Recommended Viewing: In the Mood For Love

We recently watched In the Mood For Love, a Chinese movie by Wong Kar Wai.

I don't want to go into the plot too much, because I seriously want y'all to see it for yourselves. It's a melancholy sort-of love story, just quiet and gentle and sweetly sad. Every single frame is achingly beautiful. I'm not exaggerating. The set design is pitch-perfect (if it's not technically period-perfect, it's emotionally perfect), the color palette is used to great effect, and the way the camera lingers on a wisp of smoke or views a scene from down a hallway and with a slightly blocked view instead of right there with the characters, just infuses the film with a sense of longing, but at the same time it's very peaceful.

And I covet the lead actress's wardrobe to an obsessive degree. Like, I would wear the shit out of every single thing she wore. Ridiculously fantastic. It's set in the 1960s, so she had these incredible modern-style cheongsam type dresses, with elegant high collars, neat little cap sleeves, and glove-like fitting to her curves (and it didn't hurt that she had a smoking hot bod). I was literally gasping with joy and envy every time she had on a new outfit. And then demanding to be taken to China.

These pictures are kind of terrible quality, but you get the idea:







Also, now I'm really craving wonton soup and char siu bao (BBQ pork buns).

Recommended Viewing: Mongol

Mongol is the story of Genghis Khan's early life. I really enjoyed this movie; it has beautiful scenery, drama, a moving love story and copious amounts of blood & violence.

... Wait, what?

Seriously. I usually hate violence, especially when it's really graphic, but:
(a) this movie could not have been made without some violence, being the story of Genghis Khan,
(b) all the violence is contextual and moves the story forward, and
(c) it makes the quiet moments and the love story all the more poignant.

Plus, the cinematography throughout the whole movie is just beautiful. The sweeping Mongolian landscapes are incredible. They spend a lot of time close in on the actors' faces - not in a horrible Pore-Vision way, just kind of natural & intimate. The acting seemed to me to be very subtle, so I liked the close-ups because I felt I needed it to be able to catch those tiny flickers of emotion.

The really striking part for me was in the battle scenes. They use this particular style of filming where everything is super sharp and defined at every moment, almost like the way they shoot hi-def sports - you can see individual drops of blood spraying out when a guy slices another guy across the chest. The only other movie I can think of that had action filmed like that was Brotherhood of the Wolf, a movie I also enjoyed despite being in a genre I don't usually care for.

I don't know how historically accurate Mongol is. According to my husband (who likes to do more research than I do), very little written history ever survived about this period; there's, like, one written account that was later translated into Chinese and even that is more like a legend than an accurate record. So it's really anyone's guess what Genghis Khan was actually like or what drove him to do whatever he did.

But still an entirely enjoyable film. You may like to watch it with a cushion in front of your eyes if the sight of blood gives you the willies though.