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flailingpenguin
Reviews
The King of Kong (2007)
Sigh. Great movie, but be aware of the truth
I'm giving the movie a 9/10 out of respect for the movie's superior quality. The craftsmanship of the movie is excellent. The director really made a great movie, presented events in a dramatic and entertaining matter, and provided a good versus evil battle that is totally unexpected but welcome (for the audience) in such an obscure subject.
Regardless of the quality of the movie, the director definitely distorted some facts. I saw "King of Kong" at the Seattle International Film Festival, in Steve's home town (well, that's Redmond, but it's just across the lake). In a wildly sympathetic audience, and with kids from Steve's school in the audience, one could not help but be caught up in the emotion and support toward Steve. Besides, it was a great movie and I really enjoyed watching it. However, I was uncomfortable with Seth Gordon's demonization of Billy Mitchell, and I couldn't ask him about it at the festival during the post-movie interview (I had to leave to catch another movie), so I decided to do some research later. I found plenty of clarifications on Kotaku and MTV News (where Billy Mitchell did a couple of interviews recently).
- I had always heard bad things about Billy Mitchell's cockiness, but I had never heard he was a bad person. The movie makes him out to be a complete jerk, but the guy donates lots of money to charities, helps a lot of people in his local community and in the video game community, and has been a great ambassador for the video game world in general. Clearly, the movie would not have been anywhere near as good without a villain, but the movie is basically a character assassination of Billy.
- Tim Sczerby was the world record holder at the time that Steve started his run, not Billy Mitchell, but he is never mentioned in the film. Maybe Seth Gordon didn't find him compelling enough to make into a villain?
- The film claims that Steve's house was broken into by Brian Kuh and Perry Rodgers. But according to an interview with Billy Mitchell on MTV News, it's Seth Gordon (the director) who is distorting an unannounced visit into a "break-in". Even when you watch the movie, it's hard to believe it's a break-in when members of Weibe's family are present (and according to the MTV interview, Wiebe himself showed up later and played a game of Donkey Kong with Brian).
- The board that was found at Steve's house was a "Double Donkey Kong Board", which is not an official Donkey Kong board. It has versions of both Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. on it and is not manufactured by Nintendo. Since there's a possibility of tampering on such a custom job, I can see why there would be doubt about some inconsistencies seen in the video.
- The movie makes it look like Mitchell dodged confrontations with Wiebe, but they played together at Classic Gaming Expo 2004 and Mitchell beat Wiebe by around 30,000 points, according to Mitchell. Wiebe claims Mitchell didn't like the controls on that particular machine and left after 50,000 points. Regardless of who won, they did play together.
- Mitchell recently beat Wiebe's record, and to erase any doubt, he went through tons of security precautions, including multiple video recordings, independent reviewers, a verification of the board by Nintendo, and more. He also donated many (all?) of the proceeds from the event to charity.
- Take a look at AlphaPepper's IMDb comment for some other claims of inaccuracy.
In a way, I want to see a movie about Billy Mitchell's story. After all, the guy was really good at Donkey Kong, reached the top, stopped, got a really strong challenger who beat him, and had to practice to get to the top again. If Steve's story is like Rocky, Bill's is like Rocky II! I don't think it could be a 2-hour movie, but maybe a 30-minute short... :-)
Sakuran (2006)
This ain't no artsy-fartsy geisha movie...
If you pick up "Sakuran" with the intention of enjoying another artsy, sensitive depiction of geisha life, you're dead wrong. "Sakuran" is a movie about *oiran* life (for those who do not know: geisha are entertainers, and oiran are prostitutes). As such, you're not going to watch a bunch of well-behaved and manicured women. Here, you'll see bitch-slaps, coarse language, and a hard-ass main character with a rather modern view of life who can't really fit in with her peers. In other words, despite the fact that its setting is in the past, it's a fitting movie for the modern woman to relate to.
"Sakuran" is based on a Japanese manga series, so many scenes in the movie are shown with many colors. It's beautiful in its own way, though movie purists aren't going to like it. It also has a lot of pop music in it, which purists are going to find jarring and dissonant with the period depicted. However, the target audience is clearly not them, and the movie will treat them with the same disdain that the main character (herself played by a pop star turned actress) shows toward the high-class, privileged lords and samurai.
The movie makes many statements about the Japanese class system and politics, too, but it doesn't exactly shove them down your throat, either. In the end, the movie is about the freedom to choose love in spite of the expectations of class and vocation. Don't take it too seriously, and enjoy the ride.
Nanking (2007)
hobbled by the relentlessness of depressing information
I recently watched "Nanking" at the Seattle International Film Festival. OK, I can understand why the movie would get a high rating (as of the time of the writing of this review, it averaged 8.3/10 out of 87 votes). It has an amazing amount of details and footage about the Nanking Massacre, as well as information about the Safety Zone that I had never known about until I saw the movie. Nevertheless, I must respectfully disagree with previous voters' opinions on "Nanking".
First of all, the idea of showing the actors who read the lines was a bad move. It seemed artificial... almost conceited. Why couldn't they just show the atrocities with a voice-over? Why did they have to add extra time to the movies to show the actors? Was it just to get a feature film running time of 88 minutes? Couldn't they have added extra minutes by interviewing more Chinese people instead? There's a smattering of the Chinese point of view, and very little of the Japanese point of view. (Not there could be much for ex-Japanese soldiers to say about it that wouldn't inflame more anti-Japanese feelings.)
Secondly, I'm sure we all agree that the events were atrocious and despicable. If the rating was solely determined by the movie's content, it would get a good score from me. However, as a movie, the pacing did not let up for a moment. The audience was bombarded with image after image of atrocity. Meanwhile, a bunch of actors are reading the diaries and letters of the Westerners who observed many of the atrocities first-hand, and some of them aren't conveying much emotion (and Mariel Hemingway overacts). After a while, I got desensitized about it. I was not the only person who felt that way after the screening, either. Several others who I talked to felt the same way. I don't think this was the intended effect by the filmmakers. They wanted sympathy for the Chinese, but they ended up with a bunch of viewers who shrug their shoulders, say, "Gee, that sucked for the Chinese," shrug their shoulders, and move on. Or, at the worst, they created people who say, "Gee, that sucked for the Chinese; get over it," and actually think less of modern Chinese people for being stuck in the past.
Third... what happened after 1938? The movie doesn't explain what happens to Nanking after the Safety Zone was abolished. What happened to the Chinese people? What happened to the survivors who spoke in the movie? It's a glaring hole in the movie. It's like the fate of the city became less important after the foreigners' importance was reduced.
If it was not for these problems, I'd give the movie at least a 7/10. However, I can't give a high rating to a movie that creates the opposite effect from what is intended. You know what's going to happen? Most of the people who are unfamiliar with the Nanking Massacre and decide to watch this movie are going to pop in the DVD, watch for 15-45 minutes, and then stop the movie because they can't watch anymore. They'll remember that bad stuff happened in Nanking, and that's it.