Leglessbird Movie Guide

Farinelli (buy from Amazon)

Type: Drama, Italy 1994

Director:G?rard Corbiau

My rating: 4
Key actors/actresses:
Stefano Dionisi .... Farinelli/Carlo Broschi
Enrico Lo Verso .... Riccardo Broschi
Elsa Zylberstein .... Alexandra

Story:
Farinelli, is the artistic name of Carlo Broschi, a young singer in Haendel times. He was castrated in his childhood in order to preserve his voice. During his life he becomes to be a very famous opera singer, managed by his mediocre brother (Riccardo).

My review:
I first got to know about this film during a Digital Signal Processing conference, during which a French research team presented their work of morphing two singers' voices into one voice. Why would they do that? They did it for this film. Farinelli, a castrated singer could sing a really wide range, in fact, it is so wide that no one on earth alive today can replicate that. So they had to rely on modern science to come up with a way to reproduce the voice in the movie.

Back to the movie, Farinelli is a fascinating character. The director also paid attention to a lot of details. The scenes are grand and the music is simply magnificent.

Posted by Ryoko

Bad Education (Original Uncut NC-17 Edition) (buy from Amazon)

Type: Drama, Spain 2004

Director:Pedro Almodovar

My rating: 5
Key actors/actresses:
Gael Garcia Bernal: Angel/Juan/Zahara
Fele Martinez: Enrique Goded
Javier Camara: Paquito
Daniel Gimenez Cacho: Father Manolo
Lluis Homar: Berenguer

Story:
Ignacio and Enrique were students at a religious school and they loved each other. Father Manolo, director of the school and its professor of literature, disturbed their love because Ignacio was the very special student for him.
After the next few decades, Enrique got famed as a movie director. One day Ignacio came to his office suddenly. Enrique was surprised at this visit, however, he felt something incongruous and could not believe the man was Ignacio.
Each life of Ignacio, Enrique, and Father Manolo was changed and destined unexpectedly by the reunion.

My review:
After my friend and I watched this film at a theater last year, we got excited with this screenplay and the acting by Gael Garcia Bernal: we kept talking about this movie at a cafe until nearly midnight at that time.
It was hard to predict (read ahead) how this story would be going on while I was watching this movie. Gael played 3 characters, and one of them was a drag queen (Zahara). When he was singing `Quizas,quizas,quizas'as Zahara, he looked decadent but mysterious and fascinating to me. Surely his performance was GREAT. I don?t know any other young and good-looking players in Japan (at least) that can act great like Gael did.
Here is my rating: story = 4 stars, acting = 4 stars (nearly 5stars), direction = 5 stars, visual = 4 stars, and my conclusion in total = 5 stars.

Fidelity (Fidelite) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Spain ] (buy from Amazon)

Type: Drama, France 2000

Director:Andrzej Zulawski

My rating: 3

Key actors/actresses:
Sophie Marceau .... Cl?lia
Pascal Greggory .... Cl?ve
Guillaume Canet .... N?mo
Michel Subor .... Rupert MacRoi
Magali No?l .... La m?re de cl?lia

Story:
Clelia is a young photographer with her own style. Her photos are all blur, it reflects how she perceives the world. She met Cleve, son of a book publishing business, they got married but she is attracted to another guy, she isn't unfaithful but she cannot resist either. Life around her is complicated and so are the people...

My review:
Not my type of movie, many characters that inter-connected with Clelia very unsure about how she feels and her boyfriend messes up with some gangsters which bring a very strange angle to the entire stories.

