About a year ago when I returned home, I was in my sister's room and I noticed a Korean DVD on her bookshelf.
"What's this?" I asked.
"It's called My Sassy Girl. It's a Korean film, and you should watch it" she said.
"Maybe later." I replied.
Later came after almost a year.
My sister brought the DVD to take with us as we drove up after we had left my parents' house after Christmas. She gave me the DVD, where it sat in a case in my car for a good 2 months, before I finally moved it into the house. It sat for another 3 months in my living room. One afternoon after Sunday brunch, I decided to bring the DVD with me to Christine's place. Christine was working on one of her many art projects (although I believe at the time it was this one).
"Do you want to watch something on TiVo or more of Buffy?"
"Well, I have this DVD my sister gave me. It's a korean film called 'My Sassy Girl'. I haven't watched it yet. "
"I've seen it a couple of times already."
"Oh. Do you mind watching it again?"
"Sure. It's good. I never get tired of watching it." Christine said, with nary a hint of emotion in her voice.
Never get tired of watching it? I reserve that statement for pretty special films. In a good year, I can find one or two titles at best that are really worthy of repeat viewing that extent. In my current dvd library, there are only a few that qualify: The Princess Bride,Contact, My Best Friend's Wedding, GalaxyQuest, The Truman Show, Shrek, and a few others. If you look at the list, most of them are comedies (the sole exception being Contact), because cleverly scripted jokes are always funny, no matter how many times the joke is told. Take for example almost all of the clever dialogue in The Princess Bride is funny no matter how many times you hear it (i.e. My name is Inigo Montoya... but only less well known is... have fun storming the castle!)
My Sassy Girl lived up to that statement. It has witty dialogue, and good, funny laugh yourself silly situations. It works because it uses comedy within the story -- the incidents also serves the purpose of building emotional attachment to the characters, and creating memorable situations that advance the plot. It really is a great film, and I can understand why it can withstand repeat viewings.
A few weeks ago, I came across a stack of Asian DVDs and VCDs at a used bookstore, and on a whim, I bought a few of them. One of them was The Sound of Colors, a romantic comedy starring Tony Leung and Miriam Yeung. This movie based on a picture book, re-ignited my interest in Asian films, and I immediately placed an order at YesAsia.com for more movies. (Cat introduced me to yesasia) At around the same time, I also joined Greencine, which specializes in independent and niche films on DVD. Over the past two weeks, I've just been going through my queue of DVDs.
The Lovers - suggested by Cat
My Lucky Star
Magic Kitchen
Love Undercover
Love Undercover 2
Good Times, Bed Times
Sausalito
Turn Left, Turn Right
Infernal Affairs I
Looking for Mr. Perfect
With the exception of Looking for Mr. Perfect, they've all been pretty good. Looking for Mr. Perfect is only entertaining as "the villains" are dancing martial artists -- that is, they integrate ballroom and tap into their Jackie Chan-like martial arts style. I started to watch Infernal Affairs II, and found myself bored. IA2 makes the classic mistake of being a prequel, which loses much of the dramatic tension of the first IA. I'll probably do full reviews of these movies at some point, and I still have around 10 films sitting in my house, waiting to be watched.
As ashamed as I am to say it, I didn't fully take advantage of my time at Cal to view the Asian films they'd show every week at the UC Theater (now closed). What they showed wasn't anything really famous or spectacular, in fact to me, what it seemed like really was the Kung Fu movie of the week. I'm actually not a big fan of action flicks -- I prefer drama or something that makes me laugh or touches my heart. I can enjoy a big-explosion-martial arts-gunplay-and-car-chase movie as much as the next guy, but I also understand that type of movie is designed to do one thing -- be a big budget film. I did still manage to see things like The Wedding Banquet, and Eat Drink Man Woman while at Cal, (but those were not part of UC Theater's showings -- UC Theater tended to only show old Jet Li movies. )
hey,
you have some good films there. when i was in taiwan, my cousin's wife mentioned another movie called "something something ing xiong" (translated something something hero). it is in the same old-style of hero, but a different movie. she said it was quite good. any idea of which one it is? i'm thinking of trying to find it...