Saturday Night Movie: My So-Called Love
I always look forward to the weekends because kitsune714 and I queue up a movie and watch it together and mock and flail as needed. Our own little movie club! We've watched some stunners (both in the good and bad sense - Koizora needs its own category in the so hilariously awful, it's transcended into a kind of camp genius) and we try to mix it up between arthouse and mainstream, pop idolatry and wan people dying of suspicious diseases while classical music plays in the background. Or you know, dog movies.
Tonight's selection was a shout out to our people - the Taiwanese film My So-Called Love, starring Barbie Hsu, who is perhaps most famous for her role in Meteor Garden, the Taiwanese adaptation of Hana Yori Dango. She is mostly known as a drama/soap-opera actress, and outside of Meteor Garden (which I did not like, and I remember when it was airing on television for the first time), I haven't really seen much of her work. I have no opinion on her, so my expectations for her and this movie were pretty low. We had just decided on this movie over the Hot Guy from Robbers Ballroom Dancing Movie, so ....
I generally love Taiwanese movies, while not liking their dramas. Somehow the movies are just better - acted, scripted, and of course the running time is a huge plus. In this movie, it is the debut feature from a music video director, Leading Lee (BOSS name), and it very much has that feel of the perfect pop video - the colors are lush and spark off the screen, the pertinent use of close ups, the dreamy gauze filter of a world where things are prettier and better than the mundane real world....
only as D says, this is the Bad Place, and it's accessorized by a crack team of Scandinavians.
The cinematography is gorgeous, and even if the movie had sucked in other areas, I would have enjoyed watching it, because the images were just so pretty, but luckily, it turned out good on all accounts.
My So-Called Love follows a ten year path in the life of Cat (or Kitty - because Kitten - translation of "Xia Mao" would be odd.) for true love. Abandoned by her mother, and later reunited as a teenager, with a suspicious stepfather - Cat has never really known a safe and loving environment. Until she meets and falls in love with Liam - her high school sweetheart. They strike out on their own together, and even though Liam is loving, attentive and kind - he's not quite what Cat wants. When Liam goes off to the military, Cat is left alone, a college student and not sure what to do on her own - boredom and loneliness, and soon, approaching poverty, Cat takes a step toward prostitution - venturing online for paid dates.
Enter Van, a mysterious stranger - lust turns unexpectedly into love until Cat's head is turned by another unexpected event.
Liam and Van's places in Cat's life and heart criss cross throughout the years until at 30, Cat meets a young man named Sunshine. He's young, deaf, artistic and as bright and warm as his name implies - could he be the true love she's been looking for all her life?
It's not a simple romantic comedy by my inadequate write-up/summary. Cat's a fucked up girl-then child-woman, at times willful and exhausting, selfish and vulnerable, and not a likable character. She makes bad life choices, often one after another. And her lovers and her loved ones - seem to, for lack of a better word, enable and encourage this bad behavior -- it's an emotionally twisty movie, but also well-paced and unflinching in the emotional awfulness - at times, scarily calm.
There is a non-linear transitional feel between all the scenes - each scene seems more like a self contained vignette rather than a point A leading to plot line B, and I wonder if it's intentional. It works for the highlight-collected handful of moments-feel of the movie, however.
And again, utterly gorgeous:
and for our standard bit of levity:
[20:49] calledinvain: he's in the military buying sandwiches for other guys! who knows.
[20:49] calledinvain: this wouldn't even be screened in china.
[20:49] kitsune714: maybe buying sandwiches is cinematic code for GAY.
[20:50] kitsune714: OH MAN.
[20:50] kitsune714: THE ACCIDENTAL PROSTITUTE.
[20:50] calledinvain: yeah, i just tripped and fell.
[20:50] kitsune714: RIGHT ONTO YOUR PENIS.
[20:51] kitsune714: ...
[20:51] kitsune714: god, why do i now feel like this bit of our conversation is going to end up recorded for posterity now?
