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TheNaughtyLibrarian
Reviews
Geung see dai si doi (2003)
Better Than People Give It Credit
In a number of forums I've seen this film mercilessly trashed, and I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps it's having Tsui Hark's name attached to it, thus giving people the wrong idea about the film as they go into it. While I don't think it's the best film ever made by any stretch of the imagination, Vampire Hunters does serve it's purpose. I was entertained thoroughly, startled a few times, laughed a few times, and spent a great deal of my viewing time in suspense. The one thing you can say about this film is that it's definitely not slow moving!
While it does suffer from the lack of in depth characterization that seems to be the downfall of many martial arts films, in general I found the acting to be up to par -provided you watch the film subtitled as opposed to dubbed. The wooden voice acting of the English translators is highly reminiscent of the hilarious goofy bad dubbing of 70s martial arts flicks, and really detracts from the genuine scariness of the vampire scenes.
And those vampires! Yikes! Spitting acidic gas, sucking your blood through the air, covered in maggots.... Truly makes ol' Bela seem like a puddytat! It's interesting to see the differences between Eastern and Western vampire mythos.
The movie itself is beautifully and imaginatively lensed, the director of photography should be proud. The camera-work zooms and jumps during the right moments and steps back and slows down to take in grandeur. The fight scenes are excitingly filmed, and the effects are no worse than any other film I've seen lately. Not the best, but everything moves quickly enough that you don't really notice.
All in all, I got what I wanted; escapist, exciting, engaging fun that made me forget about the rest of the world for an hour and a half. And after all, isn't that what a movie is supposed to be? They can't all be caviar, sometimes I really just want popcorn.
Tainted (1998)
Better than I expected
Seeing as how this was included as part of a Troma Triple B Header disc, I didn't expect a movie that was actually funny without being gross, had a well thought out storyline, and looked more to Linklater and Tarantino's talking bits than Fulci. Yes, it had it's moments of off acting (mainly from extras or bit characters) and is obviously an amateur effort, but it's an amateur effort made with love and care.
After an opening sequence with such shaky camera work that I got nauseous and contemplated turning it off, things actually got much better really quickly. One of those "it's the journey, not the destination" films with more emphasis on the conversations of the guys than what they were actually trying to accomplish. Strangely reminded me of hanging out with some of my friends.
I can see where with a bigger budget, better equipment, and more time, this could have really been something. As it is, I see lots of potential for development and I do not want my 105 minutes back, they were spent happily. The team who made the film just needs to not look to other's so much stylistically and go with their gut instincts and follow their own muse.