock. From the opening credits, this is apparent. This is one of the best film noirs in recent years. Viewers who are sensitive to graphic sexual material may want to stay away from this one, but for everyone else, this should be an event!

SEE IT!

Descent (NC-17)
$2.99
A gritty story of male and female rape and revenge. It is a dark story and can leave the viewer with questions was it worth the revenge. This film is handle quite well considering the subject matter and can be a bit daugnting but i think it was acted and directed well. There are two versions this NC17 is the uncut , uncompromising version with explicit language and nudity plus the female and male rape are directed very well without being too shocking. Get this for your collection.

Unforeseen
$1.99
I am not sure if this was a movie intended to appeal to my prurient instincts (yes, that it did) but I do think there's a good deal of quality to the movie, and I don't think the director really intended this to be just another sexed up movie. Instead, I think the director was willing to let the producers make the first scenes get sexed up so that people would rent it, then would find there are other more solid, durable qualities that make the movie worth watching.

I watched all the way through, and it stood the test of a full-length movie, for me. It was good.