I watched two very different but equally stunning movies today. The first movie I watched was “The Restless,” a Korean big-budget wu xian film. It was big budget by Korean standards. Wu xia means martial-arts. In fact the film is a martial-arts fantasy. Yeah, you heard that right. A martial-arts fantasy. See, I wasn’t just making stuff up when I claimed that genre for “Legend of Black Lotus.”
“The Restless” is a gorgeous film, with lush photography, vivid color, spectacular production value and amazingly subtle computer graphics. The story is takes place in MidHeaven, a place where souls reside for 49 days before going on to Heaven or being reincarnated. The main character is a human who somehow makes it to MidHeaven despite the fact that only spirits are supposed to reside there. Then the story becomes more complicated. The movie certainly isn’t for everyone. But in the same way that I’ve watched House of Flying Daggers and Hero multiple times just because of the cinematography, I can imagine doing the same with The Restless.
Next up was Zac Snyder’s “Sucker Punch.” I wanted to see this film in the theaters because it looked sharp and kick ass. I’m glad I didn’t pay to see it. Well…I was glad, at first. I got through about thirty minutes of the movies and stopped it to make dinner. I had no intentions of ever finishing it…at least no time soon. I like complete quiet when I watch movies. I need that. I need to hear every line of dialog. I hate to be lost because I missed a pivotal line that a character whispered. I turned off the movie because it was too loud in my house.
I had no plans to turn it back on because I wasn’t happy with it. However, I ended up starting the movie from the beginning and watching again. I heard two or three dozen things I’d missed during the earlier viewing and I felt more connected to the story. The story, the concept, the idea isn’t bad despite the dismal U.S. box office tally. In fact, the movie was quite good despite the fact that the film was loaded with CG.
But if you took that story and dropped it into Korea (or anywhere in Asia for that matter) I think you would have something unique, fresh, gorgeous to look at as well as being food for the soul.
I’m thinking that American filmmakers tend to get caught up in using “locations as characters” in their movies. In fact I hate when I hear that because more often than not, the location isn’t really a character. The writer or director just wants it to be. The city of New York is a great backdrop, but production design and art direction needs to go deeper than just backgrounds and backdrops. Paper lanterns and lecterns lined with a couple hundred candles can be doper than reflecting a kino off the chrome face of the A train on Lefferts Boulevard. I’m just saying…
I’m not just saying this because I’m in the midst of developing a fantasy martial-arts film myself. My last project, Resurrection of Serious Rogers, benefited from exquisite production design.
