An Inaccurate Memoir

An Inaccurate Memoir

aka 匹夫 aka Pi Fu
An Inaccurate Memoir
2012
Written by Leon Yang Shu-Peng and Zhang Xiao-Bei
Directed by Leon Yang Shu-Peng

An Inaccurate Memoir
Wow, did I get An Inaccurate Memoir wrong! Here I thought it looked cool and would be entertaining, but instead it just ends up being boring and making me wonder why I’m wasting time on it when I have a thousand other films to watch. A sad end, because An Inaccurate Memoir looked strong, taking place during the Japanese invasion of China and featuring bandits and resistant fighters in a near-lawless setting.
An Inaccurate Memoir
It’s not all bad, there is some awesome cinematography of wide open spaces indicative of Westerns that so many of these Eastern/Occupied China films emulate. There is some cool imagery, if you are patient enough to wait around for it. Most striking is the occupying Japanese soldiers playing soccer with a skull. The Japanese are dehumanized in most scenes, especially the raid on the bandit base by gas mask wearing Japanese troops that look like monstrous invaders.
An Inaccurate Memoir
The action sequences are too sparse, and when under way, are done with an intense energy, like every move and shot is done with great pain and heroic struggle. Think everyone acting like screaming Spartans from 300 except without all the stylized effects around them and just in a real firefight, and it begins to look ridiculous. I’m all for stylizing action films, but here it is just a mess of struggle. Sure, some characters it can be advantageous to show the heroic struggle…if used in moderation, not filled so much the seams are bursting.
An Inaccurate Memoir
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Tron Space Jam NBA craziness in the amazing new film Amazing

[adrotate banner=”1″]Amazing is so amazing, it is amazing. South Korea, China (via the Shanghai Film Group), and the NBA team up to give us a film that could only be made by amazing people. The amazing Amazing features real NBA stars interacting in a virtual world playing basketball. Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Scottie Pippen, Magic Johnson, Yi Jianlian, and Wang Zhizhi will go all B-ball on T-ron in the virtual world video game Basketball Revolution. The Basketball Revolution game is also being reported as “The Sixth Sense” in some news reports, which is alwo weird. So who knows what the final name will be. Kim Ah-Jung plays one of the creaters of the game, and Huang Xiao-Ming plays her boyfriend, both of whom are drawn into the Tron Basketball drama. Because it is dramaful. Eric Mabius from Ugly Betty also joins the drama, because basketball, fools! Sherwood Hu Xue-Hua directs.

The original plot for Amazing was told to the press as “a basketball-themed movie about young people achieving their dreams through hard work.” Um, yeah. I guess they forgot to mention the whole virtual reality thing!

But no write-up can match the ridiculousness of the trailer. You need to see the trailer above. Need to see it.

Amazing

Here’s another trailer that gets smart and shows less of the Tron action: