Movie Season

I rented two movies over the weekend: 1) The American remake of My Sassy Girl; and 2) Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution.

When I saw My Sassy Girl for the first time, I felt that I was privy to its humor because I grew up as a byproduct of both Korean and American cultures.

The original worked on one level because of the stark gender dichotomy korean society imposes. The original was funny in part because the female lead flipped the typical female attributes stereotyped/ingrained in Korean society. She could drink, curse, and beat people up as well as a man. Plus, as a ‘korean’ viewer I was able to suspend my cool western cynicism and fully embrace the fatalistic romanticism driving the plot.

Unfortunately, the remake failed so badly on every level, especially the comedy and drama ones. The character development was rushed and Jesse Bradford’s character just didn’t have the same lax and endearing quality seen in the original. For the remake, he should have been a stoner that tries harder, a James Franco in Pineapple Express mixed with a bit of Mark Wahlberg from Boogie Nights. The female lead should have been a Michelle Rodriguez from girlfight with a lot of Reese Witherspoon from Election.

Unlike the horribly cast and remade failure of My Sassy Girl, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution was sublime. Tony Leung and the spy girl were perfectly cast. I remember that when it came out it got a lot of flack for being too erotic. I thought this was strange at the time because I doubted Ang Lee would just put in gratuitous sex scenes. He didn’t from what I saw. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until after I saw the movie that I had seen the Blockbuster rated-R version.

Lee masterfully built the suspense and the first intimate scene between Leung and Tang’s character shocked me. I didn’t see Leung’s character the same way after that.

Along with many other questions I have such as the ones that wonder at what point did the characters know what they knew or felt whatever they felt, the lingering question I have is why in movies that show sex between asians are the scenes so realistic?

Where’s the top gun style soundtrack and the soft lighting? I’m thinking that there is a dearth because the movies with asian characters having sex with each other are always from asia and the ones that show these type of scenes are limited to arthouse independent style films where raw and realistic is more important to drive a movie forward than sex as a part of every romance afterthought of western movies. Then again, I haven’t seen many “mainstream” asian movies from asia.

Anyway, Ang Lee got me amped for the fall movie season again.

Read today that Bush’s approval ratings have dipped to tie his lowest approval ratings ever at 19 percent. Who are these 2 out of 10 people that think he’s doing a good job? There is such a wide disconnect between them and me that I would love to sit down with one of them and try to understand what filters or information they have or are getting. Maybe, by doing so, I'd get a better understanding of my filters.