Queen Margot (La Reine Margot) (buy from Amazon)

ype: Drama, France 1994

Director:Patrice Ch閞eau

My rating: 4
Key actors/actresses:
Isabelle Adjani .... Margot
Daniel Auteuil .... Henri of Navarre
Jean-Hugues Anglade .... Charles IX
Vincent Perez .... La M鬺e

Story:
Aka Reine Margot, La
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew in France happened on the evening of 24 Aug 1572, a bloody religious war. A pre-arranged wedding between Margot de Valois, sister of the immature Catholic King Charles IX, and the Hugenot King Henri of Navarre was supposed to ensure peace. The inevitable finally happened

My review:
A very powerful recount of a terrible historical event. The ugly side of power struggle and religious conflict. The killing scenes are very vivid...

Posted by Ryoko

The Fabulous Baker Boys (buy from Amazon)

Type: Drama, USA 1989

Director:Steven Kloves

My rating: 5
Key actors/actresses:
Jeff Bridges: Jack Baker
Beau Bridges: Frank Baker
Michelle Pfeiffer: Susie Diamond
Jennifer Tilly: Monica Moran

Story:
Frank and Jack Baker were professional musicians who played the piano at small clubs.
One day they auditioned female singers and decided on Susie Diamond.
After Susie joined this piano duo, they got good fame and re-evaluation; however, some kinds of discord among them came out to the surface.

My review:
I was a student at university when I watched this film for the first time by the recommendation from my boyfriend of those days. At that time I thought this was just a romantic movie, however, now I think it is not just a love story but a drama about persons who tried standing on their own feet.
Michelle Pfeiffer is beautiful and charming in this film. And sexy. Her performance is so vivid. Moreover, she?s a good singer: I really like her singing?More than you know?, ?Ten cents a dance?, ?Can?t take my eyes off you?, ?Makin' Whoopee?, ?My funny valentine?.

Shinobi Heart Under Blade (buy from Amazon)

Type: Drama, Japan 2005

Director:Ten Shimoyama

My rating: 3

Key actors/actresses:
Yukie Nakama .... Oboro (Iga)
J? Odagiri .... Kouga Gen-no-suke (Kouga) (as Joe Odagiri)
Tomoka Kurotani .... Kagerou (Kouga)
Erika Sawajiri .... Hotarubi (Iga)
Kippei Shiina .... Yakushiji Tenzen (Iga)

Story:
During the Tokugawa era, the two ninja clans Iga and Kouga have existed for over 400 years, always been opposing each other and separately have been helping different regimes in power. Under a cease-fire agreement, the two clans have not been fighting each other. The two future leaders of the clans, Oboro (Iga) and Gen-no-suke (Kouga) are in love with each other. Little did they know that the cease-fire has been uplifted by the Tokugawa regime because, he wants to exterminate the two clans by asking them to fight one another, because during the peaceful time, Tokugawa feels that the ninjas are themselves a threat to him. Each clans has to send 5 people to fight, Oboro and Gen-no-suke are the leaders of each team. Can the lovers escape their destiny or would they have to fight each other to save their own clan?

My review:
Even more tragic than Romeo and Juliet, a very sad story. Ninja stories are always facinating, Hollywood has tried to make its own version of Japanese ninja movies, but never quite capture the essence and its mystery. Glad to see a well film ninja movies from Japan, the land of ninja itself. However, I don't think there was enough, ninja fight scenes in the movie and the actions go so fast, leaving the audience the feeling of wanting more. Each ninja has their own secret weapon and it gets better and more powerful as the story unfolds.

It has an unexpected twist in the end! But I won't spoil it here.

Type: Drama Thriller, Japan 1996

Director:Shunji Iwai

My rating: 2
Key actors/actresses:
Hiroshi Mikami .... Feihong Chara .... Glico Ayumi Ito .... Ageha Yosuke Eguchi .... Ryou Ryanki

Story:
This is a story about "Yen Town", the name given to illegal immigrants in Japan who view Japan as a country of to earn big and fast money, they call Japan "Yen Town" and they themselves are being called "Yen Town". The film describes this illegal immigrants as criminals, gangsters who engage in various crimes.

My review:
The movie has multiple threads which was hard to follow. All in all, this is not my cup of tea.

