Yi Yi(2000)

Even before watching this movie, I have heard it so many times. The first time was at Mass Media Class,when Yeppy introduce this film at class as a presentation, The second time was just days ago, I thought I have to watch it without doubt.

After 3 hours watching, The experience was just like living in director 's life with his pace and his voice.

The story is about the lives of a family living in a modern Taipei. Everything happens so normal.

The father,NJ, was a family man, who had to deal with pass relationship and his opportunist business partners. He as his Japanese associate puts it: "A good guy". He is also a rather reserve person, holding onto his opinion without making the other person "loose face". Finally I felt NJ was loyal both towards his partners and family. To me NJ represented typical Chinese "composure" and emotion compare to Westerners, such as not hugging his wife when she was distraught or not being blunt with his thoughts.

Ting-Ting, the daughter had to deal with relationship and friendship issues, at the same time she seemed to blame herself for her grandmother's condition. I felt Ting-Ting expressed the most emotion in the film due to her role as a teenager growing up.

The gem of the film was NJ's 8 year old son. The son sums up what were in other's mind. He was naive, determine, playful and thoughtful and such a natural in front of the camera! His letter towards the grandmother's funeral at the end well, even bought tears to my eye,moved my heart. 'You left without telling me where you went...if I ever find out I will come and find you to tell you goodbye'.

'We live three times as long ever since they invented films' says one of the characters in the film. If this statement is true,then by watching this movie you will live even longer.

Trailer of "Children Of Heaven "(Bacheha-Ye aseman) by Majid Majidi

Children Of Heaven(Bacheha-Ye aseman) by Majid Majidi

When I search this movie on internet, I saw a line"A Little Secret.Their Biggest Adventure ."(Google.com) This is my inner voices after watching this wonderful movie .
This movie was trying to tell a story about Ali losing his sister , Zahra's ,shoes and trying everything the little boy could do to reducing the pressure for his family, helping his parents get over hardship with money problem.
This film is played with such innocence and beauty; it is a true pleasure to watch. Ali with such incredible depth and passion. From the start of the film, we see the relationship between brother and sister, played with equal warmth, strained as he explains how he lost her shoes. The sorrow on Ali's face, and Zahra's tears at the news, are truly heartbreaking to watch.

At the end of this movie,The boy run for his sister, his little mistake,his biggest hope,with desperate spirit,even crying after he got the first place.I shocked.That's the reason for this title of this movie.







I was extremely impressed with Children of Heaven and moved by the simplistic and powerful effect the film had on me. The idea that more is always better is proved wrong by this film and the impact that it has made on so many viewers. The extremely low cost of the film, the inexperienced actors, and the lack of technological advancements and images, gives the wrong impression about the quality of the film. In fact, the success of this film shows that the simple things in life are often more important.

Dreams (1990) by Akira Kurosawa

I never really into Japanese animated historical fantasy feature film ,like Princess Mononoke ,Castle in the Sky,etc,. When I watching these movie ,I just know what this movie will tell us ,which the theme is always for protecting environment and human brutal at killing animal.
First,I will list the summary for every dreams below.
Dream 1 – a kid encounters a group of people who act like animals; the kid walks, the animal people walk.


Dream 2 – a kid encounters a group of people who act like flowers; the kid walks, the flower people dance.

Dream 3 – a group of guys walk around in a snowstorm .
Dream 4 – some guy walks down a tunnel – very very slowly, then tries to explain death to a group of really stupid dead people.

Dream 5 – some guy has a completely meaningless conversation with Van Gogh, then briskly walks around inside various paintings.





Dream 6 – nuclear reactors explode, people die, and the chapter ends with an absolute moron trying to defend himself against radioactivity by waving his coat in the air.

Dream 7 – some guy walks around aimlessly in the fog, then meets a bunch of nutty mutant dudes who contribute a "mourning" ceremony that is perhaps the cheesiest, most poorly acted scene in motion picture history.

Dream 8 – a watermill scene with some decent conversations about nature and science.

