Art of the Edit?

Temptress Moon (Feng Yue) wasn't Zhang Yimou. It was Chen Kaige. Saw it years ago in a theatre, hated it. Lots of posing and bad acting disguised as Chinese filmmaking.


www.derekmok.com

Haha! I actually liked the complexity of the plot. So it was kaige.. The thing about Asian cinema, is that i never actually watch it for production quality- they're almost always lower than what you get from Hollywood. I supposed the idea was a critique on the chinese traditional society, sort of Ibsenian. Acting wise, yea, it was a letdown, but the overall direction was fairly cool- the story is way ambitious.

> The thing about Asian cinema, is that i never actually watch it for production quality- they're
> almost always lower than what you get from Hollywood

If you think all Asian/Chinese cinema has low production values, you're watching the wrong films. Look at Hero, To Live, Raise the Red Lantern. And the latter two are over a decade old.

Alower-budget film like Pride and Prejudice can have as good -- often superior -- acting compared with big-budget Hollywood. Chen Kaige just never had good acting and writing sense. Look at his Hollywood film -- Killing Me Softly. Chen Kaige is more about pretty pictures; he doesn't have the writing mind of Zhang Yimou. Sadly, Zhang Yimou has also let his writing deteriorate from his prime. Hero had a good central conceit (Jet Li and Chen Daoming, as Nameless and Emperor Qin, were great), but Maggie Cheung was her usual stiff phony self and Tony Leung Chiu-wai didn't have enough character to play with. And House of Flying Daggers was visually lush, but with yet another awful Andy Lau performance and a grievously messy plot, plus the multiple attempted sex/rape scenes made it look like Zhang Yimou was ogling Zhang Ziyi. To Live is, to me, still the greatest Zhang Yimou film, anchored by the amazing Ge You, who won Best Actor at Cannes. He was only around 36 when he did the film, but he played a character growing from his 20s to his 50s effortlessly, always truthful yet interesting. Gong Li, on the other hand, wasn't able to lose herself in the character. Just did her usual teary-eyed thing.


www.derekmok.com

Mok
Did you see The Eye 2. I think it is chinese also. as far as i am concerned that movie is better than any horror flick to come out of hollywood in the last 5 years. Although plot wise Saw the original was the best.

Chinese cinema is really hot with incredible scenery and at times superior editing. They are heavy in color effects also. My chinese is very rusty but the plots as of late has been over shadowed by camera work and at times seeming to depend on the shot telling the story and not the writing.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

> Did you see The Eye 2. I think it is chinese also.
> as far as i am concerned that movie is better than
> any horror flick to come out of hollywood in the
> last 5 years.

Ah... The Eye. it isn't chinese. In fact, it is shot by Danny and Oxide Pang. And they're Thai. Stars Chinese actress Hsu Chi... Actually, i didn't watch the sequel- i did see the first one though...

The Pang Brothers were both born and raised in Hong Kong.

[www.imdb.com]
[www.imdb.com]


www.derekmok.com

Ah... it was a hong kong/thai production, was what i remembered about it. my bad

Flabasha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
...
> It's the propaganda approach - formulate
> thesis, then compile data, then conform data to
> prove thesis. And do it with a facile, cheesy,
> audience-baiting aesthetic.

> I am NO fan of Bush, but as an editor, and a
> human, I felt dirty. I just think these things
> are too important to misuse the magic of film in
> the service of an intentional lie.


I totally agree. I've been lucky enough to work on a few projects where that kind of thing gets talked about constantly during the making.

When I'm doing a documentary (I'm generally filming poor people in third world countries, it seems), I always try to make sure that I can show the finished result to these people and they will be happy with how they are portrayed.

I try to remove myself from the thesis as much as possible (a TERRIBLE way of ensuring you have a good documentary, probably), and try to let the people who have been interviewed speak.

----
www.JamesNWeber.com - Socially Aware Media

and introducing-
www.FCPTutorials.com - One source for all Final Cut Tutorials

I try to remove myself from the thesis as much as possible.


Its ok to be in the project from a preditor point of view. doc are of variety and all of them serves to the common good. No one really wants to see things for the way they are. so each doc they see they watch the way they wanna watch. Sometimes they pull things out of it and process it so that it fits their reality.

One person watches 'Loose Change' and sees some very compelling questions about 911. The other watches and and finds that none of it makes sense and they thing there is no message.

Are they blind for not seeing the strong points or is the other person gullible for seeing well made points. I guess it depends on what they want to see.