The Hypnotist (buy from Amazon)

Type: Drama Thriller, Japan 1999

Director:Masayuki Ochiai

My rating: 3
Key actors/actresses:
Goro Inagaki .... Toshiya, Saga
Miho Kanno .... Yuka, Irie
Takeshi Masu .... Jissoji

Story:
Several incidents resulted in numerous horrific deaths: a groom choked himself to death during his wedding; an athlete ran herself to death out of exhaustion and bone fracture; an old man jumped off the window on his birthday. The only clue the police had obtained was the connection to the "green monkey" which was linked to a TV hypnosis show. As the investigators were homing in to the people involved, more victims killed themselves, the signs now all pointed to a girl as the centre of the ordeal. Could the investigators solve the mysteries or would they fall victims themselves? What's the role of this poor, helpless girl?

My review:
I always find hypnosis a fascinating topic. Movies on crimes involving hypnosis have been made many many times. But "Saimin" is certainly one of the most scary ones. The director is able to grab your attention from the start and keep pumping fear and curiosity into your mind. At points you will find yourself breathless. The thought that you can be programmed to killing yourself is scary.

Type: Drama, Japan 1988

Director:Shusuke Kaneko

My rating: 4

Key actors/actresses:
Eri Fukatsu .... Norio
Eri Miyajima .... Yu/Kaoru
Hiromi Murata
Miyuki Nakano .... Naoto
Tomoko Otakara .... Kazuhiko

Story:
The time setting of the story is the last summer of the century (summer 1999). Vacation has emptied a Japanese boys' school of all but three boys: the junior Norio & the seniors Kazuhiko & Naoto. They have no families to return to for the summer, so they spend their days in the empty school. They are basically in charge of their own life during this summer. A darkness hangs over the three however: the suicide, three months earlier, of classmate Yu. Norio blames Kazuhiko for Yu's death, because it was well-known that Yu loved Kazuhiko; so Kazuhiko is cruel to Norio, and yet has bad dreams. This uneasy arrangement is exacerbated by the arrival of Kaoru, a student comes early for the fall - who looks exactly like Yu. Everyone is confused and a heavy sense of guilt is stirred up for Kaoru not only looks like Yu, he also behaves like Yu. Kaoru also has a dark side of his life that is untold.

My review:
The director has chosen a very interesting approach to this unusually sensitive topic of suicide and homosexuality, he chose 4 young female actresses to play the 4 male teenagers. Is it because that makes it easier for the audience to accept a story on homesexuality or is it a liberate twist that is so obvious. Could it be because of the sensitive emotional issues that the director is trying to communicate can only be expressed by the softer and more caring gender of the human species. Despite this gender confusion, I found I could focus on the delicate relationships between each pair of the characters in the movie.

Type: Drama Romantic, Japan 1995

Director:Shunji Iwai 岩井俊二

My rating: 5
Key actors/actresses:
Miho Nakayama 中山美穗

Story:
Hiroko Watanabe's fiance Itsuki died two years earlier in a mountain climbing accident. While looking through his high school yearbook, Hiroko in a fit of grief decides to write a letter to him using his old school address. Surprisingly she receives a reply, not from her dead husband, but from a woman also named Itsuki whom had known Hiroko's husband in school. A relationship develops between the two women as they continue to exchange letters and share memories of the dead Itsuke.

My review:
A beautifully made movie that reminds me of the French movie "Double life of Veronica". The story captures audience's attention and raises their curiosity about how a subtle and special relationship is developed between two classmates, a boy and a girl with the same name, Itsuki. And how this untold relationship is finally revealed through the correspondence between the female Itsuki and the fiance of the male Itsuki two years after his death. The director adopts a subtle approach when revealing the relationship through the many past incidents. I particularly like the scene when the female Itsuki finally realised the significant of her relationship with the now deceased Itsuki, the long bottled emotions overwhelm her and she burst into tears.