Re-open Exhibition - pictures and art from Open Magazine (one my favorite magazines, but now sadly on extended hiatus):
Re-Open: Nong Plub (this happens to be on the cover of the first Open I bought).
Re-Open: Artwork by Thai Vijit
I didn't know too much about Chen Kuan Tai, but just that he's the star of the opening film of the festival - Boxer from Shantung. So I went not expecting too much and as a result was blown away by the movie!
I think if you are a kid growing up in Asia, there was probably a few periods in your life when you are really into kungfu martial arts (kum lung pai nai in Thai) serials. I had quite a few fights with toy swords with my brother while making swishing (sword cutting through air) sound effects.
Seeing this movie made me realize how derivative of those serials and the Kill Bill movies are - here I was seeing the source and inspiration of kungfu on the screen! And no wonder Quentin Tarantino supposedly got hooked on this stuff when he was a video store clerk.
The movie is sorta 'The Godfather' meets kungfu. Chen plays Ma Yongzhen, the boxer of the title, to starts of humble beginnings to become gangster boss of Shanghai (think Godfather, Part II - the rise of Vito Corleone - a lot less subtle) and then his fall from grace. The director made the effort to inject some big themes on the corruption of power and sacrifice in between some incredible action sequences.
And the coolest one has to be the finale fight in at a teahouse (rong tiam) at the end. By the end of the fight, our hero has taken down 4 of the rival gangboss's henchmen (the "Four Champions"), fallen down the balcony 3 times and fought about 101 underlings armed with axes and daggers - all while bleeding with a hachet stuck in his side!
And the blood, oh the blood! I reminds me of an espisode of Fear Factor I just saw in which they had to bob for rings in a vat full of cow blood.
Phew... that was fun! I'm thinking of catching more shows soon. They told me there's an open air screening of "The Kingdom and The Beauty" - maybe some classic period drama for a change. My friend told me the star, Linda Lin Dai, was the It-girl of her day or something like that. Hmm... thinking of going with some mooncakes to the screening and having a mini picnic.
