Movie: Confession of Pain 傷城 (2006) pic spam (Takeshi Kaneshiro-centric)
Cast: Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Xu Jinglei, Shu Qi, Chapman To Man-Chat
I mentioned that we went to see Confession of Pain 傷城 last night and that as it started I realised: "Bugger. There are no English subtitles, I'm going to have to concentrate really hard".
There are no spoilers in this post because to be honest, much as I adore Takeshi Kaneshiro and wish I could marry him, this movie just isn't that great and at least the suspense will give you something :D Instead, I'll set out the publicly available storyline and do a pic spam. I bought the dvd today - legitimate, although it also has no English subtitles. Very dial-up unfriendly. 81 images, most of them of Takeshi Kaneshiro looking pretty. :P
As mentioned, this movie is disappointing. Everyone is pretty, Hong Kong is beautiful but that doesn't change the fact that the storyline is convoluted and implausible and the characters are not compelling. Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro do the best they can given the material, but the material is pretty weak and as actors they're forced into the unenviable situation of having to deliver extremely clunky exposition as monologues.
At the start of the film, we meet Hei (Tony Leung), a police detective and Bang ( Takeshi Kaneshiro). Sorry, I'm going to call him 'Bang' in the Mandarin style because his name is 'Bong' in Cantonese and I simply can't cope with such a dorky name for my beloved Takeshi :D I know Bang isn't much better but hey.
Bang's former girlfriend Rachel commits suicide by slashing her wrists - it's quite gruesome because we see her body.
Flash forward and Hei is married to Susan (Mainland actress and director Xu Jinglei) and Bang has become an alcoholic wreck who now works as a private detective. Takeshi Kaneshiro is the sexiest drunk I ever did see and what he does for stubble and floppy hair should be illegal.
Susan engages Bang to investigate the brutal murder of her father (Yueh Hua) and his servant (Wan Yeung-Ming). She is also convinced that someone is stalking her. What can I say? It's a very slick film, Hong Kong looks gorgeous and like I mentioned, Takeshi Kaneshiro's hair and stubble should have been given separate credit because they were particularly fine ......
The movie is violent - although keep in mind that I have a very low tolerance to violence so I'm easily grossed out. We see a lot of flashback violence - murders in the form stabbing, people getting their heads bashed in. The shot of Bang's girlfriend's slashed wrists is quite confronting.
The movie's definitely worth watching because of its look. Xu Jinglei is rather good in her rather tragic role as Hei's wife.
Shu Qi is pretty average. She just plays a brainless bimbo skank and a bony one at that.
It also really wasn't very easy for me to cope with seeing Tony Leung as such an incredubly unsympathetic character. *sigh*
On the plus side, even though for China they dubbed this into Mandarin and so the version I saw had mismatched mouth to voice - at least both Takeshi and Tony can speak Mandarin so I was hearing their own voices speaking. Also, Xu Jinglei and Shu Qi are both mainlandersChinese, so they both did their own Mandarin as well. Mainland China really is making its presence felt in Hong Kong.
And of course .... the biggest plus of all was Takeshi Kaneshiro and his beautiful face. I think Takeshi Kaneshiro was probably the first Asian actor I ever found attractive. Before him, I didn't tend to find Asian guys attractive, but Takeshi has a kind of long lanky frame, very strongly marked features, a deep voice and a rather expressive mouth.
*flails*
Beautiful, beautiful Hong Kong.
Tony has really bad glasses in this movie.
Bang walking down Staunton Street. Glee! I used to walk around this area so many times when I lived in Hong Kong because I lived just down the road.
Shu Qi looking particularly unattractive.
So to sum it up. Ummm. Takeshi Kaneshiro is hot.
When I write Takeshi Kaneshiros' name in kanji/漢字/characters, I always write 金城武 Kaneshiro Takeshi, adopting the Japanese and Chinese convention of surname first. I note though that when written in romanised form, Kaneshiro has adopted the Western style which is why most of his movies even when released in Hong Kong refer to him as Takeshi Kaneshiro.
*plays with names*
Mrs Takeshi Kaneshiro. Hee!
コアラ金城 <--- Koala Kaneshiro in Japanese :D
金城コアラ <--- Kaneshiro Koala. Ooh that has a certain ring to it. *choke*
OK, being serious though, I'm not alone in my Takeshi Kaneshiro insanity :D
My Takeshi-related tags:
Takeshi Kaneshiro tag
Chungking Express [like, one of my favourite movies. like ever. like.]
House of Flying Daggers [swoon. bamboo forests, love and takeshi]
Anna Magdalena [not a fabulous movie but it is cute and takeshi is gorgeous.]
Perhaps Love [ditto]
@ winterspel's LJ
Takeshi Kaneshiro tag
Golden Bowl tag [omg. takeshi kaneshiro as a stockbrocker who is an excellent bowler. i hate bowling, but for takeshi, I'll watch a series all about bowling. this series is soo cute].
Chungking Express tag
House of Flying Daggers tag
@ ginger001's LJ
Takeshi Kaneshiro
Perhaps Love
@ dangermousie's LJ
The Hotness of Takeshi Kaneshiro
alexandral doesn't use tags but she has Takeshi Kaneshiro posts, too. Trust me - you just have to look :D
Brain spasm. Yes she does! Takeshi Kaneshiro tag.
@ amaliestar's LJ
Takeshi Kaneshiro tag
Takeshi Kaneshiro and Perhaps Love
Chungking Express tag
@ syliasyliasylia's LJ
House of Flying Daggers
Chungking Express