Dreams is not a really easy film to review, as it is an episodic bundle of various dreams from throughout Akira Kurosawa's life. So watching it is like going from one to another without a fully connecting thread. Thus, each one is like a perfectly contained short film where the director's awesome gifts of his painter's eye is put to the main test. Even when a 'dream' isn't totally working or memorable, or if there's just something not really engaging enough with it (even within the 'logic' of a dream), it's never tiring to look at. At this point in Kurosawa's career, following the towering masterwork Ran, here his mood is more reflective, dark, occasionally brooding, happy, and hopeful in equal measures.
For slow pace and too meticulous in film,I just will skip to overview it if I was alone. However,I keep my eye on the screen until it finished, Because some part of this movie really make me feel the special for this film. Afterall,this is a masterpiece for some of people.

The eye (Gin gwai)

Actually,I never want to see the horror movie in my life ever again after for the freaking out experience in watching TIAN HEI QING BI YAN（天黑请闭眼）in the theater.
This kind of horror movie make me feel that I could hardly bare the blooding scenes for long time.I always will have deja vu after watching this kinds of movie,so I scared to have it again and again after watching horror movie.
However,I have seen this movie long before for Li,Xinjie, which is a beautiful actress who speaking cantonese which is a language I was learning by then.
I was getting goosebumps when I heard that professor larry will show us this movie again.
In "The Eye", Wong Kar Mun (Lee) is a young blind woman who gets a corneal transplant. Soon after her operation, as her eyes are adjusting, she begins to see some pretty scary images; shadowy black figures hanging around people who later die, dead people themselves, and her room keeps doing a pesky trick where it changes on her as she's looking at it, furniture and all. Her doctor, Dr. Lo (a really young looking Edmund Chen) doesn't believe her at first, but then realizes that there may be some merit to her claims, so they go in search of the donor in order to find out what history her eyes' previous owner had, and what kind of baggage Wong Kar Mun has to deal with now.
Based on my first impressions of the film, I was actually expecting a big scare fest like "The Grudge"; short on story, big on scares. What I actually realized is that the two parts that I briefly watched were actually two out of the three genuinely scary parts of the film. (The elevator scene was enough to make me take the stairs today at work, seriously.) The rest of the film is certifiably creepy, but there is actually a decent story to support those creepy parts. "The Eye" has no doubt been compared to "The Sixth Sense" in terms of theme, but it is also similar in substance as well. Even without the scares, the film would be able to stand on its other merits. Some of the special effects in "The Eye" were kind of cheesy (basically Sci-Fi channel made-for-cable television caliber) and in typical Chinese film fashion, the music was horrible, but all told, it is a decent film.

Shanghai Triad (Yao a yao yao dao waipo qiao)

The film was directed by Zhang,Yimou,and main role is played by Gong,Li,which is one of the most famous actresses. I knew her when I was a little child. In this movie, She was so outstanding in her performance as a singing women . She just make what the director want her to be,and make this role vivid like she just been her.

One certainly cannot criticize the performances in this movie. The stunning Gong Li was perfectly cast as girlfriend to Boss Tang, who was himself superbly portrayed by Baotian Li. I thought, however, that Wang Xiaoxiao stole the show with his performance as Shuisheng, the "third nephew of the boss's cousin" (or some such convoluted connection.) Shuisheng is a peasant boy whose suddenly brought to Shanghai by Boss Tang to serve as servant to Gong Li's character. From that position he has the chance to see this essentially gangster family in action, and it's interesting to watch the loyalty he begins to develop for his new mistress.Much has been said by others about the beautiful cinematography and that's certainly true - but I'm also struck by the amazing work of those who constructed or chose the sets, costumes, background characters - they were quite memorable. What a star in Gong Li, and what a director.

In summation, the film is visually sumptuous, the performances are rather good and the story line is clever.

Talk to her By Pedro Almodovar (Spain)

This long story movie with slow pace,leading you with nowhere if you have no patient,But you will get a meaningful thought if you get along with this movie and finished it.However,you still not sure that meaningful thought is the right theme for this movie,because this movie has much more than you expected.A talent to make movies that are not always easy to watch, but certainly thought provoking, beautiful, compelling and stylish.

This is a film about men and their emotions. One man has a relationship with a woman, the most famous female matador in Spain. He cries over the most strange things. The female matador gets in a coma. The other man is in love with a woman, he has only spoken to her once. The man is a male nurse and when the woman gets in a coma he is the one to take care of her. Some people around him thinks he is gay so he is allowed to take care of her, see her naked, touch her. The two men get to know each other while waiting at the beds of their loved ones.The man thought to be gay raped the woman at end,and died for having no hope to see his lover again.However,the woman waked at last,talking with the man who knows everything about this tragedy.

