For those who use such things, the automated check-out system at the
Metrotown Branch of the Library. At the time it went operational, a
smiling staffer assured me that "not a single job was lost." I never
use it myself. The blue finger points to the Chinese media section.
TAX WEEK IN BURNABY
The line has been long this week at Burnaby City Hall, as many ratepayers enjoy the annual ritual of meeting their property taxes. For those who wait last minute, here is a tip. When you get as far as the elevator, don't forget to take off your hat, turn to the left and smile. Each taxpayer gets a photograph taken as we snail by. It won't be long until facial recognition software is added to the mix. I asked, and a nice lady at the counter assured me it was not installed yet... but maybe next year. To amuse myself while waiting, I sorted memories of the past year, identifying the municipal services I receive for my generous contribution to city coffers. One certainly has to be the DVD lending collection at the Metrotown Library, which I partake of several times per year. I have a robust DVD collection of my own, but I enjoy viewing and studying foreign film, and the Criterion editions are just too expensive for a single viewing. The library has most, if not all of the movies known as the Criterion Collection.
Superb Lending Collection -
Chinese and Taiwan DVDs
The Burnaby library collection of movies, documentaries and television series on DVD is truly massive, and if you love watching quality video, you certainly must spend an hour familiarizing yourself with what is available for borrowing. (This is an example your tax dollars at work!) I used to have favourite shops I enjoyed visiting and purchasing from, but very few local retailers continue to stock DVDs. Our library system purchased most of the DVD catalog from C & L Multimedia, a family business that has become the leading supplier in Greater Vancouver. They also supply the U.B.C. and S.F.U. campuses. Both of those universities have film-studies programs.
The collection is on the main floor, but I must point out that a special collection of Chinese and Taiwanese DVDs has been assembled, and it is shelved with the Asian books and magazines, in the n.e. corner of the building. I took a photograph this week to accompany this introduction to the service. I do not know how much of the collection is currently out on loan, but it was very easy for me to fins a couple of movies to enjoy this week.
The best way to show what you can expect to find in this China - Taiwan DVD Collection is to describe the two movies I borrowed and watched this past week.
BLIND SHAFT 盲井 is a Chinese crime-drama directed by Li Yang 李杨. The story, released in 2003, unfolds in an extremely interesting, and also quite ugly, rural landscape that you may have read about in the news. There exists in China a very dangerous archipelago of quasi-legal coal mines, most of which are notorious for exploiting poor migrant labourers, often to the point of death. This is an amazing film that was shot in a working coal mine, and on the streets of a miserable mining town. The packaging notes quote a review in The Village Voice that described BLIND SHAFT as "Part neorealistic expose, part noir thriller." That is actually a rather accurate summation of Li Yang's modus. A superb film!
STRAY DOGS 郊遊 is a 2013 Taiwan film that I had read about, and was thrilled to discover in the Metrotown Library collection. As I once lived and worked in Taiwan, I have an acquired taste for its national cinema, and I even have a couple of Tsai Ming-Liang's movies at home. But STRAY DOGS caught me off guard. I was not prepared for the intensity of my response to its principle ideas and its carefully constructed images. I take movies quite seriously and usually watch good films alone. As per habit, I immediately started imposing on family and friends, because an encounter with visual story-telling at this level, is something we often continue to process, in part by describing it to others. I could give the story away in a paragraph, but that would be a cultural sin. I expect to sit to a second viewing later this summer, if only to test my lasting impressions.
"THE EIGHT HUNDRED"
Political prejudice has delayed
China's best movie of 2019.
Chinese war movies seem to exist in only two varieties. A quality production that tells a story well, or botch that is a total waste of time. NETFLIX is currently running a Chinese war film that is so bad, Bruce Willis should donate his pay-cheque to charity. AIR STRIKE (2018) is ghastly, and Willis' performance is nothing short of an insult to cinema. By way of contrast, I am expecting great things from THE EIGHT HUNDRED, a large-budget production that is a vivid (and admittedly embellished) retelling of one of the great Chinese victories of the Sino-Japanese War. In history it serves a similar function for China as Dunkirk did for Britain only a few years later. It was a defining moment of sacrifice and patriotism that has actually been an inspiration to folks on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
The Battle of the Sihang Warehouse, was a rear-guard action conducted by a picked battalion. The Japanese has flanked the Chinese defensive line and were poised to overrun the Chinese half of Shanghai in 1937. You may not have heard of it, but the brave stand on Soochow Creek was a notable battle of its day, and well-covered by the British and American newsreel cameramen, who were filming from vantage points in the Foreign Settlements. In fact, the opposite side of the creek was British territory, and three men of the Royal Welch Fusiliers were killed during the Japanese assault. The story of the so-called "doomed battalion" has been covered by four previous Asian movies made between 1938-1975 - one each made in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. The Japanese rarely credited the Chinese army with having credible combat skills, but they were forced to admit that the defence of Sihang Warehouse had been exceptional. The Japanese Naval Landing Force suffered 200 dead, compared to only ten Chinese defenders. Japan cinema in the 30s was experimenting with social realism, and it was films like "A Naval Brigade of Shanghai" (1939) that proved too much for the Nippon government to stomach. Film censorship ensued.
