help please :)
My first lj poll! I hope I make it correctly!
My brain is on strike. It refuses to make decisions for me. Please help! :)
Update: This is what I missed (but for the very good cause of mental health maintenance):
TROUBLE MAKERS
(GUANGRONGDE FENNU)
(2006, China) Directed by Cao Baoping TROUBLE MAKERS
(GUANGRONGDE FENNU)
(2006, China) Directed by Cao Baoping
A backwater hole of a village, appropriately called Blackwell, is under the thumb of the four Xiong Brothers, who are salt traffickers, rapists, corrupt officials holding a monopoly on power in the village and relentless profiteers. Promoted to be the local Party Secretary so he can be the brothers' fall guy, Ye Guangrong smiles to their face, but is seething inside. (The Chinese title is "Guangrong's Fury," and the original English title was "The Glorious Fury.") Unable to fight this new "Gang of Four" through official channels, he assembles a colorful posse of riff-raff, thugs, coarse peasants and honest villagers who are simply fed up. And then they start to fight dirty. Really dirty. It's a men's story (women are kept in the background, mostly as victims), with an accompanying deluge of insults, foul language and obscenities-a rare and fascinating instance in Chinese cinema. One of the thugs, who's enamored with kung fu, that Guangrong recruits into his rebel militia is known by the sweet monicker of "Dog Balls." The film is suffused with a Rabelaisian poetry of vulgarity and joyful playfulness, but also a somber streak-as tragedy, limited horizons and backward sexual politics keep seeping under the humor, in a way that brings to mind the Jim Thompson of The Killer Inside Me or Pop 1280. In spite of its happy ending, this dark comedy had to wait a long time before being approved by the censors. Unrest in the countryside, villager riots, peasant revolts-these are current Chinese realities that the powers-that-be don't like to talk about. For his first feature, screenwriter-turned-director Cao Baoping demonstrates an absolute mastery of the medium, with a rigorous mise en scène that produces a claustrophobic feeling, uncanny for a depiction of the countryside. The acting is excellent, especially Wu Gang as Guangrong, a first-rate actor too often underestimated.
Based on 'Village Operation' by Que Diwei. Producer: Zhang Yaoli, Cao Baoping, Cindy M. Li. Screenwriter: Cao Baoping. Cinematographer: Tao Shiwei. Art Director: Lou Pan. Editor: Cao Baoping. Cast: Wu Gang, Li Xiaobo. Presented in Mandarin dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 103 min.
My brain is on strike. It refuses to make decisions for me. Please help! :)
Update: This is what I missed (but for the very good cause of mental health maintenance):
TROUBLE MAKERS
(GUANGRONGDE FENNU)
(2006, China) Directed by Cao Baoping TROUBLE MAKERS
(GUANGRONGDE FENNU)
(2006, China) Directed by Cao Baoping
A backwater hole of a village, appropriately called Blackwell, is under the thumb of the four Xiong Brothers, who are salt traffickers, rapists, corrupt officials holding a monopoly on power in the village and relentless profiteers. Promoted to be the local Party Secretary so he can be the brothers' fall guy, Ye Guangrong smiles to their face, but is seething inside. (The Chinese title is "Guangrong's Fury," and the original English title was "The Glorious Fury.") Unable to fight this new "Gang of Four" through official channels, he assembles a colorful posse of riff-raff, thugs, coarse peasants and honest villagers who are simply fed up. And then they start to fight dirty. Really dirty. It's a men's story (women are kept in the background, mostly as victims), with an accompanying deluge of insults, foul language and obscenities-a rare and fascinating instance in Chinese cinema. One of the thugs, who's enamored with kung fu, that Guangrong recruits into his rebel militia is known by the sweet monicker of "Dog Balls." The film is suffused with a Rabelaisian poetry of vulgarity and joyful playfulness, but also a somber streak-as tragedy, limited horizons and backward sexual politics keep seeping under the humor, in a way that brings to mind the Jim Thompson of The Killer Inside Me or Pop 1280. In spite of its happy ending, this dark comedy had to wait a long time before being approved by the censors. Unrest in the countryside, villager riots, peasant revolts-these are current Chinese realities that the powers-that-be don't like to talk about. For his first feature, screenwriter-turned-director Cao Baoping demonstrates an absolute mastery of the medium, with a rigorous mise en scène that produces a claustrophobic feeling, uncanny for a depiction of the countryside. The acting is excellent, especially Wu Gang as Guangrong, a first-rate actor too often underestimated.
Based on 'Village Operation' by Que Diwei. Producer: Zhang Yaoli, Cao Baoping, Cindy M. Li. Screenwriter: Cao Baoping. Cinematographer: Tao Shiwei. Art Director: Lou Pan. Editor: Cao Baoping. Cast: Wu Gang, Li Xiaobo. Presented in Mandarin dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 103 min.