Juggling Mike

I’ve got some more mini reviews for you!

Merentau

This is an Indonesian martial arts flick which feels slightly like Ong Bak. The style of fighting this time is silat harimau, which is something I had personally not seen before. The movie starts off pretty slow, but it soon picks up and never stops. The fighting is awesome and the hits look painful. The characters , especially the bad guys, are a lot of fun. Like Ip man 2, the enemy here are foreigners, only this time they operate a sex trade. When our hero messes with them, they get pissed and they want him dead. I didn’t recognize any of the actors, but the main bad guy was a hoot and a half. You’ll have trouble accepting him at first as evil, but he shows his “badassery” pretty fast and it is entertaining to watch. While the first half does drag a little, this movie is definitely worth it as a complete package. Go see it!

We Are What We Are

This is a movie about a Mexican family who are struggling to make ends meet. The father just passed away and he was the one responsible for bringing food to the table. With him gone, it is now up to the eldest son to take over. I don’t want to say much more, because I would ruin it. This was a great dramatic piece which totally deserves to be at a genre festival. While I did enjoy the overall movie, I think I had set my hopes too high beforehand and thus walked out slightly disappointed. People were comparing it to Let the Right One In, which is one of my favourite movies, so I was really excited. While it has a very similar pace, it never hit the highs that were found in LTROI. My friends loved it, and one said it is probably his favourite film this year, so that is saying a lot about it. I recommend everybody to see it, as it is a very good movie, just don’t get your hopes too high like I did.

I’ll post more when I can. The festival ends on Wednesday!

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Last night I was originally supposed to go see DJXL5’s Smashin’ Zappin’ Party! Unfortunately, due to certain unpredictable circumstances, I decided not to attend. I already regretted missing the show, but now I know that I missed something even more important! All Fantasia fans know of Daniel Walther. He’s always been at Fantasia taking care of the lights and microphones when there are guests. Every time he appears in front, people cheer and call out his name. Sometimes he gets more applause than the guests! That said, yesterday before the DJXL5 show, he got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend. He got a stand-up ovation from the crowd and it must have been one hell of an emotional event. To many of you, this may seem insignificant, but I have been coming to the festival for ten years now and I cannot imagine Fantasia without Daniel. Missing his engagement announcement makes me feel like I missed this year’s key event.

That said; Felicitations Daniel!
I wish you and your fiancé the best of luck and love!

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So I have a few new mini-reviews for you.

Evil: In the Time of Heroes

This was a fun little zombie movie coming to us from Greece. It falls in the same realm as other comedy zombies movies like Evil Dead and Dead Alive. Not much of it made sense, but that wasn’t the point. It is always fun to see people kill zombies in various ways. A head cutting boomerang? Yes please! Billy Zane is in this movie, but he only plays a small role; his biggest scene involving a sort of “screen saver” moment in which his head revolves on a screen as he talks. It didn’t make much sense, but it all made us laugh. This movie is actually a sequel, so I am missing some knowledge of the previous events, but in the end it didn’t matter. Overall, even though it will never win any awards, it was a fun film to watch with the crowd.

Gallants

I was really excited for this movie. Not only did the trailer resemble an old-school kung fu movie, it was also going to be presented by the director and Bruce Leung! To be honest, I don’t know the actor that well, but I did love him in Kung Fu Hustle. He was a real blast before and after the movie, and I would have loved to have heard some more stories from the guy. The movie itself was a lot of fun and it had the crowd cheering and laughing all throughout. It is one of those movie where you enjoy it in the moment, but realize its flaws afterwards. The biggest problem with the movie was that it didn’t seem to have a real path. It starts by focusing on the kid, but by the end of the movie, it is more about the masters. As I mentioned before, it was still a lot of fun, but I would have preferred an ending with some resolution on the goal the kid had from the beginning. If it plays in your area, I still recommend that you check it out.

The Life and Death of a Porno Gang

This was the first Serbian film on my list. It is quite different than most typical fantasia films, and I really appreciated that. It is good to have some fresh blood in the festival. The movie is a fake documentary on a film maker and where his life leads him. He started wanting to make science fiction, but when nobody would take on his ideas, he turned to pornography. He assembled a cast and crew and decided to try something new: porno theater! His first night was a success, but facing problems with the law, they decide to leave town and bring the show on the road. They visited small villages and performed nightly until they have to leave or get kicked out. They catch the eye of a film producer who proposes a new direction for the group which would make them a lot of money. Seems that foreigners like to see people die. So if he were able to provide them with people who want to die, why not film it and mix it in with their usual type of shows? In short, pornsnuff. Reluctant at first, but soon needing the money, they accept the offer and see where it leads them. Eventually their conscience catches up with them and the group starts tearing apart. Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. I found it a bit too long, but it was a refreshing new take for the festival. The idea is great and all the actors did a terrific job. While the content is really not for everybody, I highly recommend it.

I have only seen 4 movies so far, but the next two weekends will be intense. I am seeing a minimum of 2 movies per day, over the next four days. There is also a live-action play, which I am really looking forward to! So far, the festival has been a blast and I am enjoying every minute!

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Yesterday was the opening night for this year’s Fantasia Film Festival. Usually I go see both official opening films, but this year I decided to skip the first (and official) opening film. They were screening the Canadian premiere of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice with Jay Baruchel attending. While I don’t know if the movie is good or not, it just didn’t feel like a genre film to me. Since it is coming out in theaters soon, I felt no urge to see it that night. The Q&A was apparently pretty interesting though, so I would have liked to have seen that. Hopefully they were recording it (like in the prior years), and will be posted on the Fantasia site soon.

The second movie of the night was my first movie of the festival. I think that for the majority of fans, this was the REAL opening film. It is the sequel to last year’s hit Ip Man. This movie takes place after the events of the first with Ip Man trying to open a martial arts club in Hong Kong. There aren’t as many dramatic events compared to the first movie, but there are still some kick-ass fights. At one point, Ip Man must fight other local masters to prove that he is worthy to train his students. This takes place on top of a table which is hardly large enough to support two people. The entire cinema was cheering at this point. The fight between Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung was great stuff. As with Ip Man 1, there is an inclusion of a foreign master, this time hailing from England. He’s a western boxer and while he may not be as fast as the martial artists, he can throw a mean killer punch.

While I really enjoyed the movie, there are a couple of things that brought the overall rating for me down. The first is that I found the choreography in this movie to be slightly “unbelievable”. In the Masters fight, there were moments where both fighters’ arms would move so fast that they were a blur. While that is acceptable for a science fiction or fictional tale, I found it out of place in a movie based on a real person. Other scenes felt more like Wire Fu than Kung Fu. Besides the action, I also felt like the English actors overacted their parts. While this is most likely on purpose, (probably playing on the stereotypes the local population associate to the “foreign devils”) it felt slightly out of place to me.

Overall though, I still greatly enjoyed the movie and I highly recommend it to everybody. If you have never seen either Ip Man movies, then start with the original (which I still find superior) and you will want to watch the second movie right away. Donnie Yen does an excellent job as Ip Man, and the fights are all awesome!!

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Here are the movies I will be seeing at this year’s Fantasia. If I didn’t have to work, I would be seeing a lot more, but that is life, and thus this is my list. I might add some movies as the festival goes by, but the list is pretty much final.

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