Major OUCH

Watched Dance of the Dragon today with mum, and still have a humongous desire to cry... over how very, very bad a movie can turn out to be. My heart breaks for the hit that the local movie scene has taken--this time in a combined production with a Korean star, no less. Major, major ouch. How can a film with perfectly decent actors and actresses turn out so, so bad?

I doubt I've ever wanted to whine so bad about a movie before, but quarter-way through the movie I really wanted to scream. Casting Fann Wong in a main English-speaking role makes for many major ouch moments... I do think she's a good actress on the whole, but this movie really kills off her talents lar. She probably wouldn't come across so painfully awkward and inept if she were allowed to converse in Chinese, for one. After all, the male protagonist was allowed to retain his Korean monologues as well. In a cross-cultural context language means a great deal... it sets the scene, it drives the plot, it sculpts the characters... it's supposed to convey the nuances of what the speaker wants to express, not hinder it. Fann's dialogue-- scripted in posh upper-class educated English-- comes across quite -ouch- in our typical flat Singlish intonations "there. is. nat. much. time. un-teel. de. com-per-teee-shion."-- it diminishes the professional, classy dancer character she portrays.

So much for the speaking scenes. The other thing that got me were the silent scenes. Of the very few Korean shows I've seen, scenes of extended silences often come across powerfully charged with emotion, beautifully executed, with the potential of leaving you in tears even without the exchange of a single word between the two protagonists. This movie did have its share of silent scenes, but then these came across awkward as well... probably because of a marked lack of chemistry.

And the music! What's up man. Where is the sense of subtlety that comes with something that is meant to remain quietly lingering in the background, nudging the audience's emotions along at the appropriate moments? When the BIG MUSCULAR boyfriend appears onscreen, the background music goes on a dynamic volume increase into a LOUD! SINISTER! tune. -blinks- Okay. I think we get the message.

(Quarter-way through the movie my mum turns to whisper, "Hem. Why would you want to fulfill your dream to do ballroom dancing in Singapore? Shouldn't it be England, where they have places like the Blackpool? Since when is Singapore big on dance appreciation, anyway?") *wince* Point taken.

What really infuriates me, too, perhaps most of all, is this utter exoticisation of Singapore. It's not just having a foreign guy sticking his head out of a Comfort taxi, drawing in a deep breath and looking utterly blissful (Mum: "All that exhaust fumes! How can he do that?"), or the panning of the Singapore landscape-- the Esplanade, the skyscrapers, the Singapore Flier in the sunset, Chinatown decked out in Chinese New Year deco (a la Singapore Tourism Board promotion video) in the introductory scenes, but also the strange, extended, silent, slow-motion shot of a dragon dance troupe in the latter part of the show, and the setting of the main action in a run-down, ancient-looking dance school and taekwando school, both of which look like the narrative has gone into a time-shift back into the 70s or 80s. It's disorientating. What were the directors thinking, really? It feels like the narrative has forgotten its era and happily plunged into an imaginary, nostalgic, alternative past. Like the martial arts challenge that reminded me vaguely of a cockfight. Roomful of uncles in alternative-period outfits yelling enthusiastically while two men display Shaolin moves. (I dunno why Shaolin... A random neutral ground that is neither ballroom dancing or taekwando? Something to indicate the director's vast knowledge of different forms of martial arts?) The scene practically screams WOO! ORIENTAL! whilst dramatic music plays, while my afflicted self struggles with issues of coherence and (non-)continuity.

I shall not bemoan the plot, I think, just in case anyone (still) wants to see it and doesn't want a spoiler, but it's one of the other things that makes me wanna cry out of sheer embarrassment for whoever is implicated in this production. The dance sequences--which were primarily what got my mum interested in watching the show in the first place-- were... I dunno. (Mum, at the end of the show: "看了会吐血”）

Okay. Maybe that was a tad harsh. Let me try very hard not to let the plot and awkward acting and strange musical accompaniment and choppy editing sway my judgment, k. *deep breaths* I guess, independent of everything else, they're okay. You see the genuine effort that the actor and actresses put in. You really do. You can see that they try really hard. And maybe because I spent so much energy willing them desperately to do it well despite everything (you can destroy the movie, but please, for goodness sake, don't destroy the dance), that I could hardly feel the effortless fluidity and grace that professional dancers possess. Sigh. I tried, I did.

Perhaps there really was more to this show. It moves at an excruciatingly slow pace, but I do still feel that there are strange gaps that weren't properly filled in--almost like there were crucial connecting scenes cut out, leaving you feeling a tad puzzled, and lost. What's with the Lim Kay Tong subplot, for instance? He came and he went, and the subplot went tailing off after him. Or maybe I'm reading all these wrong, and maybe this film is supposed to be an ambiguous art-house film that, uh, luxuriates in pure aesthetics. (In that case maybe they could cut the stilted conversations altogether, and do more long takes of the dances and fights, rather than have choppy cross-cuts that disrupt fluidity. And have music that actually complements and moves the dances, not throw them out of sync.)

And I still have no idea what part the dragon in the title plays. None at all. Save for the fact that it was mentioned in the opening and closing lines of the show, in a "LOOK! HERE'S AN IMPORTANT SYMBOL!" moment. The movie quite literally fails to live up to its name, methinks.

-Sigh- Okay, rant over. I needed to get this out of my system... I don't remember ever being so utterly agitated by a movie before. Even the self-exoticising white-boy Kungfu fantasy of The Forbidden Kingdom wasn't half as painful. This one really make me wince, physically, at every turn... how many steps back has the local movie scene taken with just this movie alone? =(

After exams are over I shall dig up the Japanese version of Shall We Dance and restore my faith in the beauty and grace of genuine ballroom dancing.

Coffee Prince is so so so so so so so so so so so so lovely! I heart! *squeal*

ISM COMPLETE

I FINISHED MY ISM!!!!!!!

CAN YOU FEEL THE WAVES OF SHEER EXHILARATION?

BEHOLD MY TWENTY SHEETS OF NEWLY-PRINTED, FRESH CRISPY PAPER! *heart* (of which only 14 pages consists of actual essay)

Okay, okay. Chill. I've still got two tests to study for, and I must begin now.

SC Girls' Convocation

Met my SC girls on Friday! T'was the SIM girls' convocation, so Eme Dyn and I went down to take pictures with our new grads :)

Congrats, dear girls!

*grins* the traditional throwing of the 四方帽. Goodness, we're all growing up so soon.

After that we had dinner with the rest of the girls =) Poor Dyn had to go home 'cos she wasn't feeling well... must be the final year assignments overload, and the ISM... (Get well soon k!) We finally got our busy busy XX to dinner with us! :) She kept Eme, Tiang, Tracia and I in fits of laughter all throughout dinner with her super entertaining stories of her work, supervisor and... well, we know. =P

It's so good to meet up with the girls again. Am full of happy warm fuzziness when I'm with them, and we hardly ever get to meet up as often as we wish. So glad Eme got us down together this time around!



Cropped it to a close-up shot so that it gives the proper cosy feel :) And aside from our poor overworked Miss Ho looking thinner and slightly scared (Gek Tiang's fault--you and your ghost stories horrr! :P) we all do actually look pretty much the same. Am glad we haven't changed that much, actually--it's a tremendous comfort to return and feel the cosy familiarity that's been there since our choir days (when we were only 17 and 18 year olds, can you believe that?)

*blissful sigh* I'm so glad we still stay in touch after all these years!