There is a great deal to admire and enjoy in this film - it has an excellent cast, an excellent storyline, and of course - an excellent director. I found that when I was watching the film, I never really knew which direction the plot was heading in - and as a result of this, I was left feeling quite surprised with some of the events which occurred in the film. This was quite refreshing because I find a lot of films to be very predictable, but `Talk To Her' isn't like that.

Three Colors: Blue

Pro.Larry told us this movie will lead us to sleep at very beginning. The movie told a story about how a woman 's tragic accident happened in her family make her life change.
Until the movie finished, I felt the accident may save her on the other hand.Because she and her husband all have an affair actually,although it take a lot of time to find out and to be released.

This film has little in terms of twists and turns and plot points. But the simple tale is shown to you in such a way as to please you immensely. There are moments of two people talking that are lit so beautifully you want to grab other directors and say "why can't you make people look as absorbing as that? You haven't been *trying* have you? Stay behind after class." On the other side of the equation the DVD extras have a bit of the director telling you what he was trying to achieve with the close-up shots he was using and Binoche goes on about her painful dedication to her art and you sort of want to say "yeah, OK, chill out" and you feel like after they gave the interviews they might giggle behind our backs and laugh at how they made us all think it was all dreadfully clever.

A film about freedom like sense of life. Introspective way and forms of disillusion, fight against the past and steps of self-definition. And the masks of music, ambiguity of search, nooks of desire. A beautiful film about the relation with life and image of the other. Exercise of honest description of reality like collection of different pieces. A subtle form of catharsis and anatomy of gestures. A meditation about values and expectation, trust and desire, about skin of things and the memories as parts of a lamp.

According to Kieślowski, the subject of the film is liberty, specifically emotional liberty, rather than its social or political meaning.[1] Set in Paris, it depicts Julie, a woman whose husband and child are killed in a car accident. Suddenly set free from her familial bonds, Julie attempts to cut herself off from everything and live in isolation from her former ties, but finds that she cannot free herself from human connections.

Strawberry and chocolate(Fresa y chocolate)Trailer

Strawberry and Chocolate

Another Great Movie in Latin America which shocked me at last, Although i was all most fell in slept at the preceding part of this movie, but the story was getting more attractive when I getting more information which the movie was trying to describe. It's both entertaining and moving. In the opening scenes, I couldn't help but laugh at the fish-out-of-water interactions between the main character and the gay man. But the actor who plays the gay man isn't a walking stereotype. He shows many feminine characteristics, but not in a way that he seems to be almost laughing at himself. Often times, gay men feel like women stuck in men's bodies, so it's only natural that they act feminine, but that doesn't mean all they talk about is which guys they think are hot and their longing for promiscuous sex. During those interactions, the gay man hits on the main character, but that's because he's a handsome guy. If a straight man were to meet a pretty girl, he'd hit on her too. Only that wouldn't be disputed, because heterosexuality is considered normal. But the gay man's advances aren't too forward and he doesn't start harassing him or anything.

The main idea of this movie also make me rethinking all the structure back in China. Although this movie is talking about something around homosexual,it indeed get something apart from it,like brave to break a rumor.It did tell us a lot.

This is undoubtedly one of the greatest Cuban films of the last two decades, Tomas Gutierrez Alea "titón" was an excellent film director that took part in many of Cuban most awarded films ever and he's for so much in Cuban top 10 directors list. About Perugorria "Pichi" he's one Cuban most largely known actors of the time and has proved to be a never static actor, never stereotyped actor, ... The film aboard one big truth, not just a Cuban one but a latinamerican one, the macho men thinking way that has to do with everyone's way of interacting in society. The film captures a particular stage on Cuban history when homosexuality was mistreated even at high levels and the prejudice set against homosexuals was really strong, even more on men because of the imperant Latin "machismo". This is just a gift both for cinema lovers and for those that loves Cuba and Cubans.

Amores Perros

The Movie is trying to describe a funny story through three dogs. Each part of story has a interesting plot, and at end, each part are connected by each other, make it a whole ,integrated story.