So there is nothing wrong tailored-personal opinion. If you have a point to make make it.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Hello!

What is your take on Justin Lin and Better Luck Tomorrow and the Tokyo Drift movie and his latest film, Finishing the Game?

I watched the first two Infernal Affairs after watching The Departed. Initially I was a little biased because I thought that The Departed ripped off Infernal Affairs without giving IA any props but I think after taking steps back and thinking about it I realized tht was silly. I liked both movies.

So how can you tell bad acting in another language? The short guy in IA that ate a lot seemed kind of full of himself with the way he was acting but I wasn't sure if that was just part of the role. Heh.

But I also thought that the acting in most Asian films tended to overdo it anyway. Audiences out there like their movies a certain way, I think?

> So how can you tell bad acting in another language?

Great question. I don't think people give themselves enough props. True acting isn't in the words, it's in everything, of which the words are only a small part.

I helped a friend do a temporary sound mix for her film, which was a hit at the 2007 Sundance Festival. When I watched the film at home, there weren't any subtitles yet -- but I could tell about 85 per cent of the story even before talking to her. And I could form legit opinions about the performances, as well.

I think the first thing about judging acting in an unknown language is to get over the inhibition that if one doesn't speak a language, then one isn't qualified to judge the acting. One might even argue that not speaking the language gives a viewer a rawer, more instinctual experience of the acting. Conversely, if you mistrust your own judgment just because you don't speak the language, you're more likely to misjudge the merits of a performance.

Andy Lau Tak-wah was godawful in Infernal Affairs, for example, and he was just as bad in House of Flying Daggers. I couldn't believe how he got away with it. (I speak Cantonese and a bit of Mandarin, so these two don't quite count) The two young leads of Battle Royale, Tatsuya Fujiwara and Aki Maeda, were horrible in that film, phony and overacted, hysterical and unsympathetic, but Taro Yamamoto and Kou Shibasaki were excellent in that same film. Michelle Yeoh's Mandarin was a wreck in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (apparently the sound mixers had to reconstruct her dialogue syllable-by-syllable), but her acting was fine; Chow Yun-fat is a better actor overall and spoke better Mandarin, but his performance was weaker -- he looked uncomfortable. And Shih Kien did a fine job in Enter the Dragon, even though he didn't speak English and all his dialogue was dubbed; he was just lip-synching his lines on set.

> The short guy in IA that ate a lot seemed kind of full of himself with the way he was acting

You're talking about Eric Tsang? I thought he actually worked better than Jack Nicholson.

Nicholson was so over the top that I felt he almost completely destroyed the menace of his character. Most of the acting of Infernal Affairs couldn't hold a candle to The Departed, though -- Anthony Wong doesn't have nearly the warmth and charisma of Martin Sheen, and Vera Farmiga made me want to send Sammi Cheng and Kelly Chan back to the acting hell they hailed from. They're pop singers, for crying out loud, and just as bad as Britney Spears in the acting department.

Asian acting, unfortunately, can often be overstylized. Not helped by the fact that they stick music stars in movies -- one more film with Sammi Cheng and I'm going to toss my cookies. I'm glad there are some Chinese actors (eg. Ge You, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Zhang Ziyi) who can meet the higher standards of truthfulness and emotional investment in Western acting, but as a whole, Western acting tends to be stronger, more multi-layered, and more emotionally satisfying than Eastern.

I think Western audiences have a perfect right to criticize a bad performance if they see one in an Asian film. "You don't speak the language" is more often than not a flimsy excuse to let certain things go in foreign films that we'd normally reject in an English-language film. It's human nature to be in awe of things we don't understand.


www.derekmok.com

Isn't it sometimes more of the nature of the language? Asian languages seem to my American ear to be much more aggressive than say, European, thus performances might be construed as such.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Eric Tseng! That's it...I like him in the second Infernal Affairs. Maybe because they went more into his back story.

> Asian languages seem to my American ear to be much more aggressive than say, European,
> thus performances might be construed as such.

Fascinating theory, but I don't believe so. For example, British English is much more deliberate when it comes to consonants, but it sounds more musical than most American English (though certain American accents, such as Emily Procter's or Robert Sean Leonard's, are also very melodic), and British actors don't necessarily come off as more "aggressive" than American actors.

