756. Dao ma zei/The Horse Thief (1986)

Running Time: 88 minutes
Directed By: Tian Zhuangzhuang
Written By: Zhang Rui
Main Cast: Dan Jiji, Gaoba, Jayang Jamco, Tsesheng Rinzim, Daiba

I'M TRYING REAL HARD, RINGO!

I told my wife that I was just going to lay down with her for a few minutes and then get back up to write my review for The Horse Thief. Well, about as soon as my head hit the pillow I was out like a light and didn't wake up until it was time to go to work this morning. So, I had to postpone everything by one night and now here we are. Let's get to it...

The plot synopsis I'm about to give you is the plot synopsis that I got from watching this movie. There was VERY little dialogue, which kind of made it a little hard to follow the film. However, I think I pretty much got the gist of everything - so I'll hit the bullet points and we'll go from there. So we've got the main character, his name's Norbu and as the title suggests, he's a horse thief. Except he's not just a horse thief, he's basically a kleptomaniac, as far as I could tell. In addition to being a thief, he's also a family man though, taking good care of his wife and kids (thus why he steals) and trying to provide for them, by any means necessary. The film is set in Tibet, among a clan of religious fanatics who offer sacrifices and offerings to Buddha, in exchange for him taking care of their land. Norbu is a part of the religious clan - that is until he's caught stealing temple offerings and is told to leave and never come back. Furthermore, he's told that if he ever does come back, his hands will be cut off. After being exiled, his son becomes very ill and Norbu believes it's because he's betrayed his God. Where he once got holy water from a lake meant to be used by all of the community, he now holds a pale to a trickling drain pipe in hopes that the rains from the heavens will cure his son. His son eventually dies and Norbu tires to change his ways, going back to the clan to try and make peace, but ultimately getting attacked and ran off.

This is the kind of movie that I'd normally just write off within the first twenty minutes and spend the next hour and change just putting up with it. I decided this time that I'd REALLY try to give this one a fair shake. I'm not saying I liked it or anything, but it wasn't a completely heinous ninety minutes and actually I'll give credit to some good cinematography and I suppose, a decent story. Martin Scorsese supposedly named this one of his top movies of the 90s (citing that it wasn't really a known film until that decade, despite being released in '86) and I'm willing to bet that was a big reason why THE BOOK broke down and included it. It's really nothing particularly important or particularly good and honestly, I think there were plenty of other important films. The lack of dialogue was a big turn off for me and were they really killing those animals? I'm no card carrying PETA member, but some of that stuff looked pretty brutal (cutting a sheep's throat and another scene depicting a group of sheep being buried alive, all for sacrificial purposes).

In the end, if it was something I really wanted to write off, I would have which proves that there must have been something there that kept me attached to the action. Again, not a great film by any means, but it's one of the better rare ones. Like I've said before, the rare stuff is usually the stuff that I dread going into, probably just because I know NOTHING about it. Not a lot of hype, not a lot of opinions to be found online, not a lot of nothing. This one was short enough to not get on my nerves too much, but ultimately I'd call it a worthless entry into THE BOOK, but one that must carry some sort of importance that I'm just not getting.

RATING: 4/10  I'll give it a few notches for the stuff I mentioned, but nothing worth going out of your way to see or anything, despite Scorsese's recommendation.

MOVIES WATCHED: 834
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 167

July 31, 2014  10:55pm

863. Lan feng zheng/The Blue Kite (1993)

Running Time: 138 minutes
Directed By: Tian Zhuangzhuang
Written By: Xiao Mao
Main Cast: Lu Liping, Yi Tian, Zhang Wenyao, Chen Xiaoman, Zhong Ping

MORE OBSCURITY FROM CHINA

Man, I'd really like to know where THE BOOK came up with some of these movies. It really feels like they just pulled some of them out of thin air, in a feeble attempt to give their "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" a little class and culture.

I don't really want to get into a whole thing on the plot for two reasons: 1) Honestly, there were times when I was only half paying attention (see "Farewell My Concubine") and 2) The film deals a lot with the cultural revolution (again) and life under the reign of Chairman Mao. Therefore, I probably can't articulate all of those parallels quite right, so I don't even want to try. The good news is the film doesn't really delve as deep into history, as much as it just puts the focus onto a particular family and more specifically, a particular boy, Tietou, who is impacted by the changes in Chinese life. At a young age, Tietou's father is sent away, nominated by his colleagues while he was in the bathroom to be a rightist for the Communist Party. Tietou's father, frustrated over having to go away, spanks Tietou one day when he misbehaves. As a result, Tietou is still bitter with his father when he goes away. The film is split into three parts, with the first part entitled "Father", the second entitled "Uncle", in which Tietou's uncle (not real uncle, just one of those people you call "uncle") steps in as the new father figure and a third part entitled "Stepfather", where Tietou's mother remarries. Okay, so maybe I did go into detail on the plot, but I left out plenty.

Have you ever been in the process of short changing a movie and about halfway through you say, "Oh shit, I should've been paying better attention because this is getting better and now I've already deemed it boring"? Well, that, kind of, happened for me with "The Blue Kite". The film starts out extremely slow. It was also a quiet film, with actors delivering dialogue with their backs to the camera, lacking a real voice, one necessary in a film. Perhaps it was my recent struggles with "Farewell My Concubine" too, another film that dealt with the cultural revolution and covered many years worth of time, that caused me to be hesitant to settle into this one. However, like I said, after a while, I sort of started to perk up and while never getting swept off my feet by the movie, I did eventually settle into it and actually begin to care what the ultimate outcomes of the characters would be. It was really such a sad movie, one that could've benefited greatly from a more prevalent, emotional score and your heart really goes out to this family, that is impacted so much by the goings on of the government. I won't even go so far to say that it's good, but even if you've been scorned by other, slow moving Chinese movies that run over two hours, give this one a chance and you may get more out of it than you expect to. I guess that makes me guilty of cinematic profiling and it's a shame I watched this one so close to another film with similar thematic elements, or else I may not have been so cold toward it.

RATING: 4/10  Honestly though, as nice as I'm being, I think even if I'd given this film my all, I still don't think it would've been totally up my alley. However, I'm very willing to admit there's a great movie in there somewhere, that I just couldn't see. Oh and the significance of the blue kite? Anybody?

MOVIES WATCHED: 767
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 234

November 23, 2013  5:39pm