quote:Actually, speaking of hard boiled, there were a couple of moments that really made me wince - suprisingly for a film that's been so praised for it's style and originality. There's a scene near the start where the police chief gives a present to the undercover (begging to come in from the cold), who has forgotten his own birthday. Incredibly this scene is lifted precisely - and I mean precisely - from Hard Boiled, even down to featuring the same actor in the undercover cop role. The only difference is that here he gets a watch instead of a cigarette lighter.
What a load of shit. Still it's forren SO IT MUST BE BRILLIANT.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Kanye West: hmm, it seems that you were unable to properly appraise the film, instead you resorted to simply pointing out how you were unable to watch it without trying to fit it into the stylistic and thematic template that you're used to experiencing with Hollywood films.
Are you suggesting that the wholesale lifting of scenes and themes from other films is somehow a cultural trope? I wonder if maybe on Hong Kong message boards you get people saying "I know How To Lose Friends and Alienate People looks derivative and stupid but you're just not able to process it through the correct cultural filters" as a way of explaining away plagiarism and cliche.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
man, so many classic benway moments on that thread. The little skit about andy serkis acting the part of the bouncing bomb was great. I lol'd, just now.
Posts: 3821
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Kanye West: hmm, it seems that you were unable to properly appraise the film, instead you resorted to simply pointing out how you were unable to watch it without trying to fit it into the stylistic and thematic template that you're used to experiencing with Hollywood films.
Are you suggesting that the wholesale lifting of scenes and themes from other films is somehow a cultural trope?
I think it helps to think of these films - the HK police procedural / gangster flicks - as existing in a kind of fabric or inter-weaving than as a series of completely separate films. Anthony Wong especially seems to play the same characters in a number of films, and some stories are re-told repeatedly just in slightly different ways. I think that HK audiences are used to this, and there seems to be a much stronger relationship between actors and their expected roles than you'd have in Hollywood.
Posts: 3821
| IP: Logged
quote:Originally posted by Kanye West: Anthony Wong especially seems to play the same characters in a number of films, and some stories are re-told repeatedly just in slightly different ways.
If that's the case then it seems to me that The Departed fits quite neatly and cleverly into that tradition. If Hong Kong crime thrillers are about replaying stories with a kind of 'variations on a theme' approach, then an American take is an interesting thing to add to the mix - allowing potential news readings of both the Hong Kong and American versions. The idea of "stick with Internal Affairs" seems even more stupid within this context, where the constant retelling of a story is partly the point.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
lol, i forgot that he played the same character in The Departed as he did in Infernal Affairs. I agree that it's 'interesting' to see an American take on the story, I was just inferring that Infernal Affairs is a better film ie, if you're going to watch one, 'stick with Infernal Affairs'. I mention the fabric element to defend the more HK elements of the film, things that might be alien to the inexperienced viewer. But, yes, why not watch both I suppose, if you've got time to kill. Fuck it, why not watch all three Infernal Affairs films if you're going to go for it.
quote:Originally posted by Kanye West: I was just inferring that Infernal Affairs is a better film
You were implying that it's a better film. I was inferring that you'd fallen into the film nerd stance where foreign automatically equals 'better', being a self-flattering position implying that the person holding it is more worldly, more experienced, more cultured.
posted
I know that's where you think I come from, but it's really not, and your obsession with trying to prove this seems to highlight your own insecurities, or at least, something quite personal to you, rather than my supposed cultural elitism.
posted
It's more like... that's the only possible reason that I can see anyone preferring the Hong Kong film. People - yourself included - have joked about Boy Racer having exactly this kind of cultural elitism, and it seems natural to me that he would immediately fall to defending something that was more exotic, implied broader knowledge and - in some senses - less obvious. It's like always saying "...but of course, the book is so much better" as a way of letting people... I dunno - know that you can read, or whatever it is that motivates people to trot this out at every opportunity.
