Last week I saw two movies, each as different from the other as chalk to cheese. I am not hinting that the 'chalk' here is bad or good. It is more a case of what one likes - chalk or cheese. And that I guess is my motivation for this blog. The case of liking either one or both or none.
You know what to expect when you see a movie in which the actors look Asian. Lots of kung fu or judo or karate or as is the case with the eminently disappointing movie (for me, for me) on martial arts, Ong Bak 2 or 3, a movie set in the past and about revenge. But thanks to Google and the innumerable movie reviews doing the rounds today, we selected this movie knowing what was in store. Lots of action and very little story, which I must say is exactly what I got. Generally I would have skipped a movie which received such a review and would let hubby dearest persuade me to give him company for his dose of action movies. But this time I was intrigued by the stand up ovation the movie had received when it was screened abroad.
So not only did I pull along said hubby, but also managed to convince our late night show partner, P, for this movie outing. When we were taking our seats in the small theater in Escape, Chennai, I couldn't help but notice that P and I were perhaps the only girls in the theater. Suddenly we were giggling like small girls and feeling mighty pleased with ourselves. There was also a nervous flutter in my stomach when I wondered about the lack of women in the theater - was there so much gore in the movie that they wisely stayed away? was the movie merely a yawn inducing mindless martial arts movie? This feeling stayed with me until the opening credits...oh sorry, there weren't any opening credits!
Yes, there was not even a hint of an opening credit nor was there any title seen anywhere; more like this blog I am writing. Did you guess the movie yet? Well, it is the Indonesian dubbed movie, The Raid Redemption. Meanwhile, we felt reassured when we counted four other women in the theater before the lights went out. Still, we couldn't quite shake off the feeling that we were clearly in a testosterone zone.
The movie starts with our hero going about his morning prayers, and working away furiously at a punching bag - an impressive show for us audience that he could be relied on for serious fighting even though he looked scrawnier than a ten year old. On hindsight I can safely say that it was the only quiet moment in the movie. After that, you are pulled into a fight zone where the blood looks real, the bones breaking sound too real, the sound and gunfire - real and the dilapidated building where it all takes place, more than real. The movie showcases fine fight sequences, yes clap inducing ones at that (now I know how our white-collar job executives let go of some adrenalin), but gives the feeling of being grimy and dirty. This is predominantly due to our actors who are running around narrow, dingy hallways sprayed with graffiti, covered with blood and sweat. And more than once I was watching the movie through splayed fingers covering my eyes, letting only a slice of the scenes through, and P had a frozen look of horror on her face for most part. I was not too sure if she was enjoying the movie or not; at least not until the interval when we quickly reassured ourselves that it was horrifyingly good. (if we could call anything like that!). How was our male companion doing? He had a bored look on his face. What??? I was so sure he would have loved it. But then his standards were high. He felt Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" had an edge over this movie. Well, we couldn't have agreed more.
But why? And that brings me to the other movie we saw on the very next day. "Snow White and the Huntsman." What the earlier movie lacked in finesse and beauty, was made up in this movie. It was glossy, big, with awe-inspiring visuals that only Hollywood can pull off. All of the above did a good job of distracting us from the insipid story line or Kristen's hang-over from Twilight acting (it did not help that she was the main character and we were seeing a lot of her in the movie). There is no clear depiction of the evil queen's (brilliantly played by Charlize Theron) character. At times, just to spite Kristen (not that she is ever going to know that) I find myself rooting for the 'distractingly' beautiful Charlize Theron.There also seemed to be no particular reason for the use of the disfigured women, and the dwarves with their colourful characters are woefully underused.People come and go in the background and you never register their presence. Worse being Snow White's childhood friend William's role played by Sam Claflin. He looked awkward and lost, and seemed like an after thought in the casting line.
But ask S how he liked the movie and he says that it was not a bad movie at all. So perhaps good cinematography with some good acting thrown in (Chris Helmsworth was not bad too), one could have a decent movie in their hands.
And what was P and my reaction? We couldn't have agreed with S more.
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