Say you have a couple of hours to spare. 'Mmm, instead of sleeping, reading or going for a walk, I think I'll watch a film. I'll watch a film about girl power!'
What's it going to be?
Is it going to be the latest Disney fare, loosely based on a Chinese vintage, played by a predominantly Chinese, but English-speaking cast, flaunting a cinematography that looks like a (poor) cousin of Zhang Yimou's Hero (Jet Li gets to play the emperor in this one, though) and a storyline that is a cacophonic fusion of Wonder Woman, Terminator 2 (the shapeshifting liquid metal bit), Lord of the Rings and what-have-you, all swashbuckling (and straining, even for Donnie Yen, thanks to subpar *cough* appalling *cough* action choreography) in the heavily jazzed up universe of the "jiji, encore jiji" legend?
Or is it going to be Poetry, a 2010 Korean film by Lee Chang-dong?
Am I comparing apples and oranges? Yes, I am, unashamedly.
Mulan is a motivational celebration of girl power; Poetry, a different take on the same topic. Poles apart, actually.
Watching Mulan was for me a cringe-athon. If I were to list all the things that are wrong with that film, I need something longer than a CVS receipt to write on.
But savouring Poetry was a very different experience. I was two-thirds of the way through it when I paused.
I had to. I felt an urge to share it, hence this uncharacteristically short blog.
You can watch it for free on YT (with English subtitles) and on many other sites, like Youku (with Chinese subs):
https://list.youku.com/show/id_zcc140d7c962411de83b1.html
Before you do, though, you need to know the mood of the film. If you don't like the sound of it, don't watch it.
寫完了益咬，我接著看電影。
