toastykitten

It's really hard to talk about The Handmaiden without spoilers, but I'll try. It's based off of Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, which was set in Victorian England's criminal underground. There's plot twists galore, some of it a little too off for me to buy it, and the second half kind of falters. But it was a pretty engaging book overall from what I remember of it. I actually think I like the movie a lot better, even though it's now set in Korea around the turn of the century, and there's a bunch of stuff that passes me by like the Korean/Japanese identity/hatred issues. It's also way weirder than the book. The actresses who play the protagonists are awesome, the scenery is stunning, and it's very unsentimental. It's currently free on Amazon Prime if you have it.


The Last Tycoon is available on Hulu, and it's in Mandarin. (The trailer is in Cantonese.) So...this is what I think happened. Wong Jing, the director, watched Inglorious Basterds. And he thought, this is great, but it needs something more. Like...a triad boss with a heart of gold and a tragic, doomed love story. Like LoveHKFilms asks, are you really a mobster if you eschew drugs, gambling, and prostitution in your business operations? Features Chow Yun Fat and Sammo Hung, being way better actors than this movie actually is. It's also soooo sappy, and each battle set piece is so epically drawn out.