Cantonese is a very guttural language -- I always say it sounds like ducks quacking to non-speakers. But Mandarin isn't clipped-sounding, and is in fact filled with soft breathy sounds, and the fact that there are only four tones makes it sound fairly musical. Korean is fairly soft, while Japanese is more percussive, though Japanese in particular is also affected by the patriarchal tones inherent in the language. Many Japanese actresses speak in that annoying "Joey Lauren Adams/Julie Benz" whine, very high and girlish; younger Japanese men often sound high and nasal, while older Japanese men tend to speak in that booming "hyper-masculine" way. Hugh Laurie (House, M.D.) did a great impression of the Japanese male voice here:





And as another example, Anthony Wong's acting isn't "aggressive". He's almost always droll and sardonic, part of the reason why he's often likeable but rarely complex. That's why Martin Sheen being thrown off a building has us devastated, but Anthony Wong being thrown off a building is more interesting than cathartic!


www.derekmok.com

Wont even try to argue with that brilliant response. Thanks Derek.

Michael Horton
-------------------

I speak some mandarin and some korean, mandarin being the better. I tend to pay more attention to the body language and facial expression to guide me thru a foreign movie.

It's almost good at times to not know the language when judging acting. the body language by itself should tell you what's going on. Even though i don't speak french i see in a scene that one guy hates the other or he is longing for that particular lady.

i have seen shorts that are completely void of recognizable language or any dialog at all that told a story well with the roller coster of emotion you would expect from seasoned actors.


on another note

this american version of THE EYE is gonna suck. The color is way wrong. What really made the story in the original so captivating was the stark blue hue. It help to isolate the circumstances in which the main character was experiencing.

Plus i have only seen 1 asian to american remake that was worth a damn.

American cinema seems to be to phony and consumed with sadistic scenes. They don't put much thought into suspense or scenery. The horror movies tend to be a contest of who can think of the sickest most gory way to kill a person. Some in the industry have described this gory fascination as sexual but i call that mentally unstable if you find gore sexual.

The dramas are mostly centered around this "Romeo and Juliet white night to the rescue" point of view that continues to be painfully repetitious.
Action movies have to many unrealistic or too cheezy quote in them.
Hand guns that shoot 500 times before reload, 20 military trained guys shooting at one running guy in a clear parking lot and they all miss, broken arm being used in the fight scene........ ect. 75% of this crap is garbage.
Too much template movie making and rehashed text book editing

The foreign filmmakers normally have fresher ideas with more realistic events. I will also so that the shot set ups are better thought out.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

> American cinema seems to be to phony and consumed
> with sadistic scenes. They don't put much thought
> into suspense or scenery.
>
> The dramas are mostly centered around this "Romeo
> and Juliet white night to the rescue" point of
> view that continues to be painfully repetitious.

> The foreign filmmakers normally have fresher ideas
> with more realistic events. I will also so that
> the shot set ups are better thought out.

Lol. This is one statement that I almost completely have to disagree on. I'm not american, but it's way too sweeping a statement to make. The big hollywood/bollywood/hong kong productions tend to contain extremely cheesy moments. Have you seen the plot for many big bollywood films? It's the same thing. They all have their cliches. Even the indie filmmakers i'm seeing- there are too many wong kar wai clones around.

Hell, speaking of Wong Kar Wai, I thought As Tears Go By was simply terrible- ever heard a cantonese version of "the love theme from Top Gun"? One of the characters was supposed to be the robert de niro "johnny boy" character and i thought he was simply irritating, and awful at best.

Interesting discussion, on the languages, though.. I did some chinese shows a few months ago, and frankly, the VOs were extremely blatant and if it was in english, it would have sounded pretty retarded, but it was in mandarin and it was pretty normal.

Speaking of traditional asian acting/cinema/theater, have you guys ever watched traditional cantonese opera?

In general, I do prefer American and European films because of how multi faceted they can be.

Hmm... I actually admired the complexity of the plot in Temptress Moon, and how bold he must have been to actually film that piece.

And yea, gawd! I agree on not having any more singers take on acting as a side career. Taiwan TV is exceptionally bad due to that.

> The foreign filmmakers normally have fresher ideas with more realistic events.

"Foreign filmmakers" lumps people and traditions into one big category. It's meaningless. Plus, you obviously haven't seen enough Hong Kong films. Like Naked Killer or The Untold Story (Chinese title: Human Meat Buns). And I guess Shaolin Soccer
is the epitome of realism?

"Foreign" doesn't mean "better". That in itself is a marginalization, a stereotype. It's prevalent in American film students who are seduced by the exoticism of a foreign language. Exactly the kind of mentality that makes many American viewers forgive and misjudge bad performances in foreign films. Danny Boyle's Sunshine is just as incoherent, violent, shallow and overlong -- I'd say much more so -- than the average Hollywood film.

