djepic1 Reviews

Battle of the Brides (2011)

A Twist on the Romantic Comedy Genre

[9/10 · 22 December 2012]

The ending of the film throws a huge curve ball at you to its benefit. Up until that point, it's a rather standard romantic comedy film aimed at a male audience. You have some of Vietnam's most beautiful actresses in sensual scenes as well as a sympathetic tone towards the male "playa."

What changes this film from average to great is the ending. Just when you were expecting some cliché happy ending to take place, the plot shifts towards a feminist perspective through one of the female leads.

Big twists are not common in this genre but the film uses it effectively to be memorable.

The Moon at the Bottom of the Well (2008)

Pacing Is Much Too Slow

[3/10 · 19 January 2012]

The film has a unique story but suffers from being too long. The plot is quite interesting but it's slowed down by many scenes of nothing happening.

Hanh is the perfect wife who sacrifices everything for her cold husband. She is infertile but wants him to have a family so enlists the help of another woman to bear children. Eventually her marriage falls apart as their secret is made public. To protect her husband's career, she divorces him and allows him to marry the other woman.

In her loneliness and despair, she begins to see a shaman. The ending left me feeling uneasy because even though Hanh does find peace through the undead, she becomes detached from reality.

The film suffers from many technical issues despite being released in 2008 but this is understandable given the young age of modern Vietnamese cinema. One great thing about the film is the authentic and rare look into Vietnamese shamanism. During these scenes the film becomes almost like a documentary.

The Floating Lives (2010)

Vietnamese Cinema at Its Best

[10/10 · 17 January 2012]

One thing I've noticed about classical Vietnamese stories is that they are all tragedies. This film is born from that tradition despite being based on a contemporary short story.

Vietnamese cinema is still relatively new and growing but this film represents one of the best I've seen. The director is able to make you feel like you are living with the family on their boat due to the slow and realistic pace. Character development is so strong that by the end, you really do hope and wish for the family to find peace. Unfortunately, the happy ending never comes and you are left with an uneasy feeling- much like how real life is.

What makes this film even stronger is the gorgeous film score. This is an underdeveloped aspect of Vietnamese cinema but "Floating Lives" manages to deliver above and beyond. At times you have a full orchestra score and other times only minimalistic Vietnamese instruments. This contrast provides for a traditional western film experience while simultaneously keeping a Vietnamese soul.

The White Silk Dress (2006)

Amazing and rare gem about Vietnamese suffering

[9/10 · 11 September 2008]

This film is truly a great accomplishment for Vietnam and the Vietnamese-American director. Despite having a budget of roughly only two million USD, it is the most expensive film ever produced by the country.

The film is able to capture the authentic essence of Vietnamese culture through the story and themes; mainly that of suffering and respect for parents. The story follows the life of a poor hunchbacked man and a servant woman from North Vietnam who experience suffering through war and living in poverty.

The film is heart wrenching as the painful scenes are not over dramatized or unbelievable. You really grieve for the family, and even life at points. This film certainly has no happy ending because it remains true to the lives of many Vietnamese people.

The film's shortcomings are mainly technical issues, which are due to the small film industry in Vietnam and the inexperienced production company. Despite those problems, the cinematography is beautiful and the film has many impressive scenes without the use of CGI or special effects.

This film was incredibly hard for me to obtain. As of summer 2008, there is no commercial release in Vietnam (due to rampant pirating), NA or Europe. Only Taiwan has released a DVD. This was the one I purchased and I was hoping the distributor would do a good job of presenting the film, but I was disappointed. The DVD presents the film in a matted 4:3 screen and the transfer is quite poor. You would think the film was much older based on the quality. The authentic DVD wasn't cheap either, so it was quite disappointing.

This film deserves to be seen by many and hopefully we will see some release in the future that does justice to the original material.

The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (2008 Video)

Wonderful and beautiful animation, not so interesting story

[7/10 · 27 August 2008]

Ever since Disney's "sequels" department has been under new management, there has been a HUGE upgrade in quality. There have only been two animated releases so far, Cinderella III and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning. I am not sure if any more sequels are in production.

Consistent between both films is the very high quality animation. TLM:AB keeps CGI to a minimum and much effort has been made to keep the characters close to the original character models (and in many cases, character models have heavily improved over the original). This is probably as good as it will get without the original team of animators.

What saves this film is the fantastic hand-drawn animation in the age of ugly CGI and lazy flash-drawn cartoons. I would go as far as to say that the animation here is on-par or higher than the original 1989 release (the original was plagued with off-model animation). Unfortunately, the story is only so-so. The plot is very weak but effort has been made to develop all of the sisters' personalities, which I really appreciate (they are believable sister to sister relationships). I think Disney recognised that without Alan Menken, the music for TLM would not have charm or beauty. Disney did the right thing for this film by keeping songs short and to a minimum.

This film highly deserves a chance to be seen by many, unlike the rushed and horrible Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.

Muoi: The Legend of a Portrait (2007)

The best parts were the Vietnamese ones

[5/10 · 30 September 2007]

This is one of the first times Korea has worked directly with Vietnamese producers and actors to create a feature length film. This is important to note because it is a joint production between a rich and developed industry (Korea) versus a very small and poor one (Vietnam). Although the film is thoroughly Korean in style and direction, the Vietnamese setting and supporting characters add a very nice touch.

The teaser trailer released actually has little to do with this film. It was almost like a separate 'fake' trailer. I find the premise of that more interesting than the story of the film.

The story has a lot of twists and is rather hard to comprehend. The best parts were definitely the Vietnamese 'flashbacks' presented a few times throughout the film. I wish there could have been more spoken dialogue in Vietnamese, however.

The film has a unique setting but it uses way too many East-Asian horror clichés. It almost becomes annoying and boring. Using 'cliches' is almost unavoidable in horror but depending on how talented the director is, he/she can present it in a new way.

Muoi tries to find its place within Korean horror but ultimately fails to bring anything worthy to the genre.

I recommend this film mainly in support of Vietnam.