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+--- Thread: Hidden Blade (/showthread.php?tid=7527)
Hidden Blade - Drunk Monk - 02-22-2023
(02-17-2023, 09:45 AM)Drunk Monk Wrote:
Hidden Blade
I'm surprised I didn't post this one earlier. It's opening all over today, even downtown here. I may have to go check this out this week...
Seen! In an actual theater even. With a real live audience.
Ok, ok, it was just me and some couple in the back. Just us three. I literally had the first four rows to myself.
Review forthcoming...once I figure out wtf happened in this film. The plot was...complicated.
RE: Hidden Blade - Drunk Monk - 02-22-2023
HB is an artsy thriller set in Shanghai during WWII. The Japanese have occupied that region of China. The Chinese are split between the Republic and the Chicoms. It’s a complicated tale of intrigue and double crosses. Most of all, it stars Tony Leung and Zhou Xun. Plus Wang Yibo is up and coming.
This is the 4th film directed by Chang Er and the first I’ve seen. A film school graduate, he specializes in mysteries. He sets up shots like some one who’s studied Wong Kar-wai - a string compositional sense of cinematography in his juxtapositions of figure and ground, his use of atmospheric color schemes, his dialogs in silence. It doesn’t demand to be seen on the big screen but I’m glad I saw it so. Some of his panoramic shots were so broodingly gorgeous.
The film darts back and forth through time, which is really confusing. There are scenes that are repeated twice, the second time with more context and longer outcomes. It almost demands multiple viewings to assemble some coherency. I respect that but also hate it - or at least I must be in the proper frame of mind for it. This film made me work harder than I wanted to today, just to keep up with it all.
Leung is perfect with his subtle expressions - since it was a lot of espionage, there was a lot of him playing it cool while internally desperate and he revealed those cracks in the mask with such panache. Plus he really knows that dying Art of how to work a cigarette (lots of cigs in this film). Xun remains ethereally beautiful and there could’ve been a lot more of her. Wang is one of china’s top leading men, and here, he shows what he can do, delivering a complex character and leveling up to Leung & xun.
There’s some artsy thematic undertones, like how there are so many dog moments, some heartbreaking, others viscous. Cigarettes and lighters also played prominent roles, although more ambiguous. One of my favorite scenes is a mass murder of Chinese by Japanese interrogators where they are dropped into a pit and then drowned by being flooded with grey slurry. The textures and camera angles make it as beautiful as it is merciless.
And the fights? This wasn’t really a martial arts film, but it had its moments of intense violence. Perhaps it stood out so because the rest of the film was more about that tension of being revealed or betrayed, like any good espionage tale. Wang delivers are startlingly explosive one-er fight that’s very impressive for its length and complexity. It’s palpable all the way through. And the finale fight is savage - beginning with a solid fire fight, it moves to a sanguineous Mano a Mano battle of wills in broken furniture and glass. And yes, there’s a sword fight. It’s more of one sword slaughtering an unwary family that a sword v sword duel, but that totally counts.
In the end, I’m not completely certain of what all happened. I’d need to watch it again to sort the convoluted time trickery. Nevertheless D00M recommended.
RE: Hidden Blade - Greg - 02-23-2023
I wonder how much actors mourn the loss of smoking in films? There is so much business to be done with a cigarette in your hand.