> Hell, speaking of Wong Kar Wai, I thought As Tears Go By was simply terrible

I despise Wong Kar-wai for his personality (he never takes off his sunglasses, and thinks he's the reincarnation of Truffaut), so I'm biased. But I lasted only 15 minutes trying to watch Fallen Angels. Some of the worst angles (dramatically and narratively, not in terms of photographic technique) and acting I've ever seen. Happy Together and In the Mood for Love were supposed to be good, but just the presence of the wooden Maggie Cheung in the latter doesn't exactly raise my hopes.

> The horror movies tend to be a contest of who can think of the sickest most gory way to kill a
> person.

Ever heard of Ichi the Killer (Takashi Miike, Japan)? Or The Descent (Neil Marshall, Scotland)?

It's not an American thing. It's a modern thing.

Frankly, two minutes of the nearly bloodless The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or the black-and-white Night of the Living Dead beats the crap out of any horror film made since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.


www.derekmok.com

>
> I despise Wong Kar-wai for his personality (he
> never takes off his sunglasses, and thinks he's
> the reincarnation of Truffaut), so I'm biased.

Thought that meant Phil Spector.

> But I lasted only 15 minutes trying to watch
> Fallen Angels. Some of the worst angles
> (dramatically and narratively, not in terms of
> photographic technique) and acting I've ever seen.

Lol. That's an opinion... I personally hated his later films because they were just too pretentious, and it looked to me like he was trying too hard to appease the european art cinema circuit. But when I watched Chungking Express for the first time way back in school, I loved it for the tempo, and the rhythm, as well as the allegory to the Hong Kong handover. And I thought then, that he was a breath of fresh air from the rest of the Asian art films, and he wasn't doing the cheesy Hong Kong drama genres (until i watched As the Tears go by). Fallen Angels was a sequel to Chungking Express, a bit more excessive, but the plot reminded me of Murakami's "Sputnik Sweetheart"- the feeling of being estranged, as spirits always searching but never being able to truly find love and fulfillment (thus the name). In fact, I was surprised he was filming in mandarin, as i thought he believed that Hong Kong was a separate cultural identity to China.

Mok

I think you will find this cute since this thread has sort of gone over to beating up on Chinese Actors. Here is the story. The link to the Video is in the story. Real catchy tune and some clever rhymes. Video is a bit amateurish but cute.

Know the folks who run Fatbars in Hong Kong. Real cool people.

[www.fatbars.tv]

Michael Horton
-------------------

Aghhhhh!

What you doin' to me, Mike!?

There is nothing, nothing, nothing worse than Chinese rappers! (Jin doesn't count...he's more New York/Miami than Asian.)

The guy sounds like William Hung!

I guess I'm bugged by Chinese entertainers who play into that "cute accent, chop suey" stereotype. It's okay for you guys to like it.

Oh, catch the LiveType digital background!


www.derekmok.com

Ah come on! It's cute. And the rymes are clever. Remind me to NEVER show you what I've done.



Michael Horton
-------------------

> Remind me to NEVER show you what I've done.

Hey, you're not Chinese! So you're fine. I just have very particular tastes especially when it comes to music videos. Disliking the "I-camera" (performer looking dead into camera all the time) being at the top of the list.

I used a LiveType element in a dance video I posted up here months ago. That's because our budget was about $50, so even stock footage was out!


www.derekmok.com

On the topic of Asian stereotypes, there's Chink-o-Rama. It's a bunch of Asian New York comedians doing a live show that plays on Asian stereotypes. They opened the show with something like: "And now...it's time for something extra Chinky..."

[www.youtube.com]

It's pretty demented, which is why I like it. One of the comedians in that troupe went on to win the, ahem, World Air Guitar Championships as its first U.S. champion.

[www.airdiddy.com]


www.derekmok.com

You got to love this:

Forbidden City, Great Wall
Listen out as China Calls
China girls and China dolls
David Bowie said it all
Carradine as a China Man
Bruce Lee and Kato on the Run
Dragon goes and kicks the fans
The Crow gives us one last dance

Sweet!


And Margaret Cho is much funnier.





Michael Horton
-------------------

an old one, but i guess this should go on the AE forums instead.

That in itself is a marginalization, a stereotype. It's prevalent in American film students who are seduced by the exoticism of a foreign language.

