Random

I was sick for a couple of weeks so managed to watch a lot of movies, best way to recover trust me! i have been going through a documentary phase, so caught a couple of them (abnormal as I usually watch movies and not documentaries). One was on the Tank Man, was quite fascinating, and the other was also on China, a discovery feature on the rapid rise of China. Some really amazing photography, particularly in the second one, like the terrace fields of Long Shen, the vast pastures in Inner Mongolia, a totally awesome shot of women washing their hair in was it Tibet?, and some complimentary shots of Shanghai skyline, which apparently was all paddy fields like 15 odd years ago.
Movies that I caught were Takeshi Miike's Big Bang Love, set in the future, in a secluded penitentiary, murder mystery, but being a Miike movie, so hard to club so trivially. As usual, the direction was spiffing, with delightfully hued photography, quite a miracle how he manages to churn out movie after movie of such variety with his legendary pace. Stars Masanobu Ando (Kids Return, Battle Royale) with some spectacular body-art, and Ryuhei Matsuda (Gohatto), looking his usual angelic self.
Also watched Johnnie To's Fulltime Killer, Andy Lau giving a delightful turn as a movie maniac hired assassin, competing with a much quieter Japanese assassin for the position of asia's top killer (inspired by the sylvester stallone antonio banderas starring Assassins (my first hired killer movie btw), as mentioned by Lau in the movie). Action was over the top, whenever Lau was in the frame, sometimes when wasnt as well. Numerous famous action movies are referenced, Lau being a big fan of them in the movie, including Point Break, Le Samourai, El Mariachi, Leon, Cheung Fo, etc etc was so much fun trying to catch which movie were being referenced. Must mention that everything about the movie is extremely over the top, probably deliberately so. But To is capable of some very nuanced movies like Election and Mad Detective, and some really awesome action movies like Exiled and Cheung Fo. This one was all fun.
Video is Lonely Planet's Tokyo Moods, a beautiful short on Tokyo, music is pretty.
Photos are poster of big bang love, a couple of shots from it, and poster of Fulltime Killer.