This is a A masterpiece.The director gives you a great feeling with all the connections between some people in a city. From the opening segment, the audience is deeply engrossed in this film, until the very end. If this film is exemplary of the type of films an audience can expect from Mexico, than I'm anxiously anticipating the next film to cross the divide.The way everything happens reminds of things that you saw happening the previous week with your neighbours,on the road,in your family. the emotion tha the director gives you with things that happen every day and we just dont notice it till we see it to a movie and we just take a taste of how this people feel in circumstances like those on the film.


The dogfights (dogs used plastic mouth covers, and were sedated for 15 minutes for the dead scenes), The car chase, The blood of the shot man spilling on the cooking table, The model getting back home and seeing the blank wall where her add used to be, The beautiful love scene combined with a brutal one of a beating, it's all just so shocking. Like it or not, this film does live up to it's fame.

The Battle of Algiers(La battaglia di Algeri )(1966)

When I sit at the back of the class, I just felt a little boring when Pro. Larry Said it is a old movie. Because I never interested in the movie which shot before 1970. Like the movie ,SAMURAI 7, I watched before, It made me felt like I am an skull. Although the spirit of the movie had moved me. The black-and-white film never interests me.

However,after watching this movie, I just felt the power from this Black-and-white film.

The movie begins on a raid and then quickly dissolves into the story leading up to the raid. Ali La Pointe is one of the highest leaders in the resistance of French control in Algiers, a resistance structured by a hierarchy of anonymity so that no one tier of it can lead directly to the rest. The occupiers are forced to use arrest and torture in order to ferret out every member, and only through the most extreme activities are successful. Their success, however, hardly wins the overall war.

The Battle of Algiers is an amazing Neo realistic film. It is neither glamorous, with its grainy, rough, darkish look, it brings the movie to life. At times it feels like you are actually in the movie witnessing the events unfold right in front of you. With its use of non actors and with the dialogue mostly improvised and dubbed over, gives the film a raw feel. It was shot on location by Gillo Pontecorvo in war torn Italy. The setting it self is amazing, the building structures and surroundings fit this movie very well. Some even thought it it was a metaphor for the Vietnam War.

The Battle of Algiers is a war film based upon occurrences in the eight-year Algerian War against French colonial rule in North Africa. There were many scenes that were a little hard to watch because of all the people that were killed in the bombings while living their everyday lives. It was interesting to see how many men and women join together to seek revenge against another group. The director cleverly uses imagery to make the viewers see the insight of a terrorist mind. The attacks and battles are insane among one another, accusations towards the innocent.

Tsotsi

“A real find, by one of the most affecting and moving writers of our time.” In the movie “Tsotsi,” I see the lead character Tsotsi turn his life around from a common, uncaring, seemingly detached street thug to a character who wants to do the right thing in life, to have “decency,” a recurring theme throughout the film. Its my first time watching a South Africa movie, gloomy pictures and the slums are the main visual impression while I was watching. A gang of youths had been struggling with poor life since they were children. Fighting, theft and even murder are all their ways to feed themselves. Fortunately, a baby survived in one robbery case saved Tsotsi’ s gangster life. His kindness and mercy came to life. Then, at the end of the film. Tsotsi lift his hands thus end his lifeless world. The film is full of darkness, but the dawn is finally shown to us.

The major theme of Tsotsi is: In Johannesburg, the small time criminal Tsotsi is a teenager without feelings, hardened by his tough life. After killing a man with his gang in a robbery; hitting the gangster Boston of his gang; humiliating a crippled beggar along one night, Tsotsi hijacks a car and under the despair of a woman, he shoots her in the stomach. While driving the car, Tsotsi finds that there is a baby on the back seat and the woman was a desperate mother. He brings the baby to his house in the slum and becomes attached to him. For six days, the baby changes his behavior, arousing and developing the sense of empathy and humanity in the cold blood killer.

After watching this film, I shocked for a long time. I can feel the anxiety, fear, sadness, excitement and love inside Tsotsi as he makes every move. However, the other good thing about the movie is that, originally, Tsotsi lived with a abusive drunk father, his victimized mother and a dog. He left when his father brutally wounded the dog. So it must have been some sort of human quality that made him choose that way. All characters are well-developed and lovable. The locations are pretty nice and life in the slums is well portrayed. The movie never gets slow or boring. The soundtrack is beautiful even if u cant understand the lyrics. All in all, its a touching movie and a must-see.