Gong Xi Fa Cai to all our Fridae readers!

As is customary during this time of the year, the cinemas are rolling out their big Chinese titles to pull in the crowds during the holiday season. This year, it’s a three-corner fight between Jack Neo, Fann Wong and Sandra Ng.

Jack is back with his new comedy about love and sex in Love Matters. Fann Wong and Christopher Lee are set to make a splash with The Wedding of the Year; while Sandra Ng and Louis Koo want to tickle you red with All’s Well Ends Well 2009.

Of the three, two have held gala premieres. And we’re sad to say that both Love Matters and All’s Well Ends Well 2009 are disappointing duds. The Wedding of the Year will premiere this Friday but industry sources say the film is also not good.

That pretty much leaves us with the “ang moh” films: Well-made fantasy-adventure Inkheart is the most fun and entertaining of them all, while brutally violent comic adaptation Punisher: War Zone revels in its B-grade glory.

For high-brow moviegoers, the film to watch is probably The Reader, directed by gay helmer Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot). A problematic drama about the Holocaust, it features an outstanding performance by Kate Winslet who nabbed the Golden Globe award for Best Supporting Actress for it.

Once again, we wish all our readers a very happy Chinese new year!

The Reader

Exclusive to GV Cinemas

Gay director Stephen Daldry has made two truly marvelous films, Billy Elliot (2000) and The Hours (2002). But his third outing, The Reader, falters by a wide margin. It is the least convincing and compelling of all his films, and it redeems itself largely by Kate Winslet’s powerhouse performance. (Kate won the Golden Globe for this.)

The story begins in 1958 Germany. A teenage boy (David Kross) with a running fever collapses in front of a building. A much-older woman (Kate Winslet) who lives there helps him home. When the boy recovers, he looks for her for thank her. Their physical attraction to each other is undeniable, and they quickly start an affair.

But it’s not just sex and companionship that she seeks from him. She also enjoys having him read aloud to her from his books. Soon, he is regaling her with classic novels by Homer, Chekhov, D.H. Lawrence and the like. The relationships grows stronger, but then ends abruptly when she leaves town without saying a word.

Many years later, as a law student watching a Nazi war trial, he is shocked to see her again – this time on trial for her role as a concentration camp guard responsible for the deaths of Holocaust prisoners…

Based on Bernhard Schlink's 1995 bestseller, The Reader is a sentimental tale that deals with guilt and redemption. Kate Winslet’s character is ultimately a stand-in for the German public who stood by and did nothing while the Jews were being massacred by the Nazis during World War II.

Unfortunately, for a story that deals with something as tragic and complex as the Holocaust, The Reader resolves itself all too neatly and conventionally, leaving the audience bewildered and dissatisfied. The film seems to suggest that education (or reading books) is our only defence against evil and brutality – a pat conclusion that is both smug and false.

The Reader’s main saving grace is Kate Winslet’s beautiful performance, which reveals much more even in its silence than the movie ever does.

If you’re looking for a film to entertain the family this festive season, look no further than Inkheart. Though it is not be in Chinese, it’s less likely to disappoint than the three Chinese films battling it out this New Year.

Based on Cornelia Funke's bestselling novel, this delightful fantasy-adventure stars newcomer Eliza Bennett and Mummy star Brendan Frasier as a girl and her father who have the powers to bring characters from books to life. The trouble with their powers is that when a character steps off the pages of a book, someone else must take his place in the book. That someone else could very well be a human being.

Sadly, that was how Brendan’s wife/Eliza’s mother disappeared many years ago – prompting Brendan to go on a hunt for the book Inkheart in which she is still trapped….

Though the plot is somewhat complicated, squeezing numerous plot twists into its 106minute runtime, Inkheart is still is well-crafted piece of family entertainment. The storytelling is solid, the technical package is slick and the cast is uniformly good.

Adults will be generally satisfied by this finely-imagined and provocative tale, while kids will lap up the colourful characters, which include those from classic books like Arabian Nights and The Wizard of Oz.