[20:51] calledinvain: i wasn't.
[20:51] calledinvain: but now that you mention it.
[20:51] kitsune714: see, it's because madmaxmaddison WOULD.
all in all, a satisfying Saturday movie
Tonight's selection was a shout out to our people - the Taiwanese film My So-Called Love, starring Barbie Hsu, who is perhaps most famous for her role in Meteor Garden, the Taiwanese adaptation of Hana Yori Dango. She is mostly known as a drama/soap-opera actress, and outside of Meteor Garden (which I did not like, and I remember when it was airing on television for the first time), I haven't really seen much of her work. I have no opinion on her, so my expectations for her and this movie were pretty low. We had just decided on this movie over the Hot Guy from Robbers Ballroom Dancing Movie, so ....
I generally love Taiwanese movies, while not liking their dramas. Somehow the movies are just better - acted, scripted, and of course the running time is a huge plus. In this movie, it is the debut feature from a music video director, Leading Lee (BOSS name), and it very much has that feel of the perfect pop video - the colors are lush and spark off the screen, the pertinent use of close ups, the dreamy gauze filter of a world where things are prettier and better than the mundane real world....
only as D says, this is the Bad Place, and it's accessorized by a crack team of Scandinavians.
The cinematography is gorgeous, and even if the movie had sucked in other areas, I would have enjoyed watching it, because the images were just so pretty, but luckily, it turned out good on all accounts.
My So-Called Love follows a ten year path in the life of Cat (or Kitty - because Kitten - translation of "Xia Mao" would be odd.) for true love. Abandoned by her mother, and later reunited as a teenager, with a suspicious stepfather - Cat has never really known a safe and loving environment. Until she meets and falls in love with Liam - her high school sweetheart. They strike out on their own together, and even though Liam is loving, attentive and kind - he's not quite what Cat wants. When Liam goes off to the military, Cat is left alone, a college student and not sure what to do on her own - boredom and loneliness, and soon, approaching poverty, Cat takes a step toward prostitution - venturing online for paid dates.
Enter Van, a mysterious stranger - lust turns unexpectedly into love until Cat's head is turned by another unexpected event.
Liam and Van's places in Cat's life and heart criss cross throughout the years until at 30, Cat meets a young man named Sunshine. He's young, deaf, artistic and as bright and warm as his name implies - could he be the true love she's been looking for all her life?
It's not a simple romantic comedy by my inadequate write-up/summary. Cat's a fucked up girl-then child-woman, at times willful and exhausting, selfish and vulnerable, and not a likable character. She makes bad life choices, often one after another. And her lovers and her loved ones - seem to, for lack of a better word, enable and encourage this bad behavior -- it's an emotionally twisty movie, but also well-paced and unflinching in the emotional awfulness - at times, scarily calm.
There is a non-linear transitional feel between all the scenes - each scene seems more like a self contained vignette rather than a point A leading to plot line B, and I wonder if it's intentional. It works for the highlight-collected handful of moments-feel of the movie, however.
And again, utterly gorgeous:
and for our standard bit of levity:
[20:49] calledinvain: he's in the military buying sandwiches for other guys! who knows.
[20:49] calledinvain: this wouldn't even be screened in china.
[20:49] kitsune714: maybe buying sandwiches is cinematic code for GAY.
[20:50] kitsune714: OH MAN.
[20:50] kitsune714: THE ACCIDENTAL PROSTITUTE.
[20:50] calledinvain: yeah, i just tripped and fell.
[20:50] kitsune714: RIGHT ONTO YOUR PENIS.
[20:51] kitsune714: ...
[20:51] kitsune714: god, why do i now feel like this bit of our conversation is going to end up recorded for posterity now?
[20:51] calledinvain: i wasn't.
[20:51] calledinvain: but now that you mention it.
[20:51] kitsune714: see, it's because madmaxmaddison WOULD.
all in all, a satisfying Saturday movie