The Midnight After (Fruit Chan, 2014): Mini-Film Review

The Midnight After (2014) is a film in which the inexplicable and the peculiar intersect in the most unexpected ways. Fruit Chan, one of my favorite directors in the early 2000s with films like Durian Durian (2000) and Hollywood Hong-Kong (2001), tells a story here in which a handful of passengers on a Hong Kong mini-bus pass through a tunnel only to find that, once they reach the other side, they are the only survivors in a deserted urban landscape--the reason?--possibilities include time travel/zombies/nuclear radiation/a deadly virus. We are as uncertain as the characters. All we know is that we are witness to the most heinous acts of violence and horror alongside impromptu music videos and wacky humor--all rolled together as only Fruit Chan can do.

At one point the passengers ruminate about the fate of Hong Kong after the upcoming 2017 elections, which is all too relevant considering the occupy movement currently unfolding. In the end, it seems that Fruit Chan is one of only a few directors unafraid to mix genres to this extreme and to this degree of success.

The Midnight After is an adaptation of a web novel by online writer Pizza entitled Lost On A Red Minibus To Taipo. The film has been characterized as post-apocalyptic and as a satire.

Hong Kong Student Protest Banners: "Strike or Nothing"

While in Hong Kong during the week of Sept. 15-21, 2014 I had a chance to visit both the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology--below are some pictures I took previous to the 9/22 student protests.

For more information on the protests in Hong Kong, see this link (via straitstimes.com) and this link (via foreignpolicy.com); an historical contextualization can be found at this link (via thenation.com).

 Student protest banners on the CUHK campus.

Hong Kong student protest banners at HKUST.

Another protest banner pic I took at HKUST on 9/20.

Cold War Conference: Hong Kong, Sept. 15-16, 2014

It was wonderful presenting, and participating with colleagues, at the "Cold Front: Reflections on the Chinese Cold War Experience and Comparison" Conference presented by The Research Institute for the Humanities at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on September 15-16, 2014. Dr. Adam Cathcart's summary of the event can be read on the Sino-NK website here.

The paper I presented is an exploration of martial arts director King Hu's films in a transnational context. Placing King Hu’s films within the framework of the Cold War reveals that analyses of the director’s films are not entirely exhausted by accounts of important studios such as the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong or Lian Bang Ying Ye Gong Si (Union Film) in Taiwan, editing stylistics, or social contextualizations in terms of the rise of modernization. My paper is tentatively/currently entitled: "Hot Wars on Screen during the Cold War: King Hu’s Martial Arts Films in a Transnational Context."

 

Monga (Doze Niu, 2010): Mini-Film Review

Doze Niu's successful Taiwan film Monga (艋舺) from 2010 features a naive high school age protagonist who enters into an urban gangster world of 1980s Taipei, taking the audience along with him into unfamiliar spaces. An excellent cast, including the director who plays his role superbly, Rhydian Vaughan from Winds of September (九降風, dir. Lin, 2008), and Ma Ju-Lung from Cape No. 7 (海角七號, dir. Wei, 2008), who is Gene Hackman-esque in his ability to lend credibility to any film he shares a role in, helps create a filmic space that feels real in spite of a fair amount of over-emotionalism and slo-mo melodrama. The film works best when the cinematography draws attention to itself and when the film's allegorical potential is realized. After all, Taiwan's transitions during the 1980s depicted here are analogous to other historical transitions in both Taiwan and China's respective histories.

Wu Wenguang, Artist in Residence at UC San Diego 2014

From June 16-22, 2014 it was a pleasure to attend and participate in "The Tangled Dynamics of Independent Filmmaking in Contemporary China: Wu Wenguang 吴文光 as Artist in Residence at UC San Diego" conference at UCSD, attended by Director Wu Wenguang.

The conference entailed a series of forums and Q and A sessions with Director Wu, the screening of an incredible collection of Wu Wenguang films and independent films from China that are a part of the USCD library collection, and the following public event which occurred on Tuesday, June 17th: "Documentary and Memory (记录与记忆) A special film screening with Wu Wenguang."

Wu Wenguang speaking at UCSD, June 17, 2014

King Hu Films at the San Diego MOPA, June 2014

On June 5-7, 2014 three films by the innovative, acclaimed kung fu film director King Hu (胡金銓, 1932-1997) were screened at the San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts. A link to the event can be found here, and a biographical account of director King Hu, written by film scholar Stephen Teo, can be found here on the Senses of Cinema website.

King Hu's films are now restored with new subtitles and were presented on these dates:

Thursday, June 5th: Dragon Inn 龍門客棧(1967)
Friday, June 6th: A Touch of Zen 俠女 (1971)
Saturday, June 7th: The Valiant Ones 忠烈圖 (1975)

King Hu screenshot from Dragon Inn (1967).

I attended the event on June 5th as part of a panel that took audience questions during a Q and A session after the screening of Dragon Inn (1967).

I had an opportunity to interview the star of the film, Shi Juan, in 2008 while completing my dissertation research in Taiwan on 1960s and 1970s Taiwan cinema, so it was a pleasure participating in the event and listening to feedback from the audience. It was fun to see the images on the big screen for the first time, solidifying for me why the film was such a hit in its day.

  Post-screening Q&A panel alongside Dr. Brian Hu & martial arts expert Dr. Craig Reid

San Diego Surf Film Festival, 2014

The San Diego Surf Film Festival (May 7-10) mixes three of my favorite things into one event--this coastal city, surfing, and film. As I found out while attending last year, it's pretty much impossible for magic not to happen with these ingredients. A lot of incredible work by the festival organizers--see an interview of Pierce Kavanagh by Bobby Oliver here--and film contributors makes this an annual event not to be missed.

On Thursday (May 8th) the film that stood out to me the most was The Cradle of Storms (dir. Bryce Lowe-White & Ben Weiland, USA), a short which documents a two-week journey to the Aleutian Islands and unexpectedly good surf. I have always wondered what it must have been like to see surf films in the 1970s with stoked audiences cheering when Gerry Lopez came shooting out of a barrel--it must be something like the hoots that erupt spontaneously during a packed out SDSFF set.

 

Post-screening Q and A with directors at SDSFF 2014.

On Friday and Saturday (May 9 & 10) there were cheers for brothers traveling through Patagonia, surfing in Norway and the Atlantic Coast of Europe, the gay surfing community, inspiring stories of inner-city children loving life in the waves, surfing in Japan, crazy waves and slabs in UK and Ireland, and my son's favorite film on Saturday: surfing life in New Hampshire ... among others.

The surf film industry is a strange creature: corporations pump out film after film--you see them playing in clothing stores in malls like television commercials. But the industry never knows when it is or isn't posturing. Unlike Hollywood, it seems incapable of creating illusions that can, even in spite of themselves, strike a universal chord. So it becomes a joke to see their self-conscious image-things, trying so hard to be earnest, never knowing when they get IT right even when production values and surfing talent are through the roof.

But here there can be moments when a creative connection between audience, film-maker, and film-object just seems to work.

Soul of a Carnation, Heart of Surf trailer subtitles from heliovalentim on Vimeo.

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... some reviews of last year's SDSFF 2013 here: posts 1, 2, 3, & 4.