I have not seen more than maybe 50 - 60 Chinese films and no not all were good. Take note of this tho. As a editor, when i watch a film it is hard just to watch the film itself. I am looking at cuts, color, scene selection, acting and plot build.

While i may not like the acting or plot i may like the color and scene set up. In a case such as this i would say that the film is not entertaining but very good for those technical reasons. As i mentioned before i like the movie "The Eye" the color and overall editing was above average for pro-editors in the film industry. It was refreshing to me.

People in other than U.S. areas look at some of the U.S. films like they are good when they are not. Broke Back Mountain wasn't a good movie but was a fresh idea and had decent acting. This is why it won so many awards.

Culture plays a big part in how film makers go about making a film. Americans get most of their experience of other cultures thru cinema. Americans have quite a shallow view of the world and shallow thoughts of the US life. When we see something coming from another point of view, just the twist in approach to the topic of the film starts feeling a bit fresh.

The culture difference makes for certain changes in commonality or sequence of events.

i.e. In a chinese film a man may win a million dollars and decide that he wants to pay off his families bills and start a family business. In an american film the same thing may happen and the guy decides to buy a new car and party with sexy ladies.
This is just enough difference to make us think that the chinese character has more nobility than the frivolously spending american guy. Does it make the movie better? NO. Does it effect the viewer differently? Yes.

So i wouldn't say that americans think that foreign films are better, they are just different. Especially when all we have is a bunch of template movies with repetitious themes and standard editing. Its not all of our movies but its the majority of them. So here we feel like we are watching the same ole crap as they made 5 years ago.

The occasional indulgence into foreign films, even the american remakes seem fresher. I will say that it seems that Asian films as a whole are more edit and sequentially daring than our film, makers. Thats what i most like about the foreign films. Not that they are auto-better but because they are foreign, the approach is different. The small cultural considerations change how you receive the plot and the character. For an american like me that makes it interesting.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

> i.e. In a chinese film a man may win a million dollars and decide that he wants to pay off his
> families bills and start a family business. In an american film the same thing may happen and
> the guy decides to buy a new car and party with sexy ladies.

Puh-lease. That's saying every Chinese film is identical. Or saying every American film has the same psychology. You're also ignoring genre conventions.

City War features a scene where a gangster executes a cop's entire family, including the wife and two children. Graphically, and onscreen.

One major cultural distinction between Chinese/Hong Kong films and American ones is that Chinese/HK films, in general, don't tackle male/female, romantic and sexual relationships nearly as well. Sex scenes are usually accompanied by some cheesy '80s keyboard music, and many Chinese films still get squeamish about letting the romantic leads kiss, opting instead for a chaste, phony hug or kiss on the forehead. This is a fact based on editing, camera angles and acting which don't dare wade deeper into issues of lust, romance and attraction. Even Hong Kong sexploitation/soft-core films are very prudish compared to, say, Basic Instinct or Kissing on the Mouth. Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is a bit more frank and explicit, but compared to how French and German films treat sex, it's pretty softened up and prettied up.


www.derekmok.com

I thought Brokeback Mountain was great. However even though I'm 39, I miss the old idea of leaving things to the imagination, whether it's male/male or male/female or female/female sex scenes.

I like less cutting generally, when I watch a film I get the sense that when there are so many cuts (unless it's a car chase or something) that the filmakers are "showing off" when they should just tell the story. Like Glenn Gary Glenn Ross, I love when a film feels like a play.

I guess it all depends on the film, but I often say to myself "that's too much, you could do more with less." or "they could have communicated that with a look, not the stupid line they chose."

Even the Matrix could have done with less cutting.

I like nice cars and pretty ladies too.

www.markdavid.tv

> I miss the old idea of leaving things to the imagination, whether it's male/male or male/female
> or female/female sex scenes.

Yeah, it's not about the body parts; it's about the tone. I always champion Enemy at the Gates as the best Hollywood sex scene of the last 10, 12 years. It was almost fully hidden, no music, painfully intimate, advances the relationship. What I hate about Hollywood is that it's always blushing about scenes like these and looking for ways to soft-core it -- music, ECUs, dissolves, body doubles. Every frickin' love scene looks and sounds the same.

Modern producers and directors are very impatient with editing. They want to use lots and lots of angles. Yes, they do overcut. Especially the ones who come from a music-video and commercial background. Unfortunately, these days when they look for young directors, they tend to look for the ones with the lighting and post-production trickery, flashy lights and photography, rather than the ones who can tell a story and direct actors. And lighting-oriented directors often suck at editing and directing actors.


www.derekmok.com