If I was insecure about this, as you claim, surely I would have done the same thing: immediately started banging on about how much better the Asian version was, how stupid and facile the Hollywood version and so on and so forth, lest people think I was an ignorant savage who couldn't watch subtitled films.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
So you're saying that I cannot possibly prefer the film that is not The Departed, and that actually, I'm either lying to myself when I think do, or I'm lying to everybody when I say I do, because all I really care about is increasing my perceived cultural..something... in the eyes of my peers? See, this seems more like your problem than mine in that you can't get past this perception of the world / yourself, and you apply to others as well. I think this goes round the other way, and demonstrates your own belief that in fact, you appreciate the arts in a more 'meaningful' way than others, that your critical skills are more honed than those of your peers. I think that this has been demonstrated in the past by own obsession with needing to be seen to appreciate 'low' and 'high' cultural output in equal measure.
This longstanding obsession with 'proving' that what others state when criticising creative output is merely a self-serving tool to boost their own outward image and self-image really just reflects on you more than anything else - because it neccesarily puts you in a position of 'uber-critic' - somebody with the ability to determine actual criticism from self-serving wankery. But sadly, it just proves almost the opposite, and certainly points towards your insecurity. Why the need to prove this anyway? You should ask yourself that.
quote:Originally posted by Kanye West: I think this goes round the other way, and demonstrates your own belief that in fact, you appreciate the arts in a more 'meaningful' way than others, that your critical skills are more honed than those of your peers.
Mmm. To put this in context this comes immediately after your jokey post about offering a service whereby you 'give' people their 'correct' opinions. I did start writing something along the lines of Thorn Davis Opinions Are the Official Sponsors of the 2006 Academy Awards. Beware of Cheaper Competitors.
But I couldn't really make it work, and thought maybe it was obvious enough anyway. So yes, I like the American film better, but the idea of there being an absolutely correct opinion to have seemed to have been laid out on the thread before I posted and it seemed reasonable enough to run with it. It's a joke that's been made a few times, so it seemed fair game to carry on with it. I didn't expect a sudden "Actually my mum died of an objectively correct opinion" shift in tone.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
My retort to your first paragraph was basically to say that surely by accusing me of this you're doing the same thing ie: I know you are I said you are but what am I, and my retort to your second paragraph was to point out that I'm just using similar tactics to the kind of thing another poster used to use to wind me up ie: ben done it first. However, looking at those retorts in an unembellished form robbed me of the desire to dress them up in fancy language and send them out to play.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
quote:So you're saying that I cannot possibly prefer the film that is not The Departed, and that actually, I'm either lying to myself when I think do, or I'm lying to everybody when I say I do, because all I really care about is increasing my perceived cultural..something... in the eyes of my peers? See, this seems more like your problem than mine in that you can't get past this perception of the world / yourself, and you apply to others as well. I think this goes round the other way, and demonstrates your own belief that in fact, you appreciate the arts in a more 'meaningful' way than others, that your critical skills are more honed than those of your peers. I think that this has been demonstrated in the past by own obsession with needing to be seen to appreciate 'low' and 'high' cultural output in equal measure.
Surely the obvious response to this is "So you're saying that I cannot possibly the things I like, and that actually, I'm either lying to myself when I think do, or I'm lying to everybody when I say I do, because all I really care about is increasing my perceived cultural..something... in the eyes of my peers? See, this seems more like your problem than mine in that you can't get past this perception of the world / yourself, and you apply to others as well."
quote:This longstanding obsession with 'proving' that what others state when criticising creative output is merely a self-serving tool to boost their own outward image and self-image really just reflects on you more than anything else - because it neccesarily puts you in a position of 'uber-critic' - somebody with the ability to determine actual criticism from self-serving wankery. But sadly, it just proves almost the opposite, and certainly points towards your insecurity. Why the need to prove this anyway? You should ask yourself that.
I would say that's a tactic that's been used fairly consistently on TMO, and it's employed more in spirited fun, rather than as the grim-countenanced obsession that you paint it as here. Ben always used to wind me up when he talked about fans of super-hero films in a similar kind of way, but it seems absurd to try and reposition that approach as some kind of personality defect.
Posts: 13758
| IP: Logged
posted
yes, but I was just joking around, not actually suggesting that there's something wrong with you. Doesn't the line "you should ask yourself that" give it away? Seems like you took it too seriously. Perhaps you should ask yourself why. Maybe there is something wrong with you after all.
posted
Yes, I am back. And yes I had a lovely time, thanks. I'm just a bit stuffed at work but will post about it later this week as it all got a bit comedy.
Especially the nuns and the heart transplant.
I have also recently been to Munich. But that was shit.
Printer-friendly view of this topic