In Mandrain and NC 16 ratings

Jack Neo goes from bad to worse. As the years pass, the quality of his films continues to deteriorate – even though his box-office pull remains as strong as ever. His latest comedy-melodrama, Love Matters, is simply awful. It’s so haphazardly-directed and littered with bad sex jokes, it makes Good Luck Chuck look like dramatic masterpiece.

Henry Thia plays a man who’s been married to Yeo Yann Yann for years. The passion has gone out of their marriage, and they haven’t had sex for 3 years. When they finally get down and dirty one night, she discovers that he has erectile dysfunction.

On the other hand, Henry’s sworn brother Jack Lim is in the prime of his sexual life. He sleeps around regularly and juggles different partners – until a lovely young schoolteacher (Cheryl Lee) catches his eye. Meanwhile, Henry’s teenage son (Benny Lee) is just starting off on his journey towards sexual adulthood. He falls in love with his classmate (Natalli) but she’s attached to another boy.

Through this inter-generational prism, Jack presumably wants to explore the different aspects of love and attraction. But Jack, being Jack, has neither the intellectually depth nor dramatic finesse to make this memorable. The film begins as a bawdy sexual comedy and ends as a cliched melodrama that quickly tries to sum up the point that love matters more than sex and attraction.

Bad directing and messy script aside, it feels as if Jack got the idea from the similarly multi-story dramedy Love, Actually. If you took away Jack’s occasionally funny sex jokes and Yeo Yann Yann’s strong performance, there is absolutely nothing here worth watching.

In Mandrain

Despite the faux Shakespearean title, All’s Well Ends Well2009 is no classic. The filmmakers are clearly hoping that the third movie in the franchise will be as popular as the 1992 and 1997 movies. But this one is just too lame and poorly-directed to be enjoyed.

Comedienne Sandra Ng plays a Devil-Wears-Prada-esque magazine editor, a high-powered bitch-on-wheels who scares off every man she meets. Her singlehood means that younger brother (Ronald Cheng) can’t get married, because familial dictates insist no one’s to wed until the eldest sister, Sandra, does.

Desperate, Ronald turns to gorgeous “date doctor” Louis Koo to seduce his sister and make her more interested in the general male population. Hilarity would, presumably, flow from this premise.

But despite a plot line very similar to Will Smith’s Hitch, writer-director Vincent Kok has managed to squeeze nearly all joy from the story with his clumsy script and less-than-assured direction. The gags fall flat, the jokes rings false, and the plot is thin.

In a word, disappointing.

Ray Stevenson ( Rome) plays the Marvel Comic vigilante The Punisher, who – as his name suggests – is out to punish the bad guys. Specifically, they are facially-disfigured master criminal Jigsaw (Dominic West) and his army of murderers.

This action movie is spectacularly gory and brutal, with bloody images of brains and guts spilt and splattered everywhere. So if gay people are as culturally refined as the stereotype would have you believe, then Punisher: War Zone is not recommended viewing for the average Fridae reader.

Yet, this unabashed B-grader is also unintentionally funny. In fact, some bits are downright outrageous – like when a cop closes the film with the line: “Oh God, now I've got brains splattered all over me.” So if you’ve got a stomach for violence and a sense of irony, who knows? – this might just be your thing.

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Kansai Queer Film Festival 2009

Date: 23-27 Jan 2009 (Main Festival)
Venue: Osaka, Japan
Presented by Kansai Queer Film Festival Committee
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I Love you Philip Morris

I Love You Phillip Morris tells the true story of a conman who find love in a Texas jail-cell. Steven Russell is a married man whose many cons and exploits eventually land him in the clink. He ends up in a jail-cell with another man whom he ends up falling madly in love with. When this man is released from prison, Steven Russell does everything he can to escape from jail and reunite with his new flame.

Stars: Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor

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7th Q! Film Festival Indonesia

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22nd Singapore International Flim Festival

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