This 2019 rendition is expected to become the definitive account and it is definitely a Hollywood-style action picture. In fact several American experts were hired to do a breakout of action sequences, and several foreign actors have speaking roles. The official movie trailer shows that the combat is not limited to "the stand" inside the row of concrete warehouses, but spills into the streets of Shanghai and the sky above. That allows for a truly massive body count on both sides.
Unfortunately the movie's opening at the Shanghai International Film Festival has been cancelled, due to naked political prejudice. Some whiny communist committeemen are interfering with the release, and may even demand heavy censorship before THE EIGHT HUNDRED gets out of limbo. They just cannot live with the fact that the hero soldiers commanded by their "class enemies" were serving in the Koumintang's National Army, and it was the Sun flag dramatically hoisted in defiance of Japanese assault troops, not the Red flag. If this nonsense persists, the money spent in promotion will be pissed away, and the film will lose momentum. It was just announced that the films premiere, scheduled for July 6, has been cancelled. We China film fans may end up, oh the irony!, of having this movie debut in North America not on big screens, but on NETFLIX.
Political prejudice has delayed
China's best movie of 2019.
Chinese war movies seem to exist in only two varieties. A quality production that tells a story well, or botch that is a total waste of time. NETFLIX is currently running a Chinese war film that is so bad, Bruce Willis should donate his pay-cheque to charity. AIR STRIKE (2018) is ghastly, and Willis' performance is nothing short of an insult to cinema. By way of contrast, I am expecting great things from THE EIGHT HUNDRED, a large-budget production that is a vivid (and admittedly embellished) retelling of one of the great Chinese victories of the Sino-Japanese War. In history it serves a similar function for China as Dunkirk did for Britain only a few years later. It was a defining moment of sacrifice and patriotism that has actually been an inspiration to folks on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
The Battle of the Sihang Warehouse, was a rear-guard action conducted by a picked battalion. The Japanese has flanked the Chinese defensive line and were poised to overrun the Chinese half of Shanghai in 1937. You may not have heard of it, but the brave stand on Soochow Creek was a notable battle of its day, and well-covered by the British and American newsreel cameramen, who were filming from vantage points in the Foreign Settlements. In fact, the opposite side of the creek was British territory, and three men of the Royal Welch Fusiliers were killed during the Japanese assault. The story of the so-called "doomed battalion" has been covered by four previous Asian movies made between 1938-1975 - one each made in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. The Japanese rarely credited the Chinese army with having credible combat skills, but they were forced to admit that the defence of Sihang Warehouse had been exceptional. The Japanese Naval Landing Force suffered 200 dead, compared to only ten Chinese defenders. Japan cinema in the 30s was experimenting with social realism, and it was films like "A Naval Brigade of Shanghai" (1939) that proved too much for the Nippon government to stomach. Film censorship ensued.
Allegory in a wartime propaganda poster.
We see China savagely tortured by an army
of Lilliputians - Japanese Naval Infantry.
This 2019 rendition is expected to become the definitive account and it is definitely a Hollywood-style action picture. In fact several American experts were hired to do a breakout of action sequences, and several foreign actors have speaking roles. The official movie trailer shows that the combat is not limited to "the stand" inside the row of concrete warehouses, but spills into the streets of Shanghai and the sky above. That allows for a truly massive body count on both sides.
Unfortunately the movie's opening at the Shanghai International Film Festival has been cancelled, due to naked political prejudice. Some whiny communist committeemen are interfering with the release, and may even demand heavy censorship before THE EIGHT HUNDRED gets out of limbo. They just cannot live with the fact that the hero soldiers commanded by their "class enemies" were serving in the Koumintang's National Army, and it was the Sun flag dramatically hoisted in defiance of Japanese assault troops, not the Red flag. If this nonsense persists, the money spent in promotion will be pissed away, and the film will lose momentum. It was just announced that the films premiere, scheduled for July 6, has been cancelled. We China film fans may end up, oh the irony!, of having this movie debut in North America not on big screens, but on NETFLIX.
The official trailer for THE EIGHT HUNDRED
is found onYoutube - HERE.
